Page 29 of Steel & Surrender

He didn’t want to have a drink at the inn and then return home. Instead, he wanted to push things a little further—to chase away the shadows.

Meeting Davy’s eye, he favored him with a half-smile before gesturing to the ferry still bobbing at the jetty nearby. “No, wait. That boat’s bound for Tobermory shortly,” he said. “Let’s take it.”

His brother raised his eyebrows. “Tobermory?”

“Aye.” Greig’s smile slid into a grin. “Fancy a night of hard drinking?”

9: TELL IT RIGHT

“WHAT HAPPENED TO ye?”

Brìghde straightened, her gaze fixing on Eòghan’s split lip.

Blood trickled down his chin.

She’d sent him out with a pail to fetch more water from the village well, but he’d taken much longer than expected. Indeed, she’d been about to down tools and go and fetch him when he returned.

With a busted lip.

“Nothing.” Her brother’s voice was surly as he set the pail down hard, water sloshing over the rim. “I tripped.”

“Ye did not.”

“I did.”

Brìghde placed her hands on her hips and faced him. “I didn’t come down in the last shower, Eòghan Boyd. Ye were in a fight, weren’t ye?”

His expression turned stubborn. The Boyds were a bull-headed lot. Brìghde too. She wasn’t going to let this go.

Approaching him, she put her hands on his shoulders and fixed him with a hard stare.

Lord, the lad was growing like a weed.

When had he gotten so tall? If he continued at this rate, he’d reach her height within a year.

For so long, he’d been her wee brother, but things were shifting now. These days, he learned smithing at her shoulder—and had proved a quick study.

She hated to admit it, but her father was right.

It was time. And if she were honest, she’d deliberately delayed taking him on as an apprentice, for she’d known that, when the time came, he’d take her place as the blacksmith of Duart.

She wasn’t looking forward to that day.

“Tell me.”

Eventually, he muttered something under his breath. “Ian Maclean and his friends were drinking near the well … outside the alewife’s brewhouse,” he began before cutting his gaze away. “I heard them talking about ye.”

Brìghde stilled. “What were they saying?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Aye, it does. Out with it … or I’ll go there now and ask them myself.”

Her brother’s chin jerked up, alarm flaring in his grey eyes. “Ian was boasting … how he’d bedded ye.” An angry flush rose to Eòghan’s cheeks. “He said crude things, Brì. I called him a filthy liar … and he hit me.”

Heat surged through her—sharp, blinding. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

How dare he?