Highlander's Redemption: The Sinclair Brothers Trilogy, Book Two (7 page)

Garrick swore
silently and tore his bleary-eyed gaze away from Jossalyn’s backside. They were
stopped by a small stream to give the horses and themselves a brief rest after
several hours of hard traveling. Jossalyn was bent over, letting the cool
stream water pool in her cupped hands before bringing them up to her lips for a
drink. He had been staring at her for several minutes, hypnotized by the sight
of her heart-shaped rear in the air, her slim hands rising to her mouth, and
the extra droplets of water clinging to her rosy lips.

It was just the
fatigue, he told himself. Neither him nor Burke had slept a wink the night
before, and now, as the sun passed its zenith and approached the angled light
of late afternoon, they had already put in several long hours today. Fatigue
was making him careless with his attention. He knew somewhere inside that he
shouldn’t be staring at her like that— like a hungry animal—but he couldn’t
seem to find the energy to stop.

Their riding
arrangement hadn’t helped any, either. He hadn’t even considered the
possibility of Jossalyn riding with Burke. Even though he knew that this would
really be it, that after they delivered her to Dunbraes he would never see her
again, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to be so near to her for the few
hours they had left together.

But maybe that had
been a mistake, for now he felt an ache between his legs that had nothing to do
with the long hours on horseback. That firm but deliciously soft bottom on
which his eyes were currently locked had been pressing against his cock nonstop
as their hips moved in unison with the horse’s strides.

And her smell—that
unique combination of wildflowers and sunshine—had been hanging around him like
a veil since the moment he had pulled her up on Fletch’s back and realized that
her golden hair was mere inches from his face.

When she had shed
the cloak she was wearing a few hours back, draping it across her lap, he had
nearly groaned, for it meant that he could feel every delicate curve pressed
against him all the better.

He couldn’t
remember the last time a lass had affected him so strongly—but maybe that was
because no other lass ever had. Aye, he had enjoyed plenty of willing lasses as
a means of escape or release from the horrors of warfare, but he had never let
them get to him before. That would endanger his place with the Bruce’s rebel
force. He always had to be ready for the next mission, which normally meant
being gone for weeks on end, working alone, and not getting attached.

This wasn’t any
different, he reassured himself. Or it wasn’t
much
different anyway. He
was still following his duty to the Bruce and the rebellion. He was returning
the lass to where she belonged, away from him and the dangers that he brought
with him. He wasn’t letting her change him or his plan.

But then again, he
wasn’t exactly performing at his peak as far as being a cold-blooded mercenary
and marksman went. If he had been thinking of nothing but the mission, perhaps
he could have left her back in the middle of the woods without an explanation. But
every fiber in him rejected such an idea. He only hoped that by doing the right
thing and returning her to her village, he wouldn’t be risking failing in his
duty.

A voice inside his
head whispered that it was far from the “right thing” to be forcing the lass to
return to her brother, who was not only a bastard for denying her the ability
to practice healing, but also a coward and a tyrant for hurting her. The lass
was taking charge of her own life, overcoming her oppressor and building a
future for herself. Why was he pushing her back into her old life? Her brother
was a bastard, but was he any better?

He pushed the
thought aside savagely. He couldn’t indulge in such philosophizing when lives
were at stake. The lass could still escape, just not this time, and not with him.
She was strong enough, he knew, to do it again, and to succeed on her own. He
just had to be the bastard who denied her the freedom she sought this time.

He could be the
villain. He had gotten quite used to the role over the years. He had never been
as concerned with justice and doing the right thing as his older brother
Robert, and he wasn’t an uncompromising leader like his younger brother Daniel,
either. And he certainly didn’t care to smooth things over and make others
comfortable like Burke. Nay, he was the one who was willing to do whatever it
took to get a job done.

