As High as the Heavens (23 page)

Fiona shrugged. "Suit yerself, hinny. I was but trying
to understand the basis of yer unwillingness to commit yer heart and life to my son. I can't help ye, and him, if
I don't understand."

"I never asked for yer help and I don't need it!"

"Don't ye?" She cocked her head. "Well, mayhap not.
But I also won't stand by and watch ye make a muddle
of yer relationship wi' Duncan, either."

"Are ye offering yer help then?"

Once again, Fiona shrugged, then stood awkwardly
to leave. "Mayhap. Or mayhap it's but a warning. It'll
all depend on ye."

I-I can't say if there'll ever be a right time ... Mayhap
... when all this is over, but I can't promise ye aught.

As Duncan mucked out the cattle byre that morn,
Heather's words roiled repeatedly in his mind. And, as
he worked, his emotions once again swung, as they had
for the past three days, from great joy to utter disbelief
to a gnawing frustration. Three days ... and not another mention of the subject. Three days ... and still he
couldn't banish it from his mind.

Surely he had misunderstood her. Surely she hadn't
meant there was hope for them, hope that someday
something might come of their growing feelings for
each other. Surely he had placed a deeper meaning on
her words because it was what he had wanted so desperately to hear.

To take Heather as wife ... such a consideration filled
Duncan with wild dreams and even wilder emotions.
Yet a more cautious, logical side of him warned not to
presume anything when it came to a certain proud and headstrong beauty. If Heather Gordon was nothing else,
she was a woman who'd give her love and devotion only
if she wished to.

Besides, whether Heather returned his feelings or
not wasn't the issue. The barriers of class and breeding
still stood between them. And an even greater barrier
had finally lifted between them as well. The barrier of
Heather's estrangement from God.

Despite her protestations to the contrary, Duncan
knew in his heart that Heather was a believer. Her anger
against the Lord was far too powerful to rise from any
other source than that of one who had once loved and
lost. In his heart of hearts, Duncan also sensed that
Heather longed for a reconciliation, if only she could
find some way out of the darkness that currently enshrouded her soul.

God willing, he hoped he might be the person who
could lead her back into the light of God's love. His mouth
quirked in sad irony. Aye, he was a man full of hope. It
would take more than hope, though, to overcome all the
obstacles yet in his way.

All morn Duncan worked like a man possessed, tossing
forkfuls of sodden, smelly straw into a rickety wooden
cart, then laboriously dragging the cart from the byre
through the mud to dump it in the steaming manure pile
behind the building. More than anything he had ever
desired, despite his misgivings and fears, Duncan found
he wanted to spend every spare moment he could with
Heather. It was, indeed, the only way he would finally
ascertain her true feelings and discern exactly what her
meaning that day had really been.

Finishing his morning chores a half hour earlier than
usual, Duncan bade his father and Tavish a brusque
farewell and headed back up to the cottage. As he walked
along, the beauty of the day enveloped him. The sun was
surprisingly warm, and the snow that had kept them
closed up in the house for most of the past week had
begun to melt with a vengeance.

Already, tender shoots of new grass were peeking
through myriad slushy spots of snow. Their bright green
contrasted with the delicate, drooping, white-petaled
snowdrops that had bravely pushed their way up beneath
the oaks and birches. The daffodils and yellow primroses,
Duncan well knew, wouldn't be far behind.

Viewing the rebirth of the land after the dismal, bitterly cold winter, Duncan knew a joyous satisfaction such
as he had never known before. It was oddly special this
year, though. This year, the rebirth of life was mirrored
in his own experiences, in coming to know and love
Heather Gordon.

He should be shocked, so easily to recognize and admit
to an emotion such as he felt for Heather. Never before
had he felt anything for a woman-save for the filial love
he had for his mother. Or at least nothing more than a
distant affection or wry tolerance, he added, thinking
briefly of Janet Mackenzie.

As he neared the cottage, his gaze snagged on the
large wooden box he had constructed for Cuini and her
brood. In the rapidly warming days of spring, he had
daily carried it outside for several hours to sit near the
steps leading to the cottage door. Inside, basking in the
sun, was the little terrier and three of her four six-week old pups. Puzzled by the surprising absence of one pup,
Duncan paused to look around. The wee miscreant was
nowhere to be seen.

He shrugged. Most likely Heather had the pup inside
and was playing with it. She had taken a liking to Cuini
and her babes over the past several weeks, and was frequently found sitting beside the box, watching them in
fascination.

Heather, however, Duncan soon discovered when he
entered the cottage, was also nowhere to be found. He
frowned, the first tendrils of unease snaking through
him. Where could the lass be?

He walked over to Beth, who sat with Fiona at the
loom, and glowered down at her. "Yer mistress. Why
aren't ye with her, wherever she is? Ye are supposed to
be chaperoning her, aren't ye?"

There was no mistaking the implied reproof in Duncan's words. High color rushed to Beth's cheeks.

"She said she wished to sit outside on the stoop and
watch the pups. There seemed no need to-"

"Well, Heather isn't there now and obviously isn't here,
either," Duncan snapped, his ire rising apace with his
growing concern. "And I just came from the cattle byre,
so she also isn't there."

Beth's eyes went wide. She rose to her feet.

Fiona glanced from Beth to Duncan. "Now where has
that headstrong lass gone off to now?" she muttered in
disgust. "She becomes more difficult by the moment!"

