Page 28 of A Highland Healer Captured (Scottish Daddies #3)

Z ander found her waiting where the shadow of the west arch thinned into sun the following afternoon. Skylar stood with her hands tucked into the folds of her cloak, chin up, hair braided and pinned, a ribbon the color of wheat hiding in the coil. She looked like trouble disguised as good sense.

“Ye wanted the stalls inspected,” she said before he could speak, as though the notion had been his. “If ye’ve a mind to see what’s what before the crowds swell, now is the hour.”

He almost smiled. “Commandin’ me schedule now, are ye?”

“I’m simply suggestin’ it,” she said, and the dimple that appeared in her cheek punished him for teasing her.

“Aye then.” He lifted a hand to the nearest guard. “Ewan. Give two men at our heel, nae close enough to make folk bow backward. We’re nae courtin’, only sensin’ the festival.”

“Aye, me laird.” Ewan fell in five paces back, another man ghosting the opposite flank. Good. Not a parade, not a challenge—just eyes where he wanted them.

They crossed the inner court and slipped through the postern where the keep’s shadow spilled onto the green.

The festival grounds spread wide and half-made—trestles bare, awnings tied but not yet unfurled, lines trampled into the grass where feet would soon pulse the earth.

Beyond, the river wrote light in quick strokes.

The wind smelled of barley and the promise of rain.

“Where will the drovers come in?” Skylar asked, shading her eyes as she looked toward the track that bent around the mill.

“North gate,” he said. “Pen there—” he pointed to a fenced square still naked of boards— “and overflow along the hedge. We’ll keep the beasts and the pies at polite distance this year, else Fergus will hunt me with a spoon.”

“Hmph.” She kept walking, quick and light, not waiting for him to summon the next answer. “And the cooper’s stall? The ale shouldn’t sit in sun past noon.”

“South line, near the elm shade. I’ve a word in to turn the barrels with the passing hours.”

“Good.” She considered the open green as if it were a body to be mended—finding weak points, measuring breaths. “And the guard rounds? Ye said two men. How many circles of the grounds will they walk between bells?”

He glanced at her. The question was too neat, too layered. “Four rings,” he said anyway. “Outer hedge, stall row, the dancers’ square, and the river track. On the hour and half-hour. Why?”

“For spills,” she said promptly. “And drunken pinchers. A woman’s likelier to ask a guard for help if she kens where a boot’ll appear.”

He grunted.

Plausible.

Sensible .

Still, the back of his neck prickled the way it did when a hunter numbers his snares and the hare counts trees.

They turned up the central row where frames for canvas booths threw black bars on the grass.

A smith had already claimed a corner, his portable forge cold for now, but the anvil set like a promise.

A pastry woman from the lower village stood behind a table covered in clean cloth, counting her tins as if the air might steal them.

“Morning, Mairead,” Zander said, stopping. “Ye’ll need two trestles. I’ll send a plank for cooling. The lads burn their mouths and curse me when ye put hot tarts near the dancing.”

“A laird with sense,” Mairead said, delighted. “Look at that. And who’s this?”

Skylar started to reply, but Mairead barreled on, eyes shining. “Och! That’s right! Ye’re the healer, aye? Bless ye for that bairn of his. I’m bringin’ sugared apples for the lad if he’s allowed a lick at one. I’ll put by a wee tart for ye as well?—”

“Ye’ll do nae such thing,” Skylar said, horrified and secretly pleased in the same breath. “I’ll nae have ye fussin’ with me while yer hands are already full.”

“Fuss is joy on Kirn,” Mairead said stoutly. “Let me have it, hen.”

Zander watched them with a warmth he didn’t invite and couldn’t quite banish. He liked the way Skylar’s voice softened when she said nay to kindness.

He liked that a woman who could cut a man from death’s hand still flustered at being fussed over. Saints— he liked too many things he had no right to like.

They moved on. At the far edge, a weaver from the parish beyond the ridge spread bright shawls over a rope, each a little sunrise. Skylar slowed, fingers hovering but not touching, eyes greedy as a child’s.

“Ye can in fact touch cloth,” Zander said dryly.

She glanced at him. “Ye’ll think it nonsense, but I can tell how a shawl was washed by the feel. Vinegar, lye, or stream. Lye makes the skin on a tired neck itch.”

“Then pick one that will nae itch,” he said before sense could catch his tongue. “I’ll see it paid.”

Her brows jumped. “I didnae ask?—”

“Ye did with yer eyes,” he said, surprising them both. “Take it, Skylar.”

