Page 84 of A Highland Healer Captured
She’d packed vinegar-wet cloth under the hair to clear the blood, then bound a neat bandage round and round, snug but notsmothering. Each pass eased Skylar’s own shaking bit by bit—she put order into a world tilting wild.
“Good lass,” she whispered when Katie’s eyelids fluttered. “Open for me. See? There’s a brave lass.” One eye widened, then the other, sluggish but obedient. “Aye. That’s better.”
The knot in Skylar’s chest loosened a fraction. The room was a tangle of toppled things. The stool, the cup, the scattered contents of her satchel, the shawl she’d used as a tourniquet, the dirk she’d planted in the floorboards still quivering faintly at her knee. In the doorway, the draft breathed lamplight.
From the corridor came the echo of boots. Zander’s men were moving quickly, orders whispered, the keep waking to the idea of siege.
“Skylar.”
Zander.
His voice struck along her bones the way a piper’s low note ran under a tune. Even raw with fury, Zander’s tone had steadied. It filled the room without raising above a murmur.
“Hold this,” she said without looking up, and one of the lads hovering under the lintel sprang forward to press his palm where her fingers had been. She tied off the bandage, checked it with a firm thumb.
The slow ooze had eased, the cloth pink, not red, and beneath her touch the skin beat its stubborn little drum. Alive.
Aye, Katie would live.
Only then did she lift her head.
Zander stood just next to her, closer than she had thought, shoulders squared, eyes black as river stone. He looked like a man who’d been hit twice, once by betrayal and once by relief, and wasn’t yet sure which blow had done more damage. Blood flecked the edge of his sleeve, and she realized with a jolt it must be Katie’s, that he’d come close, reached for cloth, done the first clumsy work before she’d taken over. The knowledge went through her like warm water.
“She’ll live,” Skylar said, voice rough. “Head wounds bleed like they mean to scare us to death. The bone’s sound. She didnae show the wrong signs. I’ll sit her up slow at dawn, check for sick-stomach and black specks in her sight. We’ll keep her with broth and quiet. She’ll curse me before noon, so I ken she’ll mend.”
His chest lowered a measure, breath released. “Good.” He looked to the empty bed, nodded once, then stepped nearer, careful not to jar the maid or crowd Skylar—though the room shrank with him in it, the air thickening as if it knew what they were to one another and didn’t quite dare to speak it.
“I sent Cora below,” he said, voice even, iron laid smooth. “Mason’s got her in chains. She says Marcus comes beforedawn.” His mouth flattened on the name. “We’ll have toallbe ready.”
“Aye, I heard,” Skylar’s fingers found a clean cloth. She wiped her hands, not for cleanliness but to give herself a task lest she reach for him without leave. “I’ll inventory what I need in the surgery—vinegar, comfrey, stitches, willow for pain. I’ll want basins hot and men that can carry without droppin’—”
“Ye’ll have them,” he said. She felt his eyes linger on her a beat longer. When he spoke next, the words were not the ones she expected. “Though, ye can leave now, if ye want to.”
The cloth stilled in her hands. She stared. “What?”
Zander moved away from her to the threshold, and set his palm lightly on the doorjamb, as if he could keep his hands off everything else by holding fast to wood. His voice stayed low. “Ye’ve held up yer end. Ye saved me boy. Twice.” His throat worked. “I stole ye, and I have nay excuse left worth breath. If ye want the road, take it. I’ll send men to see ye safe to the next parish. I’ll answer for ye with Hamish, and with any man who thinks to take issue.” A short, raw breath. “Thank ye, Skylar. For every breath he’s taken since ye set foot in here.”
A crack ran through her from collarbone to belly. For days she’d dreamt of that wordleave. Of the wind on her face, Daisy’s ears flicking, the road arrowing toward Ariella like a promise. She’d sworn to herself she would not be owned by this place, this man, the heat that ran under her skin whenever he came near.
But the room pressed its claim. Katie’s bandage white against brown hair, the sound of boots and distant steel, and Zander holding the door as if ready to let the whole world in or hold it all out, whichever she asked.
She heard herself laugh once, a breathless thing that wasn’t amusement. “Ye choose a poor hour to be noble,” she whispered.
“Aye,” he said, jaw ticking. “I’ve a talent for it.”
Her gaze slid to Grayson’s empty bed. The thought of leaving him—of leavingthem—with the threat at the hedge and the poisoner in chains and dawn coming like a blade, it all wrenched at something deep and tender she’d tried hard to keep defended.
Ariella’s name flared in her chest. Duty. Family.
Skylar struggled to swallow them all down. “If an ambush comes, ye’ll need more than swords,” she said. “Ye’ll need hands to bind and eyes to see what others didnae.” She lifted her chin. “I’ll stay.”
It cost her to say it and eased her all at once. The decision settled into her bones like a weight set down at last.
He didn’t move. Didn’t lunge or grin or make noise of gratitude. He just let out a breath she could feel from across the room. When he stepped the last pace, his hand rose slow. She met him halfway, because she was done pretending.
It wasn’t messy. Not desperate and biting like it was under the elm. His mouth found hers as if it had been meant to from the start. As if, under all the rough hours and wrong turns, there’d been a straight path laid between them. Warmth and steadiness.
God help her, it feltright.
