An Outcast's Wish

by Aileen Adams

  An Outcast’s Wish

  Highland Heartbeats

  Aileen Adams

  Contents

  An Outcast’s Wish

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Afterword

  An Outcast’s Wish

  Book Three of the Highland Heartbeats Series!

  * * *

  Some memories are best left forgotten…

  Maccay Douglas finds a trespasser on Duncan lands. Except the trespasser isn’t some lad up to mischief. It’s a woman in boy’s clothing.

  A woman with a bruise on her head and no name, and hunting skills.

  She claims she doesn’t know who she is.

  That doesn’t stop him from falling in love.

  Except this redhaired beauty has an explosive secret that is bound to bring war to the highlands.

  1

  Maccay Douglas rode along the northern boundaries of the Duncan stronghold, an expanse of land that ranged nearly horizon to horizon. The rocky slopes of Ben Nevis along the edges of the western Grampian mountains were a sight to behold as sunrise bathed its slopes in a pinkish-purple glow.

  Filling his lungs with the scent of pine and heather, Maccay reined in Bruce, his gelding, to watch the sunrise. He smiled, as always thinking of his mother, whenever he peered at the slopes of the mountain. She had been captivated by that mountain, truly believing it was the home of fairies and spirits. She called the mountain Beinn Nibheis, in her Scottish Gaelic tongue–God rest her soul.

  Och, nothing matched such a wondrous sight; one that always managed to lift his spirits, haunted or not.

  Maccay watched for a few minutes, and then nudged Bruce forward, eyes again sweeping the lush green landscape, looking for signs of trespassers or rogues who occasionally crossed Duncan lands, as they headed away from the western shores of Scotland, toward the large cities of Aberdeen or further south toward Edinburgh or Glasgow. Or perhaps even further south to the lands of Northern Ireland or to cross Hadrian’s Wall into northers England.

  Bruce stepped carefully along the marsh club moss, the horse tail, and the ferns that edged the forests downslope, still dripping moisture from yesterday’s rainfall. The air was filled with the scent of pine.

  He gazed over the land as he paused on the top of a low rise. Down below, the sweeping forests were rich with willow, birch, and oak, all filling with new growth and foliage now that winter was gone. Warmer days ahead.

  The hooves of his horse crushed creeping buttercups still closed against the damp and chilly morning air, but come noon time, the Dog Rose and the Lady’s Mantle flowers would emerge to soak up the early spring sunshine.

  Such a fine day it would be and he reveled in it, glad that the harsh, cold days of winter were over, tired of being cooped up in his small house behind the armory, or inside the manor house watching—no, enduring—the love-besotted exchanges of his lifelong comrades and their wives.

  Maccay’s mind wandered to the previous night.

  Last evening, Maccay had stared in bemusement, near the front door of the manor house, leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he watched the way Phillip, Laird of the Duncan clan no less, ogle his wife, Sarah. Literally ogle.

  Not that long ago, Maccay would never have seen such an expression on the face of the laird, a fierce and respected warrior who, though kind and fair to his own people, caused his enemies to tread carefully if they got so much as near Duncan land borders.

  If Maccay hadn’t seen that tender look himself, that crooked smile as he lifted a finger to tap the end of his wife’s nose with such a playful gesture, he wouldn’t have believed it.

  He and Phillip had known each other from childhood. Phillip was only a few years older than he. Actually, Maccay was closer in age to the laird’s younger brother by two years, Jake.

  Jake had an even more fearsome reputation that Phillip, with good reason. He was often away fighting, but last year he had been wounded, had nearly died. He’d been home for good since then. He too had fallen in love, with Sarah’s younger sister Heather.

  Love.

  If that’s what love did to a person, Maccay wanted nothing to do with it. He’d shook his head as he watched the lovers at the table. Sarah, Phillip’s wife of for over a year, sat on the bench near her husband, hands resting gently on her growing belly. She was with child, an event that had precipitated much celebration during the cold winter months. Her baby was due in a few months’ time.

  Could falling in love and making a baby really provoke such a change in a man? Maccay tugged at one lock of his hair as he contemplated the question.

  Sarah sat on a bench on one side of the large table in the great room while Phillip sat at its head, where he belonged, smiling as he urged his wife to finish eating the chicken and root vegetables on her plate. Across from her sat Heather, watching with obvious amusement, stifling a giggle behind her hand as Sarah rolled her eyes in her direction.

  Jake emerged from the kitchen just then, glowering as he entered the great room. He took one look at his brother and his sister-in-law and shook his head. Then, as Maccay watched, his expression changed the moment his gaze landed on his new wife, Heather.

  Maccay barely stifled the groan he felt rising in his chest. Ye gods, those two were fully besotted with their wives. It was almost too painful to watch. Still, unable to pull his eyes away, he scratched at the stubble of beard on his jaw and watched the interplay between those two as well.

