Forbidden Highlander (22 page)

Lucan’s gaze narrowed as he studied Fallon. “You care a great deal for her, don’t you?”

“My feelings for her are strong, I’ll admit. I want her in my life. I cannot explain what it does to me to have her by my side.”

Lucan moved to stand in front of him. “I’m glad you’ve found your woman, brother. You stood by Cara, so I will stand by Larena.”

Fallon didn’t miss the doubt in Lucan’s eyes. “I know I haven’t been much of a brother these last three hundred years. I’ve let you shoulder too much, and for that I can never apologize enough.”

“Don’t,” Lucan said. “We’ve all had to deal with what happened to us.”

“If I hadna been drunk, we might have been able to help Quinn. I’ll always blame myself for that.”

Lucan put his hand on Fallon’s shoulder and squeezed. “You’re a good man, and a fine leader. You’ve turned your back on the wine and taken charge of things. I trust your judgment, Fallon.”

“Then trust me on Larena. I need her, Lucan.”

Lucan held his gaze for a moment before he dropped his hand to his side and nodded. “I’ll do as you ask, brother.”

“Thank you.”

“Come then. Let us eat,” Lucan said, and strode to the door.

Fallon glanced at the bed and the rumpled sheets. An image of Larena on top of him, her head thrown back, flashed in his mind. He was determined to have her in his bed every night, even if he had to seduce her each time.

Sonya had already put out the food by the time he and Lucan walked into the great hall. Cara came out of the kitchen with three loaves of bread in her arms, a smile on her face, and her eyes twinkling as she gazed at her husband.

Galen strode into the hall from the bailey rubbing his hands together. He sat at the table and sniffed the air. “Warm bread and milk. I’ve been craving it all night.”

Cara laughed and set an entire loaf in front of Galen. “Make it last longer and you won’t have to raid the kitchen during the night.”

He looked up at her and grinned. “I cannot help when I’m hungry.”

Lucan and Sonya laughed as Galen broke apart the bread then quickly dropped it when it burned his fingers. Ribbons of heat curled from the two halves to disappear above him.

Hayden and Logan came in from the kitchen and filled their trenchers before taking their seats. Conversation filled the hall, bringing back many memories for Fallon.

He watched all of it with interest. When he and his brothers had first returned to find the castle in ruins, he had never thought it would be filled with laughter again.

It had taken nearly three hundred years and a coming war with Deirdre, but the stones were being put aright and people once more filled the castle. They were his family now, his responsibility.

Fallon had known what his role would be the moment he set aside the wine and began to make decisions. It still terrified him that he would make the wrong choice. Yet, no matter what, they followed him.

Cara set two slices of bread on his trencher and kissed his cheek. “I’m so glad you’re back. It wasn’t the same without you around.”

He patted his sister-in-law’s hand and smiled up at her. Cara had a good heart. She opened it to whoever needed her love and attention. There were few people like her in the world.

“Thank you.”

Her smile faded and her dark eyes held his. “Trust yourself and your judgment, Fallon. We’ll get Quinn back.”

He forced a grin. She had always had the ability to read him and his brothers accurately, too accurately at times. “Of course we will.”

“Now eat. You’ve a long day ahead of you.”

Fallon waited until Cara had moved on before he lifted his gaze to Lucan. His brother’s sea-green eyes were somber, but determined. Lucan had always had his back, and that hadn’t changed.

“We go to the village today,” Fallon said. “I know I wanted the fourth tower finished, but it can wait. Galen, you and Logan come with us.”

Galen nodded and stuffed more bread into his mouth. “Are you expecting trouble?”

“Nay, but I’d rather be prepared.”

Ramsey descended the stairs and took his seat. “Would you rather Hayden and I go as well?”

“I doona want to leave Cara and Sonya alone.”

Sonya rolled her eyes and snorted. “You won’t be far.”

“I’ll come.”

Fallon’s heart missed a beat at the familiar voice. He turned his gaze to the stairs to see Larena. Her hair was tied at the base of her neck with a lavender ribbon that matched her gown. He liked her in the simple dress. She wore it with as much ease and confidence as she had worn the fashionable dresses at court.

