MacAlister's Hope (3 page)

Kieron was about to reprimand Tavish when Annis’s girlish voice stopped him.

“’Tis sure I am she will do her best,” the lass said quietly, though doubt was clear in her voice. Kieron turned then, only to find her sitting on a log next to Tavish, close, but not so close as to raise eyebrows. Brodie stood just behind her, glaring, and clearly poised to intervene should anyone try to move closer to his charge. Annis leaned toward Tavish, her voice still soft, but Kieron could hear her well. “But truly, compared to Elena, she is little better than anyone with a scant knowledge of herbs.”

“Elena should not have—” Tavish started, his voice once more loud in the clearing.

“Haud yer wheesht!” Kieron said, closing the distance between him and his cousin, letting his rare temper get the better of him. “Both of you.” He glared at Annis who quickly rose and moved away from them, Brodie keeping a close watch on her. “Fia is no child, Tav,” Kieron said. “She is a woman grown and Elena believes she can heal the chief, as do I. Do you doubt my counsel?”

Tavish looked down at his fists, then up at Kieron, a tightness around his eyes that spoke of the great effort he put forth not to take his frustration out on his cousin.

“Well?” Kieron asked. “For if you doubt me, then I am done helping you in this endeavor. I shall escort the women back to Kilmartin in the morning.”

“You will not.”

“Then do not say such things about a woman who has left her home and her family to help yours.”

“Why do you care what I say about her?”

Kieron could not answer truthfully without having to explain the role Fia had played in changing the course of his life, and the course of his relationship with Tavish, and that was not something he was ready to do, especially not when the lass in question did not remember him, or what she had done for him. So he went with the next most truthful thing he could say.

“Because we require her good will if you want your da to be healed. Without it she might not—“

“I would never withhold my skills from anyone in need.” Fia’s voice came from just behind him, hard with just the slightest quaver to it. “I said I would help your chief to the very best of my abilities, and I will, no matter what either of you, or Annis, or anyone else believes about me.”

Kieron looked over his shoulder and found Fia standing there, her hands clasped tightly in front of her and not a trace of the wee lass he remembered in her stony expression.

“Your voices carry quite well,” she said. “And just so everyone here kens,” she raised her voice so the entire camp could hear her, “I never, ever, break my word, good will or no.” She speared him, then Tavish, with an icy glare. “I’ll ask that you both remember that.”

Kieron closed his eyes and counted to ten. Now, if she remembered him at all, she would believe he had turned into the same sort of man Tavish tended toward, and not the man she had told him he could be.

Fia pinched her lips together and prayed for patience as she turned her back on the men. She fetched her dinner, cold meat and bannocks Elena had sent with the company, then perched on a broad, lichen-dappled stone that stuck out of the ground near where she had spread her blankets. She tried not to watch as Kieron and his abrasive companion, Tavish, settled across the clearing with their meals, but they sat directly in her line of sight…as if that had anything to do with her inability to keep her eyes off him.

Off Kieron.

Even if she was angry with him.

Though if she was honest, her anger was more with herself than him. She hadn’t been able to stop watching him all afternoon as they traveled. He sat his horse as if he rode all the time, sitting straight yet easy in the saddle. Kieron was braw, with dark, wavy hair pulled loosely back with a leather thong from his angular face, and eyes the bright green of the first wee leaves of spring. He was long, and leaner than most warriors, more whip-like in his build than thickly muscled, and there was a quiet steadiness to him that made his companion seem even more brash and difficult than he probably was. She had invented a caring, charming man to go with what she had seen, and when Keiron had come to her defense, his appeal had risen, for though she had long since learned to ignore the fact that she would never be the healer Elena was, as if she should aspire to anything of the sort, it still irritated when people doubted her. And he had not doubted her, not for a single moment, as if he knew her, trusted her, even before they met…until he had questioned her word with his reply to Tavish, that they “needed her good will.”

The person she had made herself believe him to be, based on nothing more than her wishes that he was so, shattered with his words. Her daydream was ruined, and it was no one’s fault but her own. The man was who he was, not who she had thought him to be.

She took a bite of the cold venison, then nibbled on a bannock, as she considered the odd feeling she’d had since she first laid eyes on Kieron. She was certain that she had met him before, though she doubted it at the same time, for she was positive she would not forget such a man. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing over where she had left him and Tavish, though she tried not to be obvious about it.

As if drawn by her thoughts, his eyes met hers and held her captive, a question in them that she couldn’t understand. He smiled, a soft smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. He leaned toward Tavish and said something, then rose and made his way across the clearing to her.

“Will you accept my apology?” he asked as he drew near. “I will never doubt your word, ’tis just that I did not ken how to tell Tavish why I trust you when you do not remember why yourself. May I sit with you?”

Fia stared up at him, taking the measure of the man who stood waiting patiently for her decision. He sounded sincere in his apology and in his explanation—or was it simply that she wanted to believe him so she need not be angry with him? Perhaps it was both? Her curiosity got the better of her, though she tried to set aside who she had thought he was so she could see the man he truly was.

She motioned for him to join her.

He settled next to her on the stone, close enough so the heat of his body seemed to reach out and caress her arm, then slowly ease around her, as if he embraced her. The sensation took her breath away.

“What is it that I do not remember?” she asked, hoping her voice would not betray how his nearness unsettled her, but of course it came out breathless. She rolled her eyes at herself. She might not be used to the attentions of men, but that did not mean she could not keep her mind on his words, rather than the nearness of his thigh to hers.

“Aye. You have been looking at me all afternoon as if you almost remembered me.”

