Page 5 of A Highland Healer Captured (Scottish Daddies #3)

T he rain eased to a drizzle by morning, but Skylar’s temper had only grown heavier with each breath.

Pinned across Zander Harrison’s saddle like a prize stag, she’d had every chance to take in the breadth of his shoulders, the unyielding wall of his chest, and the merciless set of his jaw. None of it softened the outrage that scorched her tongue raw.

If he thought dragging her from the road was bold, it was nothing compared to what she wanted to do now which was kick him clean off his monstrous horse and ride Daisy back to MacLennan Keep before her mother’s shrieking reached the rafters.

Instead, she gritted her teeth and waited for her chance.

Suddenly, shadows began to flicker through the trees, first two, then four, then nearly half a dozen. Zander did not so much as lift a hand as the men emerged as though they’d been part of the woods all along, riders in dark cloaks and muted tartans, every one of them armed.

So, he hadnae come alone. Of course nae.

Skylar’s stomach knotted tight and her thoughts ran wild, turning her outrage cold for one fleeting instant, and she twisted sharply in the saddle.

“What if I hadnae been out on the road?” she demanded, her voice carrying over the patter of rain. “What then? Would ye have taken me whole family hostage? Me father, me mam? Tell me, Laird Strathcairn! What carnage did ye plan for the MacLennans, should yer little kidnapping trick have failed?”

The men glanced at her, then at their laird, but none answered. Zander’s arm cinched tighter around her waist, holding her steady without so much as a grunt.

“Yer tongue runs quicker than yer horse, lass,” he said evenly. “Ye’ll tire it out long before ye tire me.”

Skylar huffed, seizing on his indifference like a gauntlet thrown.

“Och, is that so? Well, ye should ken I can talk longer than any priest’s sermon, and louder too.

Me cousin, Ariella, the one who’s on her deathbed, says I can out-chatter the hens at the byre when they’re all at once laying eggs.

And Scarlett, me eldest sister… Lady Crawford, says me mouth’s me sharpest weapon.

I daresay she’s right. I’ve shamed half our cousins into sense with nay more than a sentence. Shall I tell ye about them all?”

Zander exhaled through his nose like a man well used to weathering storms. “Spare me.”

But Skylar did not.

She launched into a relentless litany of Mabel, sweet and steady, with her new husband Campbell.

Then, of Scarlett, sharp and shrewd as any man.

Her father next, who could silence a hall with a glance but never silenced her, and her mother, who carried more opinions than Shioban had keys at her belt.

When she ran out of family, she turned to distant cousins, then neighbors, then the clan dogs. She told the tale of Fergus MacReady’s gout twice, and Bess’s cough thrice.

The men chuckled quietly into their beards, exchanging glances as if they’d stumbled upon a traveling jester instead of a captive healer.

But when they spoke, their words slurred into lilting burrs and clipped vowels she barely caught.

It was a different than the inland Highlands where her clan was.

Too thick and hard for her ear to follow.

They may as well have been muttering spells for all she understood.

Skylar narrowed her eyes, refusing to let the sting of ignorance still her tongue. “What was that? Speak plain if ye dare. Or is that brutish chatter so dull it cannae survive the air up here?”

One of the men grinned, flashing missing teeth, but he said nothing she understood. Another muttered something that drew a ripple of laughter.

Skylar lifted her chin higher. “Och, laugh while ye can. I’ll have me chance, and when I do, ye’ll be sorry ye didnae gag me.”

Zander only squeezed her closer, his voice a growl at her ear. “Let them laugh. They ken who leads, and it’s nae ye, lass.”

Her jaw worked. She’d rather die than sit meek in his arms. So she kept talking.

She first started in on herbs, about how she’d cure their ailments if only they’d let her down for a moment, about the right way to steep yarrow tea, about how MacLennan hounds were better hunters than his men.

She needled, prodded, scolded, and lectured until her throat ached and her voice rasped.

None of it rattled him. None of it even dented his blasted calm.

It was not until that night, the second night, when they camped just west of Oban by the ruins of an old stone keep, that Skylar’s tongue finally stilled.

She sat by the fire, wrapped in her damp cloak, her jaw sore from talking and her heart aching from silence. Around her, Zander’s men spoke in their strange, thick drawls, the firelight throwing their shadows long against the crumbling walls.

This is me chance.

