Page 16 of So Close To Heaven (Far From Home #11)

The young soldier’s breathing had grown shallow, his lashes sinking lower with each blink.

Ivy sat crossed leg beside his pallet, smoothing a strip of damp, cool linen over his brow.

His fever had broken sometime in the last few hours, and now he hovered in that thin place between waking and sleeping.

“You’re going to be just fine,” she murmured, though she had no way of knowing it. He gave a faint grunt of acknowledgment before drifting off, his lips parting with a small sigh. She set the cloth aside a few minutes later, quietly pleased that he’d managed to find rest.

Yesterday, when she’d returned from the loch with her hands raw from lye and essentially soaked through from the waist down, Tàmhas had been the one to meet her.

She’d braced herself for wariness or coolness, but the gruff surgeon had studied the neat stacks of drying and dried bandages and had given her a short nod of approval.

He hadn’t merely dismissed her, though, but had directed her with a kind of brisk patience, where to lay them, which size strips were best for which wounds.

His manner was still clipped, but there was warmth under it now, as though she’d passed some unspoken test.

This morning, he’d greeted her with a nod, which felt rather friendly to Ivy, so that she found herself inquiring if he could use an extra set of hands.

If he were surprised by the offer, he didn’t let it show, but he was certainly agreeable and soon enough, he was barking out orders at her as if she were simply another grunt in the MacKinlay army—“More water, lass. Bring a fresh cloth. Hold this steady.” Not once did he question her presence, and once, when she managed to anticipate what he needed before he asked, she thought she’d caught the faintest glimmer of a smile in his beard.

It wasn’t much, but to Ivy, who had felt nothing but alien here, it was something. A foothold, anyway.

When she was certain the young soldier she’d been tending would rest soundly for a while, she rose from his side and shifted to the next pallet, where another man lay awake.

He couldn’t have been much older than she was — maybe mid-twenties, if that — with a boyish face under the scruff of a few days’ beard.

His arm was bound in fresh linen, and he looked pale but alert.

She crouched beside him and adjusted the linen around his shoulder, tucking in a loose end.

His eyes lit faintly. “Ye’ve a gentle touch, lass,” he said, his voice hoarse but eager. “Better than Tàmhas, anyway. Hands like an ox, he has.”

Ivy smiled. “Tender care is not his job—saving lives is.”

The man gave a wheezy laugh, then winced, clutching at his side. “Aye, speak on the right side, lass. Safer, that.” His gaze lingered on her face, wide-eyed and far too admiring for someone in his condition.

“I’m Ivy,” she offered, realizing she hadn’t introduced herself.

“Malcolm,” he returned quickly, as though pleased she’d asked. “Malcolm Boyd. Where’d ye come from? I dinna recall ye ever.”

Ivy shifted, averting her gaze. “From around the Loch Katrine area,” she said, having since decided this was a reasonable and vague answer. “But I was only there the last year. Prior to that, I’m from very far away.”

“Nae south? England?”

“No. Much further. West.” Several times today, she’d adeptly shifted a man’s focus from her to him. She did the same now. “Does it hurt very much?” she asked, nodding toward his arm.

He shrugged, glancing down at it. “Hurts, aye,” he admitted, so casually she might have thought pain a familiar companion. Then his mouth curved. “But less when ye speak. Ye’ve a voice soft as a balm.”

Ivy had always considered herself pretty enough, though never beautiful. Still, she’d drawn her fair share of attention from boys and men over the years, and long ago had learned that humor was the gentlest rejection.

She grimaced playfully. “Wow. How long did it take you to come up with that cheesy line?”

The soldier grinned despite the effort it cost him, his gaze lingering far too boldly on her. “Nae a fib, lass.”

She gave a weak laugh, dismissive, and pressed her palms to her thighs as if to push herself upright. “Rest now. Talking won’t help you heal.”

He obeyed, sinking back into his pallet, though his eyes stayed fixed on her even as his lids grew heavy.

Just then, a prickle ran along the back of her neck.

Before the sensation fully registered, a hand closed rough around her arm and she was pulled to her feet with effortless strength. The suddenness of it wrung a short yip from her until she realized it was Alaric, who proceeded to drag her away from the soldier’s pallet.

“What are you—?” she gasped, trying to twist free.

He didn’t answer.

“Hey!” she protested further, her head spinning as he marched her out of the infirmary.

