Page 31 of A Highland Healer Captured (Scottish Daddies #3)

S kylar woke to warmth and the steady weight of an arm bracketing her waist. For a blinking breath she did not move; the room was soft with after dark, the lamplight long gone, only a spill of pale morning at the shutter to tell her the world was still there.

His breath stirred the wisps at her neck, uneven, catching now and again like a man who forgot he wasn’t on guard. His hand lay heavy across her middle, not promise, just flesh and weight, and still her ribs ached.

“Ye awake?” he murmured, voice ragged with night.

“Aye,” she whispered, and the word went through both of them.

His arm drew her closer by the quietest degree. “Good mornin’, Skylar.”

The way he said it threatened to undo her. She swallowed and rolled to face him. His hair was a dark, untidy halo; a beard-shadow roughened his jaw. He looked like a sin she did not regret.

He searched her eyes, not pushing, not pleading. “Are ye well?”

“I am,” she said, and found it true in a way that frightened her.

They lay a moment longer, wrapped in the hush before the keep found its clatter. He lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss into the heel of her palm. It wasn’t a claim. It felt like thanks.

“Kirn,” he said, almost wry. “The fools’ll set the yard on fire twice before noon if I don’t walk through it.”

“They’d only try,” she murmured. “I’ll fetch water.”

“Ye’ll do no’ such thing,” he said, thumb stroking absent-mindedly along her wrist as if learning her pulse by fingertip. “I’ll send a lad. Stay a moment. Let me have the sight of ye lookin’ soft before ye turn back into my worst scold.”

She should have bristled. She smiled instead, foolish as any girl. “I am a terror.”

“Aye,” he said contentedly. “And I’m fond of terrors.”

They rose when the keep did. Skylar smoothed her hair with water from the ewer and bound it back with a ribbon the color of barley. She tied her gown briskly, stealing glances at him as he shrugged into his shirt, tugged the laces, rolled his shoulders until the fabric learned his breadth.

He caught her looking and sent a quick heat through her with nothing but a lifted brow. Saints. She busied herself with fastening her bodice as if it were a knot a surgeon might admire.

Down in the yard, Kirn had begun in earnest. The air smelled of peat and apples and smoke. Girls plaited long lengths of rope with scraps of color, laughing when boys tried to steal the ends.

A fiddler tuned, earnestly wrong until he wasn’t. A pair of pipers answered like hills talking to each other. Trenchers were set; the first pies were cut; a barrel was coaxed onto a trestle and tapped with much advice shouted and none taken.

Zander moved through it all with that particular ease he wore when the clan watched him and felt safe for it.

He stopped for an old woman’s gossip, for a child’s tug and question, for a crofter’s worry about the weather—laying a hand, giving a word, setting the clumsy to rights with a nod.

Skylar walked a pace behind at first, then beside, then forgot to be careful and let herself belong in the picture as people nodded to her with honest faces.

“Lady Skylar!” a girl called, running up with a posy of cornflowers and late daisies like a summer refusing sense. “For yer hair, miss—please?”

“Saints bless ye,” Skylar said, and bent so the lass could tuck the stems into the ribbon. “Ye’ve hands for plaits. The hedges’ll weep to lose ye.”

The girl giggled and went spinning back to the ring of dancers. Skylar felt the weight of Zander’s look and pretended not to, turned to the table where women sliced bannocks and argued the correct thickness as if treaties depended on it.

“Ye’ll eat,” one of them ordered, pressing a wedge into Skylar’s hand. “Ye’re half a ghost most days, runnin’ yon’ stairs. Get it down ye.”

“Aye,” Skylar said, obedient as a child, and bit. Butter, salt, heat—simple mercies, and she had not known she’d been starving for them.

A story circle formed near the lower wall; old men straightened spines and cleared throats, claiming the hour as if they’d wrestled it from younger hands.

A narrow-shouldered fellow with a face like kindling began with a tale about a king who dressed as a beggar to test the hearts of his people; a bigger man interrupted to say the king had been a fool; the first conceded only what the piper’s tune would allow.

Skylar found herself smiling until her cheeks ached.

And everywhere was Grayson’s name. Whispers at first, then open speculation.

The boy’s color’s back.

Did ye hear him laugh earlier?

Katie says the cough eased with the new draught.

Folk’s eyes flicked to Skylar with something like reverence and she shook it away when she could, took it when she must.

Near mid-day Zander’s voice carried above the hum.

“Bring the sheaf.” He didn’t thunder. He didn’t need to.

The yard arranged itself like a flock taking a curve in wind.