It took a special
kind of person to be able to stake out a mark for days or even weeks, living
alone in the woods and trusting nothing but one’s own survival skills. And
then, when the moment finally arrived, to be willing to shoot and kill an
unsuspecting man, in the back as often as in the chest—it wasn’t for everyone,
not even the most fervent of the bloodthirsty and enraged Scotsmen who had
joined the rebellion to fight for Robert the Bruce. Garrick did bad things—he
killed without remorse, relied on no one, and cared only for his missions. He
could break this one lass’s heart and put her back within the grasp of her
manipulative and violent brother. It was nothing to him.

“Garrick?”

Jossalyn had
turned from the stream and was staring at him with a guarded look. He realized
that his face was twisted into a scowl and he was glaring at her, his fists
clenching and unclenching at his sides. He took a quick breath to try to
release the tension that had formed as he stood there thinking. “We should get
moving,” he said, schooling his features into expressionlessness once again.

Burke was already
swinging into the saddle, though he looked just as exhausted as Garrick felt. Jossalyn
followed Garrick to Fletch’s side and waited for him to mount and pull her up
in front of him. She settled herself between his legs as if she were always
meant to be there.

He forced the idea
from his head. He needed to concentrate on delivering her without issue back to
the village at Dunbraes. Then he would have to push her from his mind
completely. He wouldn’t be able to accomplish what would be required of him in
the coming weeks and months if he were distracted.

Even as he thought
this, though, her hair, which gleamed in the sunlight, brushed his cheek and he
nearly lost his resolve yet again. Just an hour or two more, he told himself. But
if he were honest with himself, he would have to admit that instead of looking
forward to being free of Jossalyn’s distractions, he was dreading the moment
when they would part—for good this time.

Jossalyn knew that
this was the last stop even before she spotted the village through the trees. As
Garrick and Burked reined in their horses, she could feel the tension radiating
from Garrick’s body behind her. Before he could help her down, she threw her
leg over the large chestnut’s neck and slid down the considerable distance to
the ground. Garrick dismounted too, but she took a step back from him,
pretending to adjust her cloak, which she had swung back over her shoulders to
avoid having to carry both it and her satchel.

Finally, she found
her voice, though it was pinched with emotion. “I’m sorry to have put you in
this position. Please forgive me. I wish you a safe journey.”

With that she spun
on her heels and half-ran toward the village, too cowardly to meet Garrick’s
eyes or go through another goodbye with him. She almost expected to feel his
big hands pulling her back, spinning her around so that he could apologize,
kiss her senseless, and take her back north with him. But his touch never came.

She brushed the
tears out of her eyes as she went, forcing herself to keep putting one foot in
front of the other, even though it meant growing farther away from Garrick. She
told herself that this was as it must be, that she would overcome the sorrow,
the hollowness inside, that she could still escape Dunbraes and build a new
life for herself. None of it eased the crushing weight of sadness that sat like
a boulder in her chest.

She stumbled into
the village on the outskirts of the square. No one seemed to notice her as they
moved about their lives. They all had their struggles and heartbreaks, and she
chastised herself for thinking that hers were somehow special or worse.

Wiping away the
lingering tears with the sleeve of her dress, she straightened her spine and
turned toward the main road, which ran right through the square from the south
and up to the castle above the village.

Just as she took
the first step back toward the castle, however, she heard the town crier’s
clear voice above the mundane sounds of the square.

“Lord Warren
returns! The King is dead! Long live the King!”

Jossalyn’s heart
froze.

King Edward I was
dead.

Her brother was
approaching the castle from the south along the same road on which she now
stood.

As she registered
each of these pieces of news and what they would mean for her life, she felt
all the blood drain from her. With Edward’s death, her brother could have
potentially angled for a new position—one that could mean more power for him
and less for her. It could even mean that they would be leaving the Borderlands.
Or perhaps he had already arranged her marriage while he was at the makeshift
court in Cumberland for Edward’s death.

She had to get
away. Now. This could be her last chance at freedom.

But before she
could run, she saw the parade of her brother’s returning men-at-arms filling
the road just to the south of her.

