Highlander's Redemption: The Sinclair Brothers Trilogy, Book Two (6 page)

At first, the
hours had stretched uncomfortably for Jossalyn. The road seemed extra bumpy—were
they even on a road? But why would the two men take one of the barely-used, faint
dirt paths to travel north when there was such a fine road leading from
Dunbraes?

Whatever the
answer, Jossalyn had endured all the bumps and jostles she could stand not long
after the wagon had started moving. But sometime several hours into their
journey, either their path smoothed considerably or her weariness finally won
out, for she dozed for a while.

She wasn’t sure
how long she rested, for she moved in and out of a light sleep. The wagon never
stopped, despite the fact that they traveled through the entire night. Eventually,
the total darkness underneath the canvas began to lighten to first a dim gray,
and then a pale blue.

She dared to use
one finger to lift the canvas ever so slightly, creating a tiny gap between it
and the side of the wagon. She could see the early morning sky in the sliver of
space. She guessed that they had been on the move for six or seven hours.

Not long after she
had checked the sky, the wagon rolled to a halt. She held her breath, suddenly
unsure of what to do. She had planned on slipped out of the back of the wagon
during a stop for the men to rest or stretch their legs, but there hadn’t been
any such occasions. Could they already have reached the two men’s hometown? If
so, she would need to not only slip out of the wagon unseen, but also would
have some walking ahead of her to avoid plopping herself down in the middle of
their lives—or, more precisely, in the middle of Garrick’s life.

As she lay
motionless, considering her options, she heard the quiet whisper of a blade
being drawn. That was all the warning she had before the canvas was yanked
back.

Something wasn’t
right, Garrick was sure of it. He couldn’t put his finger on what was different,
but his senses were screaming at him to be on high alert. They had traveled
through the night, stopping for nothing. Nevertheless, he felt like a sitting
duck in this damned wagon. They were moving too slowly, were too visible, even
though they had stayed off the main roads nearly the entire journey.

Now that they had
reached the uninhabited safe house, he should feel more relaxed. They could
ditch the wagon here, and move much faster and more inconspicuously on their
two horses rather than in this hulking, awkward wagon.

And most
importantly, he would have his bow back in his hands. This last week had been
excruciating without it. He had felt like he was missing a limb, like he was
constantly exposed and unprepared. But not anymore. He would have Fletch
underneath him, his bow and quiver on his back, and the Sinclair plaid around
his hips and shoulder, where it belonged.

Then why couldn’t
he shake the feeling that something was off? As he pulled the draft horse to a
stop, he motioned for Burke to go ahead to the safe house’s barn to retrieve
their horses and gear. As Burke moved away, the sounds of his footfalls faded,
and Garrick was left straining to discern what had him on edge. He listened. Birds
of varying species called in the distance. The draft horse snorted in
exhaustion. And then he heard it.

Breathing. It
wasn’t his, it wasn’t the horse’s, and it certainly wasn’t Burke’s. He closed
his eyes to concentrate, as he often did just before letting his arrow fly at a
mark. Yes, it was there, though it was extremely faint—or muffled.

His eyes flew open
and darted in every direction, but all he could see was the forest all around. As
he turned his head over his shoulder, he could hear the breathing slightly more
clearly. Could it be…coming from within the wagon itself?

Even as the blood
surged in his veins, he forced himself to move slowly, silently. He eased
himself out of the front seat of the wagon, placing one foot and then the other
on the loamy forest floor. He bent and placed one hand on the small dagger he
kept in his boot to cut the fletching for his arrows, extending the other hand
toward the canvas that covered the wagon. Then as smoothly as he could, he
yanked free his dagger and jerked the canvas back.

The sight that met
his eyes nearly caused him to stumble backward, but he kept his footing. Gazing
up at him, wide-eyes and mouth agape, was Jossalyn. She lay on her side,
wrapped in a cloak, but with her head turned up at him.

“What…how did
you…” The gears in his mind ground together slowly as he tried to comprehend
what he was seeing.

“Garrick! I…I was
just…”

“Christ, what have
you done?” He registered vaguely somewhere that he had shouted that, but the
confusion and frustration were turning to anger quickly. She had not only
endangered herself, but she was threatening their mission—and all of their
lives. If she found out who they really were or what they had been sent to do,
they could be hanged for treason—and maybe she could be too, for she had gone
willingly with them. His mind raced, trying to figure out how much she could
possibly know at this point.

