When You Love a Scotsman

by Hannah Howell

  Matthew was just about to give Boyd a warning about what he may face when he was shoved out of the way. Abigail was back with strips of cloth and a small pot of something that smelled medicinal. He watched as she cleaned the wound, appearing oblivious to Boyd’s badly smothered sounds of pain. She studied the exit wound with a frown he was pleased Boyd could not see, faintly shook her head, and then turned to her pile of supplies to pick up a needle and thread.

  “This is going to hurt,” Abigail said quietly. “Take deep breaths and let them out slowly. It sometimes helps. I will work as quickly as I can.”

  She also worked fast, Matthew noticed as he grabbed Boyd’s hand and let the boy hang on to him. Wincing, he silently hoped Boyd would still be able to shoot. When she was done, she wiped the sweat from the boy’s face and kissed his cheek. The way the boy blushed made Matthew grin.

  “Could you get on his other side?” Abigail asked Matthew. “We need to tie his arm to his side.”

  “Why?” asked Boyd.

  As she wrapped his arm, Abigail explained, “I can’t say for certain, but it looks as if that bullet tore a bit of your muscle and nicked a vein. It needs a lot of healing and that means it must be kept stable. Sir”—she looked at Matthew—“I am going to slide the strip of cloth beneath him. Could you please pull it through and hand it back to me?”

  Matthew nodded then did as she asked. Twice more she passed the cloth under the boy, pinning his arm tightly to his side. As she tied the bandage Matthew could easily read the dismay on Boyd’s face. He now had only one usable arm and that meant his time to be a soldier was done, at best at least until the wound healed.

  There was a sudden flurry of shooting, the glass in the window shattering and the sound of bullets hitting the wall, echoing in the house. Matthew ducked and, keeping low to the floor, hurried back to the window. Looking out he could count six men left, and all of them attempting to hide themselves behind rocks and trees, and half of them had dirty ragged bandages tied around some limb. Two men were slowly crawling back to their horses. Tired of the battle, he decided as he shot at a man huddled behind a tree. A loud curse told him he had winged the man.

  “We gonna shoot ’em down as they try to crawl away?” asked James.

  “Nay. Just dinnae let them ken we are nay going to do that.”

  “Is the girl going to be shooting?” asked Danny. “’Cause maybe you should tell her we ain’t aiming to kill.”

  Matthew laughed. “True, but I think she is settled with caring for Boyd.” He was busy loading his gun when another mad flurry of shots peppered the house. “What the hell?”

  “Trying to make us all hunker down so they can flee, I reckon,” said Jed, daring a peek out the window. “They are all trying to back away.”

  “Good. Shoot just enough to keep them retreating,” Matthew said and immediately shot toward another man hiding behind a tree.

  Matthew could see his strategy was working the few times he was able to look out the window. Once he glanced toward Abigail and saw that she had gotten Boyd sheltered on the far side of the big fireplace. He had heard her plead again with her mother to get down, but the woman continued to ignore her despite the number of bullets that slammed into the wall near the sick man’s bed. The woman appeared to be oblivious to the battle going on around her.

  Taking another turn at shooting out the windows, Matthew could see that the men were close to leaving. The two who were crawling toward their horses were by the animals now and just waiting for a chance to mount and run. The other four were closer to their horses. He knew many another officer would order the horses shot but Matthew had never been able to give such an order. He also suspected it was more a love for the animals than moral uncertainty about shooting wounded men.

  Another round of gunfire hit the house and he ducked down. He looked back at Abigail and Boyd again, relieved to find them unharmed. She had removed the tourniquet on his arm and was intently watching for an increase in bleeding. He then looked toward the mother and tensed. Her dress was dark but he was certain he could see blood.

  The shooting eased and he went back to returning fire, careful not to aim to kill. It embarrassed him because he suspected the men running thought them all poor shots. Smiling grimly, he decided it might not be a bad rumor to start for it might aid them in future confrontations.