Duncan spared his mother but a seething glance, then
turned on his heel and hurried to the door. A pup was
missing and Heather had gone outside to play with it, he thought as he leaped down from the steps, then paused
to scan the area. Where might Heather and an errant
pup possibly be?

It was a mite early for reivers to be in the area, filching
whatever cattle they took a liking to. Unlikely but always
possible. And if they had found Heather somewhere out
of earshot of the house ...

The consideration of what they might do to a woman
as bonny as Heather turned Duncan's blood to ice. He
broke out in a run, heading down the hill to where the
trees thickened near the pond.

Halfway to the pond, Duncan finally caught sight of
Heather. Her gown and cloak copiously dripping water,
she staggered up the hill, Cuini's pup clutched to her. Her
long hair had fallen free of its cap and hung in sodden
hanks. Her lips were blue, and she shivered uncontrollably.

Duncan slid to a halt before her, took one look, and
immediately gathered her up into his arms. "Little fool,"
he muttered, swinging around and striding back toward
the cottage. "Ye fell in the pond, didn't ye?"

"Th-the pup," she said, her teeth chattering. "It w-went
out onto the i-ice and fell through a m-melted hole. I-I
tr-tried to reach it by 1-leaning out from the b-bank, but
then I sl-slipped and f-fell in."

She held the pup tightly with one hand, using the other
to shove back the dripping hair falling into her face. "I-I
was 1-lucky the water wasn't over my h-head. I-I never
realized how heavy long s-skirts are when w-wet."

"Nor how quickly and dangerously cold ye can get
falling into a half-frozen pond."

By all the saints, Duncan thought, hefting her chillracked body more tightly to him. She could have
drowned, and no one would've realized it in time. In
but a few minutes, Heather could have been gone from
his life-forever.

The realization filled him with terror. He pulled her
so close he could feel her trembling body through the
wet clothes they both now wore. If he had lost her, just
when he had finally discovered how much he loved her,
needed her ...

"Ye won't ever go down to the pond alone againrunaway pup or no," he growled, his voice, in his fear
and anger, taking on a harsher tone than he wished.
"And ye'll never, do ye hear me, never again go outdoors
without either Tavish or myself with ye."

She stiffened in his arms. "And s-since when have ye
become my n-nursemaid, Duncan Mackenzie? I'm quite
capable of t-taking care of myself."

Foolish, headstrong woman!

"And I say ye don't know the dangers here," he snarled
in return. "Soon reivers will stalk these hills and mountains, searching for sheep and cattle to steal. Many are
outlaws living outside the control or protection of a clan.
If they come upon a defenseless lass ... well, there's no
telling what might happen to ye."

"Then t-teach me how to d-defend myself." Heather
turned in his arms to stare up at him. "There may come
a t-time when ye and T-Tavish and yer father might be
busy elsewhere. There may come a t-time when ye'll
wish ye had m-my assistance. T-teach me, Duncan, so I
c-can be of use then."

He halted. "Ye truly wish to learn how to use a bodice
knife, how to defend yerself with it?" he asked, staring
down at her in disbelief. By mountain and sea, but she
never ceased to amaze him. "Ye'd be willing to fight,
bloody yer hands, even kill someone if need be?"

Heather angled her head and looked up at him through
her lashes. "And what's s-so strange about that?" Her
voice now held a note of affront. "I rn-may be more
daintily raised than yer Highland 1-lasses, but I'm still a
Scotswoman. I'd f-fight to defend myself, my home and
1-loved ones."

"Aye, I suppose ye would," Duncan said, a smile at last
cracking the tense, hard lines of his face. "Ye've always
been a fighter, ye have, Heather Gordon. I knew that
from the first moment I saw ye."

"D-did ye now?"

"Aye, that I did." He stepped out again. "Yer knife
lessons will have to wait a bit, though. First we need to
get ye out of these wet clothes and warmed before ye
take a chill."

"P-pish." Heather's laugh, racked as it was by her bodywrenching shivers, was unsteady. "D-dinna fash yerself
on that account, D-Duncan Mackenzie. I'm as st-strong
as a h-horse."

Though Heather was soon stripped of her wet clothes
by her overwrought maidservant, roughly toweled dry
and dressed in a warm nightrail, then tucked into bed
with hot bricks at her feet, she nonetheless took a chill.
By that night, her body felt as if it were on fire. Her throat was raw and scratchy, and a cough racked her
body. She slept fitfully. By morn, her muscles ached and
the fever rose. Heather began to drift in and out of consciousness.

Through it all, however, she imagined that Duncan
was there, never leaving her side, bending over her when
she cried out, his green eyes dark with concern. Even
in her feverish haze that knowledge comforted her, that
assurance he was near. She began to sleep. By the second
night after the pond accident, her fever broke.

Chirping birds, the sounds of voices and activity in
the common room, and the scent of bannocks baking
finally woke Heather the next morn. She opened her
eyes to bright sunshine flooding the room.

Heather stretched, gingerly easing the ache of feverabused muscles, yawned, then looked around. Beside the
bed, a tall, broad-shouldered man slept in a chair.

Duncan.

Heather smiled. So, her impressions hadn't been the
product of a fever-besotted brain after all. He had been
with her.

She turned, rolling to the edge of the bed, and took
the hand resting limply on the chair arm. Squeezing it
gently, she looked up at him, her heart swelling with
gratitude and affection. Duncan ... ah, Duncan ...