by Paula Quinn
He bent to pick her up and she smiled, looking at him. “Dinna wear yer hood, Papa,” she whispered close to his ear.
His worried scowl melted into a smile looking into her big brown eyes. How could she make him forget his fears for a moment with a word he never thought he’d hear spoken to him again? Papa.
“Mummy’s friends Murron and Bridget often complain aboot it,” she continued, exchanging her interest in his hood for her doll. “They think ye’re handsome. Mummy thinks so too.”
He lifted his hand to push back his hood. “Well, if they think I’m—”
The villagers were gathering in front of the home of Ennis MacKenzie, a cousin several times removed—as were most who lived here. They were his kin, and he had forgotten them. He’d given up everyone because he was afraid to feel again.
But Mailie kicked his fear in the face, and finally, he was on his way back. She’d done so much for him. She wouldn’t have left.
What was going on here? Why were they all gathered?
When the crowd saw him approaching, toting wee Lily Monroe and her doll in his arms, and his hood sweeping off his head, they grew silent and wide-eyed.
For a moment he thought of turning back. He’d been alone for so long…but he had to find Mailie. He sought her out among the faces like a lovesick lad.
He found Ruth and went to her. “Have ye seen Mailie?” When she shook her head, his heart sank to his boots. “What’s going on?”
“Ennis’s horse was stolen early this morn.”
“We havena had any thievin’ here in years,” Brodie MacKenzie called out.
Lachlan’s stomach churned and knotted. Had Mailie stolen the horse? It had to have been her. If she wasn’t here, then where was she? No one had broken into his castle and stolen her from his bed. She’d left with Ettarre and then procured a horse for her journey.
His heart skipped beats and made him blow out a few deep breaths. She’d left a few hours ago. How long would it take him to find her? She was on her way to Caithness, no doubt, either to Sinclair in a foolish but admirable attempt to hand herself over in exchange for Annabel’s whereabouts—or to her kin because that was always her intention. To get away from him and go back to them.
“What are we goin’ to do aboot my horse, Laird?” Ennis asked him, pulling his attention back.
“I’m certain it will turn up,” Lachlan assured him. “I’ll search fer it myself. If I canna find it, I’ll replace it.”
“Och, nae!” Ennis held up his palm. “I dinna expect ye to replace my horse. Ye’re no’ responsible fer this.”
But Lachlan likely was. Besides, he wasn’t going to search for the horse. He was going to search for Mailie, but he couldn’t tell them that. “I know, but I’m told by Ruth that ye supply the figs I enjoy so much. I dinna know how ye produce crops this early, but keep it up.”
That wasn’t so difficult, he thought, turning away. Even Lily was smiling.
He spotted Charlie Fraser, and the messenger immediately came forward and handed him back his letter.
“I came by the castle after I returned from Wick,” he said quietly while everyone continued conversing. “Ye were no’ at home. I couldna find the earl in Caithness,” Charlie told him in a hushed tone. “The whole town was shaken by a band of MacGregors on the warpath lookin’ fer the earl.”
Ruth covered her mouth with her hands to muffle her cry. “Did the MacGregors hurt the people of the town?” She looked around Lachlan and furrowed her brows at him as if she’d just noticed Mailie still hadn’t appeared beside him.
“I was told they made threats mostly,” Charlie told her. “I left Caithness at aboot the same time the MacGregors did. Angus and some of the other boys said they heard they were as close as Dingwall.”
Lachlan swallowed and put Lily down. His arms felt heavy, his legs, too weak to stand. She’d known her kin would go to Caithness. She’d timed it perfectly. He wanted to shout it until the hills went flat. Was she finally free of him? What about Will and Lily? Why would she go back to her kin and not tell him? Because she wasn’t coming back. No. No, she wouldn’t…
“What if they come here?” Ruth asked him, pale and trembling. “Everyone here would fight fer ye, Lachlan.”
He didn’t want them to. They were mostly fishermen not warriors. They wouldn’t last long against the MacGregors. He also didn’t want any MacGregors injured or killed. They were Mailie’s kin, men she loved.
