Chapter 2
Calum heard Iain and Annie’s voices before they reached his chamber.
He’d been awake and aware only a day, but in that time, these would be his first visitors.
He didn’t know what took his friends so long to put in an appearance, especially Euan, but he strongly suspected the healer had warned them away until he felt better.
He did feel better, but well enough for the Laird and Lady of the clan?
He rubbed a hand over his bristly chin. He must look like hell.
Why would Iain bring Annie to see him like this?
His temper started to simmer again. It had been just under the surface ever since he woke up the first time.
Ever since he’d learned of his injuries and Ella’s part in caring for him.
The idea still incensed and embarrassed him.
And made the pain in his head even worse.
And now Annie would see him at his worst as well.
He wanted to shout at her to stay away. For Iain to return her to their chamber, but it was too late.
“Calum.”
Iain’s voice broke through the rumble of his thoughts.
He tensed, waiting for Annie to greet him, too, but she didn’t.
Did he really look so bad that she was speechless?
Or was her voice lost in the persistent ringing in his ears and the packing in them that the healer insisted would help the noise diminish by softening the sounds around him.
All it seemed to do was make him half deaf as well as blind.
“Annie wanted to wish ye well, but I sent her away,” Iain said before Calum could object. “I didna think ye’d want her here. No’ yet.”
Calum took a breath and let the tension ease out of him.
He should have known Iain would understand his reluctance, even though Annie was probably determined to personally ensure he was being well taken care of.
Or perhaps, Annie recognized that he would be uncomfortable with her presence, so Iain hadn’t had to say much to dissuade her from coming.
“Thank ye. I dinna. I’m no’ fit company for any lass. ”
He heard Iain shift, then pull a chair from the hearthside nearer to Calum’s bed. “I heard ye ordered Ella away from ye. She was only trying to help ye. She’s worried for ye.”
So this was why the laird had come—to chastise him for mistreating Ella?
The thought made his temper rise again. “She can worry as well from a distance as underfoot.”
“Is that really how ye want it, Calum? I ken ye care for her.”
Calum shifted. Why would a woman want a man who was weakened as he was, possibly forever?
“Nay, dinna try to sit up.” Iain put a hand on his shoulder, not pushing him down but enough to hold him in place. “The healer told me ye are to stay as ye are, or ye risk yer eye.”
Calum pushed out a frustrated breath. “I’ll be lucky if by the end of this I can move at all, much less see out of two good eyes.”
“We all pray ye will, lad. ’Twill no’ be much longer before ye are up and about, back to training and keeping Brodie safe.”
“I appreciate the encouragement, laird, but I dinna yet believe it.”
“Believe this, then. Annie and I, Euan and Muireall, Kenneth and his new bride, Catherine Rose, and aye, Ella, even after ye denied her, are all here to help ye. As ye would do for any of us. Ye have only to tell us what we can do for ye. Rest and get well. As yer friend, ’tis all I ask.
As yer laird, ’tis all I command ye to do. ”
Calum’s eyes filled, and for once, he was glad they were covered by layers of cloth so that Iain couldn’t see the way those words affected him. Calum’s voice nearly betrayed him as he thanked Iain, the words coming low and gruff.
“Iain. Calum,” Euan’s voice interrupted them with brief greetings, breaking the tension.
Iain stood. “I’ll leave the two of ye to talk. Be well, Calum,” he added and left the room.
Euan waited while Iain’s footsteps faded away before he took the chair the laird vacated. “Ye are a mess, my lad.”
“Tell me aught I dinna ken. Last year a broken arm. Now this. What’s next?”
“Naught, I hope. Ye are already ragged enough to frighten bairns and lasses, I’d say.”
“I need a bath and aught done about this,” he added, rubbing his scruffy lower face that the bandage over his eyes didn’t cover.
“Aye ye do, but I’m more a mind of the anger seeping out of yer pores and making yer fists clench even now.”
Calum forced his hands to relax. He hadn’t been aware they’d tensed. As had his jaw. He loosened it and took a breath through his mouth. “I think I have a right.”
“Aye, ye do. But to take it out on the woman ye’ve been trying to attract for the last year?”
“Ye willna say anything to her.”
“Nay, of course no’. ’Tis yer place to tell her how ye feel, whether ’tis welcome or no’. Is that what is taking ye so long? Or is this because of Marjorie again?”
Calum didn’t want to think about her, or to answer that question.
