Highland Warrior, McCollum, Heather [carter reed .TXT] 📗

him to her. Lord! She should have washed and brushed her hair before coming up.

“All is well?” he asked, stopping before her, close, so very close.

“Yes,” she said. “I was going to wash and change. Calder is with Brenna.”

He nodded. “And the wee bairn?”

“Still strong and nursing like a hungry lad.”

The side of Joshua’s lush mouth turned upward in a grin, showing the edge of his white teeth. In the daylight, she could see the darker flecks of blue in the lightness of his eyes. They were different than any she’d seen before and seemed to pull her into their depths like pale blue whirlpools. With her own eyes being a grayish blue, would their children have blue eyes?

Kára looked past him toward the gray ocean, heavy clouds seeming to reach down to the surface. “They have named the babe Joshua,” she said and looked back to him.

His grin faded, his brows bending inward.

“Because of your efforts to bring him safely into this world,” she added.

“I was but one helper,” he said, and she could not tell from his tone if he were angered or stunned by the gesture.

She shrugged, tucking a wildly dancing strand of hair behind her ear. “I am sure if the babe were a girl, they would have named her Kára or Hilda or Harriett. Not many men are strong enough to keep on their feet in a birthing chamber.” Calder surely had not.

Joshua rubbed his fingers through his loose, shoulder-length hair, scratching his head. “I had always thought women were strong, but after witnessing what Brenna endured, I know it firsthand now. I have rarely seen such endurance and courage in men.” He looked toward where Geir practiced against Osk. “Was your birthing as difficult?”

“No,” she said. “Geir came early, so he was small and came properly headfirst.”

He looked at her. “Early?”

She nodded, watching her son, the tightness of worry digging its claws into the old familiar wounds from nine years ago. She swallowed, keeping her gaze away from Joshua. “He came a month early, and we worried he would not live. But look at him now.” She smiled against the sadness that pressed on her.

“What makes a bairn come early?” Joshua asked, turning to stand next to her and watching Geir, both their gazes outward.

“It could be poor nutrition, something wrong with the babe, an illness in the mother. Or…a fright to the mother can bring on labor early.”

“What type of fright?” Joshua asked, his voice low.

Images moved behind Kára’s eyes. Unbidden, the memories welled up as if needing to be released or threaten to cut her in an effort to escape the tight hold she kept on them. “Seeing one’s unarmed husband slaughtered.” She turned to meet his gaze. The sight of Joshua, so strong and invincible, pushed the nightmarish memories back, breaking up the pictures until they were just words again. “And being stolen away by the murderer while the father of your child bleeds out on the ground.”

“Kára,” Joshua murmured, his gentle grip on her arm pulling her around to face him. “Who did this?”

“Henry Stuart,” she answered. “By the time he wrestled me off his horse back at the Earl’s Palace, my water had broken.” It was the mess that had kept the monster from raping her.

She took a deep breath. “Lord Robert scolded him and made him turn me out of the gate to walk home. Geir was born later that night.” There was a long pause.

“What was your husband’s name?” he asked, his voice soft.

Even though she faced him, Kára looked straight ahead at Joshua’s muscular chest, her gaze resting on the exposed tanned skin where the tunic tied. “I named Geir after his father.” She glanced up to meet his pale eyes that held strength and anger instead of pity. They were easier to look at without pity in them. “So there would be a Geir on Orkney, and I swore to bring him up to be strong and able to protect those he loves.”

“I am sorry, Kára,” Joshua said. “I am glad your son has grown strong.”

“Train him to use a blade well.” She tipped her head upward to stare into his beautiful eyes. “Please.” She let her desperation fill the word, releasing a bit of the emotion she kept locked inside. The memories had weakened her, and Kára turned away before Joshua could make her crumble with another denial.

Chapter Eleven

“Bravery without forethought causes a man to fight blindly and desperately like a mad bull.”

Sun Tzu – The Art of War

“Protected under the name of God,” Pastor John said, pouring the water onto wee Joshua’s head as Brenna held him. Calder quickly dried it, the two parents smiling broadly as the young pastor announced that the bairn was now christened and under God’s protection from evil.

Joshua stood across from Kára in the crowded room under the earth. Please. Kára’s simple entreaty shot over and over through Joshua’s mind as his gaze traveled over the villagers of Hillside who had gathered. They were good people. Honest, helpful to one another, and hard workers. They deserved respect and a good life, a life away from Robert Stuart.

But Kára ignored any suggestion that her people move away from Orkney. Joshua could understand her resistance. He missed his home at Girnigoe Castle on the northern part of Scotland in Caithness and would die defending it and his family. He would be there with them now except that remorse for equipping Robert’s men with deadly skills kept him on Orkney. Remorse and…Kára Flett.

His gaze rested on her where she stood, straight and proud, her long, pale tresses cascading in curls down her back. Someone had tied ribbons in her hair, a simple decoration that held part of the silky mass, plaited and encircled on her head like a crown. She wore a straight blue wool gown, the bottom embroidered with flowers and birds. It reminded him of the costumes of the ancient Norse who had inhabited the isle, straight