Page 35 of A Highland Healer Captured (Scottish Daddies #3)

K atie’s blood was slick and warm against Skylar’s fingers, the copper tang riding the air above the hearth.

The maid’s hair clung in dark ropes to her temple where the skin had split; every so often a soft sound leaked from her throat, not a word, just the body’s complaint at being so roughly called back to itself.

“Easy now, hen,” Skylar murmured, pressing clean linen into the wound. “Daenae fight me. I ken it stings.”

She had propped Katie on folded blankets to raise her head, turned her slightly so blood wouldn’t pool at the back of her throat, and wedged a rolled shawl against the nape to keep her steady.

Her hands moved in the old ways as she applied firm and constant pressure, no fluttering.

Her eyes checking Katie’s pupil size and the way they followed the flame.

Her ear was bent near the maid’s mouth to count the slow, dragging breaths.

She’d packed vinegar-wet cloth under the hair to clear the blood, then bound a neat bandage round and round, snug but not smothering. Each pass eased Skylar’s own shaking bit by bit—she put order into a world tilting wild.

“Good lass,” she whispered when Katie’s eyelids fluttered. “Open for me. See? There’s a brave lass.” One eye widened, then the other, sluggish but obedient. “Aye. That’s better.”

The knot in Skylar’s chest loosened a fraction.

The room was a tangle of toppled things.

The stool, the cup, the scattered contents of her satchel, the shawl she’d used as a tourniquet, the dirk she’d planted in the floorboards still quivering faintly at her knee.

In the doorway, the draft breathed lamplight.

From the corridor came the echo of boots. Zander’s men were moving quickly, orders whispered, the keep waking to the idea of siege.

“Skylar.”

Zander.

His voice struck along her bones the way a piper’s low note ran under a tune. Even raw with fury, Zander’s tone had steadied. It filled the room without raising above a murmur.

“Hold this,” she said without looking up, and one of the lads hovering under the lintel sprang forward to press his palm where her fingers had been. She tied off the bandage, checked it with a firm thumb.

The slow ooze had eased, the cloth pink, not red, and beneath her touch the skin beat its stubborn little drum. Alive.

Aye, Katie would live.

Only then did she lift her head.

Zander stood just next to her, closer than she had thought, shoulders squared, eyes black as river stone.

He looked like a man who’d been hit twice, once by betrayal and once by relief, and wasn’t yet sure which blow had done more damage.

Blood flecked the edge of his sleeve, and she realized with a jolt it must be Katie’s, that he’d come close, reached for cloth, done the first clumsy work before she’d taken over.

The knowledge went through her like warm water.

“She’ll live,” Skylar said, voice rough.

“Head wounds bleed like they mean to scare us to death. The bone’s sound.

She didnae show the wrong signs. I’ll sit her up slow at dawn, check for sick-stomach and black specks in her sight.

We’ll keep her with broth and quiet. She’ll curse me before noon, so I ken she’ll mend. ”

His chest lowered a measure, breath released. “Good.” He looked to the empty bed, nodded once, then stepped nearer, careful not to jar the maid or crowd Skylar—though the room shrank with him in it, the air thickening as if it knew what they were to one another and didn’t quite dare to speak it.

“I sent Cora below,” he said, voice even, iron laid smooth. “Mason’s got her in chains. She says Marcus comes before dawn.” His mouth flattened on the name. “We’ll have to all be ready.”

“Aye, I heard,” Skylar’s fingers found a clean cloth.

She wiped her hands, not for cleanliness but to give herself a task lest she reach for him without leave.

“I’ll inventory what I need in the surgery—vinegar, comfrey, stitches, willow for pain.

I’ll want basins hot and men that can carry without droppin’—”

“Ye’ll have them,” he said. She felt his eyes linger on her a beat longer. When he spoke next, the words were not the ones she expected. “Though, ye can leave now, if ye want to.”

The cloth stilled in her hands. She stared. “What?”

Zander moved away from her to the threshold, and set his palm lightly on the doorjamb, as if he could keep his hands off everything else by holding fast to wood.

His voice stayed low. “Ye’ve held up yer end.

Ye saved me boy. Twice.” His throat worked.

“I stole ye, and I have nay excuse left worth breath. If ye want the road, take it. I’ll send men to see ye safe to the next parish.

I’ll answer for ye with Hamish, and with any man who thinks to take issue.

