Where was she?

Rodric surveyed the crowd on his approach, his eyes trained for the sight of her fair head amongst so much red and brown. Like a ray of sunshine, she’d always stood out.

Naturally, she’d stood out to him for other reasons as well, reasons which he turned his mind away from or at least did his best to. Bad enough hers was the face he was most intent on seeing again. He didn’t need the reminder of what he’d always thought of as their love to cause him any further pain.

Would her husband be with her? Perhaps it was Alan he should be looking for—then again, no. Alan was hardly a monster and would likely pay a personal call on the widow, but he had never been one for public displays.

In fact, Rodric reflected while dismounting, he couldn’t recall his brother’s presence at their mother’s burial. Strange, that. They’d been mere children, Padraig no more than a baby, and yet Alan had refused to attend. And Ross hadn’t pressed the matter.

Sorcha stood by the grave, greeting those who’d come to pay respects to her husband. She was unkempt, though he hadn’t expected much better. If he’d very suddenly lost his wife, he did not think the condition of his clothing or his grooming would take priority over his grief.

Even so, she appeared to be holding up well and with a great deal of dignity.

He moved through the crowd, nodding in silent greeting to those who appeared to recognize him. Oh, yes, his brother would soon find out of his return—if he wasn’t already aware.

He deliberately avoided looking toward the grave, where the body was waiting. Odd, for a man who’d killed so many in battle and wounded countless others. He hadn’t known them. They hadn’t been kind to him.

It was easier to look upon the dead body of a stranger, especially if the stranger was an enemy.

Still, no Caitlin, though he’d made it to nearly the front of the line of people waiting to speak with Sorcha. Perhaps it was for the best that she be absent, though she had even more reason to be there than he and he’d managed it. Had marriage to his brother done this to her? Did she no longer care for anything that had once mattered?

“Thank you,” Sorcha murmured to the man standing in front of him, who then moved aside to make room for Rodric.

Their eyes met, and the past thrust itself upon him.

Everything came back in a rush, so sudden and all-encompassing that he could hardly breathe. When she’d nursed his childish injuries—a skinned knee, a bruised rib, the black eye Caitlin had given him the one and only time his teasing had gone too far. He’d learned his limits that day, for certain.

And Sorcha had gone along with the lie that a boy from the village had given it to him, just to protect his young pride.

“Rodric,” she breathed, her face almost lighting up once she recognized him.

The strength of her reaction startled him. Had he meant as much to her as she and her husband had to him?

“Sorcha, I was so sorry to hear of Gavin’s passing,” he murmured, taking her outstretched hand.

To his great surprise, her fingers clamped down over his before she pulled him closer to whisper in his ear.

“Come to the house. Can you manage it?”

“Aye,” he muttered in return, his nerves tingling in the wake of the sudden change in her. She sounded desperate. What could’ve happened?

Even if he hadn’t planned to pay her a visit, even if doing so would cause greater complications, he wouldn’t have refused for anything after her fingers dug into him the way they had.

“I’ll meet you there. It’s important.” She released him, and he caught just the hint of her eyes moving in the direction of a hedge off to the side of the graves. He thought there was a movement of the branches, a rustling, but it might have been a squirrel or other small animal.

He’d been one of the last to arrive, and the deacon began the short service soon after he moved along to join a group of mourners who stood alongside the grave. Sorcha stood to the deacon’s right, her head bowed in prayer much of the time.

All the while, Rodric wondered what had unnerved her so. It seemed to be more than the loss of her husband. Such desperation, such fierceness in the way she’d whispered to him. As though it were a matter of dire consequence that he meet her at the old house.

The house which sat so close to his clan’s lands.

It was quickly becoming a very interesting day.

* * *

He slid from the saddle and secured the horse before turning to the left and admiring the River Nevis. He’d always enjoyed watching it flow by from this spot, behind the house in which Gavin and Sorcha had lived out their married lives. The land came to a point, with the river forking off on both sides. To the southwest, were the lands under his brother’s protection. To the right was McAllister land.

They’d always met in the middle, he and Caitlin. To think, she was the woman of the house in which he’d grown up. In his childish daydreams, that was how he’d imagined her—though she was his wife in these dreams, not his brother’s. That the woman of the house would by necessity be married to the head of the clan hadn’t factored into his imaginings at the time.

She was so close, right there, in the house he would’ve been able to see had it not been for the woods which sat in the way. He would only need to cross the shallow, narrow stretch of river—more like a stream, really—in order to continue on his way to her.

If he had any right to her, he’d do just that. Would that he had.

There would be no reason to go to her now if she were yours, you daft fool. He closed his eyes briefly, wondering what he might have been able to do that would’ve changed things.

There had been no choice but to go off and fight. Someone from each clan had to do so, and Alan had been needed. Besides that, Rodric had wanted to bring honor to the clan and—if he were being truly honest—to himself.

He’d wanted to be her hero.

The creaking of wagon wheels made him turn away from the river, toward the trail which led from the road to the farmhouse. There was Sorcha, seated beside the driver, hands folded in her lap but her eyes active. She looked around the place, searching. For him.

And she found him, and a look of calm replaced the strained expression she’d worn up to that point. As though she were afraid he’d not keep his promise. As though he would do that to her.

He hadn’t expected her to be in the company of another—a farm hand, most likely, someone she’d asked to do the driving for her. A young man, perhaps a mere boy judging by the small frame and loose clothing. As though it had been borrowed from a larger man for the occasion.

The lad raised his head—not entirely, not enough for Rodric to get full sight of the entire face, but it was enough for the entire world to go silent. The birds which had only just been singing a sweet song, the river, the frogs which sang at its banks. Everything went quiet. The air stopped moving.

It wasn’t a lad at all. How could he have believed it so, even for a moment?

But why? Why would she dress as a lad? Why would she look back and forth all the time, as though watching out for danger?

Why would she pull the wagon to a sudden stop the moment she caught sight of him?