  He was taking time to reload when he heard a cry. He looked toward Abigail and Boyd, but Abigail was staring at her mother in horror. Matthew looked back at the woman and sighed. There was no mistaking that the last flurry of shots had found their target. The woman should be dead but she was crawling on top of the man. Then Abigail was there and Matthew shook his head. He felt for the girl but there was nothing he could do. He returned to the work of making sure the Rebs hurried their retreat.

  * * *

  Abigail hurried to her mother’s side and knew, with one look, that there was nothing she could do. The bullet had gone into her back and exploded out of her chest only to continue on into her father’s stomach. For days she had known her father was dying, but that bullet had abruptly ended his long struggle against the inevitable. Fighting tears, she tried to coax her mother into allowing her to tend to her wounds but the woman fought her, trying to curl up around her father. Abigail finally let her and struggled against the urge to weep as the bed became soaked in blood.

  Her mother took her father’s hand in hers and settled her head on his chest. Abigail suspected there were women who would find it touchingly romantic, but she only found it heartbreakingly sad. In the last few weeks it had become clear to her that her father was all important to her mother, her son a close second. This last act only confirmed it. She took the quilt folded at the foot of the bed and covered them both. She then ducked down and scurried back to Boyd’s side.

  “I am sorry, Abigail,” Boyd said, his voice weak and hoarse.

  “My father was already as good as dead and I think my mother was ready to follow him.”

  “Are you sure your father was already dying?”

  “I smelled it last week. He hung on far longer than I thought he would.”

  “You smelled it?” Boyd tried to sit up straighter and winced.

  She gave him a hand in getting more comfortable. “Yes. There is a smell to the dying. No one believes me, but there is.” She sat down next to him. “I tried to tell my mother, to prepare her, but she would not listen. She changed after the attack. I think it broke her. Maybe if my father had not been so badly injured she would have recovered, but . . .” She shrugged. “I was hiding and I should have come out. Maybe I could have been helpful.”

  “No. Who hurt them?”

  “The Rebs.”

  “Ah. No, it was best that you remained hidden. They could have hurt you, too.”

  “Maybe. All I could think of was that I had not brought my rifle with me so how could I fight what looked to be six soldiers, maybe more.”

  “You could not have. Do not let it make you feel guilty.”

  She had been trying not to and it helped to hear someone else say it was unnecessary, but Abigail suspected the guilt would haunt her for a while yet. She worried about what her brother would think if he returned and she had to tell him what had happened. Abigail feared he would then feel guilty for not being here even though he had been given no choice about that. She prayed he would return alive and whole, for this cursed war had already cost her too much.

  Chapter Two

  “They are gone, sir,” James said.

  Matthew tore his gaze from Abigail. “Are ye sure?”

  Before James could reply, there was the sound of breaking glass and they all crouched down. Matthew stared toward the door of the bedroom where the sound had come from but, despite a few added odd sounds, there was no sign of an attack being set up. He was just standing up to go and look when there was another crash of glass breaking toward the back of the house and he went back down into a crouch.

  “Thought you said they had left,” he m
uttered, glancing at James.

  “Saw them all ride off. Didn’t see none turn back.”

  “Yet some must have circled back.”

  “Not sure we can be certain of that without getting our heads shot off,” said Dan.

  “I smell smoke,” said Abigail as she began to stand up.

  “Stay there and stay down,” Matthew ordered. “Skirts and fire dinnae mix well.” He stood up and headed for the bedroom door.

  Abigail sat down and muttered, “I am not one of your damn soldiers.” She looked at Boyd when he laughed weakly. “What?”

  “In times like these we are all soldiers. A war forces us into the job sometimes.”

  “That is a very dark view of things.” She frowned when he shivered. “You are growing cold. You should have said that you were cold.”

