Page 27 of A Highland Bride Disciplined (Scottish Daddies #2)

At last he stepped back. “Fine.”

Tam clapped the man on the shoulder with a force that made him grunt. “Ye’ve been a great help.”

Outside again, the gulls shrieked, and the sea crashed relentless against the rocks below. Kian drew in a breath of salt air, but it did nothing to clear the storm building in his chest.

Tam fell into step beside him, voice low. “So. Either she threw herself to the sea… or someone helped her vanish.”

Kian’s jaw tightened. “And if the McTavishes are sniffin’ around, then it’s nay accident either way.”

A troubled mother. A bairn abandoned. A rival clan circling like wolves. Scarlett’s face rose unbidden in his mind, her laugh at the festival, the way her arms curled protectively around Elise.

He didn’t yet know what he’d tell her. Only that the truth, whatever it was, had grown more dangerous than either of them expected.

They left the village as the tide rolled in harder on the cliffs, and the wind sliced in from every direction.

Kian set a brisk pace along the headland road, the gelding sure-footed on the damp track, Tam’s horse a shadow at his flank.

Neither of them spoke for a time. The gulls did enough screaming for all three of them.

The letter weighed at Kian’s breast like a stone tucked into his coat.

He’d felt its edges the whole time they’d questioned the innkeeper—each answer, each shrug, pressing the folded paper harder against his ribs.

He hadn’t opened it. Not yet. A coward’s restraint, or a laird’s caution—he couldn’t say.

Tam drew up nearer, cloak snapping in the wind. “Ye’re ridin’ like ye mean to outrun the night itself,” he called over the gusts.

Kian didn’t slow. “If I could, I would.”

“Aye. The sea and yer temper are kin of the ame beast, if ye ask me.”

“Good thing I dinnae ask ye, then,” Kian said dryly, but he eased the gelding a fraction. The road kinked inland, heather rising to shoulder height, the air losing its salt-knife edge. The keep lay three hours north. He wanted those hours behind him. He wanted this day behind him.

Tam cleared his throat. “So. We’ve a lass who ‘disappeared’ down a cliff. An innkeeper too quick to burn a stranger’s scraps. And a McTavish sniffin’ around the day after she was last seen.”

Kian kept his eyes forward. “Aye. And a letter I’ve found under the lass’s floor boards.”

“A letter! What does it say?”

Kian’s jaw tightened. “I’ll read it when I’m ready.”

Tam let out a low whistle. “God save us. The mighty Laird Crawford, waitin’ on a piece o’ paper like it might bite him.”

“Careful,” Kian said, but there was no heat in it.

They rode on. A skein of geese cut the sky. Somewhere, a burn tumbled busy and unseen beneath broom. Kian listened to the hoofbeats and tried not to let his mind sprint ahead of them—Scarlett’s face when he told her the worst version of the story; Scarlett’s face if he told her nothing at all.

Tam must have felt the turn in him. “Ye’re thinkin’ on the lady,” he said, not a question.

Kian exhaled. “She’s nae a fool. She’ll ken the shape o’ what we’ve learned whether I soften it or nae.”

“Aye, but the softenin’s the point,” Tam said. “Normally ye’d hand a truth like a blade—hilt first if ye’re merciful, point first if ye’re nae. But with Lady Scarlett ye look like a man tryin’ to wrap steel in velvet, and it doesnae suit ye.”

Kian almost laughed. Almost. “I’m nae afraid o’ the woman.”

Tam’s visible eyebrow did a slow climb. “Nay Ye’re ridin’ like ye’d rather meet the devil than her eyes.”

Kian rolled his shoulders, leather creaking. “I’m… considerin’ me choices. That’s all.”

“That so? Well, that’s odd because usually ye’re the one who’s already,” Tam paused. “Except where she’s concerned.”

The words threaded under Kian’s skin and pulled. He loosened the reins a hair, letting the gelding pick his way through a shallow run of stones. “I brought ye because ye say what others willnae,” he said, voice even. “Daenae mistake that for an invitation to sermonize.”

“Then I’ll put it plain,” Tam said. “Ye daenae ken how to tell her because ye daenae ken which hurts worse — sayin’ the lass is dead, or sayin’ ye’re nae sure. Ye’ve lived by certainty. She’s makin’ a home o’ doubt in ye.”

Kian’s mouth set. Doubt. Scarlett had walked into his keep and lit every shadow he’d left to smolder. And then a bairn arrived in a woollen blanket and turned his house into a cradle for hope he hadn’t asked for.

“Ye saw her last night,” he said, quieter. “At the festival.”

“Aye. Laughin’ like she meant to convince the whole glen she was fine.”

