Chapter 22
“Bruce… Oh, Bruce.” The words spilled out of Ava without order. “Ye awful little beastie, where have ye come from? Look at ye. Look at ye!”
She kissed the top of his head, then his nose, then gathered him closer as if she might press him back into her life by force.
The feel of him in her arms broke something open in her chest. He was real. Warm. Alive. She couldn’t imagine what she would have done if the news reached her that Bruce had also died in the fire.
Bruce let out another sharp bark right in her face, and a laugh burst out of her.
Behind her, Ciaran cleared his throat, reminding her of his presence. “I didnae ken yer father had a dog.”
Ava looked up at him over Bruce’s twitching ears. Her face was damp, her mouth trembling with so many emotions. “He isnae just a dog. He is our little bairn.”
Bruce barked again as if in fierce agreement.
Ciaran’s expression shifted briefly. It was not a smile exactly, but his lips twitched just enough to show how amused he was for a second. Ava felt that too. It mattered. Though at that moment, she had no space in herself to sort out why.
She buried her face in Bruce’s neck once more and felt him wriggle all over with joy. Her hands ran over his back, checking him without meaning to, making sure he was whole.
Then she heard another set of footsteps in the corridor and froze. Bruce twisted in her arms, gave a small, impatient whine, and tried to launch himself toward the open doorway.
Her father stood there, and for one second, she could only look at him.
He was upright. He was breathing. He was clearly exhausted, and the skin along the side of his face and neck showed angry red where the fire must have touched him. His clothes looked stained from travel, and Ava noticed that one sleeve had been cut and rewrapped badly over a bandage beneath.
Despite all of that, he seemed entirely himself. The set of his mouth, the directness of his gaze, and the quiet stubbornness in the way he held himself, even when tiredness dragged at his shoulders.
“Da.” The word broke out of her like a child’s cry.
Ava was on her feet and across the space between them before anyone could speak. She threw herself into his arms with enough force that he rocked back half a step and caught her tightly at once.
“There ye are,” he said, his voice rough with exhaustion and relief.
Ava clung to him. She did not care that Bruce was now barking around their feet or even that Ciaran still stood in the room. Her father was here. She could see and hold him. He was alive. She could now believe it now that she had seen him with her own eyes.
“I thought…” She could not finish.
“I ken.” His hand moved over the back of her head once, then again. “I ken, lass.”
She drew back only far enough to look at him properly, and the sight of the burns hit her fully. Her breath caught. The joy stayed, but worry came in beside it.
“Ye are hurt.”
“Aye, a bit singed.” He nodded. “I saved the beastie, and I was the only fool who paid for it.”
Almost like he understood what was being said, Bruce gave a sharp, offended bark, and that did it. Ava laughed through fresh tears, not caring that the sound shook out of her helplessly.
“Ye shouldnae jest.”
“I should very much jest,” he insisted. “Otherwise, all of ye will look at me like mourners at a wake, and I have nay wish to be buried before supper.”
Yes, that was fully her father. He was wounded, tired, and still more interested in lightening the atmosphere than enlarging his own suffering.
Isobel stepped in again at that moment, her eyes bright with anticipation. Ava briefly looked at her. Her pale face was bright with feeling.
“Ye gave us all a fright,” she said, her voice shaky from what Ava could only imagine to be relief.
Laird MacKenna opened one arm to her, and she went into it for a brief, fierce embrace before stepping back to inspect the burns with the same troubled attention Ava could not hide.
“It looks worse than it is,” he assured her.
“Ye all say that when things look rather dreadful,” Isobel huffed.
He grunted. “And ye always answer as if we are idiots.”
“Well, ye often are.”
That drew another small breath of laughter from Ava.
The room felt different now. Her worst fear was gone, and for once, she did not have to imagine her father in smoke and darkness anymore. He stood in front of her, speaking with dry patience while Bruce circled his boots.
Ava touched his arm carefully. “Does it hurt ye much?”
“It hurts me enough,” he replied. “But I am certain it will hurt me much less after food and sleep, and even less still after all the fussing stops.”
“Aye, then get ready for a world of pain because I daenae plan to leave yer side for a second,” Ava warned, the defiance in her voice quite obvious.
“Aye, I can see that.”
He looked past her toward Ciaran, who stepped forward at once.
“Me castle is yers,” he offered. “Ye and yer people will have whatever is needed.”
Laird MacKenna held his gaze for a beat, measuring him as one laird measured another. “I thank ye.”
“Of course.” Ciaran nodded. “We are family, after all.”
The words landed with weight Ava could feel even before she looked at him. Her hurt did not vanish because of them. It only lessened a bit.
Bruce trotted between them all, wagging his tail furiously, as if determined to bind the room together by the sheer force of his presence.
Ava rested one hand on her father’s arm and kept it there.