Larena had learned to adapt in ways Fallon and his brothers hadn’t. They could take a lesson from her.

“If that would be all right,” Larena said into the silence.

Fallon licked his lips and made himself stay seated instead of going to her and pulling her into his arms for a kiss. “That would be fine.”

Larena descended the rest of the stairs and walked to the table. She once again took the seat between Cara and Galen. Fallon wanted her beside him in the seat that was saved for Quinn.

He had all the time in the world to woo her as he became the man he wanted to be. Fallon didn’t like that it might take many years, but he was determined to have her in the end no matter how long it took.

It troubled Fallon that she refused to look at him as she ate. She kept her attention on Cara and Sonya. Occasionally, she would glance at Galen or Ramsey and speak.

Fallon had long since finished his meal and was talking to Lucan about building a few cottages closer to the castle when Larena looked up. Fallon met her gaze and saw the uncertainty in her smoky-blue eyes.

But doubt for what, he didn’t know.

Fallon walked into the village with Lucan on his right and Larena on his left. Behind him were Galen and Logan. He stared at the destruction before him and swore he could hear the screams of the innocents who had died still ringing in the breeze.

The village had been so alive not that long ago, but Deirdre had seen it crushed in her efforts to find Cara. Now, only ghosts lingered in the empty streets and burned-down cottages.

At the far end of the village, tucked away and nestled in a grove of oak trees, was the nunnery in which Cara had been raised. Orphaned and unwanted children had found a home there with the nuns.

Fallon had often gone to the towers to watch them running through the village, their mirth reaching even the castle. There was nothing like the sound of a child’s laughter. It was pure and simple and contagious, hitting a person square in the chest.

The village was eerily quiet now, and that disturbed Fallon more than the fire marks on the castle walls.

“Deirdre did this?” Larena asked when she came upon the first burned cottage. She placed her hand on the door hanging by one hinge.

Fallon nodded. “They killed everyone.”

“Just as they did your clan,” she murmured, and turned her gaze to him.

Fallon looked at her and saw the depth of her feeling. She hadn’t known the villagers, but she felt the pain of their loss. The memories of his clan’s murder didn’t sting as badly as they used to.

He couldn’t change what had happened to his family and clan, but he could make sure Deirdre didn’t kill any more innocents.

Galen kicked at the remains of a door that lay in their path. “I wish I had been here for the first attack. Seeing this makes me want to find the Warriors and wyrran responsible and rip out their throats.”

Lucan sighed. “If we had known Deirdre had sent her army, we might have saved some of them. As it was, we were trying to save Cara.”

“Nay,” Logan said, his usually cheerful voice hard and cold as ice. “It doesna matter how you try. You can’t save them. Not when Deirdre is involved.”

Fallon and the others turned to face the Warrior. Logan’s customary smile and bright eyes were gone. He stared into the empty village as if he were seeing an image from his past, a past full of death and betrayal.

Fallon knew all the Warriors in his castle had a past. Some spoke of them, some didn’t. Logan was one that kept his past to himself, but what Fallon was seeing now worried him more than Hayden’s hatred for the
droughs
.

“Logan?” Fallon said carefully.

The young Warrior jerked as if slapped. His lips pulled back into a wide smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I think I want the first cottage. The thought of sharing a chamber with Hayden makes me gag.”

Everyone chuckled at the jest, but Fallon knew something dark—and dangerous—lurked inside of Logan. Fallon recognized what Logan was doing. Instead of drowning in wine as Fallon had done, Logan teased and joked his way through the day. It was Logan’s escape from his past.

Fallon was determined to pay closer attention to the young Warrior. He hadn’t asked what had happened to Logan’s family, and even if he did, he wasn’t sure Logan would give him the truth. Maybe Hayden or Ramsey knew something. Fallon made a mental note to talk to the two Warriors as soon as he could.

Lucan nudged Fallon as Logan moved past them into the village.

“I know,” Fallon said, answering his brother’s unspoken question. “We need to keep an eye on him.”

Galen stepped in front of Fallon, his gaze on Logan’s retreating back. “We’ve all got pasts we deal with. They’re like spirits that never leave. Whatever haunts Logan is his own to carry.”

