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“OUT YE GO, lass … happy hunting.” Rose opened the shutter, wincing as a blast of freezing air entered. Hazel didn’t appear to notice though, for, with a soft coo of thanks, the owl hopped forward before taking flight into the night.

Rose watched Hazel go. It was part of her daily routine she always looked forward to. The owl flew silent and swift into the star-sprinkled sky, and she found herself envying Hazel her freedom.

Unlike the eagle owl, Rose was very much tethered to the earth.

She lingered at the window for a short while longer, gazing up at the waxing crescent moon that had risen high. It was a clear night, promising a hard frost the following morning.

Yawning, Rose relatched the shutters and turned around. It was getting late. Her brothers had both fallen asleep in front of the hearth, wrapped in sheepskins. However, her father was still awake, his left hand curled around a cup of broth. His gaze was on the fire, his expression pensive.

The cottage was cramped, although Rose was used to living in such close quarters with her kin. She had a wee alcove in one corner, and a sheepskin hanging on the opposite side of the space shielded what had once been her parents’ sleeping area. These days, her father retired there alone.

“I’m off to bed, Da,” she announced. “Is there anything I can get ye first?”

Graham blinked, coming out of his reverie before he glanced her way. “No, lass.”

“Very well … I’ll see ye in the morning then.”

He shook his head. “We’ll be getting up early and will try to be quiet. Don’t fash yerself … stay under the blankets.”

Surprised, for he usually liked her to add fuel to the fire and prepare him and the lads something to eat in the mornings, Rose nodded. “I shall see ye when ye get back then.”

“Aye.”

Rose’s brow furrowed. Her father was in an odd mood tonight. It was as if he wasn’t quite there.

Deciding to let him be, she moved toward her corner. She’d almost reached it when he spoke once more. “I’m sorry, Rose.”

Halting, she glanced over her shoulder, meeting his gaze. “What about, Da?”

He huffed a weary sigh. “Everything, lass. I’ve been a poor father … but I want ye to know that I appreciate all that ye do for us.” He paused then, his green eyes darkening. “We’d be lost without ye.”

Rose’s throat thickened. It was unlike her father to be so sentimental, and she found it both worrying and touching. Moving across to him, she leaned down and placed a kiss on his whiskery cheek. “I love ye, Da.”

“Are the lads ready?”

“Aye.” Knox’s breath steamed in the frigid air as he answered. “We’ve loosened the last of the rocks. Once the MacDonalds reach this end of the gorge, the lads are going to allow the cattle to pass first before they let the rocks fall.”

“They need to time it right,” Graham replied, his gaze surveying the shadowed, deep-sided valley before them.

The sun was about to crest the edge of the hill to the east. He’d chosen this spot carefully.

It was an hour’s ride from Dun Ugadale, and the narrow gorge would force the MacDonalds to spread out along the rocky road, to send their cattle ahead of them.

“The men need to be trapped behind the rockfall, not in front of it.”

“They will be,” Clyde assured him.

The bluff confidence in his youngest son’s voice made Graham scowl. Not for the first time, he wished Rose had been born a lad. Kerr Mackay was a meddling whoreson, yet he was right about one thing: Rose was worth more than any of them.

Guilt tightened his gut then. His daughter deserved better than the life he’d given her.

Once ye sell these cattle at Clachan market, ye’ll be able to make things easier for her, he assured himself. This is a solid plan.

It was also a clever one. Rushing down the gorge, dirks drawn, and fighting the MacDonalds man-to-man wouldn’t be wise.

Duncan and his sons were strong fighters, but the greater risk was that if Graham, and those who joined him, revealed their identities, there would be a price on all their heads.

A rockfall would make it look like an accident.

There would be dust and debris, and some of the MacDonalds would be crushed under rocks.

And while they were dealing with the commotion, Graham and his lads would herd the frightened cattle out of the gorge and push them west, away from Carradale.

And no one would even know it had been them.

A whistle sounded then, twittering like a lark’s call.

It echoed down the cold, still gorge, shattering the dawn silence. Anticipation twisted in Graham’s gut. Finally. After years of struggle, of watching others prosper while his life fell to pieces, he had a chance to even the scales. Not only that, but he would strike a blow against his archenemy.

Duncan MacDonald would taste defeat for once.

Turning to his sons, and marking the same excitement in their eyes, Graham flashed them a grin. “It’s time.”

