Page 78 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
Ava nodded.
Castle MacLeod was a bit smaller and further south. Hearing him speak of it in practical terms made the loss sharpen for a moment. The main castle was truly gone, then. There would be no riding back to charred walls that somehow stood waiting to be repaired. What had burned had burned.
Yet even that pain came with a steadier breath now because her father was being himself—arranging, directing, planning. He was hurt and tired, but at least he was thinking of the way forward.
“Ye thought of everything, did ye nae?” she asked quietly.
He gave her a dry look. “I thought of enough to keep us from sleeping in ditches. The rest may wait until morning.”
She nodded.
He then looked at Ciaran. The warmth in the room remained, but for some reason, another kind of weight entered. Ava felt itat once. This was no longer only a reunion. It was the renewal of an alliance.
“Ye have me thanks,” her father said. “For taking us in.”
Ciaran stood a little apart from the chair and bed, his broad shoulders set, his face difficult to read. Ava had not forgotten the fight between them. She had not forgotten the locked door or the days of hurt. None of that vanished because he stood there now while her father spoke to him. Still, she watched.
“Again, Laird MacKenna, ye daenae need to thank me,” Ciaran insisted. “I am only doing what I must.”
The words were simple, but for some reason, they still landed hard. Ava felt them in the same place where his failures had landed.
That was part of what made him so difficult to bear. He could wound her deeply and still do right by the people she loved. He could retreat from her and still open his home without hesitation. There was no easy shape for him.
Why could ye nae just be one or the other, ye strange man?
Her father gave a slow nod. “Aye.”
Ciaran lowered his head once and seemed for half a second as though he might stay. Then the familiar restraint returned to his face. “I will leave ye to rest.”
Ava watched him go, his feet gently trudging across the floor. Bruce watched him too, wagging his tail, still excited from seeing her again, she could imagine.
When the door closed behind him, Isobel let out a breath through her nose. “He escapes like a man pursued.”
Laird MacKenna grunted. “Hewaspursued. By women with eyes.” He shifted in his seat and winced only a little. “Now, have either of ye decided whether ye mean to fuss uselessly over me or do something sensible?”
“Ye arenae allowed to be yer usual ruling self when half yer skin is singed, Father,” Ava said.
“Then I shall be grateful instead. Why daenae we start with something simple? Bring me water and stop staring.”
Isobel reached for the jug first, and Ava fetched the cloth. Together they moved around him, and he submitted to it all with grim patience and several muttered remarks about being overmanaged in his surviving years.
When Isobel touched too near one of the rawer burns, he hissed and pressed his lips together. “There now, lass. If ye mean to punish me for frightening ye, I would prefer a cleaner method.”
“Ye deserve worse,” Isobel sniffed.
“So I am learning.”
Ava wet the cloth again and dabbed carefully at the edge of another burn. “Does it hurt ye much? Ye ken ye daenae have to be too brave about everything. We can send for the healer.”
“Ach. ’Tis a burn. I suppose it has to hurt. It just doesnae hurt enough for me to need other long faces.”
“We arenae giving ye long faces,” Ava protested, her voice sharp.
“Ye are giving me the very face yer mother used to wear whenever I came in muddy.”
Ava scoffed. “That was asensibleface.”
“It was a condemning one.”