“I have?” Of course she had, but she had not known he was aware of it. “I am sorry. I did not mean to be rude.”

Kieron laughed, a slow moving rumble that made her smile.

“Why are you laughing at me?” she asked now, not sure whether to laugh with him, for surely she deserved his amusement, or to be embarrassed that he had caught her.

He leaned close enough that their shoulders touched and Fia could not stop the buzz of awareness that ran through her at his seemingly unintended contact. But he did not move away.

“I am not laughing at you, but at myself. In my vanity, I thought you would remember me, but it is clear you do not. We met a long time ago, back when I was an unhappy lad and you were a wee lass. Wee Fia they called you then.”

“Some still do,” she said, but now she looked at him openly trying to imagine this confident warrior as a boy, but still she could not. “Where did we meet?”

“A summer gathering at Lamont Castle, maybe seven years ago. Elena had brought her family from Kilmartin. I remember she was pregnant that time, too.”

“With Ailish, her youngest,” Fia said, the memory of that summer coming back to her. “Nay…” She cocked her head, trying to line up a long forgotten memory with the man who sat beside her now. “It could not be you.”

“Aye.” He shifted, pulling one knee up on the stone so he could face her. “I was a pitiful lad, picked on by the likes of Tavish and his mates. Even the Lamont lads, who did not ken me, joined with him in tormenting me, and the MacLachlans as well. Hiding from them was my only choice by that time.”

“I do remember.” She was shocked that such a scrawny lad with no confidence had grown up to be so sure of himself that he would reprimand Tavish in front of his warriors…that Kieron would admonish him for doubting her. She saw the confrontation between the two men through new eyes, and realized Keiron had told her the truth when he apologized, but that did not explain… “How did you come to change all that? Clearly, you are well respected, and Tavish, for all that he is the chief’s son, seems to defer to you, to accept your counsel…and your reproofs.”

Kieron reached for her hands, his large hands completely enveloping hers. “You do not recall everything about our meeting, I see.”

Fia closed her eyes to search her memories, for his face, so near she could feel his breath upon hers, was almost as distracting as his hands were. “I found you hiding behind a boulder very much like this one,” she said quietly. A gentle squeeze of her hands told her she was right. “You were…” she hesitated, for she did not want to embarrass him.

“I was so angry I could barely speak, and I was trying not to cry.”

She kept her eyes closed and nodded her head. “Aye. We talked a bit and I do not think I saw you again until we were leaving a few days later. You were outside the gate, still hiding from the other boys, I think.” She let her eyes drift open only to be caught in his penetrating gaze again. “You waved goodbye and you were smiling.”

“I was. But you do not seem remember the most important thing: you changed the course of my life that day. I was ten and four, scrawny, weak compared to the other lads, but you made me see that I had something they did not.”

“I did?” He smiled and she thought she could sit there in the warmth of it forever.

“You did.”

“How?”

He ran his thumbs over the backs of her hands, making it hard to focus on what he said next. “You told me that I had a mind that could parry each of their thrusts, that I was more than just a warrior in training, I was smart, wise to their ways. You pointed out that I knew when I was outnumbered, and where to hide that they would not look, and that I demonstrated great wisdom in that moment.”

She nodded, the day coming back to her quickly now. “I do remember. I had seen you several times in the few days we had been there, and every time one of the bigger lads tried to grapple with you, or corner you, or force you into a fight, you found a way out, usually with a sharp comment that sliced at them as effectively as a sword. Symon asked me what I was giggling at once. I pointed you out and told him what you’d done. He had smiled down at me and said you were a wise man to use your wits when muscles would not suffice. I simply told you what he’d said.”

“And it changed the way I thought of myself. No one else had ever said such a thing to me, only that I needed to practice my fighting skills more, or to stand up to the other lads more. After that day I no longer considered myself a weak boy, but as a wise warrior. From that day my life was no longer theirs to break. It became mine to make, and I have you to thank for that.” He leaned forward and placed a sweet, lingering kiss on her cheek.

Fia’s breath caught in her chest and her heart seemed to cease beating, leaving her light headed.

“I have wanted to…”

“I see the two of you have kissed and made up,” Tavish startled both of them, his voice raised for all to hear. Brodie glowered at all of them from just behind the man. “But I’ll not have you distracting the wee lass from her duties to my father with your kisses and promises, Kier.”

“I was not—”

“He is not—” Fia said at the same time. She glared at the man across the fire, her old dislike of Tavish combined quickly with her earlier, still deserved, anger at him, making her sharper with him than she intended. “He is not distracting me, nor is he making me any promises.”

Tavish laughed, ticking Fia’s irritation even higher.

“Are you going to let such a wee lass defend your honor, Kieron?”

“Leave her be, Tav,” Kieron said as he stood and held a hand out to Fia to help her down, but she did not dare touch him again and let her mind once more start spinning fantasies about his touch, his voice, his… It seemed he was much the man she had imagined him to be, but it did not matter. She had a job to do, and she would not let herself be distracted by anyone, not even Kieron, no matter how enticing he might be.

She slid off the stone without his help and settled her skirts. “I will be saying goodnight,” she said to no one in particular. “You will, too, Annis,” she said to the lass who stood next to Brodie. “We’ve a busy day tomorrow and I’m sure Tavish wishes to get an early start.”

“Aye, Annis, go to your bed,” Kieron said as he crossed the small clearing. “Tavish needs his rest.” Kieron slapped his cousin on the shoulder hard enough to knock him sideways a step or two. “And he will not get it as long as he is trying to sort out which of you lasses he wishes to kiss, and which he’ll offer promises he is in no position to keep.”