The Love of Her Life (Highlander Heroes Book 6)

by Rebecca Ruger

  Katie realized immediately this enclosure served as the home inside the spacious workshop.

  A man, as long as he was lean, was bent over one of the cots inside, but turned at their entrance, rising quickly to his feet.

  “Here’s Katie Oliver,” Alec said. “She’s in good hands.”

  Katie nodded and smiled only briefly at him, already letting her gaze fall on the young and pale and writhing woman inside the bed, moving toward her instinctively. There was always time, when all was said and done, for pleasantries and introductions.

  Tom Lister said to her as she passed him, “It’s no’ like the others. They was easy.”

  She met the woman’s gaze, tortured and near frantic and skipping every other second to her husband. Another pair of eyes peeked at Katie from the opposite side of the bed, another lad, maybe only three or four. Somewhere inside this chamber a baby wailed.

  Rolling up her sleeves, Katie said, “Alec, take the bairn and the lads into a far corner, or out completely. Tom Lister, come and hold Avrel’s hand.” She bent over Avrel just as her husband appeared and took the hand stretched out to him. Katie touched all around her distended belly, realizing fairly quickly what the trouble was. She smiled kindly at Avrel. “Sometimes the bairns like to come bouncing out, feet first. But we cannot have that, so we’ll be turning him around inside.”

  She pivoted away from the bed, collecting the pouch with the flaxseed oil and caught site of Alec, gingerly lifting the youngest child, barely more than a year old, from a low cradle and into his arms. He held the bawling child at arm’s length, keeping that distance even as he began to move, saying to the older children, “C’mon then, lads,” leading them out of the room. His lips, twisted and pursed, displayed well his unease, at which Katie grinned.

  It was many hours later, long after Katie had spread the flaxseed oil about Avrel’s belly and had worked so tirelessly to manipulate the fetus into the proper position, that the bairn came wailing into the world. When the cord which attached the babe to his mam had been cut, Katie swept him away in a warm cotton blanket to clean him, making note that this was now the fifty-seventh birth she’d attended.

  Avrel was exhausted, her lids drifting down even as she received first, Katie’s praise for how well she’d managed the hard labor, and then her child, her fourth son, into her arms. Tom Lister hovered over the pair while Katie tidied up and washed her own hands thoroughly.

  When Avrel had wept with joy over her healthy child for a few minutes, Katie stepped in and collected the infant, rocking him gently in her arms, that his mother might rest for a while. “I don’t think you’ll be able to hold them off much more,” she said to the very relieved Tom Lister, nodding her head toward the door, where two of his sons had many times peeked in, having to be shooed away.

  “Aye,” he said, his smile large, leaving his wife but briefly to usher in his other children.

  Katie returned her attention to the new babe, so tiny and precious, cooing over him. “Look at you,” she said, “so beautiful and new.” He blinked, barely and slowly, his eyes unable to focus yet. “Oh, but aren’t you handsome.” She lifted him higher in her arms, inhaling the clean and pure scent of a newborn babe, before turning as the two boys burst into the room.

  Alec followed and they faced each other, each of them holding a babe that she smiled at him for this circumstance, and for how blessed this family was. Smiled at him as well for how comfortable he was with the toddler now, after so many hours. The babe was tiny in Alec’s huge arm, his bottom nestled into the crook of Alec’s elbow, leaned against his broad chest. His little face was tipped up to Alec’s, the lad’s bright brown eyes rapt as they stared at the big man holding him.

  Alec returned her smile. She wasn’t as startled by the smile itself, though she’d seen them rarely upon him, but for the way it reached his eyes, crinkling the tanned and weathered skin at the corners. Inside the depths of those remarkable hazel orbs, he seemed well pleased, and Katie thought it was lovely to see true joy in him.

  They stayed for yet another hour, with Alec keeping those active lads well-entertained and Katie fussing over Avrel and her new bairn. The older boys were more excited for Alec’s presence, Katie was sure, than the arrival of their new sibling, pouting and fretting when Alec said they must return to Swordmair.

