Page 23 of A Highland Healer Captured (Scottish Daddies #3)

G rayson lay propped high on pillows, hair mussed like a rook’s nest, eyes too bright for the hour.

He’d tried to be brave in his sleep, if the way his fist was still curled said anything about a boy’s heart.

Zander eased onto the edge of the bed and smoothed the blanket as if that could make the world lie flatter.

“Da?” The voice was hoarse with dozing. “Is it morn or nay?”

“Near enough,” Zander said, smiling with only half his mouth. “We’ve work, Gray.”

“A bird job?” The spark came quick, hopeful. “We goin’ out again?”

Zander’s chest pinched. “Nae yet. A different kind of work. A clever lad’s work.”

Grayson tried to sit taller. Zander steadied him with a hand behind his shoulders, then let go so the boy could keep the victory of sitting himself.

“A plan,” Zander went on. “Mine and Lady Skylar’s. Ye ken how a hawk will lie soft on a branch, watchin’ the field like it’s sleepin’, till the vole shows its daft wee face?”

Grayson nodded, wary. “Aye.”

“That’s us,” Zander said. “We’ve a vole to catch. A nasty one. Someone’s been slippin’ wrong things in yer cup.”

The boy’s mouth went small. “A bad’un?”

“Aye.” Zander kept his voice even. “And we’re goin’ to catch the hand that does it. But to do it, we need ye to play sick for a bit longer. Stay close. The more ye look like ye need fussin’, the more the vole thinks it can creep. D’ye follow me?”

Grayson’s gaze slid toward the window, where a fern pressed against the glass like a prisoner. “So… nae outside?”

“Just now,” Zander said softly. “Only just now. We’ll build the perch yet. I’ve the rawhide ready. But for a handful of days we keep to the solar, the surgery, and me. Lady Skylar. Katie too. That’s the circle. We close it tight.”

The boy’s bottom lip trembled. He bit it like a soldier, then let out a breath through his nose and squared his wee shoulders. “I can do it.”

Zander’s stomach twisted with pride and sorrow both. “I ken ye can.”

Grayson frowned, practical as a steward. “But how’ll we catch the hand if it kens we’re watchin’?”

Zander’s mouth tugged. Saints, the lad was his father’s son.

“We’ll make patterns and see who trips them.

Some cups will be for show. Some jars for bait.

The honey’ll live in me hand a time. If anything touches what ye drink and it’s nae me or Skylar, we’ll ken.

Me men will be soft as shadows under Mason’s command. ”

Grayson peered at the bedtable where yesterday’s cup stood clean and turned upside down. “Will they nae see the shadows?”

“Only if the shadows wish it,” Zander said. “We’ve got good ones.”

Grayson considered, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Must I cough on purpose?”

“Nay,” Zander said, a low laugh breaking. “If ye start actin’, ye’ll be dafter than the vole. Just be yerself. Tired, aye. Quiet when ye must. But nay lies from ye. Leave the trickin’ to me.”

Grayson nodded. The brave face wobbled, then set. “I wanted to go out with ye,” he admitted, small and fierce at once. “Wanted to hear the crows tell me I’m daft.”

“They told me ,” Zander said dryly. “Came to the wall and cawed it till me ears rang. ‘That Da’s a daft fool,’ they said.” He leaned in with a mock whisper. “But the kestrel came after and said, ‘Nae, he’s only stubborn.’”

Grayson’s giggle rasped but it was there. “Ye’re stubborn,” he agreed. “Like the old ram in Burnfoot that butts the gate.”

“Aye, that one’s me kin.” Zander smoothed the lad’s hair back, palm lingerin’ a heartbeat longer than it should.

“Listen, Gray. I need ye to ken a thing. Whether ye’re outside or nae, whether ye run the yard or sleep the day long— I’m proud of ye.

D’ye hear me? I was proud before ye took yer first breath.

And I’ll be proud when ye’re a toothless rogue feedin’ crumbs to birds ye shouldnae. ”

Grayson shut his eyes fast, like to hide the wet. “Ye’ve taught me all I’ll need to ken.”

Zander pretended not to see. “Good lad. Now. Here’s what happens.

Katie keeps the door. Only me, her, and Skylar.

She will bring the tinctures to yer lips.

If any soul—any soul at all—tries to be kind with a sweet or a sip when we’re nae lookin’, ye say, ‘Me Da will thrash me if I disobey.’ Put it on me back. I’ll take it.”

