The Highland Outlaw

by Heather McCollum

  Shaw knew Dixon had become a player in the radical movement. Yet he still hid behind the power of the crown, wearing the uniform and using their rankings. As he’d seen at the river, those wearing red army uniforms still wanted to kill the innocent bairn. If in fact the queen or king wished for the child to be returned, why didn’t they send another message with a royal seal? If the child was taken and killed, the Sinclair clan would be blamed, losing any hope of regaining their castle and lands.

  “Ye want me to strip my bairn down in front of ye?” Shaw asked, his voice thick with disgust.

  “It is a simple request,” the major said, his teeth set close together under his long, sloped nose.

  “And what next?” Alana said, stepping to the side. “Ask me to lift my skirts so you can inspect that I gave birth?” She shook her head. “We are two faithful, God-fearing people, husband and wife with a child between us. Let us on our way.”

  She spoke with authority and the shaming cadence of a chastising mother. Unfortunately, Dixon didn’t seem shocked; in fact his gaze dropped to her skirts for a brief moment. Bloody bastard.

  Logan had already paid for the shoeing, and Shaw had come to inspect them as if wanting to purchase one. The blacksmith and farrier had melted away when the soldier had run up after Alana, leaving their fires unattended. No doubt they were close but wished to stay out of a conflict with English soldiers. Because it was growing more likely by the second that there was going to be further conflict. He would relish it if Alana and Rose weren’t standing right there. He’d sent Alistair off with a bloody lip, telling him to stay out of sight. Where were Rabbie and Logan? Foking hell.

  The soldier standing with his commander moved to check that the match was lit on his musket. If it was to be war, then so be it. Shaw stepped before Alana, drawing his sword. “I would think hard on it, soldier,” he said, his voice deadly even. “A Scotsman reacts poorly to someone leveling a musket at him.”

  Before anyone could move, a dagger flew through the air. Alana stood, arm thrust to the side, her sgian dubh hitting the soldier’s hand, point embedding into his knuckles. He yelped, dropping the musket at the same time Alana turned to run with the bairn. The horses neighed as she caught one of them, hopefully to ride. Shaw jumped forward, his hard boot slamming down on the musket before the major could grab it. It cracked under the force. Damn, they could have used it. Although he was more comfortable with his sword.

  The injured soldier turned to run for the other men inside, but Shaw had his attention focused on the major who’d drawn his rapier. Slender but sharp, it reminded him of a thin snake. If they were going to get away, he needed to dispatch Dixon quickly. Without warning, Shaw leaped forward, but the major stopped his advance with a thrust of his own. Swords crossing before them, Dixon gritted his teeth.

  “All Catholic heirs, along with anyone protecting them, will die,” the major said.

  “All innocent bairns, under my protection, will live,” he returned, shoving the man away.

  Dixon’s lips opened as if he had a retort, but Shaw slashed forward, catching the man’s cheek, a red slice opening along it. Shock registered momentarily across the man’s face as blood trickled down.

  “A man gets slow just fighting against newborn bairns,” Shaw said.

  Before Dixon could raise a hand to his cheek, he lunged forward again. If the man had delayed, he’d have a long sword piercing his gut. Pressed against one another, the major let all his hostility blaze in his eyes.

  “You will die for marking an officer,” he said.

  “Or ye will die for underestimating a Highlander.” Shaw dropped his weight, bending his knees, and the major flew over him as Shaw lifted upward. Dixon crashed into one of the ovens, toppling a stack of horseshoes.

  “What the hell?”

  Shaw spun to see Rabbie standing there. “Grab a horse,” he yelled, stepping around the flailing man. With a solid fist around the hilt of his sword, he brought it in a sweep across the back of the man’s head. Dixon grunted as he fell unconscious to the stones at the base of the outdoor hearth.

  “More are coming,” Shaw said, as he grabbed one of the English horses. Rabbie had already risen onto the other. Shaw leaped upward, throwing a leg over the horse, and pulled the bay around, pressing into its sides.

  “Stop!” one of the soldiers yelled, but Shaw was already tearing around the back of the smithy behind Rabbie. The lad slowed where his own horse was tethered loosely, bending down to pull the tie as all Sinclairs trained to do after having to escape quickly over the last nine years.

