Highland Song (11 page)

Her smile was so full of joy and her eyes fairly sparkled. Her cheeks were flushed and lovely. “I said tae have a bit o’ faith, didn’t I?”

Gavin laughed again, lifting her up as the well filled to his shins.

“
Gaddamn!” he exclaimed. “You’re a witch forsooth!” he announced, though he said it with the biggest smile he could muster.

She’d found water.

Magik!

The lass was magik pure and simple.

Because more than having somehow found his water without much effort, she’d tapped another well that he’d thought long since run dry.

Faith,
she’d said.

Aye, he was going to have a wee bit o’ faith—faith that she had been sent to him just when he needed her. Faith that she was exactly what he needed.

Laughing together, he helped her up out of the well, patting her firm round bottom after he pushed her up and out of the pit. And then she helped him up, filthy and muddy as he was.

 

Colin finished repairing his section of wall, and then he and Leith began to shore up the rest.

“
When the bastard said he was leavin’, apparently he meant
right now
,” Leith complained.

Gavin hadn’t been about for days now. He’d left two days ago with one of the carts and had yet to return—not to sleep, to eat or to say “go to hell and take your bluidy wall wi’ ye!”

Colin didn’t have much to say about that. Gavin was the one Brodie who was a slave to duty and conscience. That he had taken a rare moment to do what he pleased was a good thing, as far as Colin was concerned and Colin applauded him for it—even if it left the rest of them with more work to do.

Anyway, if he was truly moving away to No Mon’s Land, they would not see him every day as it was. It was about time they learned to do without him.

Though he and Gavin rarely shared confidences, he thought he understood what was ailing his little brother. Were their roles reversed, he didn’t think he could stand to be around so much lip smacking and cooing either—especially when he had been alone most of his life.

Nay, Colin begrudged Gavin nothing.

“
I wish he would at least return the cart,” Leith groused. And then he stood, scratching his head. “Ha’e ye seen the lumber for the roof?”

Colin shook his head. He reached up to swipe a rivulet of sweat from his brow. “I’ve not seen it since two weeks past when we set it aside to work on the walls.”

Leith tossed down his hammer. “Gaddamn thievin’ folk around here!” He cast Colin a questioning glance. “Do ye think Montgomerie would be up to his auld tricks?”

Colin laughed. “Nay, Meggie would have his arse!” he assured Leith. But then he wondered. It wasn’t like Gavin to take anything that wasn’t specifically assigned to him, but could his brother be so damned desperate to be away from them that he would have
borrowed
their lumber to finish his roof?

But nay… he would never. Gavin was the most honest fellow Colin had ever known—despite being his brother.

Leith apparently had the same thought. “The pinions are gone, too,” he said. “Mayhap it’s time we paid a visit to our little brother?”

 

Although Gavin had spent most of his life celibate, he’d made up for every lost moment during the past two days. He and Cat made love again in the meadow once they’d hauled themselves out of the well. And then again in the loch after making the trek across the field.

They enjoyed the privacy of his home, pleasuring each other’s bodies by the firelight until the break of dawn.

Truth to tell, until now, in Cat’s arms, he had never realized what it truly meant to have a home, for it didn’t matter where they were, when they were together, it was exactly the right place to be.

The well was half full now, and a few good rains would fill it completely.

The house was completed and he considered now whether to bring his bed from the manor or to build a new one. He felt perhaps it was time for all things new, and he wondered what sort of bed Cat would like.

While he took his axe to the trees, she sat mixing some sort of tincture for the cut he’d sustained on his foot from the lip of the spade. It made him blush to remember that he’d pressed his heel so hard into the metal that it had cut into his flesh—and more, that he’d never even noticed until much later.

Only one thing troubled him. He was getting used to the lass. And now, though he didn’t believe in any sort of magik, he was beginning to fear even the possibility.

What if she wasn’t here to stay?

What if he wasn’t enough to keep her?

What if he awoke one morning to find her gone?

He might be a man in truth, but he thought he would weep like a wee bitty bairn for the rest of his given days.

 

South was not his favorite way to ride.

Aidan sniffed the air about him. The scattered forests still held their verdant green, the ferns remained full, with new growth unfurled. Spear thistle and primrose were still in bloom and the scent of heather was strong in the air. There should be moorland nearby; his nose never lied.