He was alive. Burned, weary, but still standing.
The fear that had sat inside her for days had broken apart at last, and in its place came something almost harder to bear—gratitude.
She was taking the first breath of relief she had taken in days, and for some reason, it felt rather impossible for her to understand.
For a few moments, nobody moved very much.
Ava still had one hand on her father’s arm and the other half-curled in Bruce’s fur as if she did not trust either of them to remain in place unless she kept contact.
Bruce had planted himself squarely beside her father’s boots and looked pleased with the result of his journey.
Her father let out a breath and eased himself into the nearest chair without asking permission from anyone.
“Aye,” he rumbled, settling carefully with one hand on his bandaged side. “Now that ye have all looked yer fill, I may as well tell ye what comes next before ye start inventing tragedies.”
“Ye are burned,” Ava reminded him. “I daenae think there is a need for anyone to invent anything.”
“I said tragedies, lass. Burns are merely irritating. Now, a tragedy, for example, is being made to answer a hundred questions before a man has had some dinner.”
Isobel snorted. “Ye sound well enough.”
“I always sound well enough. It is one of me finer gifts.”
Ava crouched beside his chair and looked up at him, still needing the plain sight of him at close range. “What happened to everyone?”
“Ye daenae need to worry. They are all alive.” The immediate reassurance made Ava relax even more.
“Granted, some of them are still a bit shaken and ill-tempered, but everyone is alive. I brought the staff I could gather quickly enough. The others will follow once other matters are sorted properly.”
“Thank God,” Isobel breathed, the relief in her voice so evident that Ava had to turn to look at her. “What? They are me people, too.”
“And that is the truth,” Ciaran piped up, his way of agreeing that they were his sister’s second family.
Ava suppressed a smile and turned back to her father. He glanced between her and Isobel, making sure they heard every part. “I sent word ahead to yer mother's people. They will prepare the old place to receive us next week.”
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 it at 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. “He was pursued. 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 a sensible face.”
“It was a condemning one.”
Isobel smiled despite herself. “Ye do sound quite stronger.”
“I have always been strong,” he declared proudly. “I am merely smoky now.”
That broke the last of the tension in the room. Ava laughed, and Isobel did too, and even Bruce made a pleased little sound from where he had settled beside the chair and rested his jaw on her father’s boot.
Laird MacKenna looked between the two of them with obvious satisfaction. “There. Better. If I am to sit here roasted and inconvenient, the least ye can do is laugh at something.”
“Oh, please, the last thing ye are is inconvenient,” Ava said at once.
“I have arrived burned, homeless, and followed by a dog. I am the definition of inconvenient.”
Bruce lifted his head at the word dog, looked mildly offended, and then dropped it again.
Laird MacKenna’s mouth twitched. “Speaking of household burdens, Isobel, do ye nae think it is time ye found a man of yer own as well? I believe I still have one more wedding in me.”
Both women spoke at once.
“Da!”
“Absolutely nae!”
He looked delighted by their reactions. “I only say it because I shall nae be here forever.”
“Ye shall say nay such thing,” Ava snapped.
Her father raised his hands in mock surrender. “Just something to think about, dearie.”
Ava shook her head, half laughing, half near tears again from the simple relief of hearing him speak nonsense in his usual tone. This was what home sounded like—dry humor and affection hidden under complaint.
At last, her father grabbed the arms of the chair and rose with more care than Ava would have liked.
“I am going to rest,” he announced. “If I stay here any longer, ye will begin discussing what soup or potion I should take.”
“Ye need both,” Ava said.
“Nay, lass. What I need right now is sleep.”
Isobel folded her hands across her chest in utter disagreement. “Nay, me Laird. Ye need a healer.”
The older man shook his head. “Nay. What I need is silence.”
Bruce was on his feet before he finished.
Ava stood too, her hands held out in case her father swayed, but he only steadied himself once and straightened with the stubbornness of a man who refused to look weak in front of anyone. He touched her cheek briefly as he passed.
“I am here, lass.”
Ava squeezed his hand. “I ken.”
He moved toward the door, and Isobel opened it before he reached it. Bruce trotted out after him, pausing only long enough to look back at Ava as if checking whether she meant to join the procession. Then he followed his master into the corridor.
Ava stood where she was and watched them go.
The room felt warmer now, even fuller. Her father was alive under Ciaran’s roof. Bruce was at his heels. Isobel was still beside her. The fear that had hollowed out the past days no longer ruled the space.
Yet the change reached further than relief. Her old life had crossed into her new one. There were too many people under one roof, and she didn’t know yet how to feel about the overlap.
“So…” Isobel whispered, her voice soft. “Yer father is here.”
“Aye,” Ava responded, the excitement that he was alive still thrumming in her blood. “Me father is here now.”