  “Alana?” Shaw asked. Rabbie glanced back at him as they started up again, shaking his head. Blast, he didn’t know where she was. “East then,” he called, hoping she would think to meet them due east of the village.

  Crack! Crack!

  Fire lit along Shaw’s right hip, and he loosened his grip to leap off in case the horse went down under him. The English horse apparently knew what musket fire meant and surged forward unhindered. Shaw leaned over his neck, his hand sliding back to his kilt where a tear from the musket ball stretched from his arse up his hip. Hot and wet, he didn’t need to see the blood to know that he’d been hit.

  …

  Alana held Rose against her as she urged the horse to weave carefully between the trees behind the common house, her breath coming in hard gusts. She’d left Shaw to get the babe to safety. He will be well.

  She wasn’t sure which way to go and looked up at the sun directly overhead. From which way had it risen? Holding onto the swift-footed horse, she glanced over her shoulder, then back into the thick woods of colored maples and birch. Gasping softly as she saw two people, she pulled on the reins, and the horse slowed to a stop. Fiona and Alistair.

  Tugging the reins, she turned toward them, weaving quickly through the trees. “Alistair,” she said. “Shaw needs help. I left him in the smithy with armed soldiers.”

  Alistair’s lip was fat with dried blood, and his eye was bruised with red in the white of it. Had he and Shaw continued to fight after she left the window? He looked back toward the smithy and then to her holding the babe against her. “He would want me to get ye and the bairn to safety.”

  Fiona’s eyes were wide. “What do they want with ye?” she asked, speaking of the English.

  “They think my babe is another and want to kill her,” she answered. “Can you help us?”

  She nodded, lifting a satchel up to Alana on the horse. “It has food and milk with another bottle. After they tore out after ye, I thought ye might need this, which is why I was out here looking for ye and found him.” Her thumb jerked toward Alistair.

  “Thank you.” Alana attached it to the back of the saddle. “Ye are a blessing, Fiona.”

  Fiona grabbed her hand, squeezing tightly, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “There are some tarts. The one with the currents on top is for your husband if ye think he will beat ye.”

  She shook her head. “I will not poison anyone, Fiona.”

  “It is just sleeping powder in the tart, so ye can get away. As much as this town thinks I poisoned my three bastard husbands, I only put them to sleep on occasion.” She smiled. “Take it.”

  Blast! Blast!

  Alana twisted in her seat, thankful that Rose was securely tied to her chest. “That was a musket.” She looked to Alistair. “Help him.”

  But Alistair grabbed her foot out of the stirrup and threw his own in, hoisting himself onto the horse behind her. “I know the way to St. Andrews. I will get the bairn there.”

  “No!” she yelled, but he grabbed the reins from her.

  “I will tell them ye went west toward the isles,” Fiona said. “Godspeed.”

  Alistair yanked the horse, kicking him. He leaped forward, and Alana could only hold tightly to the babe with one hand and the pommel on the saddle with the other while her thighs clutched around the horse. There was no way she could argue with him flying through the trees away from the village. He turned the horse rig
ht to skirt around to the west side before heading east. After long minutes, he slowed the horse, and Alana turned, twisting to look up at him. “I am not leaving without Shaw.”

  Alistair met her gaze, and she stared at his good eye. “Why?”

  Why? Her chest squeezed. The man had abducted her. To save a babe. His men had tied her up. But he’d sworn that none would harm her. He’d dragged her away from the festival. Toward her mother and agreed to help free her. He was the enemy. Who had spared Robert. He’d slept next to her without touching her. And his kiss…

  “Why do ye care about a man who stole ye away?” Alistair asked, searching her eyes.

  She swallowed. “Because…Shaw swore that he would help me free my mother from the Covenanter prison in Edinburgh,” she said low. “I will not leave here without him unless…” She wet her suddenly dry lips. “Unless he is dead.” The thought felt like a boulder in her chest. Shaw was invincible. At least that was what he’d seemed, tall and broad, his biceps thick with muscle, his body able to move quickly with the prowess of a wolf.