He surveyed his surroundings, thinking that
Cailleach Bheur
was not as kind to these folk, leaving them vulnerable to the sting of winter winds despite that they were far enough north that cold remained their bedfellow. The mother of winter had sheltered his own people for ages now, coddling them like tiny babes in her warm bosom, throwing up mounts to discourage more timid men from venturing into their crib.
 

Though his people needed no king, Aidan was as close as any north man came to such a title. He led with his heart, and protected his kinsmen with every fiber of his soul. His father had done the same before him, and had died with the sword of one of these Sassenach loving Scoti in his belly. His mother too had died defending their home, leaving him to raise a brood of five—the youngest being his sister Cat. That bastard would-be king of Scotia had stolen her directly from her bower.

If they took her far enough south she would be lost to them forever. And if she returned north with a Sassenach in her belly she need not return at all.

For two centuries his people had remained inconspicuous and stayed out of men’s politics, and as much as it would pain him he would not allow a Sassenach into their midst—not even one whose blood ran through his veins. In truth, he shared the blood of many, including David of Scotia… but that did not make them the same.

Riding with the wind, he’d brought twenty warriors to search for
Catrìona
, and hoped they would find her before it was too late. The thought of passing a winter without her bonny smile filled his heart with a bitter black melancholia. Nor did he relish the thought of losing a single man or woman, as few of their kindred that remained.

“
The Scoti king is near,” his scout said, returning from his reconnaissance. “They search these woodlands for her, though it appears she evades them still.”

Aidan smiled thinly.

Catrìona would know what to do. His sister was a warrior, after all. He had trained her well. He had raised the lass since her very first smile and she could wield that as adeptly as she could a blade.

All of his people were warriors for in the Mounth it was a matter of life and death.

“
Continue searching here,” Aidan directed his men. He’d brought his most fearsome warriors—all of them willing to die for every woman and child in their care. That was the way they had survived all this time, leaving no man to himself.

Painted in the woad of their ancestors—a reminder to them all of where they had come from—they rode white steeds—ghost horses, trained to step lightly and travel, not with haste, but with precision. To race through the Mounth was a death sentence. They took their cues from mother earth, listening to the secrets she had to whisper, and they missed nothing—not so much as a child’s weightless footstep on solid rock, nor a single broken twig.

They were the last of the painted ones, and they carried the heartbeats of their ancestors in their blood, and the song of their people in their hearts.

“
Ride,” he commanded his men. “Turn every stone until she is found.”

 

As cool as the weather remained high in these hills, the heather bloomed a brilliant violet against a vivid carpet of green. While Gavin lay upon his back in a bed of yellow buttercups, Cat knelt at his feet with a bowl of her healing potion in her hands, slathering the blue concoction upon the bottom of his foot.

“
I canna see as how your war paint will heal my foot—anyway, it doesna hurt,” he reassured her.

“
This—”
She held up the bowl.
“—
is
not
war paint,” she reprimanded him. “And though ’tis blue, it is
not
the same as the paint you found me wearing. However,” she enlightened him. “
That
is not war paint either.”

He winked at her. “Whatever it is, I’d like to see ye wear that often—and only that.”

She laughed softly. “It is a tribute to my ancestors—to yours, too, Gavin Mac Brodie, for we share the same forefathers.”

“
Forsooth, I ha’e never met a blue person in all my days,” he swore. “As far as I can tell, none of my kin ever painted themselves either. Alas, I do not share your pixie blood.”

“
Pixie!” she protested, pretending to be affronted. By his grin, she knew he was teasing.

“
Aye, judging by your height,” he said. “Pixie or faerie, one—I swear your minge is magic!”

Cat slapped his leg, but laughed nevertheless. “Stay still, Gavin, or I will surely put a hex on you!” she threatened.

“
You already have!” he told her, and dipped his toe into her bowl, then slathered the tincture across her face with his foot.

It took her completely by surprise. He had been such a grouse at first but now his mood had lightened considerably. No longer did he brood, and she concluded that he must have needed to appease his willy. It made sense to her. A man could simply not go his entire life without a little love—and he had, she was certain because he’d had that pinched look about him of a man whose bollocks were petrified from lack of use.