by Aileen Adams
He scowled and muttered another oath, hands on his hips.
Where did she think she was going? She would never outrun him now.
Without a sound, he started after her.
She made little effort to disguise her movements. She ran like a frightened rabbit, darting this way and that, crashing through the underbrush, leaves scattering, branches slapped out of her way, he so close in pursuit that he repeatedly had to duck to keep them from slapping him in the face.
She was fast. Quick on her feet, somehow managing to avoid slamming into one tree after another as she careened through the darkness. Her ragged breaths marked her desperate efforts.
He’d had enough.
If she hurt herself, she would be no good to him or his brother. He didn’t want to shout, didn’t want to alert anyone or anything else that may be lurking in these woods to their presence.
Once again, he anticipated her direction and attempted to head her off.
There!
Her shadow passed right in front of him.
He reached out and managed to grab onto fabric.
She struggled.
He heard the rip of fabric, a gasp, but she took off again.
“Sarah, stop!” he hissed.
She ignored him and quickly changed directions, taking off again toward the southwest, heading downslope. Not a steep descent, but a downward incline. Hopping over small rocks, darting between trees, somehow avoiding clumps of underbrush. She was fast; he had to give her that.
He followed at a slightly slower pace. It wouldn't take much for her to trip, to break her neck, to slam face first into a tree, or to go toppling over the edge of a crevice or ravine.
“Sarah!”
Suddenly, the night was cut by sound of an interrupted scream, followed by a silence that made his heart quick.
He quickly caught up to her, sprawled face down on the ground between two trees, arms and legs spread outward.
She wasn’t moving.
He took note of the overgrown root she had stumbled over and quickly knelt down beside her, heart thumping in his chest. He placed one hand in the middle of her back. Was she breathing?
“Sarah?”
He rolled her over, squinting down at her face in the darkness.
Was she unconscious?
No.
He saw the glistening of her eyes as she stared up at him, mouth open.
The breath had been knocked from her lungs. He caught the sight of blood on her forehead, shook his head and gently lifted her from the ground, balancing her upper torso against his chest, as he quickly checked her arms and legs for broken bones despite her grumbled, half-hearted protests.
Nothing broken.
“Nothing is broken, you silly fool,” he muttered.
She lay still against him.
“Do you think you can get up?”
She said nothing for several moments but then offered a small nod. That movement provoked a wince.
“You could've broken your neck,” he said, standing. He pulled Sarah up after him. He kept his hands wrapped around her upper arms as she stood, wobbled for a moment, and leaned against him for support, still dazed.
The contact took him momentarily by surprise.
His arms instinctively wrapped around her, pressing her close. She felt good, her head resting against his chest, her body pressed close to his, seeking support.
He felt the inklings of arousal, amazed that he could harbor such feelings toward her. He didn't even know her, was angry at her for trying to escape, for making him chase after her in the woods—
She raised her hands and weakly pushed herself away, putting some distance between them as she straightened. She lifted a hand to touch her forehead. When she pulled her hand away and peered down at it, he saw the dark splotch on her fingers.
“You're bleeding.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Can you walk back to camp or do I have to toss you over my shoulder?”
That prompted a response. “I can walk, you pompous—”
His abrupt laugh drowned the curses she threw his way. “You'd better watch your temper, lass,” he warned. “I already told you that I didn't want to hurt you, but if you try this again, you're going to regret it.”
Once more, she muttered a curse in his direction, but, as he grasped her small wrist with his hand, he turned from her with a begrudging smile.
He was lucky she hadn't killed herself.
He tugged her along after him, but she didn't fight him, not really. She probably had a throbbing headache, but as far as he was concerned, it served her right.
5
Sarah followed Phillip back to their campsite, if not willingly, at least begrudgingly. She had made her attempt to escape and failed. Her dress skirt and kirtle were badly torn, a portion of it hanging down and dragging through the leaves, her linen under garment exposed.
She had waited for what seemed like forever for Phillip and his companions to settle down. Had watched the rise and fall of their chests until her eyes grew blurry from concentrating, fighting exhausted sleep herself.
Then, everything still and quiet, she had gathered her skirts and slowly, in increments, stood. No one moved. Before she even took her first step, her heart pounding with anxiety, she eyed the ground, tried to plan a path away from the camp despite the wan light offered by a sliver of moon and the stars, to carefully plant her feet as she made her way from the campsite.
She hadn’t known how much time she would have before somebody realized she was gone, but all she could focus on was getting back to Kirkcaldy. She wasn't sure exactly where she was, but she did know that she needed to travel south.
When she could, she looked up at the stars, noted their position, and oriented herself in the direction she needed to go. She moved with extreme care as she entered the woods, careful not to step on a twig, a pine cone, or a dried, curled up leaf as she slowly put more distance between her and the campsite.
She had to get away! She had to get back home, to protect Heather. She didn't trust these Highlanders any further than she could throw them. The leader, Phillip, had seemed sincere when he spoke with her earlier, but long ago she had learned that a sincere promise meant nothing.