Burke must have
heard their voices for he was racing toward the wagon from the barn. “What is
it?” he said, his voice tight with fear.

Jossalyn slowly lifted
her head up and over the side of the wagon so that Burke could see her. Burke
cursed under his breath, and Jossalyn flinched.

“Let me explain,”
she began shakily.

Garrick exchanged
a dark look with Burke. Burke’s normally controlled and gallant affect had
slipped, and he was frowning deeply.

“I couldn’t stay
at Dunbraes any longer. My brother…he will be very angry with me for working in
the village, and I wanted to be free to use my skills, and I am more needed
here in Scotland, where I could actually help people, than I am sitting on my
hands in some English garrison, and you were headed north and I needed a way to
travel, so…” The flood of her words seemed to finally run dry and she shifted
her eyes between Burke and him, a pleading look on her face.

Garrick scrubbed a
hand over his face. “And what was the rest of your plan, lass? Follow us around
Scotland like a lost puppy?”

His words came out
harsher than he had intended, but damn the lass for her foolhardy plan, and for
endangering them all. Even as he tried to justify his harshness, he cursed
himself for the stricken look she gave him now, her eyes wide and glistening,
her lips turned down and trembling slightly.

“No, I w-wasn’t
going to follow you. I just wanted to get far enough away that I would have the
freedom to…” She swallowed hard and tried to gather herself. “I was planning to
slip out of the wagon in some smaller village on the way to your town. Then I
could either travel onward from there, or set up a new life for myself—on my
own.”

“Garrick, may I
speak to you for a moment?” Burke had regained some of his composure, and was
now looking calmer.

Garrick turned
from Jossalyn and followed Burke to the barn, where their warhorses, weapons,
and gear awaited them. Once inside, Burke turned and said quietly, “All is not
yet lost, Garrick. The lass doesn’t know who we are.”

For some reason
Burke’s rationality grated on him. “Aye, but what are we going to do with her?
We can’t leave her here at the safe house, and we damn well can’t take her with
us!”

He forced himself
to lower his voice to a whisper again. “We don’t have time to deal with this,
Burke. The Bruce needs to know about the rumors of Longshanks’ illness as soon
as possible. The entire rebellion could rely on it!”

“Aye, I know that,
and your brother needs to hear of it too. But as you said, we can’t very well
leave the lass in the middle of the forest right next to a secret safe house
for Scottish rebels. We only have one option. We have to take her back to
Dunbraes.”

“That will put us
back by at least sixteen hours of hard riding,” he said exasperatedly. “Even if
we could do another two legs of eight hours of travel on top of the nightlong
ride we just had, what about the horses? And how are we supposed to keep our
identities concealed from the lass if we are riding with our weapons strapped
to our animals?”

“I don’t know, but
we can’t take the wagon. It will only slow us down further. We will just have
to avoid the lass’s questions and get this over with as fast as possible.”

“Shite, what a
mess,” Garrick said through gritted teeth.

This entire
mission had been a mistake. He shouldn’t be in the Lowlands gathering
intelligence, he should be at the Bruce’s side, fighting with his bow. If it
weren’t for his damned older brother, who had somehow convinced the Bruce that
it was in both of their interests to monitor Raef Warren’s holding, he wouldn’t
be in this debacle.

But if he hadn’t
been sent on this mission, he wouldn’t have gotten to meet and share a kiss
with Jossalyn Williams, the most beautiful and intriguing woman he had ever met.

He pushed the though
aside harshly, though; right now, Jossalyn was only contributing to this
disastrous situation. If she hadn’t thrown herself in his path, they would be
on their way to the Bruce’s camp in northeast Scotland right now.

But, he reminded
himself, she hadn’t thrown herself in their path—he had nearly run her over. That’s
when the troubles with the lass began, and he had only made it harder on both
of them by kissing her senseless and then leaving her the next day.

Either way, she
had stowed away in their wagon and was now dangerously close to realizing that
they weren’t who they said they were. She was setting them back by at least a
day’s worth of travel, not to mention the extra wear and tear on them and their
animals.

