1
“Lachlan, are ye still alive, mon?”
It was doubtful. It wasn’t even desirable at the moment. Though the pain of his wound was more annoying than hurtful, as Lachlan MacGregor lay there losing his lifeblood to the sod, he realized it was his pride that had taken the killing blow. That the Laird of Clan MacGregor had been reduced to joining the ranks of common reavers was bad enough. That he’d been stupid enough to get wounded in the process…
“Lachlan?” The persistent inquiry came again from his clansman.
“Faith, if I’m no’ dead, I should be, so dinna be thinking of carting my body home for burying, Ranald. You’ll be leaving it here tae rot as it deserves.”
A chuckle came from his other side. “Didna I tell ye no’ tae worry, Ranald?” Gilleonan MacGregor said. “It’ll take more’n a wee lead ball from a Sassenach pistol tae hurt this great hulk of a body.”
Lachlan responded with a snort. Ranald, who’d been prodding him for signs of life, sighed now. “Aye, and I knew that,” Ranald said with an odd mixture of boast and relief. “’Twas worryin’ about gettin’ him back on his horse that I was doin’. If he canna manage it hisself, then hewillbe rottin’ here, ’cause we surely canna lift him, even wi’ the both o’ us tryin’.”
“Och, now, I dinna see a problem in that. I remember lightin’ a fire near his big feet once when he was a young’un. Amazin’ how a mon as big as the MacGregor will move real quicklike when—”
Lachlan growled low, remembering that time well enough himself. Gilleonan chuckled again. Ranald clicked his tongue and said in all seriousness, “I wouldna be tryin’ that, cousin. A fire would alert those Sassenach tae where we are, if they be foolish enough tae still be lookin’ for us.”
“True, and a fire wouldna be necessary if our laird had waited till we got ourselves home tae be fallin’ off his blasted horse. But seein’s how he didna wait, and here he lies, have ye got any other ideas?”
“I have one,” Lachlan said testily. “I break both your necks, then we’ll all three be rotting here.”
The two kinsmen knew Lachlan was sensitive about his size, all six foot seven inches of it. Their deliberate goading was their way of trying to get him mad enough to get up on his own—but hopefully not mad enough to kill them.
It was not clear just how mad he was at the moment, all things considered, and so Ranald said, “If it’s all the same tae ye, Lachlan, I’d as soon no’ rot so near the Sassenach border. Up in the Highlands, now, I wouldna mind so much, but down here in the Lowlands, nay, I dinna like yer idea a’tall.”
“Then both of you shut up and let me rest a few moments, and I might oblige you by getting back on my horse under my own steam. Or what’s left of it.”
He got total silence to that suggestion. They were allowing him the rest he’d requested, he supposed. The trouble was, he didn’t think he’d have any steam left for any effort on his part, rest or no rest. He was growing weaker by the moment, could actually feel his strength draining away with his blood. Blasted wound. If he hadn’t felt the sting of the bullet going in, he couldn’t say for sure that it was somewhere in the general area of his chest. His torso had gone numb long before he’d toppled from his horse, and the hard landing had added other aches to his body. Another problem with his size. When he fell, he fellhard.
“I’ll wager his mind was a’driftin’ again, and that’s what got him shot,” Gilleonan started in again when Lachlan still hadn’t moved an inch after several minutes. “That’s all he’s been doin’ for more’n a year now, moonin’ over that bonny redhead the Sassenach stole from him.”
Lachlan knew very well that his kinsman was trying to provoke him to anger again, just so he’d get off his duff and stop worrying them. And damned if it didn’t work, because Gilleonan’s remark was all too true.
When he’d been shot, he had been distracted in thinking about the bonny Megan with her flaming red hair and big midnight blue eyes, a more lovely lass he’d never come across. But he thought about her every time they raided near the English border, because that was where he’d met her—and lost her. ’Course, he thought about her too much at other times too, but that was his problem and best left to him, not discussed in general, no matter what the purpose.
“I stole her from the Englishmon,” Lachlan mumbled. “He merely retrieved her. There is a difference.”
“Retrieved her and beat the tar out o’ ye—”
That reminder deserved a good clout, and Lachlan’s punch, even lacking strength, still knocked Gilleonan out of his crouch. Gilleonan grunted in surprise as he landed on his backside, even though he’d been expecting and hoping for just such a reaction from his laird.
Ranald, on the other hand, laughed. “Verra good, Lachlan. Now if ye’ll just put that same energy into gettin’ yer big self onto yer wee horse, we’ll get ye home so Nessa can see tae that wound.”
Lachlan groaned. Gilleonan, having that same thought, snapped at Ranald, “Are ye daft, mon? I’d be runnin’ in the opposite direction if I had Nessa fussin’ o’er me tae look forward tae. She bullies ye tae wellness, she does—after she cries all over ye first. Och, ’tis a sickenin’ sight, tae be sure.”
Ranald lifted his brow. “Ye think she’d bully the laird?”
“I know she would,” Lachlan mumbled.And fitting punishment, he added to himself, for his own stupidity.
With that thought, he rolled over and forced himself to his hands and knees. His vision blurred, not that he could see much to begin with, as dark as it was. A good time for reaving, a moonless night. But reaving and mooning sure as hell didn’t mix, and he was going to have to do something about separating them—if he survived this fiasco.
“Point me toward the wee beastie,” he told his friends.
They did more than that, they tried to help him up. In the end they were more trouble than help, and he shrugged them both off with a growl. But somehow, he got back in the saddle. And somehow, his two kinsmen managed to get him home, though he had very little memory of that long, grueling ride and the stops on the way that saw his wound tended to before Nessa got her hands on it.
She did get her hands on it though, and on him, and it was a frustrating three weeks before he was able to insist that she leave him be and have her pay attention to that command. The problem with Nessa was she fancied herself in love with Lachlan and took it for granted that they’d be married someday, though he’d never given her the least encouragement. But the fact that he’d never seriously courted anyone else was all the encouragement she seemed to need. Yet when had he had time to do any courting? He’d had the responsibility of the entire clan dropped on him at such a young age.
Nessa lived in his household, as did a great many others of his clan. She’d been underfoot for as long as he could remember, his playmate when they were younger, a nuisance when he started becoming interested in girls, because he didn’t put her in that category, tomboy that she was. She was five years younger than his twenty-six, had a devil of a temper, and had pretty much taken over his household when his father died and his stepmother absconded with every tangible bit of the MacGregor wealth aside from the land, forcing him into the unwanted life of a reaver.
