Page 17 of A Highland Healer Captured (Scottish Daddies #3)

Z ander waited in his study with the kind of stillness that made men mistake him for stone.

His eyes burned, unblinkingly staring at the fire that had burned down to a brilliant orange. It’s heat was steady rather than showy, a discipline he envied. The last of the day’s papers lay squared beneath a weight in front of him, their edges nead because he’d straightened them twice.

The permits for stalls, a note from the cooper about a leaky stave, a brief from Fergus on placing the drovers’ pens farther from the west wall lest they foul the yard before the Kirn even began. He’d read each twice and signed once.

He’d told himself this was an ordinary evening. He would just call in the healer, have her write to her family, and keep a hand on the thread of her words so it didn’t run to warning or plea.

But ordinary nights did not sit in his blood like this.

The quiet in the room was too sharp, each tick of the hearth settling like a hammer in his skull.

I’ll nae lose control with her again.

His body betrayed him. He shook his head even before he finished that sentence, knowing it was a long shot. His mouth watered at the very want for her. His neck strained at the memory of how she smelled.

Zander shoved a hand across his face and exhaled heavily through his nose.

He found himself shifting in the chair, flexing his shoulders as though the linen of his shirt were too tight across them. His jaw ached from being held closed too long.

“Ye ken I probably have somethin’ that’ll ease that pain in yer shoulders…” her voice caressed every cell in his body.

She had slipped in without knocking. Suddenly, the room changed—not the air, but the way it sat in his chest. Her hair was braided close to her neck, a few damp strands curling at her temples as if steam had lifted them, and her apron bore the neat, small stains of a woman who worked and did not apologize.

“What’s that?” he asked, setting his palms flat on the desk and pressing until the grain dug into his skin.

“Ye sent for me,” she redirected, and her accent was so incredibly soft with vowels like heather. The way she spoke made him think of quiet hills he’d never had time to cross.

“Ye owe yer family another letter, lass” he said. “Yer faither will expect word. And probably yer maither as well.” He let the corner of his mouth tilt, just enough mockery to see if she would answer it.

She didn’t meet him with teeth for once; she came a step toward the desk and set a scrap of folded paper there. “Cora has a list,” she said.

“Told her that all of them must be of good quality this time, nae the crumble shoved in a bag that’s too small that we got from the first laddie.

And all the others on the list are for a specific use.

I cannae finish this one without all of them.

” Her gaze flicked up. “I gave her the list so she could catch ye this evening while ye still had patience.”

“I ken,” Zander said. “I approved it.”

She blinked. “Already?”

“An hour ago.” He pushed the paper back toward her, unnecessary proof.

“The storehouse tally matches what ye asked for. Mason is bartering with a drover from the east for the bark; if the man plays sly, I’ll empty a purse on his boots and be done with it.

I willnae have Grayson waiting on a fool’s pride. ”

She stood very still. Gratitude didn’t sit easy on her face.

It made her eyes brighter, and her mouth soften, and for a breath he had to look past her shoulder at the fire so he could keep his voice level.

“Thank ye,” she said finally, and the words were not grudging.

“Then we can be in the surgery by morning.”

At the sight of the shadows under her eyes, Zander shrugged, “By tomorrow, should be. Evenin’ at the latest.”

“Aye.” She moved to the chair opposite his desk and set her fingers on its high back, as if she needed something solid close at hand to keep from floating into argument. “I’ll write me letter first, then, as ye asked.”

He laid two sheets of parchment and a quill between them, turning the inkwell so it caught the light. He’d meant to stand over her shoulder and watch every curve of ink to be sure she didn’t weave warning into courtesy, didn’t tuck a blade inside the fold of a phrase.

But when she sat and drew the paper close, he found himself stepping aside, a pace and then another, until the back of his knees touched the bench near the hearth and he leaned there instead, arms folded, watching the line of her neck.

Her hand moved with a calm he respected. She didn’t fuss or blot or lift her head to test him. She wrote as if the words existed in the world and she had only to arrange them, so they’d lie neat on the page.

The memory of her mouth under his came unbidden—the shock of her kissing him back with a fierceness that had nothing of surrender in it—and he bit the inside of his cheek until the thought lost its edge.

But it lingered.

The way her lips had parted stubbornly but yielding just enough for him to imagine how easily he could press her against the wall, tip her head back, and taste her defiance again and again.

He had to shove the thoughts down hard, but it left a mark in his blood… and in the restless clench of his hands.

When she sanded the page and lifted it for him to read, he closed the distance between them and took it without reaching too close.

He told himself it was better that way. Safter.

Because if he leaned even a hair nearer, he’d want to test just how her skin would feel against his mouth, how her breath would sound if he kissed the curve of her perfect throat instead of her lips.

Arrived safely. Occupied in me work. The keep holds what we need. I’ll write again at week’s end.