He held up his hands and waited until the crowd grew quiet. “I’ve just been informed that the MacGregors of Skye are in the area in search of the Earl of Caithness. If they come to Avoch, no one, under any circumstances except to save his or her own life, is to lift a weapon to them. They are men of honor and willna hurt ye if ye dinna try to fight them. Ye are to send them to me. Aye?”
“Aye,” they all agreed.
He bid them good day and not to worry and then pulled Ruth to the side alone. “I canna find Mailie,” he told her in a hushed voice. “I think she took Ennis’s horse.”
“Och, Lord help us!” Ruth crossed herself.
“I think she’s headin’ fer Dingwall to catch up with her kin.”
“Why?” Ruth cried, reaching up to touch her fingers to his face. “The instant they discover it was ye, they’ll come here to kill ye fer certain.”
He shook his head. “She willna bring them here. She willna put the children in harm’s way.”
“What aboot puttin’ ye in harm’s way? I thought she cared fer ye, but if she left to go to them…”
He thought of Mailie’s arms and legs coiled around him last eve, her mouth, as hot and hungry as the rest of her.
“She willna put me in harm’s way either,” he added with a reassuring smile he didn’t completely feel.
“Have ye found Mummy, Papa?” Lily called out and then spread her solemn gaze over the faces of her neighbors.
“Ah,” he heard Ruth sniffle behind when he turned to Lily. “I see now. They’re yers.”
He nodded. “They’re mine.
“No, Lily, not yet,” he said, bending to gather her in his arms. “But dinna fear.” He paused, reluctant to speak the promise, but he did. “I will find her.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
She was a few hours ahead of him. She shouldn’t be difficult to find, Lachlan thought, following tracks from the village. That was if she hadn’t already met up with her family. The chances of that were slim. Lachlan hoped to reach her first and find out what the hell she was doing. Was she running? What about Lily? What about the night she shared with him? He wanted to ask her if any of it was real. Did she love him? He wanted answers. He needed them so he’d know what to do next.
Because, presently, he had no idea.
Soon, her tracks blended in with dozens of others. He cursed the day as he rode a borrowed horse through the towns and villages he came across on his way toward the Cromartie Firth. There weren’t many, and there was no sign of her in any of them.
He was thankful Ruth had agreed to stay with the children. She’d begged him not to go, but he had to.
He hadn’t tarried in any of the villages, nor had he asked any questions. He looked for her and then he left.
Urquhart was different. There were MacGregors in Urquhart—his territory.
Lachlan came upon them on the road. He recognized General Marlow and he guessed the giant hound coming toward him was Ettarre’s sibling, which meant the Highlander with hair as black as the dog was Adam MacGregor, Mailie’s cousin.
He slowed his mount. Now wasn’t the time for confessions or fighting. What were they doing here if she’d gone back to them? Had she gone north to Caithness and Sinclair, as he’d first feared? His blood went cold. Had he gone the wrong way, followed the wrong tracks? Was she in danger?
“Greetings, Goliath,” he whispered to the tall hound when it grew closer, reaching him first.
Hearing its name coming from the stranger perked up Goliath’s ears. The hound hurried the re
st of the way but stopped when commanded by Adam MacGregor.
“Apologies, stranger,” MacGregor called out, trotting his mount forward. He carried a claymore and a pistol tucked into his belt. He wore his coal-colored hair to his shoulders and tied at the temples into a knot at the back of his head. His skin was the color of alabaster, and his eyes were pale blue-gray wreathed in thick black lashes. They narrowed on Lachlan. “He doesna usually run off to others.”
General Marlow approached from the left. Lachlan slipped his gaze to him and noted his weapons. A claymore, two daggers, and two pistols. Marlow was older than Adam by several years, with more experience in his flinty gaze.
“Lachlan MacKenzie of Avoch,” he introduced himself, omitting his titles to avoid suspicion about what he was doing traveling alone.
“Adam MacGregor and General Daniel Marlow of Skye,” Adam replied with a nod toward the general.