Malcolm blinked in alarm as she was manhandled out of the room, but of course could not or would not rise. Murmurs rippled through the room, the other men watching.

Ivy’s cheeks flamed.

Alaric wrenched her into the corridor.

He spun so suddenly she almost collided with him. The corridor walls closed around them, dim and narrow, his body towering over hers. His eyes were dark, as hard as bronze in the dim light, terrifying in their intensity.

“If ye’ve any sense at all, woman,” he growled, “ye’ll ne’er speak the madness again, nae that dangerous drivel ye fed to me yesterday.

Nae to me, nae to my men, nae to anyone.

Ye ken my reaction was brutal? Ye’ve nae notion what some men might do upon hearing such witch-talk—that devil’s prattle will earn ye a rope, or worse. ”

Ivy’s heart thudded in her chest while tears pricked her eyes, hot and humiliating.

His grip on her arm was rock solid, his voice fierce enough to shake her bones. The fierceness in him was overwhelming, frightening—and yet she bristled at being manhandled like a misbehaving child.

His eyes were fixed on hers, and his lip curled. He gave her arm a small, sharp shake. “Tears willna save ye.”

The words landed like a slap. For an instant she was stunned, then fury surged.

He thought she was pretending— pretending to cry —to win sympathy?

She shoved herself up onto her toes, forcing herself closer to his height.

She was still several inches short of his chin, but she glared at him all the same.

She yanked her arm free of him, snapping a linen strip she still held in her fist. The motion was meant to be sharp, decisive, but the cloth only floated to the ground in a pathetic drift. She ignored it, standing stiff and defiant.

“I knew it was a gamble telling someone,” she hissed, her voice ragged with hurt.

“I had some foolish idea you would have reacted differently—maybe with a shred of compassion. I wasn’t looking for judgment, or accusation, or even—” Her voice cracked; her chin quivered despite her effort to hold it firm.

“I’m lost and scared and simply needed guidance, or.

.. or someone to help me make sense of it.

Or Christ—just a way to get hold of a midwife! ”

Her hands flew as she spoke, wild and angry, dissecting the air between them. His expression didn’t soften. He looked as ferocious as ever, and suddenly Ivy had had enough.

“Actually, you know what? I don’t need anything from you after all. I’m sorry I ever said a word. I didn’t make it up, but I should have kept it to myself.” She spun on her heel, stomping away down the corridor, her heart hammering, glad for once to be the one leaving him .

“Where the bluidy hell are ye going?” His voice thundered after her.

“Away from you!” she snapped, tossing the words over her shoulder just as she marched into the hall.

Every head turned. Dozens of eyes followed her progress across the crowded infirmary, men’s gazes bouncing between her and Alaric like spectators at a tennis match. She lifted her chin and strode on, her fury carrying her forward.

Behind her, his voice lashed again. “Ye’re a fool. Ye’ll nae last half an hour by yerself.”

“I’ll revel in every minute past thirty that I prove you wrong!” she hollered back, her voice breaking but strong enough to carry.

The priory’s front door stood open, and she marched through it without slowing, the sudden daylight a blinding relief.

She didn’t know where she was going, only that she certainly didn’t want to be around him.

Honestly, she didn’t even care that he didn’t believe her—she didn’t blame him; it was a lot to wrap one’s brain around—but geez, his very public heavy-handedness, his overblown anger—that caveman act, all snarls and rage—were really too much.

Alaric MacKinlay was indeed a brute, a wall of fury and iron who seemed to think barking louder made him right.

Maybe it worked on his men, but it wasn’t going to fly with her.

She might be stranded in his century, barefoot and pregnant for all intents and purposes, and dependent on his grudging protection, but she still had her dignity.

And he simply had no right to treat her so harshly.

***

Alaric stood rooted as she stormed across the hall, his chest tight with fury. The men’s heads turned with her, whispers pricking the air, and though he could not make out their words, his lip curled with fury all the same.

What manner of game did she play? Why invent such a tale as she had yesterday, so wild and implausible, unless to unsettle him?

He had thought her strange from the first, aye—with her odd speech and queer clothing—but still, he had counted her mortal, flesh and blood, no different from any other woman.

In truth, her expectant state aside, he had deemed her irrelevant.

Harmless. Yesterday’s revelation had struck him like a mace to the skull, so hard he could scarce think past the madness of it.