“This is kind of ye to take so much trouble, Lady Bonnie … thank ye.”

Rose took the basket the laird’s wife passed her, even as humiliation twisted like a blade to the chest. As kind as the gesture was, she’d grown tired of seeing the pity in the eyes of those who brought her food.

Bonnie and Davina were doing their best to hide it, yet she saw their concern.

The three women stood outside the door to the cottage. A frost sparkled around them. Rose had just drawn water from the well in the garden and was carrying it back inside, when she’d spied the two women riding garrons approach.

Irritation had bubbled up within Rose at the sight.

She’d slept in later than intended and was now running late.

Eara would have already lit the large cauldron in her bothy.

Right now, she’d likely be readying the trays of malted barley for the next stage in the ale-making process, and Rose was eager to join her.

She enjoyed working at her friend’s side.

Brewing ale gave her a sense of purpose.

It was hers . At home, she felt like a servant, but with Eara, she was an apprentice alewife.

But now, she’d be very late, and Eara would wonder where she was.

“It’s no trouble at all,” Bonnie replied, her blue eyes studying Rose intently. “We have more than enough food to share. We don’t want ye fading away.”

Rose gave a soft snort. Fortunately, she was of tough farming stock—she was a hardy, sturdily-built lass. Aye, she’d gotten thinner over the past months, but now Rose had survived the winter, she’d fatten up over the warmer months; she always did.

“Aye, well, food has to be shared between the four of ye,” Davina added with an arch look. “And we all know what hearty appetites men have.”

Rose stiffened. Was that a veiled criticism aimed at her menfolk?

Did they think her father and brothers scoffed all the food and left nothing for her?

Her father and brothers could be selfish—and there had been times over the years when she’d wished she’d been born into a different family—but she was as protective of them as a she-wolf over her cubs.

“I get my share,” she finally replied, shattering the uncomfortable silence.

The aroma of sweet buns tickled Rose’s nose then, rising up from the cloth-covered basket. And an instant later, to her embarrassment, her belly gave a loud growl.

Davina gave a soft laugh. “I’d say it’s time ye broke yer fast.”

“Aye.” Cheeks warming, Rose tightened her grip on the basket. “Ye have both been kind to my family,” she said awkwardly. Kinder than yer menfolk have been. “I know Da and the lads are never here to thank ye, but they do appreciate yer generosity.”

Bonnie smiled. “It’s the least we can do, Rose,” she replied, a note of chagrin in her voice now. “Ye live on Mackay lands … and whether or not ye realize it, that makes ye family.”

“Can ye believe Lady Bonnie said we were family ?” Rose glanced up from where she was using a heavy wooden rolling pin to crush malted and kilned barley into ‘grist’ and met Eara’s eye. “Is that what we are?”

Not waiting for her friend’s answer, she clenched her jaw and resumed rolling the barley in long sweeping motions. It was hard labor, although Rose welcomed it today—for irritation pulsed through her. Kneeling on the floor of the alewife’s bothy, Rose crushed the grain upon a large flat stone.

Meanwhile, the alewife’s black cat, Ember, watched Rose with narrowed amber eyes. The over-fed feline hadn’t taken kindly to her daily presence in the bothy and, even months on, treated the alewife’s assistant like an interloper.

A few feet away, Eara sighed and pushed a lock of flaxen hair out of her eyes. The alewife’s cheeks were flushed, as she too had been working vigorously, smashing grist and water into a paste using a large pestle and mortar. “I’m sure Lady Bonnie meant well.”

Shoving herself upright, so that she sat on her heels, Rose scowled. “Really? Family cut off the hand of their own flesh and blood, do they?”

The raw resentment in her voice—as well as the chagrin in Eara’s eyes—jolted her out of her ill-temper.

Don’t be such an ungrateful chit , she berated herself. Bonnie and Davina are lovely women who genuinely care about folk.

Indeed, her family’s ruin wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t fair to take her frustration out on them.

“God’s blood, just listen to me,” she muttered. “If I’m not careful, I’ll end up like my Da.”

“Or like auld Margie Mackay,” Eara added, her tone wry now. “Although Lord knows, the woman has plenty of reasons to be angry … what with her feckless husband and a brood of ungrateful sons.”

Rose scrubbed a hand down her face. “Aye, but she never misses an opportunity to complain about her lot to anyone who’ll listen.” She pulled a face. “I don’t want to turn into someone like that.”