This disgruntled
thought came from the angry, stubborn part of him that didn’t like to deal with
people and their inconveniences. But the lass hadn’t known that they lied to
her about who they were and where they were going. He couldn’t hold it against
her that she believed them, and he certainly couldn’t blame her for wanting to
get away from a brother who stifled her dreams and used force against her. In
fact, if he set aside his stubbornness for a moment, he actually admired the
lass’s bravery in seeking out her freedom and trying to make a new life for
herself.

He exhaled and ran
a hand through his hair. Burke was waiting for him to agree that they only had
one course of action. After one last futile attempt to search his brain for an
alternative, which yielded nothing, Garrick grudgingly nodded.

“I’ll hide our
gear as well as I can and get the horses ready. You’d better speak to the
lass,” Burke said.

Jossalyn fumbled
with the tie on her cloak as she watched the sun creep upward through the
trees. She still sat in the wagon, waiting for Burke and Garrick to emerge from
the barn a few dozen yards away. Occasionally she could hear their voices rise,
but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

A knot had formed
in her stomach despite her best efforts to calm herself. These were good men,
she reasoned. Even though they weren’t happy about her hiding in their wagon,
they wouldn’t hurt her…would they?

Her mind ran wild
with speculation, all of the oddities about the two flooding back—how Garrick’s
voice sometimes slipped into a thicker Scottish accent, as it had when he had
discovered her in the wagon, or how Garrick had been covered in scarred-over
cuts rather than burns, as a blacksmith should have been, or how they had
traveled all the way to Dunbraes looking for work but had known that they would
only stay for a week. And now here she was, in the middle of the wilderness
with just the two of them, and they seemed overly jumpy, overly angry with her.

She forced herself
to stop the spiral of these thoughts. She was being foolish, reading more into
things than she should. And besides, why wouldn’t they be furious with her? She
had deceived them, and not just about hiding in their wagon. She had lied to
them about her last name, her station, and who her brother was. If she wasn’t
careful, she might let something slip, and then she really would be in trouble,
no matter how good these men were. If they found out that her brother was Lord
Raef Warren, they would feel compelled to deliver her to him to avoid
punishment for “kidnapping” a lady. And if her brother found out that she had
not only been working in the village, but had tried to escape with two strange
men…. She wasn’t sure what he would do, and that’s what frightened her.

She tried to
gather her thoughts so that she could at least present her case coherently to
Burke and Garrick when they returned. She had been so surprised when Garrick
had ripped the canvas off the wagon and the two of them had glared down at her
that she hadn’t explained it well at all.

Just then she saw
Garrick storming out of the barn. His eyes locked with hers, and she felt a
chill go through her at their cold steeliness. She bit her lower lip to keep it
from trembling again, and willed herself to keep her wits about her in the face
of his intensity. He halted in front of her, his eyes still boring into her.

“Garrick, let me
explain,” she said again, and was relieved that her voice didn’t shake as much
as before. “I know it was wrong of me to use you this way, but I wanted—”

He held up a hand
to silence her, and she couldn’t help but flinch backward. He furrowed his brow
in confusion, then looked at his hand and seemed to realize something.

“Lass, I’m not
going to hurt you. I am not such a spineless man that I would strike you or
force you to obey me. I’m not like your brother.”

She felt her eyes
widen in shock at his words. How did he understand so well?

He went on. “I
think I understand why you would want to leave Dunbraes and start a new life
somewhere else. But I cannot be part of it.” This last was said through gritted
teeth, as if it pained him.

“I don’t expect
you to just let me insert myself into your life!” She had to make him
understand this, for it had never been her plan to merely latch herself onto
him and hope that he would save her. She was saving herself, regardless of him.
“I would never assume that. I wanted to do this on my own. You were just a
means of transportation.”

That came out
wrong. She knew it even before she saw his face darken at the insult. “What I
mean is, I don’t…expect anything from you. I know it was wrong to use you to
get me out of Dunbraes, but I couldn’t think of any other way, and time is
running out before…before my brother finds out what I have been up to.”

“Jossalyn, we have
to take you back to Dunbraes.”

“What? Why?”

He reached over
the edge of the wagon and took her hand in his. Even through the shock of
hearing that he was going to take her back to the castle, to her hellish life,
a spark ignited in her stomach at his touch.

