Chapter Fourteen #2
Alex rubbed her eyes, then sat back in her chair.
“I do not ken what’s wrong with me. I suppose seeing those children just made me long for those carefree days.
” She finished her cup and stood up. “Anyway,” she said with forced brightness, “I will carry on with rounds and let ye get back to cooking.”
Helen frowned. “Ye look tired. Finish yer rounds and then go take a rest.”
“I will if ye will,” Alex said with a wink, knowing Helen would have to be near death to sleep in the middle of the day.
She stepped back outside and lifted her face to the sky.
The sun shone bright and warm and directly overhead.
She chewed her lip, debating whether to return to Luthmore for the noon meal.
She turned her back on the castle. Too many men awaited her there, and at that moment, there was only one man she wished to see.
“I miss ye, Da,” she muttered under her breath.
With so many villagers up at the keep, the naked paths beckoned her with their openness, their quiet.
They promised clarity. She would have no place to hide, even from herself.
She wandered the roads, imagining her father still walked at her side.
As if in a dream, cottages floated past like gray, shifting clouds while her mind focused on her father’s imaginary counsel.
Gently, he placed Michael’s truth deep inside her heart, his voice as soft as a feather sashaying through air.
Her life was not her own; it belonged to her people.
“Does anyone’s life belong to themselves alone?” she whispered aloud.
Only those with no one to share it with.
The truth was weightless in its simplicity.
Feeling resolute, she scanned her surroundings with renewed focus.
She had unknowingly wandered beyond the village outskirts.
Her eyes traced the distant castle. Then shifting her feet, she drank in the sight of rugged mountains set far against the heavens.
Again, she turned, but her newly claimed calm fled her soul as she gasped and stumbled forward, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Thick ribbons of smoke coiled up from the roof of a distant crofter’s storehouse.
An instant later, she was running. Cries for help reached her ears, and she pushed her body harder, racing against the hungry flames.
Two feminine figures came into view. Margaret, the crofter’s wife, and her daughter, Anna, hoisted buckets of water at the blaze.
Ash and smoke blackened their faces and tunics.
Despite their desperate struggle, the fire yielded nothing.
Alex rushed past them without stopping and dashed inside, wanting to save as many bags of seed as she could.
What if disease swept through the village, or one of their neighbors attacked?
They could not afford a smaller harvest. The risks were too great.
“Nay, my lady, ye mustn’t,” she heard Margaret scream.
Alex barreled out through the door, stooped over from the weight of the heavy sack on her shoulder. “Send for help!”
“Go, Anna! Go to the keep,” Margaret cried.
Thick smoke choked the air. Alex covered her mouth with her arm as she burrowed once again into the burning store.
She reached for another bag of seed, but then above the din of splintering wood and thatch and the roaring fire, she heard the bleating of panicked sheep.
Straining beneath the weight of the seed bag, she bent over and hastened toward the door and dumped it off her back when she reached the pile she had made safely beyond the destructive lick of the flames.
Then Alex turned around. The fire had spread now across the roof and up one side. Still, the bleating sounded from within. Without hesitation, she rushed back inside.
RORY PUMPED HIS ARMS, running as fast as he could toward the black smoke curling toward the sky. He could hear a woman screaming for help and the breaths of the men running just behind him. By the time they reached the long storage hut, the roof was engulfed in flames.
“She ran inside,” the woman screamed, racing at him.
“Who ran inside?” Rory said, grabbing her shoulders.
“Alex,” she cried. “She’s going to save them.”
“Alex,” he shouted, pushing past her. He pulled the plaid from his body and plunged it in the nearby trough. Then hanging the fabric over his head, he barreled through the blackened doorway. Blazing heat scorched his skin.
“Alex,” he shouted. “Alex!”
“Rory,” she cried. “I’m here.”
His eyes stung as he tried to see through the smoke. He rushed in the direction of her voice, but then a creak rent the air. He looked up just as part of the ceiling gave way. He dove to escape the fiery embers.
“Alex!”
“I’m surrounded by fire!”
Through licking flames and billowing smoke, he saw the shift of her silhouette. Her racking cough reached his ears. He pulled the plaid low over his head and leapt through the flames. She stood, hunched over in the corner, coughing and huddling around a cluster of sheep.
“Where are the others?” he shouted above the roar of the flames.
“What others?” she croaked.
“The ones ye’re saving.”
“Here,” she said, gesturing to the sheep.
“For the love of God, Alex!” He cried. Then he threw the wet plaid over her. Heat blasted his bare flesh. He kicked against the thatch and log siding again and again until at last he made a large enough hole.
She started to shoo the sheep through the opening.
“Are ye mad?” he cried. “Leave them!”
But she ignored him and scurried through the hole only after the last animal had escaped. Then he crawled through on hands and knees. He lay on his back, sputtering and coughing. An instant later, the storehouse groaned as the rest of the ceiling collapsed.
ALEX COUGHED INTO HER pillow. Her throat stung. She turned to lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling. “Ye cannot force me to lie in bed for the remainder of the evening.”
Mary did not look up from her embroidery. “Ye fell unconscious after having to be nearly dragged from a burning building. Yer throat is clearly raw. Ye’re staying put.”
“I had to save the sheep.”
A knock sounded at the door. Alex prayed it was her turn to be rescued. “Come in.”
Rory flung the door wide and stalked in, planting his feet wide at the foot of her bed. “Are ye telling me that ye raced into a fiery death trap only to save some sheep?”
She sat up. “Nay,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Really? Then please tell me what else ye risked yer life for?”
“Sacks of grain and seed,” she replied.
His scowl deepened. “Ye accuse me of being reckless when ye’re madder than any agent I’ve ever met. How could ye put yer life on the line like that?”
She swung her blankets back and jumped out of bed, storming at him. “I am acting laird of this clan. The lives of my people are my responsibility and mine—” Her words were smothered by her cough.
He threw his hands up. “But that is the point I am trying to get into that hot head of yers. The only life at risk today was yer own. Grain and seed can be replaced. A brood of sheep can be replaced. Alex MacKenzie can never be replaced. No one’s life was at stake other than yers and mine by default. ”
“No one’s life was at risk today because of that fire.
But what of tomorrow or next month or next year?
What of the lambs those sheep will birth in the spring?
What of the crops lost today because of the seed I couldn’t save?
Someone will go with less food tomorrow because of what happened today.
Stores represent hope against disaster, which in the end is inevitable.
That is the power of one bag of grain or one sheep.
Never take anything for granted, Rory MacVie.
My actions today were not to save a necklace. I did it to save my people.”
Rory raked his hand through his hair while he wrestled contrasting desires.
He wanted to ring her neck, but he also wanted to raise her high, higher than the stars for how well she loved her people.
Inside her slim frame, she held greatness, but also blind recklessness—not that he was any better.
Still, he had expected her to have more sense than him.
“Truth be known,” Mary said from her seat near the hearth. “I think ye’re both mad.”