“Maybe so,” Fallon said, “but I want him to know we’re here for him.”

Galen turned his head to Fallon. “Logan knows that. He wouldn’t have come if he didn’t. Right now, he wants what the rest of us want. He wants to fight Deirdre.”

Lucan grunted. “I’m sure he’ll get his wish again soon enough.”

“Aye,” Fallon said, and looked at Larena. “Deirdre willna have given up on Larena that easily.”

“Not after having lost Cara,” Lucan said. “Though I’m not sure she’s given up on having Cara either.”

Galen shook his head. “Deirdre doesn’t give up on anything. If she wants something, she’ll try again and again until she acquires it.”

“Then we have to make sure she doesn’t capture me or Cara,” Larena said, before following Logan through the village.

Fallon grinned at her confidence.

Galen chuckled. “I don’t think Deirdre would know what to do with Larena if she did capture her.”

“I don’t intend to find out,” Fallon said. “Let’s get to work.”

They moved from cottage to cottage inspecting the damages and considering what would need to be rebuilt and replaced. Larena, Logan, and Galen began to haul out debris and pile it in the center of the village to be burned.

Of the twenty cottages, only five were salvageable. The others were beyond repair, just as the nunnery was. Fallon gauged the distance from the village to the castle.

It would be a good sprint to reach the castle gates, and that was if they were Warriors. The villagers had been afraid of MacLeod Castle and that was why the community had been moved so far away.

“It needs to be closer,” Fallon murmured to himself.

Lucan came to stand beside him and dusted off his hands that were black from hauling burned wood. “I agree. The five cottages that can be restored are the farthest away from the nunnery, which helps us.”

“Aye,” Fallon said. “How many do you think we should build?”

Lucan looked over his shoulder at the remaining cottages. “Two. Maybe three. We can always build more if we need it.”

Fallon didn’t want to waste their time and resources building cottages that might not be used, but he also wanted to have them ready if they were needed.

Logan, Galen, and Larena walked up while passing a skin of water among them. Their faces and clothes were smeared black, and strands of Larena’s hair had come free and stuck to the side of her face.

“What did you decide?” Galen asked.

Fallon pointed to the five cottages. “These five are the only ones worth rebuilding. We’ll start on them first as we finish cleaning the village.”

“And after?” Logan asked.

“Lucan has suggested two or three more cottages be built.”

Logan wiped the hair that stuck to his sweat-stained face and looked about him. “Three would be good, but I think I might build a fourth. Also, when we’re building, we should think about ways to secure the cottages.”

Fallon raised a brow. “Secure?”

“Aye.” Logan shifted his stance. “I agree that the Warriors should live in the cottages. We all know that Deirdre likes to attack quickly, and we saw how the traps we set in the castle slowed the wyrran to give us time to prepare.”

“That’s a good idea,” Lucan said. “I hadn’t thought of securing the cottages.”

Fallon agreed. “Logan, can you come up with some ideas?”

Logan nodded. “I’ll see to it.”

“Good. Let’s burn the rubble.”

Lucan clapped his hands together. “I’ll start gathering the wood I need to make the furniture.”

“And I can begin reconstruction of the five cottages,” Galen said as he accepted the water from Larena.

Fallon exhaled and nodded. It was all coming together. At least he would have something to occupy him as he waited for the fake Scroll to be finished and he could free Quinn.

He turned his head to look at Larena. She wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and laughed at something Lucan said.

After seeing her at court, he hadn’t expected her to want to get dirty. But then again, she was a Highlander. He grinned. He couldn’t help it. He liked having her in his life. She brought the sunshine with her. And, there was something about her presence that made him want to be a better man, a man his father would have been proud of.

Suddenly, her smile vanished and her eyes grew round. Fallon whirled around to find the winged Warrior landing several paces away from them.

In an instant, Galen and Logan had shifted into Warrior form. Fallon held up his hand to stop them. He wanted to know what the Warrior wanted before they attacked.

The dark blue Warrior looked at each one of them before he focused his gaze on Fallon. “Fallon MacLeod, I’ve come with a message from Deirdre.”

“Who are you?” Fallon asked. The more he could find out about the Warrior the better. His father had always told him to know his enemies better than he knew his friends.