“Because you
cannot come with us, and we cannot just leave you here. No matter how much of a
bastard your brother is, it is not our place to be complicit in your escape.”
Despite his soft tone, his words bit into her.

“Why can’t I just
go on with you a little farther to the nearest village? I promise I’ll never
speak of you. No one will ever know of your part in this. Or you could just
leave me! I can find my way to the road and hitch a ride with someone else!”

He shook his head.
“Then I would feel responsible if something were to happen to you. It isn’t
safe for a lass like you to be traveling alone in the Borderlands right now.”

“Please. Please
don’t take me back there.” Her voice cracked with pleading, but she didn’t
care. Garrick’s handsome but resolute face wobbled in front of her through the
tears welling in her eyes.

He turned away
from her and cursed, dragging a hand through his dark hair, which was coming
loose from its tie at the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry lass,”
he finally said, still not meeting her eyes, “but this is the way it has to be.
I have to follow my duty.”

Her heart sank,
hearing the finality in his voice. Part of her wanted to scream at him, to beg
him, to tell him that he and his duty could go to hell. But she knew that none
of it would work. Besides, he was right—she had put him in this situation, and
now that he had to deal with it, he had to follow his own sense of right and
wrong. She couldn’t expect him not to get a say in her using him to escape, and
then also have to go along with her plan to deal with the situation now that he
knew about it. He was involved now, and he had to act dutifully or risk her
brother’s punishment.

Even as she
struggled to accept all this, she felt the tears overflowing. She had failed. She
would be back to her brother’s castle in less than a day, and she would have to
face the consequences of her actions. This didn’t mean that she would go back
to being the frightened and submissive girl she was before; no, she would
attempt to escape again, and would resist her brother and his control over her
as much as she could. But her hopes to start a new life for herself right away
were now faded and distant.

She nodded and
tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but it wouldn’t move, nor would the
tears stop streaming down her cheeks. She turned her head away, trying to
preserve whatever shred of dignity she had left, but suddenly she felt
Garrick’s large, warm, and calloused hand on her chin. He gently brought her
face back to his and kept his eyes on her. Despite the pained look on his face,
he forced himself to hold her gaze. It was almost as if he was punishing
himself for something, but she didn’t know what.

“The horses are
ready,” Burke said from the door of the barn, carefully eying the two of them.

His words
registered somewhere in the back of her mind through the fog of pain. “Horses? We
aren’t taking the wagon?” she asked.

“Nay, my lady. The
wagon will slow us down. We were going to take these horses the rest of the way
on our journey home anyway,” Burke replied.

She glanced behind
Burke and saw that he was leading two enormous stallions, one chestnut and the
other bay, out of the barn. Each horse had large saddlebags that were nearly
overflowing, and she could make out some strangely shaped items wrapped in
cloth sticking out of them. Without thinking, she pointed toward the
cloth-wrapped objects protruding from each horse’s bags, and asked, “What are
those?”

“Those are our
tools, lass. Blacksmith’s tools,” Burke said smoothly, though his face was an expressionless
mask. Before she could ask why two unemployed blacksmiths had such fine horses,
Burke interjected. “We’d best be on the way if we want to reach Dunbraes before
evening.”

Garrick reached
toward her and wrapped his hands around her waist, lifting her clear out of the
wagon. He walked her over to the chestnut horse and swung himself up into the
high saddle. Burke led the draft horse and wagon into the barn where their
horses had been, and after a quick perusal of the area, swung himself onto the
bay’s back.

Strange, she
thought to herself, that they would leave the good solid draft horse, wagon,
and the rest of their supplies here in the middle of the woods. The thought
flitted from her mind, though, when Garrick scooped her up so that she sat in
front of him atop his enormous stallion.

Though she still
wore her thick winter cloak, she could feel his hard body in very precise
detail behind her. Her back was pressed against his broad chest, her bottom and
hips nestled snuggly against his pelvis. His arms came around her to hold the
reins. At first he had reached around her arms, but that made it hard for him
to grip the reins. She lifted her arms so that his forearms brushed against her
waist. Her thighs rested on top of his, and she could feel his legs give the
horse a squeeze. The horse leapt forward, and her mind spun as they spirited
back south toward Dunbraes.