When Rose MacFinnan walked into your life, he answered himself.And made you hope.
He sighed. When would he learn his lesson?
“Over there, my lady,” he heard one of the stable hands say suddenly. “Ye’ll find him at the end.”
He opened his eyes and turned to see the object of his thoughts standing in the doorway. Rose picked her way gingerly around the piles of hay and manure the stable hands were raking up and wove her way towards him. When she was a few paces away, he held up his hand to stop her coming any closer.
“Careful of Arrow. He can be a bit bitey.”
Taking hold of the stallion’s halter, he led him back into his stall, patted him on the flank, and then rejoined Rose in the aisle.
“That’s a fine-looking animal,” she said, watching Arrow tucking into the fresh hay in his feeding trough. “Even if he is a bit ‘bitey.’”
“Aye, and as haughty as a prince,” Cailean replied. “It was three weeks before I could even approach him.” He cocked his head. “Is everything all right, lass? It’s not Drew, is it?”
She shook her head. “Drew is as you left him. Maggie and Beatrice are watching him. It’s just… just…” She trailed off, glancing down at the palm of her hand. There was a large red mark there, like a burn.
“What have ye done?” he asked, alarmed. “Here, that needs treatment.”
He took her arm, led her over to the water trough, and dunked her hand into the clear, cold water.
She didn’t protest but only smiled at him wryly. “I thoughtIwas the healer?”
“Aye, well, in my experience, healers are not very good at looking after themselves.”
She snorted softly. “You sound like Elise.”
“Elise?”
“My little sister. She’s always telling me I don’t look after myself properly.”
So, she had a sister? Cailean filed this little tidbit away. He pressed a little further. “Yer family must be missing ye. Yer husband? Bairns?”
A shadow passed across her face. “Perhaps they would be,” she replied, “if I had either. But I don’t. So they won’t.”
She wasn’t married. Why was he so pleased by that?
He lifted her hand out of the water and carefully examined her palm. “That needs ointment. I know Beatrice has some comfrey—”
“Later,” she said, gently extricating her hand from his. “I need to talk to you first.”
He looked at her sharply, the tone of her voice sending a warning down his spine. “About what?”
She looked up at him, her eyes reflecting the dim light inside the stable. She took a deep breath, seeming to steel herself for what she had to say. “I don’t think the sickness is a normal sickness,” she said quickly. “I think it’s being caused by… something else.”
“Something else?” he said, frowning. “What do ye mean?”
She shook her head, frustration on her face. “I don’t know yet, but when I examined Drew just now, I felt… something.” She curled her fingers around her burned palm. “Maggie and Beatrice told me strange things have been happening around the island. They mentioned fish dying in droves?”
“Aye, up at North Cove.”
“I want to see it.”
“Dead fish? What have they got to do with any of this?”
She glanced at her palm again and then fixed him with a determined stare. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”
Cailean didn’t reply, digesting this in silence. Two days ago, a villager from North Cove had arrived at Dun Mallach with an odd story about all the fish in North Cove dying. Cailean had his advisors take down the man’s story, but with everything else going on, a few dead fish had seemed of little importance. Rose MacFinnan, though, obviously disagreed.