A pair of lads carried the last sheaf bound tight and proud—tall barley and oats wreathed with late poppy, a crown of wheat braided clever by hands that loved work.

“Who’ll keep the luck this year?” an old wife called, cupping her mouth.

A dozen voices answered, and then more, and then, too many for Skylar’s peace, her own person rose up, “The healer! The lass who’s kept the laird’s boy alive!”

She stepped back, startled. Zander’s gaze found hers across the space—intense, but soft at the edges, like heat held in a stone. He did not look proud as a laird; he looked grateful as a man. That nearly unmade her.

“Nae, I—” she began, hands up.

“Oh, hush,” said a woman with good sense and stronger wrists, and set the wheat crown gently on Skylar’s head. “Ye’ll be our Harvest Queen, then. It’s a thank ye. Nay more, nay less.”

Laughter rippled because the crown slouched crooked over her braid; someone fixed it with two hairpins like sword strokes.

Skylar laughed despite herself, cheeks hot, eyes prickling in a way she refused to name.

A pipe trilled a flourish as if to seal the business.

The circle tightened, faces open as doors in summer.

“Speech!” a boy demanded, drunk on cider and courage.

Skylar looked at Zander again because sense failed her. His mouth tipped. Not rescue, but permission. His features conveying so very clearly, Say what ye like, or say nothing. Ye owe nobody aught.

She swallowed and lifted her chin. “I’ve only gentle hands from me maither and me faither’s stubbornness,” she said, and the yard quieted a notch, surprised by the honesty.

“Ye brought me both—work for me hands, a house that can bear a headstrong lass under its roof, and trust to care for the lad. If the lad’s on the men, then it is we who mended him. We . All of us!”

A murmur, like fields nodding. Someone shouted “Aye!” and a cheer rolled.

“Now eat,” Skylar finished, practical as any cook, and set the crown askew on purpose.

They roared at that, pleased to be told to be themselves.

The fiddlers struck up; the piper answered; Katie appeared at Skylar’s elbow with a cup and a look that meant I see ye, and I’ll scold ye later for forgetting to drink.

Skylar sipped. Honeyed ale slid warm into her belly.

Zander drifted near without making a scene of it.

“It suits ye,” he said low, eyeing the crown.

“It pinches,” she muttered.

“Then it’s honest,” he returned, and his glance flicked to her mouth as if he were memorizing what it did when she pretended not to be pleased.

The day unfolded like a generous cloth. Games were shouted into being—sack races that turned into tumbling, tug-o-war that turned into laughter, a stone-put that made all the young men attempt aching feats they’d pay for tomorrow.

Stories lengthened and deepened until listeners wept and would deny it.

A tiny lad proudly held up the ugliest turnip anyone had ever coaxed from the earth and was cheered like a king.

Girls wove little corn-dollies and tucked them in sleeves for luck.

Katie taught Grayson’s favorite bird-call to a ring of children, trilling like a wren until even the shy ones tried it.

Skylar moved among it with her crown sliding and her smile set, letting joy touch her and then pull back like a wave.

Zander kept his distance and then didn’t; at some point she realized they’d been within three strides of each other for an hour.

He didn’t crowd her. He did not let her be alone either. It felt like being held in the open.

And this was the blade… she wanted it. The sight of him standing easy with his people; the way he bent to hear a child; the heat in his look when she passed him the cup to drink from her hand and he obeyed because they’d made that law together.

She wanted it and felt unworthy of it in the same breath. The crown prickled like penance. Her mind showed her Ariella’s face in a draughty room, counting breaths without a stubborn lass to steady them.

As the sun shouldered west, women cleared boards and set out sugared apples. Pipers shifted to airs that made men breathe from somewhere behind their ribs. Someone coaxed Skylar into a slow step, the kind that let folk show their hands on a partner’s back and not be scolded for it.

She found herself looking up at Zander again—curse him—and found him already looking back. The heat there could have burned the stooks, had they not been blessed against such mischief.

“Ye’ll dance this one?” he asked, a formal tilt to his head that saved them both from drowning.

“Aye,” she said, and took his hand.

The turn was simple—step, slide, turn, meet. His palm was warm, rough, sure. Her body remembered the night and pretended not to. Their breath found a shared measure; her crown slouched again; he lifted a finger and set it straight with a care that made her bite her lip.

“I’ve asked Katie to bring Grayson back inside. The air is getting crisp,” Zander started to say.

Skylar’s brow lifted as she turned beneath his hand and teased, “Crisp? It’s not even late-autumn. A bit of nip’s is good for the lungs. We practiced this!”

