Page 100 of A Highland Healer Captured
“Better than a church,” Mabel added, scooping baby Elise higher on one hip. The infant blinked at the greenery as if measuring which leaves might taste best.
“Or a funeral—” Skylar said under her breath before changing her tone quickly. “Scar!” Skylar flung herself into her eldest sister’s hug, then into Mabel’s, careful not to squish Elise. “Ye’re early.”
“So are geese,” Mabel said, kissing Skylar’s cheek. “We honk the loudest.”
“Where are the men?” Astrid demanded, counting heads and computing chaos.
“At yer ale,” Scarlett said cheerfully. “Kian promised he’d only sample, nae drain.”
“A promise is just a challenge with embroidery,” Astrid replied, but her face split into fondness as Ollie—a tow-headed blur—darted past her legs, Connor in hot pursuit. “Nay running in the?—”
“—hall,” all three Dunlop sisters chorused, to no effect at all.
“They’ll sleep hard tonight,” Scarlett said, utterly unrepentant. “Where d’ye want me?”
“Anywhere ye’ll be seen,” Astrid said. “Sets the tone. And daenae let the piper near feathers.”
Scarlett’s eyes danced. “Skylar, is it true Zander’s carving that mad perch in the elm for Grayson before the feast?”
“Aye,” Skylar said, warmth rising at his name. “He promised the lad months ago. He keeps promises.”
Mabel’s smile tilted sly. “All of them?”
“Aye,” Skylar said, refusing to be baited and failing. “Even the ones I didnae ask him to make.”
Astrid clapped once, command back at full wattage. “Enough wool-gatherin’. Scarlett, chairs. Mabel, candles. Skylar, come tell me again why ye think a wreath of barley is appropriate in a hall. Ye’ll have mice.”
“It’s a harvest wedding,” Skylar protested, gathering the braided ribbons and starting toward the high table. “If mice come, I’ll marry them off too and send them on.”
“God save me,” Astrid sighed. “I’ve birthed a jester.”
“Ye birthed three,” Scarlett called, “and wed two of us to men who deserved the trouble.”
“Which reminds me,” Astrid shot back, “where are those mennow?”
“Fetching barrels,” Mabel said, and the hall answered with the deep roll of casks and Kian’s laugh booming like a friendly avalanche. Campbell’s voice followed, coaxing Ollie down from a trestle table he had no business climbing.
Skylar breathed it in: the clatter and quarrel that meant home, the thick braid of voices she knew in her bones. For all Astrid’s needling, there was grace in being needled by a woman who would fight God to keep you breathing.
Astrid caught her looking and softened again. “I’ll stop fussin’ soon,” she said, lying like a mother.
“Ye can fuss all ye like,” Skylar said, looping the thistle-and-gold braid over the chair that would hold her as a wife. “It sounds like love.”
Astrid’s mouth trembled, and in self-defense she pointed. “That bow is crooked.”
“It’s perfectly—” Skylar began.
The doors banged again
A soft murmur fell over the hall and then swelled, surprised and pleased. Ariella slipped through the threshold, dark hair braided, chin tilted like a lass who had taught herself not to be bowed by a room. She looked thinner, stronger, and annoyed with her own pulse for quickening in public.
“Ari,” Skylar breathed, relief and mischief blooming at once.
Astrid arched a brow as only she could. “We’ll put her to work,” she said briskly, swallowing whatever else the sight stirred in her.
“After I hug her,” Skylar said, already moving.
“And afterIget a look at her,” Scarlett declared, sweeping in behind. “If any man’s come sayin’ he’s claimed her, I’ll send him home in a sack.”
