Page 51 of The Wolf Laird's Obsession
Rowan strode over with Ewan, finding a man kneeling in the mud. His fingers had been trapped beneath a splintered ridge of oak. His sleeve was torn back, the base of his thumb an angry red beneath scraped skin.
Rowan knelt beside him. “Sit.”
“Me hand’s fine, me Laird.” The man struggled to smile, trying to hide his pain behind pride.
“Aye. And ye’re a dobber.” Rowan caught his wrist and turned it over. The base of his thumb had already swollen to an alarming red. “Move it.”
The man winced as he flexed his fingers.
Rowan released him. “Take him to the healer,” he ordered the nearest clansman. “And if ye come back before she says ye can, I’ll break yer other hand meself.”
A ripple of hushed laughter followed as the wounded man was half-carried, half-dragged away.
Ewan watched with his arms crossed and a smug smirk on his face.
Rowan met his gaze. “Say it.”
“I said nothin’.”
“Ye were about to.”
Ewan shrugged, shaking his head. “The men would follow ye into hell.”
“They may yet.”
The smirk vanished from Ewan’s face.
The rain stopped, but the ground remained slick as the sky above settled into a calm grey.
“Did ye find anythin’ worth the trouble?” Rowan asked, his eyes lifting to the sky.
The men continued their work around them, taking advantage of the reprieve.
Ewan exhaled through his nose in frustration. “Nothin’ that leads anywhere. Nay tracks that hold. Ground’s too churned. What should we do now?”
Rowan’s gaze didn’t move from the clouds above. “We wait for them to try again.”
He continued to work all afternoon until his shoulders burned and his palms were raw. Another beam. Another brace. Another burned wall was dragged aside to make way for something stronger.
By the time the structure stood again, dark streaks of dried mud marked his arms. The men began to disperse towards the village, eager for food and ale.He, however, drifted from the crowd, walking alone as the sun began to dip low in the sky.
It was only in the silence that memories of Sorcha flashed through his mind.
The taste of her lingered on his tongue, the memory of her warm body pressed against him leaving his own feeling empty and cold.
I shouldnae even be thinkin’ of that. It was a mistake, nothin’ more than a moment of poor judgment.
Yet the memory refused to go away. Instead, it lingered in the small moments of silence when he could not keep himself busy.
As he rounded the bend in the road, he caught sight of a boy. He sat by a low stone wall, beyond the skeletal remains of a byre, his knees drawn up to his chest. The dirt smudging his face could not entirely hide the tear-tracks he clearly considered unmanly.
Rowan slowed down, and the boy looked up and wiped his face with the back of his hand, as if that could somehow erase the evidence of his shame.
Rowan stopped before him. “How old are ye?”
“Nine.”
He grunted and looked toward the collapsed byre. “Yer family’s?”
