Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Nay, the grain goes tae the eastern cottages first. They lost everythin’ in the fire.”
Isolda’s voice carried across the muddy square with an authority that Ragnar suspected she didn’t even realize she possessed. She stood with one hand on her hip and the other pointing toward a wagon, her dark hair escaping its braid in the salty wind, her eyes sharp with focus.
Ragnar watched from the half-rebuilt doorway of a storehouse, a hammer dangling loose in his grip. He’d gone down to the village to oversee structural repairs—the kind of work that required muscle and precision and kept his hands busy while his mind raced through coastal defenses.
Isolda moved between families with ease, crouching to speak with children, listening to complaints with her full attention, making decisions without glancing at him for approval.
“Yer mouth’s hangin’ open.”
Ragnar turned. Freyr leaned against the opposite post, arms folded, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“I’m—”
“Ye’ve been… observin’ fer the better part of an hour.” Freyr nodded toward Isolda, who was now inspecting a shipment of dried fish with a critical eye. “She’s good at this. Good fer ye.”
Ragnar said nothing.
“The MacFarlane woman asked her tae settle a dispute over boundary markers this mornin’.” Freyr continued. “Two families screamin’ at each other since before the fires. Yer wife sorted it in ten minutes.”
“How?”
“Listened tae both sides, laid boundary stones, and told ‘em if they couldnae share the strip of land between ‘em, she’d give it tae the goats.” Freyr’s mouth twitched.
He turned back to watch her accept a bundle of herbs from Hilde, tucking them into her basket with a smile that transformed her entire face.
She’s nae just survivin’ anymore. She belongs.
“Me jarl?” A young lad appeared at his elbow. “There’s a beam on the third cottage that needs setting.”
Ragnar nodded and pushed off the doorframe, but his gaze found Isolda once more. As if sensing his attention, she looked up. Their eyes held across the crowded square, and the corner of her mouth curved.
The beam took the better part of an hour.
After that came the thatch inspection, then a conversation with the blacksmith about hinges, then settling a disagreement between two of his men about the best way to reinforce a wall that had clearly been built by someone who’d never met a plumb line.
By the time the sun reached its peak, Ragnar’s shoulders ached and his tunic was damp with sweat.
He found Isolda sitting on a low stone wall near the well, a heel of bread in one hand and a cup of ale balanced on her knee.
“Ye’ve been busy,” he said, settling beside her.
“So have ye.” She tore the bread and handed him the larger half without looking at it. “Ye missed a spot of pitch on yer jaw, by the way.”
He scrubbed at it with his thumb. “Better?”
“Now ye’ve just smeared it.” She reached up and wiped the spot with her own thumb, her touch light, but her fingers lingered a fraction too long against the stubble on his jaw.
Ragnar caught her wrist gently and pressed his lips to her palm. “Thank ye.”
“Fer cleanin’ pitch off yer face?”
“Fer everythin’. The supply routes, the families, the goat ultimatum.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Freyr told ye about that.”
“He was impressed. As am I.” He released her wrist and reached for the ale. “Ye handled it better than I would’ve.”
“Ye’d have just glared at them until they agreed out of sheer terror.”
“Effective, though.”
“Aye, but me way daesnae give anyone nightmares.”
They ate in comfortable silence, knees angled toward each other, and Ragnar found himself talking without quite meaning to. The words came slowly at first—about the early days of his rule, when the clan looked at him with more pity than confidence because of his young age.
“I made every mistake I could—nae fer lack of tryin’,” he said, turning the cup between his hands. “Trusted the wrong men. Moved too fast on trade agreements. Nearly started a feud with the MacLeods over a misunderstandin’ about fishin’ rights that could’ve been settled over a cup of ale.”
Isolda listened without interrupting, her gray-green eyes steady on his face.
“Freyr pulled me aside and told me I was goin’ tae get us all killed if I didnae learn tae listen before actin’.” His lip twitched. “I wanted tae knock his teeth in. But he was right.”
“He usually is,” Isolda said, then added quickly, “Dinnae tell him I said that.”
“Wouldnae dream of it.”
A shriek erupted behind them. Ragnar’s hand went instinctively to his hip.
Three children burst around the corner of the well, armed with buckets and absolutely no sense of self-preservation. The smallest one—a red-haired boy of perhaps five, hurled the contents of his bucket with gleeful, terrible aim.
The water hit Ragnar square in the chest.