And her brother
was at the front of the procession. She saw him squinting toward her for a
moment and felt like a deer in the sights of a hunter. There was nowhere to go,
nowhere to hide anymore.

He kicked his
horse into a gallop straight toward her. Her life was over.

Garrick had
watched her as she had hurried from him, not looking over her shoulder even
once. He had willed himself to keep his feet rooted to the ground despite every
instinct telling him to give chase, to take her into his arms—but for what? For
one more gut-wrenching kiss? For whispered words of affection, or vows that he
couldn’t keep? Nay, he wouldn’t put both of them through it again. She was
stronger than he would have been.

When she was far
enough away that he trusted himself not to go after her, he walked Fletch to
the edge of the forest and watched her as she strode into the village. Burke
followed him but didn’t say anything, despite the fact that he was likely eager
to get going.

Finally, Garrick
forced himself to turn his back on her. He faced Fletch and ran a hand down the
animal’s flank reassuringly. His eye caught on the long object wrapped in cloth
sticking out of his saddlebag. His bow. If anything could make him feel more
like himself right now, it was his bow, hand-carved and custom-built just for
him.

Though they didn’t
have time to change into their Sinclair kilts at the moment, at least they
could resume wearing their weapons, a comfort to any warrior. Burke was already
unwrapping his sword, so Garrick did the same with his bow and quiver full of
arrows. He too had a sword, which he unwrapped and belted to his waist, but
nothing compared to the feel of his bow in his hand once more.

Suddenly he heard
a high voice drifting through the village and into the surrounding forest. It
was a lad’s voice, but it wasn’t the sound of horseplay or pranking. He was
repeating something over and over. Garrick quirked his ears. When the message
finally made sense, his blood ran cold.

“Lord Warren
returns! The King is dead! Long live the King!”

His gaze flew to
Burke, who stood frozen with wide eyes and a slack jaw. Garrick tried to sort
through the tangle in his mind at the news.

Longshanks was
dead.

The Hammer of the
Scots was
dead
.

While part of his
mind rejoiced, the other twisted at the thought that he had no idea what this
would mean. On one hand, there was likely not another soul on earth who despised
the Scots as much as Edward I did. His death could put and end to the wars for
Scottish independence once and for all.

On the other hand,
Edward’s son, Edward II was now King, and he was an unknown entity. He was said
to love the arts and have little of the spirit of war that his father had, but
then again, the boy had been raised with a hunger for Scottish blood as if it
were his mother’s milk.

Then there was
Warren’s return. Lord Raef Warren was his family’s mortal enemy. Garrick had
fought alongside his brother Robert and Burke at the battle of Roslin four
years earlier. He had seen the coward then, but was more familiar with Robert’s
description of the man as a snake and warmonger. Warren was responsible for
starting that war, which had dealt a heavy blow to the Sinclair clan and its
lands. Robert had made it his personal mission to twist the knife in Warren’s
side at every opportunity, raiding and stealing from him in the Borderlands.

Though Garrick
knew that Robert’s blood still ran hot when it came to Warren, he had calmed
somewhat with the arrival of Lady Alwin into his life. Now that she was with
child, Robert had entrusted Garrick and Burke to investigate Warren’s
whereabouts and learn about the movements of the English army.

It had been a
relief when upon their arrival to Dunbraes, they had learned that Warren was
away on some court business. It would be hard to avoid him, and Garrick
suspected that Warren might recognize one or both of them on sight. But now the
pompous arse was marching up the road, perhaps only one hundred yards from
where he and Burke stood partly concealed by the thin outskirts of the forest.

All of this
crashed through Garrick’s mind like a wave. They had to move—now. They couldn’t
be seen by Warren or his men, and they had to get to the Bruce to deliver this
news.

Garrick quickly
dug through his saddlebag and retrieved his metal-studded leather vest,
throwing it over his English clothes. He hoped to hell he wouldn’t need it, but
it was better to be safe than sorry. He finished unwrapping his bow and quiver,
slinging both over his shoulder. Just before placing his foot in Fletch’s
stirrup, he let himself take one last look over his shoulder at Jossalyn.