How many times had her stepfather promised that he would never lay a hand on her again? How many times had he promised that he would stop drinking? Of course, those promises had come in the throes of drunken emotion. Sober or drunk, Patrick MacDonald was unapologetic and unbending. No one would or could tell him what to do or how to behave.
Long ago, she had stopped believing anything that came out of his mouth. As a result, she became wary and suspicious of any promises or claims made by men. She knew that not all men were bad like her stepfather, but she couldn't help being cynical. She didn't want to be that way.
Maybe someday she would find a man she could trust, a man who would take the time to understand who she was, to understand the things that she believed in and desired most in the world.
She believed in loyalty. Though she had seen little of it in her life, she knew it existed. Her mother had told her when she was a little girl that someday she would find a man to marry and she would eventually raise a family of her own.
She pulled her thoughts from the past to the present. Making her way through the woods, trying to find her way back to Kirkcaldy, she wanted to believe what her mother had told her, but her life had not given her any confidence that any such thing would ever come to pass.
She pushed her thoughts from anything but putting as much distance between her and the Highlander’s campsite as possible. She wasn't sure how far she had traveled. A half mile? A mile maybe, before she felt an odd sensation.
Something was wrong.
She paused, listening, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. She hadn't heard anything, but she knew, sensed it on an instinctual level. Phillip. He was following her.
Tamping down her panic, she had tried to pick up her pace while at the same time remaining si
lent.
How he had determined her direction, how he had gotten so close?
She didn't know, but it'd happened.
She’d slammed into something hard. At first thought, it was a tree. She’d reached out for balance and realized that was no tree.
It was the Highlander, as stalwart as a tree and just as hard. Then, foolish though it was, she had turned and broken into a run, desperate to escape.
He was right behind her. She knew running in the darkness like that was foolish, but she couldn’t stop herself. She’d managed to put a short distance between them until she had tripped over an exposed tree root and gone crashing to the ground. She hit her head, the breath knocked out of her, but she clamped her lips over the cry of pain that threatened to escape.
Dazed and over the ringing in her ears, she had sensed his approach. Felt his large, warm hand in the middle of her back. Before she could shrug it away, he had rolled her over and pulled her up into his arms, braced against his back. The thought of surrender had briefly overtaken her. She felt so tired, her emotions in turmoil, fear racing through her. She wanted to fight him, and yet his support—
“Hugh, tie her up.”
She was jolted back into awareness. They had reached the campsite already? Had she not traveled as far away from the camp as she thought she had? Or, heaven forbid, had she made an error in direction and had ended up going in a circle? No, impossible. She had tried to maintain the slightly downward path toward the south.
Phillip let go of her wrist, and for just the briefest of moments, she felt an odd sense of loss at the absence of his large, warm hand providing guidance and support.
She covered her dismay with a scowl, glaring at his back as he strode away from her and then turned to watch while Hugh, almost reluctantly, tied her hands once again behind her back and guided her over to the rock where she had escaped only minutes ago. Had it been only minutes? It seemed like hours, but glancing up at the night sky, she saw no sign of the coming dawn lightening the eastern sky.
Weariness tugged at her brain. Her head throbbed. It wasn't bleeding anymore, but Hugh stared at her forehead for a moment before clucking in disapproval or sympathy, she couldn't tell which.
“You've got a good goose egg there,” he commented, then glanced over his shoulder at Phillip.
Her eyes followed his gaze. Phillip stared at her with an unreadable expression.
While his features looked calm, she noted his hands were balled into fists. He was angry.
Still, she sensed he wouldn't hit her. He hadn't hit her yet even though she had fought, cursed, and run from him.
“Tie her feet.”
Hugh sighed, nodded, and obeyed.
It took everything that she had left not to kick him as he proceeded to do just that. Only when she was trussed did Phillip approach, staring down at her, hands on his hips.
“I suggest you get some rest. We have a long day's ride ahead of us, and dawn is just a few hours away. I'm warning you, Sarah MacDonald, if you try to run away again, you're going to ride the rest of the way hanging over my saddle like a sack of grain.”
This time, Sarah didn't doubt his words. She blinked back tears that formed in her eyes at the thought of the morrow, which would only take her farther away from her sister. Somehow, she had to convince Phillip to let her go. How she was going to manage that, she had no idea.
* * *
Sarah sat in front of Phillip on his horse, as she had for hours. Early morning dew carpeted the groundcover. A thick mist enveloped the slopes of the narrow valley they rode through, the air damp and chill, settling into her bones and made her even more miserable than she already was. Her head throbbed, but not as bad as it had just a few hours ago. Phillip and his men had been anxious to get up and leave their campsite before the sun had even emerged above the eastern horizon.
In the early morning light, she was able to try and gain a better idea of their location. As she watched the early morning mist slowly undulating along the valley floor, her heart sank. She didn't recognize any of it.
Perhaps shock and her anger and emotions of yesterday had distorted her idea of how far they had traveled from Kirkcaldy or in which direction she should have tried to escape.