  Two of the greatest warriors in the highlands—the laird and the younger brother of the mighty and fearsome Duncan clan, acting like love-struck youngsters. He shook his head, amazed that mere emotions could compel such a transformation in the brothers.

  “What are you smirking about, Maccay?”

  He glanced at Jake, glowering in his direction. He laughed. “At you and your brother.” With that, Phillip pulled his attention from his wife and looked to him, brows raised in curiosity.

  “And what exactly has you so amused?”

  Maccay pushed himself away from the wall and gestured at all four of them. “Actually, all of you, that way you gaze at each other, love struck, your eyes glistening with amorous intentions, your lips aching for the touch of the other—”

  Jake plucked an apple from the platter on the table and flung it in Maccay’s direction. It barely missed his head, splattering into pieces as it struck the wall beside him.

  He guffawed.

  “I think your besotted brain has affected your aim, Jake,” he teased.

  They expected no less from him.

  He taunted playfully, as he was wont to do, always the one to try and find humor in any situation. Certainly, things had changed around here, but as far as he was concerned, those changes have been for the better. He was happy for the laird and his brother. They deserved to be happy and he didn’t begrudge them that happiness one bit.

  Truly, if he were to be honest with himself, he would admit that he was a bit envious. He had never been in love. Had never really been interested or paid much attention to courting anyone.

  Lately however, watching the relationsh
ips between those four had him second-guessing. Maybe it was time for him to also find a wife and settle down—just as the thought blossomed in his mind, he shook his head with disgust. Was he too going soft?

  Phillip and Jake stood, each kissing their wives on their foreheads before Phillip beckoned him to join him outside.

  The fun was over. Nothing soft about either one of them now, their expressions serious. He followed the two outside.

  “Are you and your men ready?” Phillip asked.

  Maccay nodded, his hand automatically dropping to the head of the axe tucked into his wide leather belt. “Aye. Hugh and his men are going to patrol the southern perimeter and I’ll take the northern.”

  Phillip was determined to put an end once and for all to the ongoing ordeal with Ceana Cameron, the woman who had tried to kill Jake, not once, but twice, during the past year.

  She had also stirred trouble between the Duncans and two enemy clans to the north and west—the Orkneys and the McGregors. In a month’s time, Phillip was to meet with the leaders of those enemy clans to renew the tentative truce that had existed between them for years, a truce that Ceana’s hatred and thirst for revenge had endangered.

  No one wanted another war with either of the clans. Ceana, a local healer who had grown up with the Duncans, had been banished after they learned of her plot. She had briefly cavorted with the Orkney clan, but after Ceana encouraged them to kidnap Sarah and failed, they too had turned their backs on her, not wishing to go to war with the Duncans over a woman.

  Phillip and Jake wanted her found.

  The sooner the better.

  Ceana had fallen in love with Jake years ago, but he had not returned her affections. After he was wounded in battle, he had been brought home. Ceana had been called upon to aid in his recovery. Jake had grown worse.

  Desperate to save his brother, Phillip had journeyed southeast to the coast, seeking a well-known healer named Sarah MacDonald a lowland-dweller whose reputation had reached the highlands. He kidnapped her and brought her to Duncan manor to care for his brother. It had been she who had discovered Ceana’s treachery.

  Ceana had sought revenge following her banishment, first against Sarah, and then, just last summer, against Jake. Heather had saved his life.

  Now that spring had arrived, Phillip had renewed his search to find Ceana and take care of her once and for all. They all knew that until Ceana was dealt with, there was a strong possibility that she would continue to seek her revenge against the Duncans. Now, with Sarah bearing Phillip’s firstborn child, he was taking no chances.

  Maccay had grown concerned with the ongoing feud. This past winter, he had heard Jake and Phillip speak often of the woman as winter’s cold winds whipped outside, the snow creating heavy drifts against the manor house and those in the nearby village. He sensed Phillip’s frustration over his inability to capture Ceana, but worried about his laird’s thirst for revenge.

  Obsessions could be dangerous things.

  Maccay didn’t begrudge Phillip and Jake their marriages, nor the love they obviously felt for their wives. Then again, their relationships were still new. What would happen in another year’s time, or perhaps five? He only had his own parents’ relationship with one another to base his feelings about marriage upon, and their relationship had been neither happy nor endured the tests of time.

  Looking back on it, Maccay couldn’t really remember many times when his parents weren’t arguing. A volatile couple they were; both stubborn, both loud, and both constantly seeming to struggle for… something.

  He had seen such obsession tear apart his own family. The pain it had caused his mother. Not something he wanted to contemplate happening to the Duncan brothers.

  “We’ll find her,” he’d told Phillip. He meant it.

  Phillip nodded. “If she survived the winter.”

  She had survived.

  Maccay knew it.

  He brought himself back to the present.

  As he searched the slopes of the hills and down to the edges of the forest, he had no doubt that the wicked healer had survived the winter. She had an uncanny knack of saving herself, whether it was through trickery or plain luck.