She looked back to the line, fingers finally daring a brush. She didn’t choose a flaunting color, not the type of red that would shout “ I’m here!” from the wall-walk. She chose a deep barley-gold with a thin strip of river-blue.

When she turned, the stripe made her eyes look greener. He filed that treacherous thought away and paid the weaver with a nod.

“Thank ye,” she said, voice small. Then, as though remembering herself, she added briskly, “It’ll do for early mornings with the lad. The solar gets a chill at times.”

“The shutters stick,” he said. “I’ll set oil to the hinges.” And yer neck will nae itch , he didn’t say.

They passed a cooper’s apprentice lining up small casks like fat soldiers. The boy saw Zander and nearly dropped a hoop. Skylar crouched beside him without ceremony.

“Mind the angle of yer stave when ye fit it,” she said, tapping an edge. “Else the seelin’ wax will weep.”

The boy blinked, puzzled. “How’d ye?—”

“She sees what her trade is nae, and mends it anyway,” Zander said, only half in jest. “Do as the lady says.”

They walked on, Skylar quiet now, the shawl folded over her arm. Quiet, for her, wasn’t silence. He could feel the questions stacking behind her teeth like kindling until finally, she lit one.

“If a body had to move quickly from the east row o the north hedge,” she said—a throwaway tone, too casual by half— “would they be hindered by carts or pens at dusk?”

“Hindered,” he said, not slowing. “The cattle’ll bottle the track.”

She made a soft noise he didn’t like. He pretended he hadn’t heard it. She tried again, light as thistledown.

“And if a person needed to fetch water in a hurry for scalding or burns, where would the nearest bucket line be?”

“By the river bend and the pump by the mill,” he said. “And another—” he pointed— “there, where the ditch meets the hedge.”

“Good,” she murmured. “For burns.”

“Mmph.” He let the sound rumble in his chest and kept his face carved. She was mapping. Every line of her was mapping. He told himself healers did such things. He told himself she was thinking of scalds and cider, not of gates and shadows.

He told himself many things because the other thought—that she meant to slit herself through his watch like a fish through a net—put a cold in him he refused.

They looped the outer hedge. Two crofter wives argued about whose pies would go closer to the dancers’ square as if space itself were a husband to be stolen.

Zander put them two stalls apart and ordered a wreath of barley to mark each, so neither could claim pride or slight.

Skylar watched him settle it with three words and a grin, and something hot and domestic punched him under the ribs.

“Wipe that look,” he muttered under his breath.

“What look?” she said, feigning innocence so badly it drew a laugh from him, low and unguarded.

He recovered too late. She had seen it. Worse, she looked pleased.

They turned toward the elm, the green beneath it trampled flat by lads too impatient to wait for songs.

The tree rose like a lord of its own, limbs black against a sky that had gone the color of pewter.

Zander’s carpenter had left a small pile of planed boards and a bag of iron nails at the base.

The lowest limb showed the start of a perch—two braces pegged true into the heartwood, a cross-board waiting for its brothers.

“Ye’ve begun,” Skylar said, surprise slipping her voice low.

“Aye,” he said. “I told the lad I would build him a high place.”

“Ye keep promises,” she said, like she was discovering a problem she had no idea how to cure.

A group of boys thundered past, chasing a rag ball, one of them skidding to a halt when he saw Zander. “Me laird! Will we be allowed to throw apples at the targets this year? Or is Tamhas fear’t we’ll take out an eye?”

“Ye can take out his two if ye aim true,” Zander said without looking at Skylar, because the sound she made when she tried not to laugh might finish him. He pointed the lads toward the far fence, and they bolted again, a calamity in motion.

Skylar wandered a slow circle around the elm, eyes on the ground, then up the trunk, then to the brace. She was thinking. He could see the gears of her clever mind and wanted to put his hand on them to slow the spin.

“Ye’ll need a second brace there,” she said, touching the bark just above eye level. “Else the board’ll torque under a lively boy.”

“I ken me boards,” he said.

“I ken lively boys,” she said.

He looked at her then, properly. Giving in to ever temptation he was trying to subdue.

The wind had teased wisps from her braid; the shawl’s blue stripe lay along the bone of her shoulder where he wanted to set his mouth; her eyes were bright with the sort of talk that had nothing to do with poultices.

A picture rose unbidden—her on the board, skirts tucked under, laughing down at him as if the world had no edges sharp enough to cut them.

His hands went restless. He curled them into fists and turned away, bent, picked up a brace only to set it down again. “We’re done here,” he said too roughly. “I’ll walk ye back, now.”