He’d been unlucky in love in the past. Worst of all with Marjorie Lindsay, the seemingly sweet, biddable and caring lass who’d lied about her purity.
She was already carrying a married man’s child and to escape the scandal, urgently needed to wed.
Fortunately, the rumors had gotten back to Brodie before Calum offered for her.
Dismayed, he confronted Marjorie. “Ye recall how she lied to me and claimed the rumors about her were false.” She’d claimed they were spread by another lass jealous of her impending marriage to him.
But Marjorie’s maid, hearing about the tale her mistress told him, came to him to make sure he knew the rumors were true.
After, he’d confronted Marjorie again and she’d confessed her plans.
“I do, and I also recall the other lasses ye pushed away because ye didna trust any who seemed too eager to make ye hers. An heiress for one. She was a baron’s daughter, aye? And several lovely lasses, though their beauty didna rival Ella’s.”
Ella’s reluctance over the last year to grow closer to him kept him from pushing her away, too, despite how she otherwise appealed to him.
He knew her story. He’d been present when her husband returned her to Munro and repudiated her.
Their sudden divorce shocked everyone, but he was glad for her and had spent the last year getting to know more about her.
Yet, he still didn’t know if she truly returned his interest beyond friendship or not.
He told himself she needed time to get past the trauma of that experience, and until she did, he would remain a friend, keeping her at arm’s length for her sake.
His injury had added another layer of distance, one he needed, because he didn’t want her to pity him.
“So everyone kens I refuse to let her care for me?”
“Everyone who counts, aye. Annie’s quite cross with ye, and ye ken that’s no’ a place any man wants to be.”
Calum snorted. “Iain didna mention that.” He shrugged. “What can she do to make this worse? I already dinna ken if I have a future.”
This time Euan snorted. “Feeling sorry for ourselves, are we? At worst, ye have one good eye. At best, two of ’em. Why no’ wait until ye find out which it will be before chewing the leg off anyone who wants to help ye?”
“No’ anyone. Just Ella.” Had her kind nature fooled him? Did she think of him only as a friend to her, the same as anyone else in the clan she’d be determined to care for, rather than thinking of him as a man she might want for her husband? Had he misread her all along?
“So ye’d let Muireall or Annie—”
“Nay.”
“Ye make my point for me.”
“Do I?”
“There’s aught Iain didna tell ye, or ye’d have mentioned it by now.”
Calum stilled. “What?”
“We just came from a meeting in the solar. Iain, Kenneth, me, the other scouts—”
“I dinna like the sound of this.” Despite the assurances Iain had just given him, Calum’s gut twisted. Had they discussed removing him from the ranks of the scouts?”
“’Twas another incident like the one Kenneth and Cameron Sutherland just got into.”
“What happened to Kenneth?”
“They encountered Irish gallowglass warriors, and to help Kenneth protect Cat, Cameron tried to lead them away, fought, and was wounded. Kenneth is fine. Now, we’ve heard one of the Gordon warriors has been injured in a fight with some men who were passing through Gordon land a few days after Harlaw.
The lairds are no’ happy about the remains of the two armies causing trouble. ”
“And no’ kenning where that trouble is heading, I’ll wager,” Calum said, on the one hand relieved that his fear hadn’t materialized, but on the other hand, angry that his condition meant he’d been left out of an important strategy session.
How many more would he miss before he recovered?
If he recovered. “I shouldha been there.”
“With the Gordon?”
“At the meeting, ye bampot.”
“Ye’re no’ ready for that, and Mhairi would have Iain’s head if he got ye involved too soon.”
“I’ve naught else to do but lie here and fash myself blind.”
“No’ funny, Calum.”
“Ye try lying here for a sennight or more in the dark and see how ye feel about it.”
“I wouldna like it any more than ye do. But I’d accept help where it was offered.”
“So, back to the lasses, aye? I guess that proves ye are a better man than I.”
Euan stood.
There was no mistaking the sound of it. Calum stifled a groan. Now he’d angered his best friend, too.
“I’ll see to ye tomorrow. Perhaps ye’ll be in a better mood by then.
In the meantime, think on this: ye are a valued member of this clan.
Ye have an important future here. A good life ahead of ye.
It might no’ be the one ye thought ye’d have, but ye will adapt.
And yer friends will help ye—if ye will let them.
And ye should. ’Tis what friends are for. Now get some rest.”
He walked out before Calum could think of a reply that didn’t involve every curse word he knew, or completely unmanning himself by bursting into tears.