No signals, no code he could see.

Zander nodded thoughtfully, rounded his desk, folded, and then sealed the letter. Then he placed it on the messaging tray for his steward to see to upon his next visit to the study.

“The list,” she said into the small quiet that followed, “—I didnae expect ye to approve it so quickly.”

“Ye asked for what would help,” he said simply. “I made the asking easy. If I cannae move a jar from one shelf to another for me own son, then I’m nae worth the breath folk waste naming me laird.”

Her gaze searched his face as if the truth might be hiding in the bones. He wanted to look away, but he didn’t. He let her look. He wanted her to look until she found it.

“Him seeing ye—hearing ye she said, softer now, “—it also helps.”

The words slid into him like a blade he had expected and still couldn’t quite brace to meet. A father’s guilt, dressed neatly in her voice. “Aye, I ken,” he said, because anything else would be cowardice. “I’ll do more of it.”

She nodded once, quick, as if any more would turn her thank-you to something harder to carry.

The room held for a beat, a balance he couldn’t recall having with her: no barbs, no defiance sharpened against his orders. For once, they were just two people set on the same narrow path and trying not to destroy it by wanting the wrong things.

Of course wanting filled the quiet anyway.

Her cloak had slipped back on one shoulder, revealing the pale column of her throat.

He found himself staring at the pulse there, wondering if it would race fast under his mouth, wondering if she would tilt her head to give him more.

His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, with words he couldn’t’ say, heavier still with the taste of memory and fantasy.

She smoothed the edge of the parchment with her fingertips, so precise, and all he could think of was those same fingers curled into his tunic, tugging him closer. His blood beat hot in his veins at the image, and he ground his teeth against it.

She’s here for the boy, he told himself. For the lad, nae for me.

But then her eyes lifted, catching his, and he watched as her tongue rolled over her bottom lip before she sucked it in between her teeth.

He didn’t know which of them moved first.

One moment they stood with the desk between them like a line drawn in the sand. The next, she was near enough that the lantern glossed the curve of her cheek and the ink-smudge on her thumb, and he could see the quick thud of her pulse at the hollow of her throat.

He reached without thinking, his fingers setting gently beneath her jaw, and felt the warm, stubborn line of her there.

“I—,” she started to say, but there was no iron in it. Skylar was breathless, and Zander found himself fighting for air as well.

He bent toward her.

The first brush of his mouth to hers was cautious, almost formal, as if he’d meant to prove he could have chosen softness and then leave it. That illusion lasted a heartbeat.

Skylar’s hand came up, found his shoulder, and tightened. Zander made a sound he hadn’t meant to make, and then kissed her properly as his hand had slid from her jaw to the back of her head and her braid was pressed to his palm.

Heat shook him. Control steadied him.

The two of them fought and found a narrow ledge of truce. Zander kept the kiss on the right side of madness as long as he could. That is, until Skylar gasped, “Zander?—”

He lost it, mouth parting, the taste of her like rosemary and smoke and some sweetness.

He meant to step back. Should have stepped back.

Instead he found his hands at her waist and her palms flattening against his chest, her lashes lowering and the feel of her breath catching, and he thought, wildly, that a man might be forgiven for wanting one good thing he hadn’t earned.

The pounding at the door came like a cudgel, and they both froze.

Their foreheads met in the same instant, a small, startled knock that turned their hunger into breathless laughter neither of them gave voice to.

Zander closed his eyes, drew air that tasted of her, and forced his voice steady. “Who is it?”

A girl’s voice, high with nerves. “M–me laird, it’s Elspeth. Katie sent me. The wee master Grayson… his breathing is worse.”

Skylar had already stepped back, color draining from her face, her body arranging itself into the efficient lines he trusted more than any oath.

Zander’s hand fell from her waist like he’d remembered it didn’t belong there.

He didn’t open the door; he pitched his words to carry.

“Tell Katie we’re coming. Slowly. Without panic. ”

“Aye, laird.”

The girl’s footsteps scurried away. The silence that followed had teeth.

“I’ll go,” Skylar said, already crossing to the latch. “I’ll call if I need ye.”

He wanted to forbid her going alone, to reach for the old instincts and put men between her and every kind of harm— including his. But he saw the steadiness in her, the way her fear had turned to focus, and swallowed his command with effort. “Go,” he said. “I’ll give ye ten minutes.”

Her mouth almost—almost—smiled. “Save yer temper for the drovers.”

“Save it for me council.” He reached past her to pull open the door, close enough that the brush of his sleeve at her wrist felt like a further kiss. “Skylar?—”

She looked up.

Because anything else would have been too honest, he said. “Ten minutes.”

She nodded firmly and was gone before he could change his mind about softness. He stood a moment with his hand still on the door, breathing the room back into shape.