He picked out her
gleaming gold hair easily. Her back was still to him, but instead of continuing
to walk through the village, she had frozen and her eyes were locked on—none
other than Raef Warren. The man was barreling down on her from atop his horse.
She held her ground, but even from a distance Garrick could see that she had
hunched her shoulders, pulling herself inward defensively.

What he saw next
hit him like a punch to the gut. At the last possible moment, Warren reined in
his horse to prevent from trampling her. He then threw himself off of his
horse’s back and closed the remaining distance between himself and Jossalyn,
towering over her. She kept her head down as he appeared to shout at her,
waving his hands and leaning toward her, despite being in the middle of not
only the crowded village square, but also the procession that was escorting him
home.

Jossalyn simply
stood there, head bowed, shoulders hunched, taking the barrage of shouted
insults that Warren threw at her. Her lack of response seemed to infuriate him
even more, for he gripped her arms and shook her, hard enough that her head
whipped back and forth on her neck several times.

Garrick hadn’t
realized it, but he had taken several steps toward the scene in front of him. He
was now well clear of the forest line, and was nearly halfway to Jossalyn
before Burke’s hand shook his shoulder.

“What the hell are
you doing?” Burke said frantically.

“Jossalyn is in
trouble. Warren is hurting—”

Suddenly something
clicked into place in his head. The memories of moments that hadn’t seemed
quite right flooded back to him.

Jossalyn
stuttering over both her own last name and her brother’s first and last names.

Jossalyn being
called “lady” in the village, though she had brushed it off uncomfortably.

Jossalyn being
unable to practice her healing art because of her brother’s controlling and
manipulative ways.

Jossalyn being
hurt by her brother.

Jossalyn Williams
was actually Jossalyn Warren. Her brother, “Ranald Williams,” was Lord Raef
Warren.

His mind tried to
grasp all the implications of this, but he couldn’t seem to get his thoughts in
order. He turned back to the scene in front of him, and all thought drained
from his mind.

It all seemed to
be happening in slow motion. Warren was drawing back one of his hands from
Jossalyn’s arm. He was raising his palm higher and higher, his hand straight
and rigid. Jossalyn tilted her head up, her eyes wide, tear tracks glistening
on her cheeks in the slanting sunlight.

Warren was going
to hit her. Right across her perfect, innocent face.

Garrick saw red,
but at the same time everything seemed to fade around him and grow quiet. In
one fluid movement, he dropped to one knee and drew an arrow from his quiver. His
bow was already in his hand somehow, the wood warm and smooth. He nocked the
arrow and drew back, his eyes locked on Warren’s raised hand. Without thinking,
he adjusted for the whisper of evening breeze and calculated how far Warren’s
hand would travel in the time it took his arrow to reach him.

He exhaled and let
his arrow fly. Warren’s hand was now descending toward Jossalyn’s face. Her
eyes were squeezed shut, but she didn’t flinch away from him.

Just as Warren’s
palm was fully exposed in the space between him and Jossalyn, Garrick’s arrow
found its mark. It sunk all the way through his hand, half of the wooden shaft
on either side of his palm. His hand froze in the air, a stunned look on his
face. Then slowly, Warren turned to look in the direction from which the arrow
had flown. Suddenly, everything seemed to speed up again.

Garrick realized
he was sprinting straight for Jossalyn. He threw his bow over his shoulder and
drew the sword at his hip as he ran. He faintly registered Burke running just
behind him, but he couldn’t give the man any of his attention. He was solely
focused on Jossalyn, who had also turned in his direction. Now her eyes locked
on him and widened in disbelief and he barreled toward her.

