Page 3 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

Behind her, her men struggled to keep pace, their horses blowing hard, nostrils flaring as their hooves fought the treacherous, gravel-slick grade. The mountains on either side rose gray and indifferent into low, heavy cloud. Below them, the valley was already completely swallowed in thick white mist.

“Me Lady.” John O’Connor pulled his gelding alongside her, his jaw set with the stubbornness she had learned to read in three years of riding beside him. “We should turn back before the storm worsens.”

“If any man wishes to return,” Alba said, her voice steady as she stared straight ahead between her mare’s ears, “he may. I will ride ahead and meet the merchants meself.”

Behind her, one of the younger guards groaned with theatrical suffering. “God forbid the Lady rides alone, and we spend the rest of our lives explainin’ it to the village.”

The corner of her mouth lifted despite herself, her skin tightening against the biting wind. “Go home to yer wives and bairns,” she said softly. “I am more than capable.”

Nobody turned back.

They never do.

That was the thing about trust, it was not given in grand gestures. It was built in small ones, repeated until they became solid.

Three years of riding out in every blinding storm, negotiating every single contract herself, standing in every difficult room without flinching. Her men had watched all of it. And here they were, still behind her, still grumbling, still following.

Alba adjusted the thick leather gloves around her fingers and studied the valley below.

The merchants would reach the crossroads before dusk if the roads held. Wool and grain, enough to see MacLaren landsthrough winter without borrowing from neighboring clans at interest rates specifically designed to strangle. She had run the numbers twice. The margin was thin, but it was there, provided she secured the contracts today and not tomorrow.

Men waited for women to fail. Alba had stopped being surprised by it. She had simply stopped failing.

The sound of horses cut through the wind without warning.

Her guards reacted before she did. Swords half-unsheathed, steel scraping against scabbards, bodies instinctively shifting forward. Five riders emerged from the tree line ahead, spreading across the narrow road. Large men. Travel-worn. Armed.

Alba’s spine went cold. She sat straighter in her saddle.

The tallest one led his horse forward slowly. He was massive, broad-shouldered, with dark hair pushed back from a face that had seen much more hardship than comfort. His hard eyes scanned her party once, efficiently.

“Fine horses for merchants,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.

“Fine roads for thieves,” Alba answered, her voice dropping an octave.

One of her guards drew in a sharp breath. The strangers’ hands moved toward their hilts with a slow, deliberate ease that was somehow more intimidating than quickness.

Alba kept her eyes locked on the tall one. He was the one who mattered. The others were merely waiting for whatever he decided.

“If ye intend to rob us,” she said evenly, “ye’ve chosen poor timin’. We’ve nae supplies yet. Ye’d do better waitin’ for the merchants alongside us.”

His dark gaze dropped to the crest pinned to her green wool cloak.

“MacLaren.” Something shifted in his expression, his jaw tightening slightly. “The old mad Laird MacLaren?” A heavy pause. “Thought he was dead.”

“He is.” She held his gaze, refusing to blink against the cold air. “Who are ye, that ye ken his name?”

“Who are ye, that ye wear his crest?” His eyes moved across her face, searching, without a single shred of warmth. “He had nay heirs, that much I ken.”

“He had me,” Alba said, her chest rising as she stared him down. “I run his lands now.”

The tall Highlander looked at her for a long moment in a way she could not quite understand. Then one corner of his mouth shifted, not quite a smile, not quite mockery; something that hovered in the uneasy space between the two.

“Is that so?”

He stepped his massive horse fully forward into the light. “I am Sebastian MacGregor.”

The name landed like a heavy stone dropped into still water.