  Alistair continued to study her, his eyes narrowed. “Shite,” he whispered, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. The battered side of his lip hitched up, and he broke the gaze, glancing upward. “We will wait a bit then. Up in the trees. See if Shaw or any of them ride this way.”

  “Thank you.” The boulder remained, but she could draw in a full inhale again.

  “He has always been a lucky bastard,” Alistair said. “I am sure he made it past those musket balls. No matter what comes at him, he manages to survive it somehow.”

  Lord, she prayed so.

  Alistair pulled the horse near a tall oak with thick branches. “Raise up and grab that limb. I will move the horse farther away and run back.”

  Alana grabbed the satchel that Fiona had packed, thankful the woman had included another glass bottle since she’d dropped the first in the barn. She pushed upright to grab hold of the branch while Alistair steadied her around the waist. The intimate touch made her frown, and she hoisted up quickly. The man held her foot on the branch until she was able to lift to the next, and then he wheeled the horse away. Alana stared out through the woods toward the town and gently rocked Rose against her, hoping the whimpering babe would go back to sleep, but she hadn’t gotten much milk before she’d run to the smithy.

  “Bloody hell,” Alana whispered and kissed the babe’s soft head. “We are back in a tree.” And she’d lost her sgian dubh to stop the soldier from firing at Shaw. At least she still had her hair spike. She rested her chin gently on Rose’s head as she stared out toward the village. “Come along, Shaw. Don’t you dare be dead.” He had to be alive to help her find her mother and…to kiss her again.

  …

  Ducking low over the horse to avoid tree branches, Shaw saw Logan already mounted up ahead. He had Alana’s and Alistair’s horses with him. He raised his arm, pointing forward, and Logan surged in that direction several trees over. Were the soldiers pursuing? It depended on how close their horses were tied.

  Circling from their initial ride west, they moved east, staying well away from the town. Mungo joined them and had somehow retrieved Rìgh from the barn behind the common house where they’d slept. He rode his own horse with Rìgh following. Frowns upon them all, they took off flying as fast as they dared between the trees, the tethered horses slowing them down slightly.

  With the rush of leaves and wind, and the hoof beats and leather sliding against leather, Shaw couldn’t hear how close the major’s men were. He did hear his own heartbeat in his ears, pumping hard, pushing more blood out of the shot in his arse. Foking hell. He yanked off the cloth strip he’d torn that morning from one of the bairn’s clean cloths in case he needed to wash Alana’s gash. Lifting his kilt, he slid the cloth under his leg above the shot. The wound was deep, but it looked like the ball wasn’t embedded. He used his leg muscles to steady himself and tied the cloth tightly.

  Scanning the brightly colored forest, Shaw whipped his gaze from side to side looking for a rider with long flowing hair. His gut remained tight. Where were Alana and the bairn? Could other English be hiding in the forest away from Dixon? Could they have her bound and gagged, the bairn already slaughtered? His thoughts made him lean over the horse, and it picked up speed with the urgency.

  Circumventing the village, they turned east, riding until they reached where Shaw would turn them to ride on the way to St. Andrews. Shaw pulled up on his horse’s reins. “Where are they?” he yelled. Before anyone could answer, the sound of a beast running through the leaves made him twist in the saddle.

  Robert the wolfhound loped after them, another frayed rope dragging behind him. Mungo signaled, looking relieved.

  Shaw bent down. “Where is Alana?” he called to the dog as it leaped around, weaving amongst the horses, nose in the air. The dog tilted his large shaggy head as if to decipher what Shaw was asking. His gaze scanned all of them seated up high. None of them carried anything that smelled of Alana. He glanced down at himself. He’d used his kilt to place a wedge between him and Alana during the night when he couldn’t sleep from want, knowing that if she rolled up against him, he might be too drunk with exhaustion to push her away.

  Shaw put his weight on his good leg as he dismounted the English horse on the wrong side. He ignored the deep ache of the laceration and tight binding.

  “Fok, Shaw,” Rabbie said, moving his horse closer. “Ye are shot.”

  Logan cursed, dismounting, and Mungo spit, jumping down to run over and untie the rope around Robert’s neck.

  “The ball is not lodged in my leg,” Shaw said, walking to Robert, his stride skewed.

