Page 205 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
He looked past her toward Ciaran, who stepped forward at once.
“Me castle is yers,” he offered. “Ye and yer people will have whatever is needed.”
Laird MacKenna held his gaze for a beat, measuring him as one laird measured another. “I thank ye.”
“Of course.” Ciaran nodded. “We are family, after all.”
The words landed with weight Ava could feel even before she looked at him. Her hurt did not vanish because of them. It only lessened a bit.
Bruce trotted between them all, wagging his tail furiously, as if determined to bind the room together by the sheer force of his presence.
Ava rested one hand on her father’s arm and kept it there. He was alive. Burned, weary, but still standing. The fear that had sat inside her for days had broken apart at last, and in its place came something almost harder to bear—gratitude. She was taking the first breath of relief she had taken in days, and for some reason, it felt rather impossible for her to understand.
For a few moments, nobody moved very much. Ava still had one hand on her father’s arm and the other half-curled in Bruce’s fur as if she did not trust either of them to remain in place unless she kept contact. Bruce had planted himself squarely beside her father’s boots and looked pleased with the result of his journey.
Her father let out a breath and eased himself into the nearest chair without asking permission from anyone.
“Aye,” he rumbled, settling carefully with one hand on his bandaged side. “Now that ye have all looked yer fill, I may as well tell ye what comes next before ye start inventing tragedies.”
“Ye are burned,” Ava reminded him. “I daenae think there is a need for anyone to invent anything.”
“I saidtragedies, lass. Burns are merely irritating. Now, a tragedy, for example, is being made to answer a hundred questions before a man has had some dinner.”
Isobel snorted. “Ye sound well enough.”
“I always sound well enough. It is one of me finer gifts.”
Ava crouched beside his chair and looked up at him, still needing the plain sight of him at close range. “What happened to everyone?”
“Ye daenae need to worry. They are all alive.” The immediate reassurance made Ava relax even more. “Granted, some of them are still a bit shaken and ill-tempered, but everyone is alive. I brought the staff I could gather quickly enough. The others will follow once other matters are sorted properly.”
“Thank God,” Isobel breathed, the relief in her voice so evident that Ava had to turn to look at her.“What? They are me people, too.”
“And that is the truth,” Ciaran piped up, his way of agreeing that they were his sister’s second family.
Ava suppressed a smile and turned back to her father. He glanced between her and Isobel, making sure they heard every part. “I sent word ahead to yer mother's people. They will prepare the old place to receive us next week.”
Ava nodded.
Castle MacLeod was a bit smaller and further south. Hearing him speak of it in practical terms made the loss sharpen for a moment. The main castle was truly gone, then. There would be no riding back to charred walls that somehow stood waiting to be repaired. What had burned had burned.
Yet even that pain came with a steadier breath now because her father was being himself—arranging, directing, planning. He was hurt and tired, but at least he was thinking of the way forward.
“Ye thought of everything, did ye nae?” she asked quietly.
He gave her a dry look. “I thought of enough to keep us from sleeping in ditches. The rest may wait until morning.”
She nodded.
He then looked at Ciaran. The warmth in the room remained, but for some reason, another kind of weight entered. Ava felt itat once. This was no longer only a reunion. It was the renewal of an alliance.
“Ye have me thanks,” her father said. “For taking us in.”
Ciaran stood a little apart from the chair and bed, his broad shoulders set, his face difficult to read. Ava had not forgotten the fight between them. She had not forgotten the locked door or the days of hurt. None of that vanished because he stood there now while her father spoke to him. Still, she watched.
“Again, Laird MacKenna, ye daenae need to thank me,” Ciaran insisted. “I am only doing what I must.”
The words were simple, but for some reason, they still landed hard. Ava felt them in the same place where his failures had landed.
