Chapter Five
“There are more wolf tracks in the snow,” Grace said, pushing into the cottage, her heart beating in her throat. “They’ve been around the cabin since the storm stopped.” Which was why she had delayed attempting to find Kilchoan, for fear of getting lost again and eaten. She swallowed and looked to Keir, frowning. “Why are you standing?”
“I’m going to see my horse.”
She’d managed to keep him in bed for another day, but he was obviously not accustomed to resting. “You shouldn’t put pressure on your leg. I sewed in a few stitches to keep the puncture wounds closed. Strain could open them.”
Grace watched Keir check his thick thigh, which did seem to be healing with her poultice. She’d been watching him for a week, mostly alone with her thoughts as she washed his chest, legs, amazing arms. There wasn’t an inch of fat on his lean, muscled body. The marks, swirling up his arm, only accented the curves of his biceps.
“I must insist—” she started.
“It’s healing well, thanks to ye.” He grabbed the cloak he’d worn when he’d rescued her, and brushed past her on the way to the door. “I will come back.”
Grace’s breath stuttered at his nearness and kind words. Her whole body thrummed with the possibility of… Of what? Asking him to kiss her again? Seducing him? She felt her cheeks warm and watched the man step out into the deep snow. Such things didn’t happen to her. She was the woman who smiled politely while a handsome man asked the lady next to her to dance. She was the friend or sister or assistant to the woman people wanted to meet. But then again, she’d never been on an adventure by herself before.
Grace threw her cape back on and grabbed her scarf, following him out the door. “I will accompany you to make sure you don’t fall,” she called, running to catch up to him.
The snow lay in two-foot drifts, and they walked the path that she and Little Warrior had blazed the morning after the storm when she’d spotted the barn. Grace pointed to the tracks that circled both the cabin and the barn. “Those are wolf tracks, aren’t they?”
“Aye,” Keir said. He walked beside her without the aid of a crutch. His face was set in a hard line, but he didn’t grimace. Despite his display, Grace knew he must be in pain. When they stopped at the barn door, she could see the line of sweat on his forehead, but he didn’t hesitate and pushed inside.
His horse turned toward them, ears twitching. He snorted, bobbing his large head. Grace laughed lightly. “I think he’s smiling.”
Keir walked up and stroked Little Warrior’s nose. Leaning in, he rested his forehead there. Grace stayed back, feeling a bit like she was interrupting a private reunion.
“He is well?” Keir asked, still pressed to Little Warrior’s face, his fingers scratching around his ears.
“I’ve changed the bandage daily. His injuries were not too deep, and I cleaned them as soon as we arrived before any taint could set in. We will need to wait until he can accept your weight before we leave with your leg still healing.”
“I can walk.”
“No,” she said, her chin and voice rising with determination. “You will ride or you will re-injure all the good I’ve done.”
Keir moved to the horse’s right hock wrapped with her smock. Grace came around to lift the leg so Keir didn’t have to bend his knee. The obedient horse didn’t move as she unwrapped the binding. “See, he’s healing well. Another week and he’ll be able to carry you.”
“A week is too long,” he said, frowning. “A day or two at most.” He stroked the horse’s side.
Grace propped her hands on her hips, something she’d never have done down in England as the Earl of Somerset’s daughter. But now she was a wild Scotswoman, free and knowledgeable about healing. “If you are better.”
She rewrapped the horse’s leg. “I will leave you two to your visit,” she said, cooling her voice to seem disinterested instead of being slightly jealous of a horse being stroked. “If you are strong enough, we can check on the snares when you return to the cottage.”
He glanced her way from the pile of hay in the far corner of the small building. “I’m always strong enough.”
Grace rolled her eyes. Men, warriors especially, were stubborn arses about their health and strength. “Yes, yes, you could lift mountains and wrestle lions with one leg cut clean off,” she said with a flip of her hand.
…
Keir watched the barn door close and turned to Cogadh. “If she screams, I’ll have to go.” The wolves might return.
He sat on the edge of a built-in wooden seat that Grace hadn’t yet splintered with an axe to burn. The woman had accomplished much for a gentle creature. Keir’s sister would have killed and gutted a buck by now, but Grace… She was made of softer stuff. Aye, much softer, in all aspects. That golden-brown hair felt like silk when he’d risked a touch earlier. Her skin looked like pure cream, and he knew her lips were soft, although the memory was more like a half-forgotten dream after his fever.
If he wanted to kiss her again, he must before they left the cabin. He frowned, but the twisted feeling that came with fulfilling duty above all else was familiar to Keir. As the feared Devil of Dunakin, protecting the clan and serving out justice was his life. He needed to carry a healer back to Dunakin as fast as possible. Hopefully, his sister, Dara, and his wise grandmother were keeping his nephew, Lachlan, alive. If Keir’s brother, Rabbie, lost his only surviving child, after his wife and daughter had died in childbirth last year, he would surely forfeit his mind. As it was, Rabbie seemed to balance on the edge of irate madness most of the time now. No, young Lachlan must live, and that required a talented healer.
In the silence of the barn, Keir’s stomach growled in a low, twisting echo within his empty stomach. Cogadh snorted, his ears twitching. “Ballocks,” Keir said, pushing up into a stiff stance, his thigh feeling bruised and tight. He narrowed his eyes at his faithful horse. “Ye have your food stacked up in here, while my stomach’s been empty for nearly five days.”
He checked Cogadh’s water and headed out into the blinding white landscape. Squinting, Keir turned in the direction of a small creek where he’d told Grace to set the rock trap, to knock an unsuspecting animal into the water to drown, tied to the tethered buoy.
“Where are you going?” Grace asked from the doorstep of the cabin, apparently waiting for him. She strode through the snow.
“Checking the traps,” he said as she reached him. “If ye didn’t set them perfectly right, they won’t work.” A hungry belly was worse than bruised feelings.
Stepping up to the creek, Keir noticed Grace remained behind several feet. He knelt by the edge where her earlier footprints marked the spot, but the rock wasn’t there. It had already fallen into the water. “It’s been triggered,” he said. “Come see.”
“I go near water only when absolutely necessary,” she said. “Did I catch something?”
“Or ye didn’t set it right.” He grabbed the rope tied to the rock and pulled it up from the freezing current. “Well, bloody hell,” he said.
“What?” Grace stood yards behind him.
He looked over his shoulder and opened his eyes wide with shock. “Ye actually trapped us a meal.” He lifted the large rabbit from the stream. “Maybe ye are an angel if ye can work such miracles,” he teased.
As he turned, a snowball flew straight into his face.