The stones around them were jagged, half-collapsed, full of dark corners where a lass might slip unseen. The men’s laughter rolled loud enough to cover a footfall. The wind whipped through the ruins with a mournful howl, a sound that could swallow a sharp gasp or the scrape of a boot against rock.

She tugged her cloak tighter and glanced at Daisy, tethered a few paces off, her ears flicking at the night air. If Skylar could reach her, if she could mount and slip away before Zander turned his hawk’s gaze back on her…

Her pulse hammered hot in her throat. She had to try.

Her plan set, she bent her head as if for sleep, and waited.

The fire crackled. Men drifted to dice, to flasks, to idle boasts. Her gaze slid to Zander where he sat apart, a hulking shadow against the broken wall, sharpening his blade with steady strokes. His head was bent away from her, and his focus was fixed on steel.

Now!

Skylar eased up to her knees, slow as a cat. The ruin’s wind sang mournfully, covering the scrape of her boots. She slipped back into the shadows, heart leaping with each step closer to Daisy. The mare lifted her head as she approached, ears flicking, but did not whinny.

Skylar’s fingers brushed the rope. She held her breath, worked at the knot with quick, trembling hands until the rising sounds of the men around the fire halted her movements.

She waited there for several long, painfully slow seconds before she recognized the familiar rhythm of their banter once more. Her hands lifted, pulled the rope through the bridle once more.

Just. One. Last. Catch —

“Going somewhere, lass?”

His voice vibrated low behind her, deep as the deepest depths of hell, and before she could even spin, an arm like iron clamped around her waist. She yelped as her feet lifted off the ground, the rope falling from her grasp.

“Put me down!” she shrieked, kicking wildly.

“I just picked ye up,” Zander growled, dragging her back into the shadows. “And ye expect me to drop ye already?”

She writhed with all the force in her body, clawing at his arms, kicking at his shins.

Saints, he was solid as oak.

The world tilted sickeningly as he hauled her against his chest, her heels barely scraping the earth before he tackled her fully, pinning her down in the wet grass.

Skylar gasped at the sudden weight of him pressing her into the ground. His chest was a wall of heat despite the rain, his breath harsh against her ear. Her arms were trapped at her sides, his thighs bracketing her hips with unyielding strength.

“Get off me!” she spat, though the words came out more breathless than she wished.

“Nae until ye’ve gained some sense.” His voice was rough, the storm in it barely leashed.

Her heart thundered. She bucked beneath him, but the effort only pressed her body tighter against his, making her acutely aware of every inch of him. The hard line of his thigh, the strength in his chest, the sheer size that dwarfed her own.

Sweet… bleedin’… hell…

Heat rushed traitorously to her cheeks. This was her captor. The brute who had torn her from her home, who held her prisoner. And yet, her treacherous mind could not stop marking how handsome he was.

The cut of his jaw, darkened by beard. The fierce glint in his grey eyes, close enough she could count the flecks of silver in them.

She squeezed her eyes shut, as if darkness could banish the thought. “Ye’re crushing me,” she muttered.

“Aye,” he said, far too calmly. “That’s the point.”

Her eyes flew open. “Ye — ye savage!”

He arched one brow. “Ye call me a brute often enough. Best I live up to the title.”

Her lips parted in fury, but no words came. Her mind tangled between outrage and an odd, unwelcome awareness of the warmth radiating from him, of how safe she felt despite the danger. It was wrong. Utterly wrong.

His gaze lingered on her face, sharp as if he could read the thoughts she tried desperately to smother. “Ye’re flushed, lass. The cold should’ve chilled that right out of ye.”

“I — I’m furious, that’s all,” she stammered, though her voice betrayed her. “Get off me!”

His mouth quirked at the corner, the barest hint of a smile. “Aye. Fury burns hotter than fire. I like ye better that way.”

Skylar’s pulse skittered. She shoved at his chest again, though her hands were too weak against his strength. “Get. Off.”

“Nae until ye swear ye’ll nae try to run again.”

“I’ll swear nay such thing!”

Zander chuckled low, the sound vibrating through her whole body where it pressed against his. “That’s what I thought.”

The tension between them thrummed hotter than the fire. For one dangerous heartbeat, she feared he might lean closer. That his mouth might claim hers, fierce and demanding. The thought sent a shiver racing down her spine, half terror, half…

He sighed, letting his shoulder droop slightly, then pushed himself upright, hauling her up with him as if she weighed no more than a sack of wool. She staggered and fell into him, flustered.

He chuckled again, the sound sent heat shooting through her veins and it was maddening.