  “If you need anything at all,” Katie told Avrel just before they’d left, “please send the lad again to Swordmair. I can be here within an hour.”

  None of the urgency employed during their ride to Spotswood was needed upon their return to Swordmair that Alec only set the steed into a leisurely jog. Katie sat before him, grinning yet over the scene they’d left behind, that happy family in that cozy home.

  “How blessed they are,” she said, yesterday’s unfortunate episode with Alec forgotten now as they had this experience to share.

  “Aye, and rightly so. Tom is a good man, solid as any.”

  “He’s so patient with those boys—as were you,” she said.

  “Aye, but I dinna mind telling you, Katie, that was no good time, trying to get the wee one to settle.”

  She turned her face into this chest, grinning. “How did you finally manage it?”

  “Let him play with my sword,” he said.

  “Alec!”

  She felt a chuckle rumble along his chest. “Nae, I did no’. Bouncing first, I dinna ken what else to do. But then Robert, the eldest, said his mam sang to him. That seemed to work.”

  Katie’s eyes widened. “You sang to a babe?”

  “Aye, I did.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  And now a shrug was felt.

  “Hm, I wouldn’t have guessed you would even know any songs.”

  “I do,” he replied. “Aye, but their mostly bawdy or bloody soldiering songs. Changed a few words, he dinna mind.”

  “I’m impressed. “ And she was, with this entire day, and the revelation that was Alec MacBriar. Smiling, and making that quip about the sword, and now revealing that he’d lulled a baby to calmness with song. She faced forward again, a slow and thoughtful smile coming, wondering what other secret and remarkable abilities he might possess.

  The animal beneath them leapt across a small dip in the terrain, causing Katie to grab onto Alec’s forearm at the same time he tightened his arm around her. When the ground was level again and the ride smooth once more, Katie kept her hand on his arm.

  VERY CURIOUS, ALEC thought, how yesterday’s heated irritation had been so easily cleaved from his mind, that he was bothered not at all by what danger she’d put herself in, how far she’d travelled by foot and alone, nor by the lingering disturbance that she’d responded so eagerly, so damn bewitchingly to his touch and his kiss but would allow him no more.

  All that faded, replaced now, with that image of her holding the Lister bairn.

  When Tom had opened the door, finally allowing his sons to return to the chamber, Alec had peered into the room. He’d been rendered mute and motionless at the sight that had greeted him. Katie with that babe in her arms, cooing over him, her voice so musical with joy, her smile so splendid, had overwhelmed him. He couldn’t, at the exact moment, know all that gushed through him, was only aware of a warmth and a craving that was not sexual, that came only at the sight of her unbridled happiness, her very delight and how natural she was with that minutes-old babe.

  Of course, he’d witnessed smiles and delight in her, mostly centered around her own son, and shown more often since she’d come to Swordmair, but this...this had been remarkable, so pure was her pleasure for these complete strangers and now, this bairn. Alec had thought she was more alive in that innocent and blissful moment than he’d ever been aware. His body had reacted instantly, with open admiration and a suddenly euphoric mood.

  He examined this a bit as they rode. He understood that he often responded to her, to the sight or the sound of her, knew reactions to her moods or her words or sometimes just the way she looked. This was somehow diffe
rent, he decided, wondering if he had felt joy merely at the sight of hers.

  Was that possible?

  Never mind that the image of her, holding that bairn, had indeed triggered some emotion, unnamed and unknown, to course within in. Jesu, if he didn’t know better, he’d have called it longing.

  His continued musings were interrupted by a long shiver from her.

  “Time to retire the shawl, lass,” he said. “It’ll be your cloak from here on out.”

  “But not until I mend it yet again,” she said over her shoulder.

  With that, Alec pulled the loose plaid from over his back, leaving the front yet tucked into his belt. He flapped it out to remove all the folds that it billowed in the wind as they moved, and then drew it forward, around the front of her.

