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

Z ander Harrison couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his chest. “Foolish lass,” he muttered.

His blood thrummed as he pressed his destrier harder, eyes fixed on the small, fierce figure darting through the trees ahead.

Her dark cloak plastered to her curves, hair a bright amber ribbon against the rain which made her look more like a flame refusing to go out than a woman on the run. She rode like sin itself.

And it made him grin.

A heat curled low in his belly despite the cold rain. Irritation mixed with something else. Something foreign to him.

He leaned forward in the saddle, muscles taut with the hunt.

While he let her think she gained ground a moment longer, it was only to see the stubborn tilt of her spine. She reminded him of another storm long ago, when his men thought the O’Brian clan would break him. He hadn’t yielded then. Neither would he for this slip of a woman now.

He was within breaths of being alongside her. Hearing her passionate grunts, urging her mare on, did nothing to quell the tension in his body. She rode like the raindrops themselves parted for her.

Before she could veer again, he leaned, one arm lashing out. His hand closed on her cloak and yanked. The Dunlop girl cried out as she tumbled straight into his waiting grip.

Zander hauled her across the saddle in front of him, pinning her against his chest with practiced ease.

She thrashed, heels and fists alike, but she was no match for the wall of his body.

He yanked her in tight. One arm banded around her middle.

His other hand fought the reins, trying to settle the horse before they both tumbled.

“Nay! Daisy!” the girl thrashed and lurched toward her mare, but Zander’s grip intensified around her.

“The mare kens where to go,” he said through gritted teeth against her squirming.

“Let me go, ye brute!” she spat, voice sharp as broken glass.

“Brute?” He gave a low chuckle, deep enough she must have felt it reverberate through his chest. “Ye should thank me, lass. Another minute in that direction, and the river would’ve swallowed ye whole.”

“The mare kens where to go,” she spat his words back to him.

Zander only smirked at that. There was venom in her words, and fire in her eyes. It made the blood in his body course molten hot in his veins. “Aye, as I said. But the way ye were ridin’ her, ye would have been thrown and that would have rendered ye useless to me.”

She stiffened at that. “Useless? What are ye on about?”

He guided the horse onto a higher path, out of the worst of the river’s spray.

“Aye. Ye’re Skylar Dunlop. A MacLennan daughter that every crofter whispers about.

The lass who can mend what priests cannae and draw fever from a bairn with naught but herbs and will.

Ye’ll put those hands to use for me now. ”

Her head jerked up, dripping wet hair clinging to her cheeks. “Ye dare detain me for poultices? Ye’ve lost yer damn senses.”

“And a tongue that spit venom, aye. Ye are certainly Skylar Dunlop.”

“Release me at once!”

“Nay. I’m nae interested in yer poultices.” His tone cut clean through her fury, steady and low.

That stilled her. Not entirely. He could still feel the rapid flutter of her breath against his chest, but the fight in her paused, faltered.

“Surely ye’ve heard of me.”

“Aye, I ken yer colors. Ye’re from Strathcairn. Why has yer laird sent a dog to kidnap a healer, then?”

“Dog?”

“Whoever ye are?—”

Zander’s irritation nearly boiled over instantly at her flippant reply, but he did not want to waste the moment. “I’m Zander Harrison the Laird of Strathcairn clan. Ye’ll do well to remember that in how ye address me in future.”

“Och, please! What Laird treats women like this? I daenae believe ye are who ye say ye are. A true laird would have written me faither properly. Nay, he’s sent ye… just another brainless mutt?—”

“I daenae have any time for any more of yer whining! I am who I say I am, lass. That’s that!” he boomed so loudly that the lass winced slightly.

The sight of her fear of him drenched Zander’s red-hot anger just as quickly as it had come.

He felt all of the sudden frigid as she assessed him warily, and he cleared his throat.

“It’s for me son. He weakens by the day.

Fever, fainting spells, lungs that labor like an old man’s though he is but six years old.

Nay healer I’ve brought to him has managed aught but prayers and platitudes.

I’ll have none of it. I’ll have him live. ”

Her voice was quieter now, though sharp still. “Why did ye nae write to me faither, like a normal person?”

“It’s me heir,” Zander corrected, jaw tight. “Me blood. I couldnae sit and do nothin’ waitin’ for a reply. So aye, I stole ye just now. I’ll steal saints from their altars if that’s what it takes to keep him alive. I have nay time, lass.”

She twisted to glare up at him, defiance rekindled even through the softening he’d glimpsed. “Ye could have asked. Should have. Real men do that, ye ken. Speak plain words instead of snatching women from roads like brigands.”