“General,” Lachlan said, “I’ve heard of ye and yer loyal service to the queen and the realm. Ye have my admiration.”
Marlow nodded his head. Adam grinned, flashing perfect teeth. He seemed friendly enough, but there was something quiet and deadly about him. “Ye’re a long way from Avoch.”
“I’m traveling to Sutherland to visit my betrothed,” Lachlan told him, and agreed with him when Mailie’s cousin spoke about it being a good trip.
“Ye’re a long way from Skye,” Lachlan countered, still smiling.
“Aye.” MacGregor’s eyes pierced him like flame-tipped arrows. They roved over his scar and then dipped to Goliath when the dog let out a slight cry, staring up at Lachlan. “We’re lookin’ fer a man who kidnapped one of our lasses.”
“Kidnapped,” Lachlan said, shaking his head. If she was in Sinclair’s hands right now, it was his fault. “A dreadful thing indeed.” He should tell them the truth—tell them where he was going next. They could come and help him rescue her, or try to fight him and lose. But he didn’t want to fight them.
“Indeed,” General Marlow agreed. “But thankfully she has returned to her father. We search now for the man who abducted her.”
What? Had Lachlan heard him right? Then, she’d found them? He was too late? Hell, being with her father was better than being with Sinclair. But it felt as if his heart had just been torn from his chest and flung to the ground.
“That’s good news, General.” Somehow he managed to keep his smile intact.
“Aye, we’re glad she was able to escape.”
“Aye, escape.” Lachlan’s mouth went dry. His hands shook, holding tight to his reins. She’d finally escaped him. Had she planned it all along? He felt like he needed to leap from the saddle and run. Run and never stop. “She didna tell ye who took her or why he would do such a terrible thing?”
MacGregor’s raven brow dipped slightly over his curious gaze. “Where did ye say ye were from again?”
“Avoch.”
“Which is where?”
“Just off the coast of the Moray Firth,” Lachlan told him, trying to settle his nerves and appear as if his insides weren’t on fire and his heart wasn’t going up in flames. Again.
He must have succeeded, because MacGregor finally nodded. “’Tis a long way to travel. Tell me, do ye recall seein’ a beautiful red-haired lass with bright green eyes and a will of iron in the custody of a man?”
Her cousin had described her well. Lachlan wanted to look away to conceal his expressions while he denounced knowing her and deceived the men she loved. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t reveal anything other than polite regret. If he gave them the slightest cause to suspect him, they’d fight. And the way he felt right now, he might seriously hurt them.
“No,” he answered. “There was no one like her in my village.”
There was no one like her in his life. She’d pushed her way into his heart and won it for herself. He thought he’d won hers as well.
Was she coming back?
Should he continue to search for her and risk his life by putting it at her father’s feet?
“Nae matter,” MacGregor told him. “My uncle visits Wick as we speak to see a man who knows exactly where the culprit hides.”
Lachlan’s stomach dropped. Robert Graham, emissary to the Earl of Caithness.
“Well, we must be off,” MacGregor said with an exaggerated sigh, as if he’d rather be doing anything but this. “We’ve a bastard to find and kill.”
Lachlan watched them go for a moment, knowing now what he had to do.
“Come, Goliath!” MacGregor called out, and the hound, still staring up at Lachlan on his mount, finally took off with a bark.
The dog knew. It smelled Ettarre on him. Lachlan was glad the hound couldn’t speak.
Turning his mount back toward the firth, Lachlan snapped his reins and let his mount fly. He tried not to think of Mailie, or the children, or the MacGregors. He just moved, getting far enough away to turn his mount without being seen.
She had to come back. She was the light, the fire that sparked his heart back to life. What would he become without her?
He thought of the other two faces he had fallen in love with. His children. He would become a father, with or without her.
He finally brought his horse around and headed home from another direction. There was no more time for Mailie.
They were coming, and he wasn’t home.
Not again.