  Logan ran up to him. “Shite, there’s a lot of blood. I need to tighten the binding,” he said, flipping up his kilt.

  Shaw let him look but gathered the front of his kilt, which was free of blood, in his hand. With his shot leg to the side, he bent his other knee to lower so the dog could thoroughly smell his shirt, where he’d held Alana not even an hour ago as he kissed her in the town square under the jester’s kissing ball. “Where is she?” he asked and raised his kilt to the dog’s nose, tugging his own shirt forward, too.

  “The lass was against your kilt and shirt?” Logan asked, his brows raised.

  “And the bairn,” Shaw said, a sliver of defensiveness in his tone.

  Mungo started moving his hands with signs. Logan, who understood his signals the best, snorted. “He says, ‘no wonder Alistair is in a foul mood.’ The poor bastard decided she was the woman for him after she hit that English soldier in the head with her dirk.”

  “Alana Campbell is for none of us,” Shaw said. His fingers curled into the dog’s thick coat. “Except for ye,” he said, looking into the animal’s warm brown eyes. “Find your mistress.” He held his shirt and kilt to the dog’s moist black nose.

  Shaw straightened, grunting as Logan tied the tourniquet tighter on his thigh. “Ye are making my toes go numb.”

  “That’s the bloody idea,” Logan said, motioning to Mungo to bring Rìgh closer. “Best ride Rìgh. He will keep ye going even if ye bleed to death on top of him.”

  “And the ladies think ye are the sensitive one of us,” Shaw said, grabbing Rìgh’s familiar saddle to pull himself up. “Leave the three English horses. Alana has one that she escaped on.”

  “There he goes,” Rabbie said as Robert, nose to the ground littered with fallen leaves, trotted off farther into the woods. His powerful tail swung back and forth like a flag.

  “Follow him,” Shaw said, adjusting his numb leg against his faithful mount. Logan was right. Rìgh would take him all the way back to Girnigoe Castle even if he bled out on the way, arriving stone-cold dead. He looked out over the horse’s ears, his mind moving past the throbbing of his leg and to the need to find Alana. Where are ye, lass?

  Robert kept them moving west, farther out from the village, and then turning east nearly a mile out from the town. Was Alistair with her? Or had they left hi
m in the village without a horse? Shite. Despite Shaw’s annoyance with the man, he would go back for him. He was a friend, even if he’d foolishly set his heart on a lass he could never have. Mo chreach. Shaw rubbed his bristly chin. Was he in danger of doing the same? Nay. He was made of stronger discipline. She was a Campbell, and besides, a part of her would likely hate him forever for taking her in the first place.

  He hadn’t felt any hate in her kiss last night, nor the one today. Then again, she didn’t know him. What he’d done in his past to try and save his clan. What he’d seen when her parents were taken by the English.

  Mungo rose up in his saddle, his arms open wide to the sky, waving and then pointing ahead and to the right.

  “There,” Logan said just as Robert, sensing how close his mistress was, broke into a run. “In the tree.”

  “With Alistair,” Rabbie said.

  Damn. Shaw leaned forward, and Rìgh surged ahead, knowing without him even pressing against his sides. They stopped before the thick oak. “Alana,” he called up.

  “I have her,” Alistair said. “And the bairn.”

  “I have myself,” Alana said. “And the bairn.” Before Alistair could move, she threw one leg over the branch, her skirts flying over in a blue arc. She lowered onto the bottom one, the bairn still strapped to her chest.

  Shaw pushed Rìgh close to the tree so that they were on eye level. “Ye are well?” he asked. “And the bairn?”

  She nodded. “I heard musket fire,” she whispered, her gaze dropping along his frame. It stopped on his bloody kilt. Her breath hissed through her teeth as she inhaled. “You are shot.”

  “Grazed,” he said, not wanting her to worry over the blood loss.

  “I need to tend it,” she said.

  “We need to get away from Kinross,” Alistair said, lowering down. His lip and eye had swollen. Good.

  “I knocked out Major Dixon,” Shaw said. He should have skewed him in the back after he hit him, but he wasn’t one to kill an unconscious man. And murder was not something he wished tied to the Sinclair name. He exhaled. “But once he wakes, he will follow.”