No one answered, but Duncan, Connor, and Ian all avoided looking at Glynis.
“Barra?” Glynis asked, her heart slamming against her chest. “They’re going to Barra?”
“We don’t know that for certain,” Connor said. “But we have heard rumors that my uncles are planning a big raid on the MacNeils with both their ships.”
“Your father will need our help,” Alex said, touching Glynis’s arm, before he turned to the others. “My men will be ready to sail in a quarter of an hour.”
After shouting orders to his men, Alex took Glynis by the arm and led her up the beach a short distance away from the others.
“It’s too dangerous for ye to go to your father’s just now,” he said. “And I need ye here while I’m gone.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll leave half my men here to protect you and the castle. With the pirates sailing toward Barra, that should be sufficient,” Alex said, but he looked uneasy.
“We’ll be fine,” Glynis assured him. “But ye must save my brother and my sisters. The girls are delicate. They can’t—”
“Shh, don’t fret,” Alex said, and touched her cheek. “I won’t let anything happen to them.”
“I’m so grateful to ye for going to them.”
Even though she was leaving him, Alex was honoring the bond he had made to protect her family and her clan. Glynis hated to have him sailing off into danger with things so wrong between them. As he left her to rejoin the other men, she remembered that she was wearing the silver medallion. She had put it on when she dressed, to comfort herself.
“Wait!” she called after him. “I have something for ye.”
She ran to where he stood at the water’s edge and stretched up on her toes to put the chain around his neck.
“It’s of Saint Michael, God’s warrior angel,” she said, holding the medallion up for him to see. “He’s supposed to give special protection to both horsemen and sailors.”
“Ah, Glynis, that’s sweet of ye,” Alex said and put it inside his shirt, next to his heart. “But there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Be safe,” she said, as she rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek. When Alex’s arms came around her, she rested her head against his shoulder. She felt his chest rise and fall in a deep breath, then he kissed her hair.
She loved him so much.
Alex released her as Sorcha came running down to the beach, her hair flying out behind her. When she flung herself at Alex at full speed, he lifted her in his arms.
“I must go chase some pirates,” Alex said to her, making it sound like an adventure—which he probably thought it was. “But your mother will be here to look after ye.”
He kissed Sorcha and handed her to Glynis. Then he took his shield and his claymore from Seamus, who had carried them down to the shore. By now, the entire household had assembled on the beach, and Alex chose which men would go and which would stay.
As Alex’s ship set sail behind the other war galley, he stood at the rudder, his hair whipping in the wind. He waved his sword at them, looking like a Viking king.
Glynis held Sorcha’s hand and watched until Alex’s boat disappeared over the horizon. When she finally turned away, the only one left on the beach besides her and Sorcha was Seamus.
“Seamus, will ye take Sorcha up to Bessie at the castle for me?” Glynis asked.
She should have been brave enough to do this before. As soon as the two children were gone, Glynis found the path that led to the cottage where she had seen Alex take the flowers that awful day. Sweat broke out on her palms as Glynis remembered sitting in the tall grass with her head between her knees trying to get her breath back. But she had to find the truth.
When she reached the ancient cottage with the sagging roof, Glynis knocked before she could lose her nerve. No one answered for so long that she thought no one was home. But then the door finally creaked open, and Ùna stood in the doorway.
Ach, she was a lovely lass.
“I saw the ship sail,” Ùna said. “Is he gone?”
“My husband?” Glynis was surprised at the lass’s willingness to speak about Alex to her. “Aye, he’s gone.”
Ùna bit her lip and dropped her gaze to the ground. In a voice barely above a whisper, she asked, “Did he ask ye to come?”