  She accepted it eagerly, tucking her slim shoulders inside, and said, “Thank you,” just as another shiver wracked her, so that it seemed only a kindness to press himself more closely against her, sharing all his warmth.

  “It’s late,” he said when Swordmair and its fine towers came into view sometime later. He didn’t loosen his hold, letting his hand rest yet intimately around her middle. “Right to the hall for supper?”

  She shook her head against his chin. “I cannot. Mayhap I’ll fetch something later. I was promised to several other people today before we were called away.”

  “Katie, you have to eat.”

  Her tone light, she asked, “Do you put aside all the needs must things, only because the hour says it’s time to eat?”

  Nae, he did not. “Aye, I’ll tell mam to put a trencher aside.”

  With that, he angled toward the village then, and deposited her in front of her cottage.

  When they stood beside the huge destrier, and her pouches were now held in one hand by all the different drawstrings, Katie shyly tucked strands of her windblown hair behind her ear. But she faced him, her cheeks heightened with color, her eyes extraordinarily blue under the still-gray sky.

  “It was kind of you to stay with me all the day, at the Listers.”

  “Aye,” he accepted and added, thoughtfully. “I’m glad I did.”

  “Good day, then.”

  “Aye.”

  Only now was her smile a wee bit nervous, he thought, before she turned and opened that blue door, disappearing within.

  It’s no’ finished.

  Whatever it was that lie between them, whatever warmed his blood and gripped his chest whenever she was near, it wasn’t finished.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When full dark came, Katie set aside her work and ducked out of her cottage, disappearing into the night. She’d bundled her cloak, linen towel, her nightrail, and a new ball of soap—a gift from the mistress herself, strangely having come with a nodding smile and the admonition, “Ye ken the lads all like their lasses to smell like the heavens, but rose oil and cloves will have to do.”

  Henry had found her this evening, brimming with his usual excitement, telling her that Malcolm had given permission that he could spend the night in the soldiers’ barracks. Katie herself had been inside that part of the keep, which flanked the gate on either side, when she’d tended Simon when he’d had a fever. The barracks were dark and narrow and smelled of sweat and other things she’d not want to inhale all through the night, but they were also relatively neat and there had seemed to be plenty of room, that she could not refuse him.

  Thus, she’d decided on a quick bath in the loch, having been assured by Agnes and even her daughters that persons regularly availed themselves to such simplistic luxury, though more often in the summer. She’d been tempted to take a leisurely bath inside her cottage, without having to dunk herself in the same heated water Henry had just used, but found herself too tired once more, lacking the energy for several trips to and from the loch to fill the tub. She’d be quick in the loch, so nervous that someone might stumble upon her, though Agnes had given directions to the entrance to the loch where only the women were allowed, a shallow spot with a good natural entry, had promised her that she’d never encountered a man in that section. She’d purposefully left Boswell in the cottage, that he didn’t get up to any nonsense that might only serve to alert any nighttime wanderer of her activities.

  She found the location easily enough, and with numerous nervous glances into the nearby darkness, she’d stripped quickly and walked straight into the water. It was much colder than she anticipated, as she’d thought at least it would feel warm in the chilly night air. Only a residual fear of being discovered moved her deeper and deeper into the water, until it covered her up to her neck. She washed speedily, minus those several times she brought the soap to her nose again, so intrigued by the sweet scent.

  When the cold began to permeate deeply, Katie finished up with the bath and exited the water. Her bare feet slid on the dewy grass here. She caught herself and dried her body with the thick linen, with less effort to be dry than simply non-dripping that she might don her nightrail. She’d only belatedly thought to bring her shawl, imagining that she’d seem naught but a ghost carousing about, if seen in only her nightclothes.

  Her feet rather sloshed inside her boots, being still wet and without hose, that she slid twice while dashing back to her house. Hugging her belongings to her as she rounded the corner, she trimmed her steps lest she find herself on her face in the dirt of the road.