Isolda’s hand flew to her mouth.
The boy froze, the empty bucket dangling from fingers that had gone white. The silence that followed was the kind that preceded either laughter or violence, and every adult within earshot went still.
Ragnar looked down at his soaked tunic. Looked up at the boy.
“That,” he said slowly, “was the worst ambush I’ve ever seen.”
The boy’s lip trembled.
“Yer angle was wrong. Ye need tae come from the side, lad, nae head-on.” Ragnar reached down and picked up a half-full bucket someone had left near the well. “Like this.”
He swung the bucket in a clean arc and drenched all three children in a single, devastating sweep.
The children laughed, their shrieks high-pitched and playful.
Isolda stared at him, her mouth open, her bread forgotten. Ragnar caught her expression and felt like she was looking at him like she’d never seen him before. Like she was seeing someone she hadn’t known existed.
There ye are, her eyes said.
The children, recovered from their shock, launched a counterattack with the enthusiasm of a Viking raiding party and roughly the same level of strategic planning.
Ragnar allowed himself to be outflanked, taking a bucket to the shoulder while he swung the red-haired boy up under one arm and spun him until the boy was gasping with laughter.
Then he filled another bucket. Isolda’s eyes went wide. “Dinnae ye dare—”
The water caught her across the front, soaking her bodice and plastering her dress against curves that made his throat go dry. She gasped—outraged, breathless, magnificent—her dark hair clinging to her neck in wet ribbons, her eyes blazing.
“Ye… absolute brute!”
“Ye were an easy target, little wolf.”
She grabbed the nearest bucket and hurled the contents at him. Ragnar took it full in the face and laughed, the sound strange and unfamiliar in his own ears, rusty from disuse but genuine and alive.
The children cheered.
But then his eyes dropped, and his laughter died in his throat. Her wet dress clung to every line of her body—the taut curve of her waist, the swell of her breasts. Water droplets traced paths along her collarbone that his mouth wanted to follow.
“Come wi’ me.” His voice came rough, barely above a murmur. “Ye need tae dry off.”
“Where are we—”
“Now, Isolda.”
Ragnar led her past the last row of cottages, through the tall grass of the headland, down a path so overgrown that Isolda had to trust his hand at her back to keep from stumbling.
The late sun warmed her shoulders despite the wet dress, and the sound of the village faded behind them until all that remained was the crash of distant waves and the call of seabirds wheeling above the cliffs.
“Where are ye takin’ me?” she asked, though she didn’t slow down.
“Somewhere I havenae shown anyone.” He pushed aside a curtain of gorse and sea thrift, revealing a narrow opening in the rock face—barely visible unless you knew exactly where to look. “I used tae come here as a lad. When everythin’ got too much.”
The entrance was tight. Ragnar ducked low, guiding her through with one broad hand steady at the small of her back, and then the passage opened into a cave, wider than she’d expected, with a ceiling high enough for even him to stand.
Light filtered through a fissure above, casting everything in pale gold.
The air smelled of salt and stone and something older, earthier.
She turned in a slow circle, taking in the smooth walls, the natural shelf of rock. “How long has this been here?”
“Longer than the castle.” He moved to the far wall and crouched, brushing sand and debris away from a weathered trunk half-buried against the stone. “I found it when I was eight.”
He pried the lid open. Inside lay a boy’s treasures—a carved wooden horse with one missing leg, a handful of polished sea glass, a rusted fishing hook, and beneath it all, several thick furs, still intact, smelling faintly of cedar and old leather.
“I kept furs here because the stone was always cold.” He pulled them out and spread them across the sand floor, smoothing them flat with hands that moved with deliberate care. “Used tae pretend I was some great explorer, campin’ in strange lands.”
“The mighty Stag of Uist,” she said softly, “hidin’ in a cave.
” Isolda knelt and picked up the carved figure, turning it in her fingers.
The craftsmanship was rough, clearly made by a child’s hand.
She looked up at him, and her chest ached with a tenderness so fierce it frightened her. “Ye made this.”
“Me faither helped me.” The words were quiet. “The last summer before he died.”
She set the horse down carefully, like it was made of glass.
The golden light caught the water still glistening on her skin, and Ragnar’s gaze tracked a droplet as it slid from her wet hair down her collarbone into the dip of her throat.
When he looked back at her face, the hunger in his blue eyes was tempered by something softer—something careful and questioning and achingly patient.