” A short, raw breath. “Thank ye, Skylar. For every breath he’s taken since ye set foot in here. ”

A crack ran through her from collarbone to belly.

For days she’d dreamt of that word leave .

Of the wind on her face, Daisy’s ears flicking, the road arrowing toward Ariella like a promise.

She’d sworn to herself she would not be owned by this place, this man, the heat that ran under her skin whenever he came near.

But the room pressed its claim. Katie’s bandage white against brown hair, the sound of boots and distant steel, and Zander holding the door as if ready to let the whole world in or hold it all out, whichever she asked.

She heard herself laugh once, a breathless thing that wasn’t amusement. “Ye choose a poor hour to be noble,” she whispered.

“Aye,” he said, jaw ticking. “I’ve a talent for it.”

Her gaze slid to Grayson’s empty bed. The thought of leaving him—of leaving them —with the threat at the hedge and the poisoner in chains and dawn coming like a blade, it all wrenched at something deep and tender she’d tried hard to keep defended.

Ariella’s name flared in her chest. Duty. Family.

Skylar struggled to swallow them all down. “If an ambush comes, ye’ll need more than swords,” she said. “Ye’ll need hands to bind and eyes to see what others didnae.” She lifted her chin. “I’ll stay.”

It cost her to say it and eased her all at once. The decision settled into her bones like a weight set down at last.

He didn’t move. Didn’t lunge or grin or make noise of gratitude. He just let out a breath she could feel from across the room. When he stepped the last pace, his hand rose slow. She met him halfway, because she was done pretending.

It wasn’t messy. Not desperate and biting like it was under the elm. His mouth found hers as if it had been meant to from the start. As if, under all the rough hours and wrong turns, there’d been a straight path laid between them. Warmth and steadiness.

God help her, it felt right .

Her fingers curved into his beard. His palm cupped the side of her neck, thumb angling her just so, a question and an answer in the same breath. The world narrowed to breath and the small sigh she didn’t mean to make; broadened again when he pulled back and pressed his brow to hers.

“Thank ye,” he said, voice roughened, not for what they’d just done but for the thing before it.

“Ye’re welcome,” she managed.

Mason cleared his throat behind them then, Grayson asleep in his arms.

They turned together.

“Sacked,” Mason said, a grin playing at his mouth as he moved into the room without another word.

Skylar moved next, clearing a path for the man to bring the boy to his bed. Zander stood frozen in place.

Grayson had blinked himself into a lucid awareness, brown eyes hazy, connecting with Zander’s just over Skylar’s shoulder. “Da?” the lad whispered, uncertain in the strange hush.

She turned to look at him as well.

“I’m here, wee man,” Zander said, his voice gentling. He stepped forward then, and reached for the boy’s hand. Skylar tucked the blanket closer and took the other, fitting her fingers into his small palm as if she’d been made for just that shape.

“Did I sleep through it?” Grayson asked, brow puckered. “The stranger… the—” His gaze snagged on the bandage at Katie’s head, and his breath hitched. “Is she goin’ to be well?”

“Aye,” Skylar said quickly. “She bonked her head, that’s all. She’ll be cross with me in the morn, which is how I ken she’ll live.”

A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “She is cross when ye make me drink the bitter ones.”

“Well then, tonight ye get the sweet,” Skylar said, letting cheer creep back into her tone.

She unhooked a small vial from her belt.

“Honey with a whisper of thyme. For brave laddies who mind the healer and never ever sneak a sip from cups left alone.” She let the jest sit—the caution slipped inside the sugar.

He made a face and swallowed it anyway. Zander smoothed a hand over his hair, eyes going soft in a way Skylar had learned to love and fear. “Ye were very brave tonight, laddie,” he said.

The boy leaned into both of them without thinking, little body lodging in the space where their arms overlapped. For a breath they stood like that, a small fortress built of three quiet hearts. “Skylar helped me be brave.”

Skylar’s heart warmed, as she watched his exhaustion take hold.

They both eased him back down onto his pillows, and she checked his breath once more, then looked up.

Zander had already lifted his gaze to her, some shared understanding passing between them like the transfer of a weight both were willing to carry for a while longer.

“I’ll send for basins and cloth,” he said. “And men to help with whatever ye’ll need.”

“I’ll have need of needles and oil,” she added, counting in her head. “And that stillroom key ye teased me with?—”

“It’s yers,” he said, quick and sure. Then, softer, “And the keep, while ye remain.”