“That part I like,” Grayson muttered, a gleam wakin’ under the lashes.

“Thought ye might,” Zander said. “Second, when Skylar brings aught, ye watch her eyes.”

“Her eyes?”

“Aye,” Zander said, and surprise touched him as he spoke the truth of it. “They tell more than her mouth. If she’s pleased, ye drink easy. If she’s puzzlin’, ye ask what she’s thinkin’ so she says it out. That lass is a whole book—ye just have to ken how to read it.”

Grayson’s smile tilted. “She likes ye.”

Zander choked, coughed, and made a great business of adjusting the blanket. “She likes ye ,” he corrected, too quick. “And that’s the bit that matters.”

“Aye,” Grayson said, solemn as a church. “But she likes ye.”

“We’re discussin’ vole-catchin’,” Zander growled, but there was no bite in it.

“Voles,” the boy agreed, satisfied he’d landed the arrow, and let his head sink into the pillow.

Zander sat with him while the hour turned, speaking of small things: how the elm creaked like a ship; show Mason had called the next hour a liar and been right about it; how the Kirn pipes would sound at a distance, sweet and thin. Grayson listened with a grown man’s attention and a child’s hope.

At last the wee boy sagged, bravery burning down to ember. Zander tucked the blanket again and let himself look at the curve of the cheek too hollow for six years old, at the lash shadows, at the mouth that had argued him into makin’ a perch. Love hit him clean and without mercy.

He bent low, touched his lips to the hair at the crown of the boy’s head, and whispered in his own tongue, the one he’d learned at his mother’s knee. “Mo ghràdh.” Me love .

Grayson stirred but didn’t wake. Hi. Zander sat back, cleared his throat, and when he could trust his voice he called softly toward the door. “Katie.”

She appeared without the hinges saying a word, shawl wrapped tight. “Aye, laird?”

“Circle’s shut,” he said. “If anyone offers him a kindness, ye send them to me. If a cup moves, if a jar’s touched, ye sing it. We’ll bait a line with honey and see what rises.”

Katie’s jaw set. “Ye’ll have it.”

He rose, tucked the bird book under the blanket as if talismans counted, then turned at the door. “Gray?” he said, though the lad slept. “Ye’ve me word. We’ll win this.”

The boy’s fingers twitched, like a wee wing testing air. Zander took it for a pledge, and left as quiet as a thief with nothing worth stealing.

The corridor met him cool as a well. He shut the solar door with care and stood a breath to listen—Grayson’s soft whistle, Katie’s low hum, the house breathing as it should. Good . He could walk away a moment without feeling the ground tilt.

His feet found the stair down toward the yard before his mind caught up.

He’d thought only of steel and snares. But gratitude dogged his heel like a well-trained hound.

Skylar had pulled his son back from a black edge and then stood there herself, holding the ground as if the cliff would mind her orders.

“What d’ye give a lass like that?” he muttered, half to the stone, half to his own thick skull. He’d given letters, aye. Ingredients, aye. His word about riders and walls, aye. But those were laird’s gifts—things a man with a chair and a title could throw on a table. They weren’t Zander’s.

A healer’s chest? He could have the carpenter plane yew smooth as butter, put in small drawers for herbs, fix a brass catch that clicked sweet.

A raven-feather quill, for the way she wrote the world down.

A key— to what, though? Trust , says a daft voice.

Aye. But a key’s a thing ye can break. He wanted to give something that would stand even if men failed.

He strode out into the yard, where dawn had left a pale milk at the eaves and the first fools of the day were already tiein’ bunting where carts wanted to pass.

“Shift it,” he barked, and the boys leapt like frogs.

Mason loomed up from a shadow with a mug of something that oughtnae be drunk at that hour.

“Have ye eaten a bee this mornin’,” Mason observed. “Which I’d pay good coin to see, mind.”

“Ye’ll see me eat ye if ye keep the clatter goin’,” Zander said, and earned the grin he’d aimed for.

“Skylar filled me in. How’s the lad?”

“Holdin’,” Zander said, voice gone rougher than he’d meant.

“He’ll play sick for me like a hero. We set cups as bait. Ye’ll post men—nay capes, nay swagger. I want ghosts, nae cockerels. Ghosts. ”

“Aye.” Mason took a swallow, made a face, and drank anyway. “We’ll look with soft eyes. I’ll put Fergus on the map chest and Tam on the hearth steps. They see everything when folk think they’re seein’ nothin’.”

Zander nodded once. The practical settled quick.