Chaos was erupting
all around. Warren screamed something, a combination of a pained wail and a
command to his men-at-arms marching up the road several dozen yards behind him.
A few of the men noticed the arrow protruding from their Lord’s hand and broke
rank, struggling to draw their swords and face the attack. Even as his men-at-arms
advanced, Warren faded backward, scrambling away from the two armed men coming
straight at him.

They all seemed to
collide right where Jossalyn and Warren had been standing, though Warren had squeezed
himself behind his men-at-arms and Jossalyn had flung herself out of the road.

Garrick brought
his sword down on one of Warren’s men, landing a fatal blow. He spun just in
time to block the swing of a sword aiming to separate his head from his
shoulders. The impact of the blow reverberated down his arms, but he held fast
to his sword and managed to thrust his enemy’s blade away. The man swung again,
but this time Garrick was ready for it. He ducked and thrust upward, piercing
the soldier through the stomach. The man screamed and fell, his body toppling
onto a fellow soldier that Burke had just run through.

In a matter of
seconds, Garrick and Burke had dispatched half a dozen of Warren’s men, but a
score more surged toward them. Blessedly, the road on which they fought was
creating a bottleneck that allowed only a few soldiers at a time to step up to
the deadly swing of the two men’s large blades.

But Garrick was
more comfortable fighting from a distance with his bow. He realized as he drew
his sword across the flesh of an oncoming man that they couldn’t hold their
position for much longer. The quarters were too close, and there were too many
of Warren’s men surging toward them. He threw a glance at Burke, who met his
eyes quickly before turning back to the soldier he was squaring off against.

“Get the lass! I’ll
cover you!” Burke panted.

Garrick’s eyes
flew to the side of the road where Jossalyn had flung herself out of the way. She
was pressing herself as flat as she could against a stone wall that lined the
road, but she was dangerously close to the sword-wielding men-at-arms who were
trying to squeeze their way toward Burke and him.

He hacked through
another soldier as he fought against the tide of them pressing down on him. He
was almost in reach of her.

“Jossalyn!” he
shouted over the near-deafening noise of battle. Her terrified eyes found him,
but just as they did, one of the soldiers was shoved by his comrade and went
careening toward her, his blade raised in front of him.

Garrick dove
forward, putting his body between her and the stumbling soldier. He threw his
arms against the wall on either side of her small form, creating a shield with
his body. He felt a burning slice on his back, but it barely registered. She
was safe.

He turned so that
she was at his back and he could face the soldier. With one block and thrust,
he had ended another life. He swung his sword with his right hand and used his
left to push her along the wall behind him toward where Burke held off three
English soldiers at once.

“Go!” Burke
shouted as he cut down another man. He took a blow to the leg which sent him
staggering backward, but he righted himself and blocked another swing.

“You’d better be
behind us!” Garrick shouted back.

Without waiting longer,
he wrapped a hand around Jossalyn’s wrist and pulled her into a run with him
toward the forest where their horses waited. He could feel her stumbling and
struggling to keep up behind him, so he turned and lowered his shoulder into
her middle, hoisting her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He could
hear a whoosh of air from her as he took off running again, but she didn’t
scream or resist. She was likely too stunned, Garrick thought somewhere in the
back of his mind.

When he reached
the horses, who stood nervously at the edge of the forest, he set her down on
her feet again and sheathed his sword. He launched himself onto Fletch’s back,
then reached down and pulled her up also, but this time behind him. He would
need to have unobstructed access to the reins if they were going to make it out
of this alive. He leaned over and grabbed Burke’s horse’s reins and spurred them
both back toward the battle. Burke was disengaging himself, backing up rapidly
away from the onslaught of soldiers, who were now starting to overpower him.

Garrick whistled as
he charged toward Burke, giving him enough warning to take one last swing
before bolting toward the forest. Burke only had to take a few hobbling strides
before Garrick reached him. He flung himself atop his horse and Garrick tossed
him the reins. They wheeled the animals around hard and sent them flying into
the forest once more. Behind them, Garrick could hear Warren’s enraged screams.

“To the stables! Every
man on a horse! After them!”