“And she wasnae,” Kian said. It wasn’t a question.

Tam’s silence was answer enough.

Kian pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed cold air till his head stopped buzzing.

“If the letter tells me the lass took her own life, I willnae leave Scarlett holdin’ a ghost. If it points to the McTavishes, I willnae leave them unanswered.

” He glanced at Tam. “If it says nothin’ at all, we keep lookin’. ”

Tam nodded. “Right, then.”

Kian grunted.

They crossed a rise. To the left, a stand of birch kept off the worst of the wind; to the right, the land sloped toward a scatter of crofts and a ribbon of river. Kian’s mind kept circlin’ to the letter in his coat. It was heavy. The wax seal like a hot iron against his ribs.

Tam cleared his throat again. “What are ye goin’ to tell her, then? The words o’ it, I mean.”

Kian considered. He didn’t compose speeches.

He gave orders. But orders wouldn’t serve here.

“I’ll tell her what we saw and what we dinnae.

I’ll tell her a McTavish came askin’. That the innkeeper burned what shouldnae have been burned.

That there’s a cliff and a rumor and neither are proof.

” He paused. “And I’ll tell her I found a letter. ”

Tam’s head snapped. “Ye will?”

Kian almost smiled at his shock. “Aye. I’ll nae keep it from her.”

Tam huffed something like approval. “Read it first, though. Saints save us from men who hand their wives a fresh-cut wound ‘fore they’ve checked where it’s bleedin’.”

“Aye,” Kian said. “I’ll read it.” He swallowed. “Just… nae in front o’ her.”

“Because ye daenae want her to see ye flinch,” Tam said. No judgment in it. Just fact.

Kian’s fingers brushed the coat at his chest. “Because I’m nae sure which man I’ll be when I do.”

They rode in another strip of quiet. The moor opened wider, the light sharpening. A hawk hung on the air, motionless, then dipped and cut away.

Tam shifted in his saddle. “There’s another matter,” he said carefully.

Kian set his jaw. “Say it.”

“If the lass is gone, Elise’s maither, I mean, then the bairn’s future sits with the two o’ ye. And I’ve seen ye step into rooms full o’ debt and make the numbers kneel.” He tilted a look at Kian. “Ye cannae make a child kneel.”

“I’ve nay intention,” Kian said, too quickly.

“Mm.” Tam’s eye twinkled. “I dinnae say ye would. I said ye cannae. Different thing.” He shifted again, serious now. “If there’s nay kin claimin’ her, it’s nae just bread and blankets. It’s… ye. And her. And the lady. That’s a home, Kian. Not a ledger.”

The thought knocked the breath a little out of him. Elise’s soft weight against his chest, Scarlett’s laugh under lanterns, and the three of them like a picture he would never have dared to draw. He had built his clan like a fortress. The idea of a home made his hands go oddly useless.

“I’m nae a cruel man,” he said, rough. “But I’m nae built for… softness.”

Tam snorted. “Aye, that’s one way to put it. But here’s the thing about softness, it’s just strength ye havenae named yet.” He let that sit a beat, then ruined the poetry with a grin. “And in yer case, it’s got red hair and a temper, so God help us all.”

Kian barked a laugh before he could stop himself. It startled a flock of larks out of the gorse.

They rode on, the keep now a smudge ahead, the road narrowing to the familiar cut between hills. Tam shifted his reins, as if settling the last of his thoughts.

“One more bit o’ counsel, if ye’ll have it,” he said.

Kian sighed. “I’ve had a bellyful already.”

“Too bad.” Tam’s mouth quirked. “When ye tell her, daenae speak like a laird. Speak like a man who was there. She needs yer experience. Women ken the difference.” He paused, then added, wicked light back in his eye, “And if that fails, remember how far an apology goes… also that flowers can never hurt… and she cannae be mad at ye for long if yer tunic is off.”

Kian shook his head, but the corner of his mouth lifted despite himself. “Yer wisdom continues to astonish.”

“Aye,” Tam said, delighted.

Kian fell quiet again, but this time the silence didn’t gnaw. He let Tam’s words rattle around and make themselves at home.

Speak like a man, not a laird.

Admit the fear.

Open the letter before it opens me.

And accept that some pieces of me life would never again be held in a single, steady hand.

They crested the last rise. Crawford Keep lifted out of the haze, banners tugging in the wind, smoke rising from the kitchens. The letter pressed one more time against his heart, begging to be read.

“Right,” Tam said, settling his cloak. “Time to be brave, then.”

Kian snorted. “I’m always brave.”

“Aye,” Tam said, cheerful as sin. “Just new at the kind that matters.”