  He sighed, gazing over the landscape, contemplating his own state of affairs. Actually, he had none. Certainly, he had been attracted to several village women over the years, but not enough to evoke an invitation of marriage. He shivered at the very thought.

  “Foolish notion, isn’t it?” he said to his horse.

  The gelding merely flicked an ear toward him, not at all interested in his opinion.

  To say that Maccay had a rather dour outlook on relationships and marriage was an understatement. No, women were too much trouble.

  He focused on his task at hand and continued riding, his gaze continually sweeping the landscape, looking for signs of anything out of the ordinary.

  Like Ceana.

  He doubted he would see her. If she was smart she had left the region months ago, before the first snow had settled on the ground. Then again, the woman seemed to have developed a knack for causing trouble. These lands were already dangerous. The Duncans had fought long and hard to protect their borders from clans throughout the highlands.

  One of these days—

  He heard a sound, like a twig snapping, and pulled his horse to a halt, listening.

  It hadn’t come from close by. The birds in the trees still chirped. Not far away a rabbit emerged from the nearby brush and sat upright, ears tilted forward, chewing on a piece of grass. Whatever that sound had been, it wasn’t close enough to frighten the wildlife away.

  After pausing for several moments, and not hearing it again, he urged his horse forward, his hand resting on the axe tucked into the right side of his belt; a versatile tool and weapon he carried nearly everywhere, along with the fourteen-inch dirk tucked into the belt on his left side, its sharp edge tucked into its sheath resting against his outer thigh.

  He continued forward.

  Had the sound merely been the wind rustling through the trees and brush? Perhaps a branch weakened and loosened from its anchor by the harsh winter just past. Had it perhaps just fallen, tugged loose from branches higher up by the early morning breeze?

  Or had it been the bleat of an animal, a deer perhaps? A wounded creature? He took no chances.

  He moved cautiously through the rocks dotting the hillside along which he rode, his eyes narrowed with concentration as he scanned the ground below, trying to see into the shadows of the trees of the forest below—

  What was that?

  He thought he had seen movement, a brief glimpse of a moving shadow, a darker shade just inside the tree line. A bear? Too tall for a deer.

  He glanced at his horse’s ears, looking for signs that Bruce was concerned, but the gelding didn’t appear alarmed by anything. Still, one couldn’t be overly cautious. He was more than a couple of hours’ ride from the manor, too far for a villager to have traveled gathering roots or even foraging for firewood.

  Maccay nudged his horse in that direction, pulling the axe from his belt, his back stiff, his heart thudding.

  Immediately tense, every sense heightened, he approached the area where he had seen the brief movement. He drew nearer, angling his advance from the side, not wanting to approach whatever it was—if it was anything at all—from the front.

  His horse easily picked its way down through the rock-strewn slope.

  He tried to keep to cover wherever he could, but tree growth along the slope was sparser than further below. His tension warred in contrast to the beauty and serenity of the landscape surrounding him, the sun warm on his face and soaking deep into his bones.

  Maccay paused at the edge of the tree line, his sorrel gelding blending into the background of the trees and the hillside behind him. He waited, listening. He heard nothing unusual, but still… something felt something different. He thought he caught the faintest wisp of wood smoke in the air, so faint he could very well have imagined it. He k
new something was in those woods. He felt it in his gut.

  Dismounting slowly, his eyes continued to seek the deeper shadows. He tied the reins around a small tree, and then stepped into the shadows himself, one slow step at a time. He had seen something. Perhaps it had been an animal, but if it wasn’t, who would be lurking out here, hiding deep in the woods?

  He knew of one person at least, but shook his head, resisting the urge to jump to conclusions. In fact, it could be—

  There!

  He saw something flash on the periphery of his vision and turned toward it. It was a shadow, and it had not been caused by an animal. An animal would have made noise darting from his presence. He had heard nothing though he caught just the barest glimpse of someone—and he was certain it was a person—disappearing behind a tree in the near distance.

  Gripping the battle axe tightly, he followed, prepared to either defend himself or attack if need be. He did his best to stick to shelter, while at the same time focusing on where the shadow had been headed. Who was it? An enemy clansman on the Duncan lands? An outlaw?

  Glancing down, he saw half a footprint in the loamy soil, the other half disappearing on top of a scattering of pine needles on the forest ground. He noted the broken pine needles, making the trail easy to follow a short distance, then paused briefly to search the woods. His senses finely attuned to the normal sounds of morning in the woods, his pulse racing, he crouched with anticipation.

  He tried to think like the person he was trailing. Where would he go if he were hiding from someone and trying to get away?

  He searched the area.

  There.

  He’d go there, off to the right toward the thick overgrowth of bramble bushes, maybe it was wild hawthorn, but Maccay didn’t know, or care at the moment. His grip tightened on the axe handle, he quickly followed.

  Taking ten more steps, Maccay then paused, half-hunched, listening. Was that the sound of someone breathing, gasping for breath?