  Katie was brought up short, spying a person on the roadway, in the next instant recognizing that Alec MacBriar was approaching her blue door. She’d gone still upon noticing him, only hung back in the shadows near Agnes’s house, waiting to see what he was about.

  He held something in his hand, she saw, but could not identify it.

  Biting her lip, she first frowned and then her eyes widened as she watched. To her astonishment, it seemed he lifted his hand to rap on the door but then stopped himself. He took one long step backward and stood still for several seconds before moving forward again to approach the door. Katie’s jaw dropped when she saw him shake his head and then with greater purpose raise his fisted hand to knock at the door.

  Of course there would be no answer. Boswell barked from within, but that was all. It didn’t dawn on her at that moment to announce her presence—didn’t even dawn on her to conceal herself further. She was simply astonished at this uncharacteristic behavior. She wasn’t sure why this struck her as so endearing, his hesitation. Honestly, she’d not have ever suspected him to fall prey to any faltering or indecision. He was always so sure of himself. To actually second guess himself or his actions—as he’d just appeared to do—Katie was just stunned.

  Rather dazed by this enlightenment, she stepped away from the shadows.

  HE COULD ONLY IMAGINE that she was yet about some business with a person in need. Where else might she be? Alec acknowledged a large portion of disappointment at her absence from home at this hour. He spun on his heel, resigned to seek her out tomorrow instead.

  But there she was, once again behind him, watching him. She stood on the narrow and well-trod road, not directly in front of her own cottage, but the one next to it, as if she’d been surprised to come upon him at her door.

  For a moment, they only stared at each other. She’d come from the loch, he surmised easily, her hair wet and loose, the skirts of a gauzy nightrail visible beneath her shawl, which draped only to the top of her thighs, her sturdy boots caked with scrapes of mud. She held her folded, discarded gown in her hands.

  Absently, intrigued by the sight of her not-quite-but-almost state of undress, he lifted his hand. His explanation followed rather belatedly while she continued to regard him so inscrutably.

  “I’d nearly forgotten—had forgotten for a while, that is—that I owed you a gown.”

  She stepped forward but said nothing. Just one step and then two, a pause.

  “I’d meant to give it to you earlier.” As if this explained his impolite late night visit.

  She moved again, rather rushing past him, pushing open the blue door. She walk
ed straight in, didn’t close the door, didn’t stand in the threshold, barring him entrance, or intent on seeing the back of him with some genuine but possibly dismissive gratitude.

  Boswell came to greet him, tail wagging, sniffing Alec’s boots.

  He followed her inside.

  “You owe me nothing, as well you know,” she said, her voice not unpleasant.

  He wasn’t sure if he concurred with that, thought he had some making up to do yet. She knelt at the hearth, worked to liven the small blaze within, hadn’t said thank you and goodnight.

  Alec closed the door, leaning his back against it. He thought it best to wait here, not wanting to take any further advantage of the fact that she was not demanding he leave. He let his eyes wander around the house while her back was yet turned to him. The tabletop was crowded, seeming to lodge three or four different projects at once; strips of fabrics including some lace; a few messy piles of seeds and dirt-encrusted roots; what he assumed was a constant, her mending pile; and, directly in the center sat Henry’s shoes, soles facing upward, revealing the shredded leather in need of attention.

  He’d sent Aymer down shortly after she’d come, had him introduce Ben Carpenter, who’d built her a sturdy work counter on the south side wall. She’d wasted no time putting it to use, the shelves and surface cluttered already. In the far corner, in a similar circumstance to the layout of her previous house, the bed had been set. It was draped now as it had been before, in that earthen wool coverlet. Over the short footboard post hung several different pouches and drawstring bags and on the wall over the middle of the mattress she’d tacked a few hooks, which seemed now to be employed as a drying rack, with several long and unknown plants hanging there, in varying stages of dead and dying.

  She bounced up off her haunches, turning as she rose, facing him.

  He extended his hand, and the linen wrapped garment.

  He thought her quite gracious, unexpectedly so, when she strode easily toward him and accepted it.