  She moved and grabbed the handle of a chest set at the foot of the bed holding the bodies of her parents. As she began to drag it over to where Boyd sat, one of the other men hurried over to help her. She looked at his roughly cut brown hair and blue-gray eyes and recalled that Matthew had called this man James.

  “Thank you kindly, James,” she said. “It was a lot heavier than I remembered.” Matthew abruptly cursed in a loud startled voice and she looked at him. “What is wrong?”

  “Handle is hot.” He touched the door. “So is the door.”

  “The kitchen,” she said, and dropped the quilt she had been lifting out of the chest for Boyd then stood up.

  “Stay there,” Matthew ordered again and strode toward the door leading to the kitchen. Even as he braced himself to touch another hot door handle, smoke began billowing out from beneath the door. “The fire is going weel in there, too.”

  “But why burn the house when they were retreating?” Abigail asked.

  “Revenge for the dead and wounded,” said James. “Might be hoping it will kill a few of us as well.”

  “Instead it will just leave nothing for my brother to come home to, if he can,” she said.

  “Where is your brother?”

  “No idea. The Rebs took him. They said they needed men and he was not allowed to say no.” She turned to look toward the wall between the kitchen and the front room where she stood. “I should move my parents. I think the fire has reached that wall.”

  Abigail had barely finished speaking when a creaking groan echoed through the room. She stared at the wall and cried out when it abruptly began to collapse, smoke, ash, and a hint of flame swelling up behind it. Still smoldering, the wood fell on her parents’ bodies but when she moved to go toward it, two of the men grabbed her by the arms and held her back.

  “They are burning up,” she cried out as she struggled to get free of their hold.

  “I dinnae think they would wish ye to join them,” Matthew said as he took James’s place and got a firm grip on her arm.

  She finally stopped fighting, tried to ignore the smell of the smoke coming off the bed, and felt tears dripping down her cheeks. “I was going to bury them. Together. Now there will be nothing to bury.”

  “I suspicion there will be something left, but ye will be gone.” Matthew winced, thinking he had just been too hard, but there was no reaction from her on his words.

  “Why?” She hated how her voice sounded when she cried but forced herself to ask. “Where am I going?”

  Knowing they had to get out, Matthew used a few quick but clear signals to tell his men to check outside for the enemy. “Ye will come with us. Gather what ye can and need. Quickly, for the smoke is growing too thick and the fire will soon come for us.”

  “That chest,” she said and pointed to the one she had pulled away from the bed as she fought to push her grief back.

  Abigail pulled her arm away from his loosened grip and moved to a table set near the door. She collected up the photograph of her mother and father, one of them before they had left the city to come here. She wished she had made them get one of her brother, Reid, but all she had left of him was in the trunk she had saved. A drawing of the cabin done shortly before he had been taken away, his mouth organ, and his fancy boots were all that she had left of her brother. Glancing back at the burning bed, she shook her head and strode out the door. It was so little of a life Reid had only just begun to live.

  Boyd sat outside, away from the cabin, in an attempt to escape any live sparks and the smoke, her chest beside him. He watched the men gather up the horses as she sat down on the chest and tried very hard not to think of anything. Watching her home burn down held all her attention until Matthew stepped between her and the sight.

  “We cannae take the chest on the horses,” he said, and worried about the blank look on her face.

  “Then we can use the cart,” she said in a disturbingly flat voice. “George is still in the stable and he can pull it.”

  Matthew looked toward the barn. “Thought they took all your horses.”

  “George is a big, old plow horse. He did not want to go.” She slowly stood up, moving like an old woman. “Da brought him all the way from Pennsylvania. I think the men tried, but it looked like one got bitten so they obviously decided to leave him. Didn’t have the time to coax him, I guess.” She started toward the barn and Matthew fell into step beside her. “He will pull the cart. It will carry Boyd, too.”

  “Oh, aye.” He glanced back at the younger man. “He cannae ride weel with only one arm.”