Adam watched his dog catch up to him, and then he set his gaze on MacKenzie riding away toward the water. Adam knew Goliath well. As a matter of fact, out of all who lived in Camlochlin, he spent most of his time with his dog. Unlike his sisters Ettarre and Risa, Goliath didn’t like strangers and wouldn’t hesitate to sink his fangs into someone’s flesh. “What is it?” he asked the hound when it reached him. “Why did ye tarry with him?”
“Adam,” Marlow called out impatiently, “quit talking to your dog and let’s go!”
Adam lifted one side of his mouth in a slow smirk. “So what if he’s my sister’s husband?” he told Goliath. “Ye should bite him fer such insult. A nibble wouldna hurt.”
He gave one last look at the stranger growing smaller in the distance and followed his brother-in-law out of Urquhart.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mailie opened her eyes. Lachlan? A thought that stole her breath. She blinked slowly, as if coming from the depths of her deepest dreams. Where was she? Was she home? Was she dreaming still?
“Mailie?” Her mother’s frantic voice startled her. “Mailie!” She smiled like a vision from Mailie’s slumber and then ran for the door. “Tristan!”
Mailie saw her brother rise from a chair in the shadows, “Luke,” she whispered, her heart warming on him.
He paused and then continued to her side. “Welcome back, little sister.”
Mailie’s thoughts began to clear and her heart, along with her head, began to pound. What happened? How was she home? Where was Lachlan? Lily? Will? No! No! She couldn’t be on Skye!
“Where are they?” She tried to sit up in her bed. Her bed. Her room in the large manor house the Grants had helped her father build when they left Campbell Keep. She closed her eyes and whimpered. Had she dreamed them? No! They were real. Lachlan was real.
“Mailie,” her brother whispered, dipping his gaze to the ground, unable to look at her. “Fergive me.”
Her throat closed up. This wasn’t his fault. She didn’t want him to suffer any more for this. “There’s nothin’ to fergive. I wouldna change anything—”
Her mother hurried to her and tried to settle her back down. “There now, my dearest love,” she soothed in her gentle, motherly voice that Mailie had ached to hear again. Her eyes were swollen and red. Her nose looked raw from wiping it.
“Mother,” Mailie whispered on a ragged breath. “I’m so sorry.”
Isobel Fergusson’s beautiful green eyes sparkled on her as she leaned down close. “Whatever are ye sorry fer, my dearest love? ’Tis no’ yer fault ye were taken from us.”
Mailie sq
ueezed her eyes shut, but her tears still fell. How would she ever tell them that she loved the man who did this to them? Was he alive? What had happened? How did she end up back here?
The arrival of her father at her door, his breath suspended, his gaze loving and thankful, and Ettarre, her darling Ettarre, pushing past him to get to Mailie first, stirred a well within her and she burst into more tears.
He was there instantly, with her mother, pulling her into their arms. She wept over what she’d put them through, because of what Lachlan had put them through, and for loving him despite it.
More of her kin arrived and came to her bedside to greet her; her grandparents, aunts, her sister, Violet, and her cousins Nicky and Abigail, and too many more to name.
She had to know what had happened. They were greeting her as if she’d returned from the dead. How long had she been here? But first…
She looked around at the others coming and going. “Where are my uncles and their sons?” She felt faint. How had she arrived here? She was…she was trying to cross the river…After that, there was nothing else.
“Yer uncle Connor and aunt Mairi are in Linavar awaiting the birth of Cailean and Temperance’s first bairn—”
“Faither,” she interrupted, pulling him closer. “I didna mean…” She fought to clear her thoughts. Where were Adam, Daniel, Colin, Darach? The most dangerous among them were not here. Were they in Avoch? “I…I must speak with ye alone.”
Her hands trembled, holding his sleeves; her pulse thumped in her ears. How was she going to tell him?
He nodded and turned to the crowd. “Please allow me some time alone with my daughter.”
With the help of her mother shooing everyone out, they were finally alone.
“I would have ye know something,” she began on a shaky voice. “The man who took me…he is no’ to blame—”
“What?” He stepped back, breaking her hold on him but immediately moved forward again to take her hand. “My love, what are ye saying? Of course he’s to blame. Now I want ye to tell me his name.”