Page 36 of A Highland Healer Captured (Scottish Daddies #3)

She didn’t trust herself to answer without spilling too much.

Instead she squeezed his forearm once, a firm press that said aye, I’m here, and turned back to tidy the chaos—set the stool upright, gather the spilled satchel, wipe the smear of blood from the floor by the bed.

Ordinary motions to keep her hands busy while her heart found its shape around this new vow.

Stay. Fight. Heal. Later, leave—maybe. But nae tonight.

Behind her, Zander moved to the door and spoke to the men posted there in a low rumble, sending orders down the spine of the keep.

The house stirred; the night deepened; a hawk could’ve flown in through the solar window and perched on the carved lintel, and she would not have been surprised.

War had a way of making rooms feel holy.

Skylar tucked the dirk back into her belt.

It felt different now, less a symbol and more a tool.

She touched the pommel once, as if sealing a pact with herself.

Then she stepped back to the boy’s bedside and sat, letting her shoulder rest for a heartbeat against the laird who stood close enough to lend strength without asking anything in return.

For now, that was enough.

His study smelled of damp wool, tallow, and old vellum. Mason had raked the embers and set two fresh candles on the mantle.

A map of the keep and outbuildings was sprawled across the table. Inked walls and lanes and hedges, a sketch of the elm, the byre, the granaries, the north and west gates. Zander had written half those lines himself years ago. Tonight, they felt like the bones of something he meant to keep alive.

“Again,” he said.

Mason’s big forefinger tapped the west lane. “He rides heavy, or he wants ye to think it. Either way, he’ll funnel men through here. Ye see the bog sign? A smart man keeps to the flagstones. Marcus never was smart—just proud. Pride takes the lane.”

Zander’s jaw worked. “That wall-walk?”

“Four men. Two bows, two spears. Keep ‘em low till I signal. If he’s nae counted them, he’ll walk straight into a rake.”

“And the east hedge?”

“We’ll turn it. Quietly. Tonight. Cut a man’s-width only and pack the brush back. We’ll take ten lads out that way as soon as they come through. Pinch them at the well-head.”

Zander shifted, palms flat on the old oak. “Stable court?”

“Spikes and ropes,” Mason answered without looking up. “Ye ken I like rope. Horses hate it. Men break ankles when they’re too keen and ye’ve tucked a coil under the straw.”

Zander nodded once, short and satisfied in spite of the rage burning his throat. “The granary roof?”

“Two archers,” Mason said, mouth quirking. “The new bairns—quiet ones who ken patience. They’ll have the angle.”

“Aye, good,” Zander said, teeth showing without humor.

Mason’s gaze flicked up, measuring his laird. “Ye want him for yerself.”

Zander didn’t soften his stare. “I’ll have him.”

“Aye.” Mason dragged a small wooden soldier to the well-head and set it sideways. “I’ll hold his dogs while ye slip the chain through his neck.”

Zander studied the lines again, felt them settle into his hands the way a haft did when it belonged there.

He moved pieces around. A wedge of men at the smithy, one by the ash pile, two at the brewhouse door.

He wasn’t thinking of glory, not of any braggart’s tale.

He was thinking of the small bed under the solar window and the boy in it, the slow rise and fall of a chest that had fought too hard for air.

He was thinking of Skylar’s voice, low and sure, “I’ll stay. ”

“Right,” he said at last, and the word was an iron key turning. “Move.”

Mason straightened, rolled his shoulder till it popped. “I’ll set ‘em.”

They gathered the map, the little wooden men clacking into the pouch like seeds. At the door Mason paused. “He’ll bait ye with words,” he said, almost gentle, which was how Zander knew the man feared for him. “He kens where ye bleed.”

Zander’s mouth went thin. “He can try.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed as if he wished to add more, then he just nodded once. “Meet ye in the armory with the captains, when ye’re ready.”

The door clicked shut behind him, and the study flared very quiet. Zander stood alone in the candlelight, hands braced on the table, head bowed. The roar in his blood didn’t quiet, but it changed its shape. He turned?—

—there it was. A sheet of paper on the edge of his desk, weighted by the little iron hawk.

