Page 42 of The Heather Wife
She did not lead by command. She led by conviction.
He found himself moving without thought, taking up a mallet to mend a splintered target he’d noticed the day before. The wood rang hollow beneath each strike, the sound dull and steady in the morning air, the rhythm grounding him. Soon a few of the men drifted over, their glances flicking between him and Sorcha—uncertain, but curious. He said nothing, only kept working, shoulder to shoulder with them. Let them see their laird labouring beside them, not above.
By the time Sorcha noticed, the sun had climbed high enough to burn the frost from the grass. She slowed as she approached, bow in hand, a line of surprise cutting through her composure.
“My thanks,” she said, her tone careful but not cold. “The targets have been long in need of mending.”
“Then it’s past time I turned my hand to something useful, rather than merely giving orders.”
A flicker of something—amusement, perhaps—touched her mouth before she turned back to the women. That small thing, that faint softening, lodged in his chest like a spark of warmth against the cold.
When the drills ended and the women dispersed, he lingered. Sorcha stayed too, unstringing her bow, her braid loose at the nape of her neck. He hesitated, then stepped closer.
“Sorcha.” Her name left his lips like a confession. She looked up, guarded but calm.
“I’ve spent too many years thinking only of my own pride and my own needs,” he said, voice low. “Let me make it right. Not with words—I’ve spoken enough of those—but with time.”
Her brow furrowed. “Time?”
“Aye.” He drew a breath, steadying himself. “That clearing of yours in the woods—now that I’ve already intruded upon ye once…”
“Liar,” she smirked. “You’ve followed me there more than once, Calum MacRae. You’re no stealthier than a herd of black cattle on the run.”
A faint smile ghosted over his mouth. “Then I stand corrected. Still—if ye’d suffer me again, I’d like to meet ye there after the evening meal. We can train, if ye’ve patience for my presence. I ken ye’re not one for idle talk.”
His gaze found hers, unguarded. “But mayhap, in time, ye’ll let me know ye better. I canna ask forgiveness—not yet—but I’d like to earn the right to try.”
For a heartbeat, silence hung between them. Then she drew a slow breath, studying him as if to weigh the truth of what she saw.
“You’ll not find me easy company,” she warned.
“I wouldnae trust myself with easy,” he answered.
Something flickered in her eyes—not forgiveness, not yet, but the faintest glimmer of consideration. She nodded once, just enough to set his heart hammering.
“Very well,” she said. “Tomorrow. After sundown.”
He inclined his head, not daring a smile. “Tomorrow, then.”
As she walked away, the mist broke over the yard, sunlight spilling across the frost-bitten grass. For the first time in weeks, he felt the weight on his chest shift—not gone, but lighter, as though the day had offered him the smallest mercy.
Chapter 38
Sorcha
She had been meeting Calum in her clearing for seven nights now—seven dawns and seven dusks measured by the sound of blades and the unspoken weight between them. Each time he came without fail.
He asked after her days, never offering details of his own. When she came late after assisting with the birth of a bairn, he pressed a cup of ale into her hands and asked if she had eaten. He gave nothing of himself unless she asked, and even then his answers were brief, turned always back to her—how she fared, what troubled her mind.
Each small act chipped at the ice that had held her heart so long, though she would never have admitted it. His patience was its own kind of penance, and each question—gentle, steady, unassuming—wore at her defenses more surely than anger ever could. She found herself caught between resentment and a reluctant, dangerous warmth.
The path to the clearing wound through frost-silvered grass and thickets of heather bowing under the chill. She had come here so often the earth seemed to kent her tread, each step familiar, measured. But when she broke through the trees, she stopped short.
The place had changed.
Where her sword had once bitten a tree trunk, a proper pell now stood—solid oak shod with stone, its face bound in new leather. Beside it waited a target of woven willow, the dark centre neatly marked with pitch. A few paces off, nearer the clearing’s centre, a small fire pit had been set, ringed with stones and burning low and steady.
He had thought of that—the cold creeping deeper each evening, the frost gathering early. On the first night she’d agreed to share her clearing with him, to train together at his request for time in her company, she had come and found it waiting. It wasn’t just a kindness; it was consideration—the sort of thought she had long stopped expecting.