  At the door to the barn he glanced down at a flat stone set in the ground to the right of the door. Pendragon was clearly painted on it, neatly but with a flourish. It was an odd thing to write on a stepping stone.

  Abigail began to open the door, saw what had caught his attention, and sighed. “One of the Rebs shot my cat. It was a senseless thing to do. And mean. He was no threat.” She wiped away the few tears that slipped the leash she held on her grief, wondered who she cried for, and stepped into the barn.

  “Aye, it was senseless and probably just mean, but a lot of that happens in a war.”

  She just nodded, not in the mood to talk on men and their wars. “There is the wagon.” George neighed in welcome. “And there is George.”

  Matthew looked at the horse and nearly smiled. He was a big animal obviously bred for strength. He had seen one from time to time when some farm boy joined them with his big farm horse, a mount that was soon changed. If the men she spoke of had tried to take George it was either to pull a wagon or a cannon or even to try and send it home to their farm. It was the type of horse old armored knights had ridden into battle.

  He moved to the wagon first and Abigail followed him. He stared at the wagon. It was a good size and looked solid but it had been painted black, a shiny black decorated with a lot of painted flowers. Did Abigail really expect any self-respecting soldier to ride in or drive such a wagon? He also wondered why she had felt the need to do it as it must have taken her a lot of time.

  She suddenly uttered a glad cry and scrambled into the back of the wagon. Matthew did his best not to look at her slim legs as her skirts rode up but failed. She moved toward the long metal box set behind the driver’s seat. He hoped whatever had been in it was still there as he studied the horse and plotted the best way to approach it.

  “Ha! They did not take any interest in this.” Abigail pushed aside a few dresses and pulled out a small box. “They would have taken it if they had.”

  “Why? What is in it?”

  Abigail hesitated only a moment in answering. She had seen nothing to tell her these men could not be trusted. If she proved wrong in that judgment she would deal with the consequences later. Right now, they were allies.

  “A bit of money and the papers that give us the right to this land. We kept things in this box since the day the war began because we could not be sure when we might have to flee. That is why the deeds for the land are here so the one or ones who survived would have something to come back to. I never thought I would be the only one who might use them,” she added in a soft, broken voice.

  He watched her a
s she carefully put everything back in the box. Matthew did not think she was aware of it but she was a fine-looking young woman. Her hair was thick, a soft golden brown that looked as if it wanted to curl, held back only by the braid she had forced it into. She was small, but curved in all the right places. It was her storm gray eyes that were the most striking. Her face was pretty but it was her eyes that held a person’s attention. He had already noticed how they darkened with emotion and lightened if she was amused. Her mouth was full and looked temptingly soft so he quickly looked back at the horse. It had been far too long since he had even kissed a woman, and watching her too closely was just asking for trouble.

  They were deep in the middle of a vicious war. It was a bad time to be eyeing any woman with interest, he told himself. He had to get her someplace safe and leave her there, then get back to what he had signed up to do until his time was up. After that his plan was to get home and back to something that was normal, something that did not involve constantly killing or running or burying compatriots.

  “Will George allow us to hook him to the wagon?”

  “He will. He likes me and he is more than ready to do something, I think. He is, after all, a working animal.” She walked up to the stall the horse was in, held herself steady when he nudged her, and patted his neck. “Now, my big boy, you are going to be put to use and you are to be polite to the gentlemen. You have been restless to do some work and now is your chance to show what you can do.”

  Although he was made uneasy by the way the horse eyed him, Matthew helped her hitch the wagon to the animal. Once in the harness the animal did seem pleased. He watched as she went back in the stall after fetching a stick of charcoal. She was writing on the wall of the stall and he was wondering why when Abigail stepped out and put the charcoal back on a rough shelf. She then got up in the seat and drove the wagon out of the barn. Matthew resisted the urge to go and look at what she had written and slowly followed because he wanted to see the faces on his men when they caught sight of the wagon.