HIGHLAND FURY’S LEGACY
Jamie Lathan has been a favorite character of mine and my fans since I first introduced him inHIGHLAND HEALER. He appeared inHIGHLAND SEERand finally got his own love story inHIGHLAND TROTH.
I always felt the friendship between young Jamie and his cousin Toran Lathan wanted more light shed on it, especially during the time when Caitrin, the Fletcher heir, fostered at Lathan. Her presence annoyed Toran, but she fascinated Jamie and made him hope for a future with her.
Yet, along with Jamie, she was party to a horrifying event that changed the course of their young lives. To protect her, the Lathan laird, Toran’s father, sent her home. The tragedy and double loss that resulted from it so deeply traumatized Jamie, they led to the final violent confrontation inHIGHLAND TROTH.
This story expands on both the beginnings of their friendship and the tragedy Jamie and Caitrin shared in their past. I hope you enjoy it.
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS, SUMMER 1512
“Damn it, Jamie, she’s following us again.” Toran’s complaint, hissed between his teeth, matched the glare in his eyes as he and Jamie raced down the path from the Aerie to the glen below the tor.
“And ’tis my fault?” Jamie retorted after a glance over his shoulder. Fourteen-year-old Caitrin was hard to miss, her long auburn hair flying, and coltish legs pumping to catch the two lads. She danced between two horses bound for the Aerie’s gates, twisting aside without missing a step to let them pass, and kept coming.
“Ye were supposed to make certain yer sister kept her busy at her stitching, ye ken?”
“I thought ye said yer sister would do that.” He thought Toran had. But he’d also told his older sister Netta to make sure Caitrin didn’t follow Toran or him when they left the keep, and she’d agreed—for a price. Jamie smirked to himself. He wouldn’t be helping her by collecting the herbs she wanted after all. He didn’t know what price Toran’s sister—or even which sister—had exacted, but it seemed they couldn’t count on any of their sisters.
He and Toran reached the glen and raced across it to the woods, where they changed direction. “’Tis a bad idea, Toran,” Jamie warned. Toran hoped to lose their follower in the thick undergrowth and trees. But Caitrin was nearly as fast as they were. Or faster. They heard twigs snapping and the occasional girlish oath as the low evergreen branches slapped at her or she tripped over raised roots, but she never gave up, though she was still behind them.
Toran had no patience when it came to Caitrin Fletcher. But something about her had attracted Jamie from the moment he first saw her. He liked her laugh and how determined she was to accomplish anything the lads did—and to beat them if she could. Those seemed to him to be excellent qualities in a laird’s only heir, male or female. And Caitrin was the Fletcher heir, which was why, no matter that it was unusual to foster away a lass, she was now chasing him and Toran into the trees near the clan Lathan stronghold, and not doing embroidery under the watchful eye of her nurse in her chamber at Fletcher.
“She’s still gaining on us,” Toran complained as he took another turn, hoping to confuse their trail.
Jamie paused and looked back, but didn’t see her. He wanted to. She was pleasing to look at, with thick hair that fell to her waist in shimmering waves, bright eyes that crinkled when she smiled—and that laugh. It drew Jamie like Cook’s honey cakes, sweetly rich and irresistible.
But Jamie would be laughed out of the keep if he deserted Toran to take care of an almost three-years-younger lass. Though Toran was not the eldest and heir, he was the laird’s son.
Toran ducked into a tangle of undergrowth between two oaks and hunkered down against one of the trees. Jamie knew he expected Caitrin to run right past them if she was still on their trail. She’d gone quiet, so Jamie ran past Toran's location and slid behind a broad pine to listen for her. Once his breathingslowed and quieted, he heard nothing else except for birdcalls and leaves rustling in the highland wind. It seemed they’d lost her. Toran would be pleased. They could hunt coneys without Caitrin deliberately making noise and scaring away their prey. But Jamie’s lips tightened in disappointment. Opportunities to spend time with her were rare. Even if he had to do so with Toran shooting frowns at him behind her back, Jamie would relish the chance.
The longer they waited, the less comfortable Jamie felt, his gut knotting more and more as time passed. Bird calls and wind rustling in the trees continued to be all he heard, and they were all normal forest sounds. Caitrin couldn’t be anywhere near them or the birds would have gone silent as she approached. Or she would have made some noise that gave her away as she tried to sneak up on them. But he heard nothing. She must have lost their trail and gone another way. That worried him.
The hunt Toran had proposed seemed a good idea at the time. Cook always welcomed coneys for stew or to add meat to other dishes, but losing Caitrin in these woods struck Jamie as unkind—and foolish. She didn’t know her way around in the trees and thick undergrowth as well as they did.
Suddenly convinced that she would get lost and not find her way back to the Aerie, he tangled his fingers in his hair, clenched his fist, and tugged, then did what he knew was right. Toran would be annoyed, but he stepped out of cover anyway. He could put up with Toran’s complaints—or worse, his teasing that Jamie was sweet on the lass. He no longer cared. If Caitrin had gone straight where they made their last turn, she’d be deep in the woods and headed for rougher ground. Wolves lived in these woods, as did other predators. A lass alone would not be able to defend herself.
No longer interested in concealment, he stomped over to where Toran hid, careless of the noise he made. “Enough,” Jamietold him. “She might be in trouble soon, if she is nay already. We need to find her.”
“Shite, Jami—” Toran’s complaint cut off mid-word.
“Nay, ye dinna,” Caitrin said over him, her voice coming from shockingly close. “Ye can try to lose me, but ye willna.”
Her taunt made Toran growl and stand. “Ye canna come with us,” he insisted, turning his head toward the source of the girlish voice and raising his. “We’re hunting coneys. Ye always scare them away.”
“Truly?” She stepped out from concealment behind a nearby tree and held up two, her fist around their long ears. “How many do ye have?”
Shock sent heat through Jamie in a wave. “How did ye have time to do that and still find us?” And how did the lass who used to spoil their hunts with her sympathy for the “wee beasties” now present them with two of her own kills?
Caitrin smirked at Toran, and Jamie wanted to applaud her backbone. “I’ll never tell,” she taunted.
“I dinna care if ye do or nay,” Toran told her. “Take those back to Cook. We’ll bring more.”
Jamie could see Toran was impressed and fighting to hide it. His shoulders had tensed, though he kept his hands open and loose.
Her gaze moved from Toran to Jamie. “I’d rather stay with ye. I can help.” She didn’t plead. She simply made her case, impressing Jamie yet again.
Toran shook his head. “Nay, ye canna. These woods are nay place for a lass alone?—”