The seal was unpressed, the hand neat. He knew the slant before he touched it.

Skylar.

He didn’t open it. Not yet. He knew what it had to say. Goodbye. He felt the weight of it, the steadiness of that script, the way she wrote even when her heart must have hammered. He set it down with a care that felt like prayer and pulled fresh paper toward himself.

The quill oved quickly.

MacLennan—

No matter what has been sent before, your daughter is in my house by my own making. I will answer it face to face or blade to blade when I can afford to bleed for honor. Tonight, though, I’ve no such luxury.

There is a man coming at midnight who swore to put my son in the ground.

He has been poisoning him these past months, and reason why your daughter is here.

This is the same man who led the strike at my gate the day you heard that I took my men to ground against them.

He wears the name Marcus Hughes of the eradicated O’Brian clan.

Lady Skylar has chosen to stay through the ambush. If I die before I put him down, you’ll know what hand moved against both our houses this night. If I live, I’ll bring her rightly to your table myself when the road is safe. If she chooses to stay further, that choice will be hers, and not mine.

—Strathcairn

He read it once, twice. It was too bare, and he liked it for that. No flourishes. Just truth hammered flat. He folded it, sealed it fast with his signet, and rang the bell.

The door opened at once. A boy half-grown skidded on the rushes, heels squeaking, hair sticking every way it could. “Laird?”

“Ye run?” Zander asked.

“Aye,” the lad said, puffing up, as boys do.

Zander put the letter in his hand. “For Hamish MacLennan. Ye ride hard and straight. Ye dinnae stop for fire or song. If ye’re taken, ye destroy it before ye breathe another breath. Understand me?”

The boy swallowed. “Aye, me laird.”

“If ye deliver it,” Zander added, “ye’ll return with coin and a mare that eats better than I do.”

The lad’s eyes shone. “Aye!” Then, bolder, “Ye’re sure, laird? Sending word to MacLennan… now ?”

“I am.”

The boy clutched the letter like it was a hilt and vanished at a run. Zander heard his feet fling down the stair, then the far-off clatter of the gatehouse being roused, a challenge, the creak of the wicket. Good. Let the glen carry a whisper: Strathcairn sets his jaw once more .

He stood a moment longer in the empty room. Skylar’s letter waited under the iron hawk. He set his palm on it, just for a breath, because there were things a man didn’t say aloud when war was about to cross his lintel. Then he left it there—unopened—turned, and went to dress for a fight.

The armory breathed oil and iron. Ranks of spears gleamed dully; shields slept with their bossed faces to the wall.

The smell steadied him. He shrugged out of his linen, into padded jack and mail, the small ritual marks that turned a father into a weapon.

Mason met him there with captains in tow, breath fogging, cheeks bright.

“West wall set,” Mason said. “Hedge cut and tucked. Rope’s laid. Lads on the granary roof ken to hold.”

“Good.” Zander buckled his sword, tested the bite of the edge with his thumb. It bit, he bled, he liked it. “We let them in. When they’re proud, we close the hand.”

“Aye,” the captains echoed, a low sound like the first roll of a drum.

Zander lifted his shield from its pegs, ran a palm over the old scars.

He thought of Marcus’s mouth, always laughing when a silence would have suited.

He thought of Skylar’s breath against his, the weight of her vow, the heat of her hand when she’d said I’ll stay.

The world narrowed to a path he’d walked before and vowed not to leave until it ended with a head on a spike.

“Arm up,” he said, calm as a man asking for salt at table. “We go to our places. If any man takes a scratch meant for the boy, I’ll have him under every blanket in the keep and feed him out of me own bowl. If any man turns his back, I’ll deal with him myself before dawn can find him.”

The laugh that went through them wasn’t mirth, but it was good. Men tightened straps, kissed talismans, muttered quick bargains with saints they remembered only on bad nights. Mason thumped Zander’s shoulder, hard enough to ring his bones.

“Ye set?” the big man asked.

“Aye,” Zander said, and they stepped out into the night that had finally come to take its turn at his door.