“You want to know why I still—” his voice trailed off as his head turned back toward the market square, his jaw tight.
Was he angry with her? What a stupid question—of course he was! Deciding this, clearly, was not the right moment, Niamh gave up and began walking down the road toward the keep.
“Niamh!” Dallan shouted. “Wait, Niamh!” She heard the worry in his voice. “Behind you!” And ignored it.
He grabbed her arm, pulling her back to him so hard it likely left a bruise. The movement threw her off balance and straight into the wooden wall behind him.
Furious, she tried to escape, immediately stepping back toward the road.
He held her pinned against the wall, not budging in spite of her protest.
Seconds later, when she would have been a few steps on down the road, the cart she’d spied with the flustered pack horse came careening past. It flew by far too quickly to have stopped without hitting her, with no driver in sight. She stopped her protest as realization dawned.
He’d saved her life.
Cries from the market square told Niamh she hadn’t been the only one in the cart’s path. She and Dallan both turned to see a little boy of eight sitting beside his mother, who lay on the ground unmoving.
Chapter Twenty
Dallan could onlywatch in awe as Niamh calmly kneeled beside the young boy and his mother. The woman’s leg was obviously broken, given the way it laid, and her head was bleeding profusely. The boy sobbed loudly, watching Niamh work.
First, she checked the woman’s head and eyes, then her neck and chest.
“Can you find linens?” she asked Dallan, not looking flustered or concerned in the least.
Dallan hurried to the cloth shop they’d passed, purchasing an armful of linen strips meant for just such a purpose. “What else do you need?” he asked, setting them down beside her on the stone courtyard.
“Honey for now. Then we should get her to the healer. I haven’t any supplies to treat her properly.”
“I’ve some at home!” a man called, running toward the nearest row of cottages.
A crowd had gathered around them, silent, their concern palpable.
“Is she alive?” the young boy ventured. “She’s bleeding so badly.”
Dallan went to sit behind the lad, watching Niamh work from the child’s vantage point.
Niamh didn’t pause, continuing to check the woman as she answered the boy. “She is. I believe she’ll be just fine in a few weeks’ time. Until then, though, she’ll need your help.”
“What can I do?”
“She won’t be walking,” Dallan explained, hoping to afford Niamh more concentration. “You’ll have to carry things for her, help with meals, take care of the cottage. But she’ll be better before you know it.”
The boy sniffled, but his sobs subsided. “I think I can do that.”
“You haven’t a choice, lad,” Dallan answered sternly. “If she has to move too much, she could get worse instead of better. Can I count on you?”
He nodded solemnly. “I promise. I’ll take care of her.”
“I know you will,” Dallan assured him with a quick wink.
The man who’d left returned with two jars of honey, handing them to Niamh anxiously. She thanked him, setting them aside and handing the boy a strip of linen.
“Would you like to help?” she asked.
Dallan saw the fear in his eyes, but he nodded anyway. “What do you need us to do?” Dallan asked.
Relief washed over the boy’s face when Dallan spoke. He picked up the linen, listening intently as Niamh explained how to hold it to the cut on his mother’s forehead.