“Ye’re the healer,” he said, sliding her back into step with him. “But I’m the faither. I’ll do with him as I please.”

“Ye’ve coddled him so well he’s near smothered,” she countered, but her smile betrayed the bite. “The lad kens more of the world from a windowpane than most bairns from a field.”

Zander’s mouth curved, though his eyes stayed steady on her. “And yet, he lives. Which is more than I could say had I left it to chance without ye.”

“Aye, he lives,” Skylar said, her voice softening despite herself. “But he dreams of more. He dreams like a bird locked in a cage. I ken it. I see it.”

He guided her through the turn, the weight of his hand careful but firm. “And ye’d set him free with a word, would ye? Let him risk his breath for a glimpse of sky?”

“If that glimpse gave him joy,” she said, looking up at him, “Aye. I would.”

The music swelled. Couples shifted closer around them, their skirts brushing, and boots thumping on the packed earth. For a moment they were pressed nearer than sense demanded. She felt the breadth of him, the surety in his step, the warmth of his body through the crisp air.

Zander bent his head the barest inch. “Ye’d drive me mad, lass. Ye talk like joy’s a cure, but I’ve seen joy kill quicker than sorrow.”

“And I’ve seen sorrow do worse than kill,” she whispered back.

He huffed a laugh that wasn’t quite humor. “Ye dinnae ken how hard it is to hear ye speak so freely. Every word pulls me nearer to ye than I ought to be.”

Skylar’s breath caught. “Then daenae listen.”

“Impossible,” he said simply. His hand adjusted at her back, the calloused pads of his fingers pressing into the fabric of her gown as if anchoring himself. “Yer voice carries in me like a bell.”

“Then ye should stuff yer ears,” she retorted, but her smile trembled.

“Odysseus tied himself to the mast, lass,” Zander said, eyes glinting.

Skylar’s laugh escaped, half-choked, half-dazzled. “Saints, he reads too?”

“He does quite a bit,” he said, low, “or have ye already forgotten?”

The reel turned again; she spun out, skirts flaring, then he pulled her back in with a tug that made the crown wobble. He caught it steady, his finger brushing the line of her hair.

“I can remind ye,” he offered, his mouth quirking.

They circled, breath quick now, hearts racing with the steps and something more dangerous.

“Why do ye look at me like that?” she asked suddenly, unable to stop herself.

“Like what?” His tone was almost gentle, but the weight in it pinned her.

“Like ye’ve found somethin’ ye’d lost or something...”

He didn’t deny it. “Because mayhap I have.”

Her throat tightened. “Zander…”

The name hung between them, heavy, intimate. He drew her closer with the next step, until the air between them was only a breath.

“I shouldnae,” he said, voice rough. “But every time I tell myself so, ye prove me a liar.”

Skylar forced a laugh, desperate to ease the heat. “That’s because ye’re nae good at arguing with women.”

“That’s because I’ve met none like ye,” he said, so plain it stopped her feet for a beat.

She faltered, then caught the step again, her hand trembling against his. “Ye’ll flatter me into folly.”

“Ye call it folly,” he said, eyes burning into hers. “I call it truth.”

The music swelled again, the last turn of the reel pulling them closer, tighter, until their faces were only inches apart. Around them the yard roared with laughter and cheer, but Skylar heard only the rough catch of his breath and the frantic echo of her own heart.

“Ye’ll be the ruin of me,” she whispered.

“Then we’re matched,” Zander murmured back.

The tune ended in a crash of pipes and cheers, forcing them apart as hands clapped and voices shouted. But their eyes held, locked across the small space as if neither of them could quite remember to let go.

When the air ended, the yard clapped because they clapped for everything that did not fail them this day. Zander’s thumb brushed the back of her hand once before he let go.

That touched the nerve she’d been guarding. Guilt rose fast and hot. She had no right to be a queen in this yard. She had no right to the look on his face, fierce and tender both. She had a road to take, and a girl’s name written under her ribs like a debt.

She smiled as people smiled back.

She kept breathing.

She let joy burn and harden into resolve.

She was a healer.

She knew how to cut when cutting saved a life.

As twilight steeped the yard into copper and smoke, she felt Zander’s gaze brush her cheek again. She met it and held firm, the way a woman holds steady while she bites down on leather for a wound to be stitched.

She lifted her cup to him in a small salute that looked like thanks and felt like goodbye. He didn’t know the difference yet.

She did.

And for a reason that she refused to acknowledge, it broke her clean in two.