“Would ye have come if I asked just then?”

Her mouth opened like she had something to fire back, then shut again. Zander caught it all. The battle in her eyes, healer against pride, neither winning. She looked away, rain dripping from her lashes.

“That’s what I thought.” His voice rumbled rougher than he meant, but truth was truth.

The lass went quiet for a beat, breathing hard. When she finally spoke, her voice was laced with frustration. “I wouldnae have said ‘nay’ for the reasons ye think.”

“Sure.”

“Ye think because ye’ve power and strength, ye can take what ye want.”

Zander leaned closer, his mouth near her ear. “Nay. I think because I have a dying son, I will do whatever is needed. Even if that means taking ye.”

She trembled against him, not from fear but fury, and every ragged breath she dragged through clenched teeth only made his own chest swell tighter. He had expected a Dunlop daughter to weep or curse him for a devil. This one burned.

“I am needed elsewhere,” she said, spitting the words like they were arrows meant to pierce his hide. “Me cousin lies fevered, waiting on me. Do ye ken what it means to steal hours from the sick?”

“Aye,” Zander said, low and steady. “I ken it too well. That’s why I willnae waste another breath arguing with ye.”

Her head snapped toward him, eyes flashing in the storm. “Ye think ye can decide who lives and who waits? Because ye’re a laird of yer cursed keep? Because ye’ve broad shoulders and a voice that rumbles like thunder?”

Zander almost laughed. Almost. Her voice shook with outrage, it was righteous and blistering.

Saints, she best be worth all this irritation.

Even pinned across his saddle, dripping wet, she dared him with every word.

“Aye,” he answered simply. “That’s exactly why. Because I’m laird. Because I’ve a dying son, and nay power on earth matters to me more than that.”

She wriggled against him then, her cloak sodden and heavy, her curves moving with each sharp thrust of her hips as she tried to break free. Heat jolted through him like lightning. He tightened his grip, grinding his jaw to anchor himself.

“Enough, lass. Struggle all ye like, but ye’ll only wear yerself out. Ye’re coming with me.”

Her gasp was sharp, indignant. “This is madness. I am nae yer prisoner.”

“Ye are until me son lives,” he said flatly.

Her mouth dropped open, fury sparking brighter than the storm around them. “Ye cannae just pluck me off the road like some hen for market and claim me life for yer cause!”

Zander’s lips curved, a humorless grin. “And yet here ye sit, warm and furious on me saddle. It seems I can.”

She sputtered, caught between rage and disbelief, and then finally managed, “Ye— ye barbarian!”

“Aye,” he said, entirely unashamed. “But that’ll be enough of yer barkin’ and ravin’. Ye are a lady, are ye nae?”

“I’ll curse ye when me cousin’s buried,” she shot back, voice cracking with fury and something like fear.

Zander glanced down at her, rain dripping from her lashes, her jaw clenched stubborn as any warrior he’d ever faced. He could read her like a map. Her healer’s soul already bent toward his young son, even as her heart pulled her toward her kin.

She caught him watching her and whipped her head away, as if she’d rather stare into the storm than let him see her struggle.

“Daenae look at me like that,” she muttered.

“Like what?”

“Like ye’ve won,” she said, shoulders stiff. “This is nay victory. I’ll nae forgive ye.”

“I’ve nae asked forgiveness.” His voice dropped, rougher than he intended. “I’m fightin’ for me son’s life.”

That silenced her for a long moment. The mare’s hooves splashed through the muck ahead of them, the storm howled on, and Zander held her close, feeling the furious pound of her heart against his ribs. He wondered if she realized how much she betrayed herself with each quickened breath.

At last, she swallowed hard and said, “If I had kent of him, I would have come.”

Zander gave a short, harsh laugh. “By the time ye set out, Grayson might already be cold in the ground. Nay, lass. I couldnae risk it.”

Her lips thinned, but she didn’t deny it.

“So this is it, then?” she asked, bitterness sharp in her tone. “Ye’ll just drag me to yer keep, bar me from me own family, and chain me to yer son’s sickbed until ye’ve had what ye want?”

Zander leaned close, so close his beard brushed her temple. “If that’s what it takes. It didnae look like ye were away with yer faither’s approval anyway. No sane man would let his daughter brave this storm. Would ye even be missed? Should I even send word?”

“Of course me faither kens —”

“Daenae lie. Nae to me,” he stated firmly. Eyes locking on hers, gripping her somehow tighter.

She shivered, and he knew it wasn’t the cold.