She had tried to spot landmarks along the way. Now, in the early morning light, she realized that the outcropping that she had headed for the previous night was not the same one that she had recognized yesterday late in the afternoon. Similar, yes, but not the same.
Discouraged, she realized she would probably have gotten lost in the woods, easy prey for wild animals, or as Phillip had threatened, outlaws, if he hadn’t caught up to her.
While she had no doubt that she could survive for a few days in the forest, more than familiar with a variety of wild root vegetables, onions, and herbs, maybe even berries this late in the season, she still had no way of defending herself against wild animals, or against brigands bent on mischief.
Phillip had placed her on the saddle blanket in front of him, her hands tied in front of her. Unlike yesterday, she didn't try to prevent herself from leaning against his frame as they rode. It wasn't just because he was warm, or because he was solid and provided support.
No. Sarah had a plan.
She would make him tired, her body weight leaning against him would certainly cause him to expend more effort and energy to sit upright in the saddle. A small bit of revenge on her part.
A slight smile had played about her lips as he shifted in the saddle.
As they rode, the emotional onslaught, the resulting drain on her body, and her unsuccessful attempts to escape the night before catching up with her, she occasionally dozed, her head resting against Phillip’s shoulder.
After hours of riding, she realized that her efforts to annoy him and tire him out had so far proven fruitless. He never once sagged in the saddle.
Even through her skirts, her legs felt chaffed at the long hours on horseback. She had never ridden much, and these hours and hours in the saddle were not only taking a toll on her physical stamina, but also her emotions.
How far did they have to go? Every step the horse took carried her farther from Kirkcaldy and her sister. She was filled with questions, but refused to speak to her captor.
She knew what he expected of her. She needed to heal someone.
Once again, staring between the horse’s ears into the rugged distance and toward higher ground, she wondered what he would do if she proved unable to help whomever it was who needed her skills so badly he would venture so far from home to find a healer. Would he kill her? Keep her as a servant? Sell her to someone?
She tried not to allow her thoughts to drift into despondency, but it was difficult. Not only did she worry about her own fate, but her sister’s. Heather must be worried sick by now. She made great effort not to dwell on that. Endeavored not to allow the mind-numbing thoughts of her stepfather taking out his anger and frustration on her younger sister.
Surely, by now Patrick would believe that she had run away from home. She'd never been gone throughout an entire night. She doubted if he would believe that something might have happened to her. Why would he?
She felt her pulse race in tune with her increasing anxiety. Funny, she was more concerned about Heather's concerns and worries than she was about her own situation. Not that she didn't find her situation alarming. She did. But she could take care of herself. Phillip needed her, so she doubted that he would do anything to hurt her until she had done what he intended. He had to keep her alive and uninjured to do so. So, at least for the time being, she wasn't overly concerned with her own safety. No. Her overriding concern was for her sister.
Her eyelids grew heavy, her eyes dry and scratchy. She needed sleep. She knew that physically, but mentally it seemed like such a waste of time. How could she possibly be tired anyway? She was in an untenable predicament, with no idea how she was going to get back home. Confused and discouraged, she wanted to hate her captor, but oddly enough, she didn't.
He had done nothing to hurt her, physically at least. At the same time, she scolded herself for having such an opinion. He had kidnapped her! Taken her from her home, her village, and her sister. For that she should hate him with every fiber of her being.
But she didn't. He and his men had made no overt threats toward her physical well-being. None had attempted to accost her. Even when he had had the chance, Phillip had not chosen to abuse her.
Odd. She expected all men to behave the same. To behave like her stepfather. Patrick MacDonald never passed up an opportunity to swipe a hand in her direction, to belittle her, to curse at her.
And here she was, nestled within the arms of a Highlander rogue who had kidnapped her and she felt… unharmed. Maybe even protected. Of course, she realized that he needed her, that if injured or dead she would do him no good. Still.
The hours passed.
The small traveling party stopped a couple of times to take care of nature’s needs, to rest the horses, or to allow Sarah the opportunity to stretch her legs, always within arm’s length of one of the men.
Morning transitioned toward the noon hour.
The mist had cleared long ago, with nothing but green-swept, rugged, yet beautiful vistas before Sarah’s gaze in all directions. To the north and east, craggy mountains rose from valley floors. In the valleys and glens—thick, lush forests. In between, mountainsides filled with meadows, wildflowers dancing gently in the breeze.
By early afternoon, Sarah was too exhausted to even think of escaping. Her legs were wobbly from so many hours on horseback, her own muscles stiff and sore from unaccustomed demands on her body. She continued to lean against Phillip, more out of necessity now ,than an attempt at revenge. Her stomach rumbled with hunger, her head throbbed again, no thanks to her tumultuous emotions. She dozed.
At times, forcing herself to climb back from brief respites of sleep lasting only a minute or two, she felt Phillip’s hand on her shoulder, preventing her from sliding sideways off the horse. She wondered if they would ever stop. The fast pace must be tiring for the horses as well, especially Phillip’s, carrying two people. Would they never stop for the night?