It was the other thing— the thanks—that didn’t fit neat in a ledger.

He glanced toward the inner stair where he’d stood last night, waiting on a woman’s shadow to choose him or nae.

“I need—” he started, then huffed a laugh at himself. “Christ, I daenae ken what I need.”

Mason’s brows went up. “Aye ye do. Ye’re just too polite to say it out loud.”

“Polite?” Zander glared. “Since when am I?—”

“Ye want to thank her,” Mason bulldozed cheerfully.

“Proper-like. But ye’re a hammer tryin’ to tie a ribbon.

So ye’re askin’ yerself if ye give her a chest, or a jewel, or the moon.

Here’s the answer: give her somethin’ she can use and somethin’ she can keep, and then tell her the truth she’ll nae ask for. ”

Zander stared. “What truth?”

“The one that sits behind yer eyes when ye look at the boy.” Mason’s grin gentled, which was rare enough to count as weather.

“Tell her what happened. The day ye lost yer wife. Nae the battle tale ye give in the hall. The bit ye never said where the room went quiet and ye thought ye’d break yer teeth holdin’ the shout in. ”

Zander’s breath went thin and mean. “Och aye. Shall I also pull out me ribs and let her count them?”

“If ye fancy.” Mason slurped from his mug. “Or ye could stand there gruntin’ like a bull at a ditch and hope the lass guesses ye’ve a heart. Women like a tool for their work. Truth’s a fine one.”

A bark of laughter escaped Zander before he could throttle it. “Saints preserve me. When did ye become a wife-mother?”

“I listened to mine before she died,” Mason said simply. “Turns out women just tell ye what they need. Men daenae hear it ‘cause they’re busy bein’ men. Men daenae listen to understand, we listen to reply and resolve.”

Zander looked away toward the wall-walk, where a guardsman pretended not to listen. The man has a point.

The wind had a bite, clean and bracin’. “If I tell her, it cannae be the tale for pity.”

“Oh aye, ye great lump.” Mason cuffed his arm. “For kinship. Ye show her the cut, so she kens where ye’re thin. She’s less likely to swing a blade there by accident.”

Zander’s hand went to the bandage on his knuckles, the sting of last night’s temper remindin’ him he wore skin like anyone else. “And the gift?”

Mason’s eyes went sly. “Give her a room.”

“A room.”

“Aye. Nae a cage. A door she has a key for. A place that’s hers—the stillroom off the surgery, the wee window.

Put shelves where she points, hooks where she kens they should be.

Lay a table strong enough for a bairn or a corpse, ‘cause healers need both. That says, ‘I see yer work and I’m nae afraid of it.’ That’s rarer than gold. ”

He squinted. And asks her to stay…

“And buy the lass a decent knife,” Mason continued. “The wee bone-handled one in the stores is a sin.”

Zander pictured it—the stillroom emptied of junk, washed, limed, aired, fitted. The wall knocked a hand’s breadth to catch more morning. A lock she wore at her belt. A door he didn’t touch without knocking. The thought settled into him like a beam set right across stone. “Aye.”

“And the moon,” Mason added offhand, “if ye can nip out for it. Women like a bit of nonsense, too.”

“I’ll fetch ye a midge’s hat,” Zander said dryly, then sobered. “Keep a long eye on the lad.”

Mason’s mouth flattened. “Ye’ll nae have to ask. I’ll sit like a gargoyle on the roof if I must. Anyone touches a cup, I’ll ken whose hand it is.”

“Good.” Zander’s gaze lifted toward the inner arch, mind already leaping to the work. “I’ll go speak with the men about clearin’ the stillroom. We’ll gut it by noon. If Skylar wants a shelf higher or lower, she’ll cut me ears tellin’ me why.”

“That she will,” Mason agreed, chuckling.

Zander turned to go, then paused. The yard hummed with early clatter; a string of bunting tried once more to strangle a cart and got smacked for its trouble.

Over it all he thought of a woman’s careful hands binding his bleeding knuckles, the way she’d said truth keeps children alive as if it were a prayer and a law.

“A room… and a blade,” he said again, half to the air, to test the weight of it. “… and truth.”

Gratitude, aye.

Trust, maybe.

And the truth, brutal and clean, when he could shape it without flinging it like a weapon. He started toward the keep, pace lengthening. Behind him Mason called, “I’ll handle the rest of the fools!”

Zander lifted a hand and didn’t look back. Somewhere above, a rook cawed rude benediction.