Page 50 of Katie's Highlander (Highland Protector 3)
“And you agreed with her!” Katie jabbed a finger in his direction, righteous fury flashin’ in her eyes like fearsome lightning about to strike.
He reached Katie before she could fire off another accusation. He knew the real reason for this anger. He knew the source of this silver-haired ferocity that rarely allowed itself t’be seen. Katie was struggling. Fighting like a drowning woman within a few feet of safety. She was grappling with her current reality and no’ handlin’ it well at all.
Grabbing hold of her shoulders, he squared her off in front of him and kept his tone low and soothing. “Katie—we will find her. Afore anythin’ else is done this day, we will find Flora. I swear it, ye ken?”
Katie didn’t answer. Just stared at him, wide blue eyes shining with unshed tears and bottom lip quivering. “Why are we still here?” she finally asked in a pitiful whisper that broke his heart. “Why?”
He pulled her close and held her, stroking the lovely stubborn curls that had already escaped the ribbon. “I dinna ken, m’love. I dinna ken.”
Katie shuddered in his arms with a deep intake of breath then exhaled a long sigh. Finally, she slowly pushed away, lightly patting his chest in the process. “We’ll figure it out.” She nodded more to herself than to him. “We will—right?”
“I promise.” And as much as he wanted to stay right here, he meant that promise from the verra depths of his soul. If he couldna have both of his heart’s desires: Katie and the past, he’d damn sure choose Katie of the two. “Come. We’ll find Mistress Macklemurry. She’ll know Flora’s whereabouts. I’d bet pure gold on it.”
Without a word, they made their way down to the kitchens in record time. He felt sure if Katie had been wearin’ her favorite jeans, she wouldha broke into a long-legged run down the steps and across the keep. As it was, she’d hiked her skirts up to her knees to scurry faster and Ramsay was no’ about t’be foolish enough to tell her she was causin’ a bit of a scene. The gawkin’ gossips could just be damned.
The kitchen had been abuzz with chatter and noise when they’d walked through the archway. Pots bubbling and steaming. Meat sizzling on spits and flour flying as a line of maids kneaded and pounded dough against the table. But as soon as the first servant spotted the lord and lady of the keep, silence rippled across the room like a wave racing up a shoreline.
“Can I be a helpin’ ye? Was yer breakfast no’ to yer likin’?” Mistress Macklemurry wove her way around the worktable and the baskets of root vegetables waiting to be prepared for the evening meal.
“Where’s Flora?” Katie cut right to the chase.
Mistress Macklemurry didn’t answer, just wrung her hands in her apron and gave Ramsay a somber look he didna quite understand nor was certain that he wanted to.
“You fired her, didn’t you?” Katie folded her arms across her chest, glaring at Mistress Macklemurry as though she were about ready to strangle her.
“Fired?” Agnes Macklemurry frowned and shook her head, quickly recovering from whatever it was that she’d been oh-so silently attempting tothinkto Ramsay. “If ye mean dismissed, then nay, m’lady. Why would ye say such?”
Katie visibly relaxed and stole a glance over at Ramsay. “I’d heard you weren’t happy with her,” she said with a saucy bob of her head.
Mistress Macklemurry’s mouth tightened into a flat line of displeasure. “Perhaps I wasna pleased with the way the lass went about things—but yer happy with the wee gal and that’s all that matters now isn’t it?”
“Where is she?” Ramsay stepped in. Time t’end this.
Agnes Macklemurry fixed him with a look that he clearly understood this time. She was trying to tell him that he was going t’be verra sorry he’d asked. Maybe so but it couldna be helped. He’d promised Katie.
“She’s tellin’ her sister goodbye.” Agnes’s gaze dropped to the floor and she dabbed her eyes with a corner of her apron.
“What?” Katie stepped closer. “She never mentioned a sister. Is she moving away?”
“No, mistress.” Agnes shook her head with a sad smile. “Flora’s eldest sister and the bairn that she couldna bring forth are leavin’ this world. They’re sure t’cross over at any time—if not now already, then soon.”
“Her sister’s dying?” Katie asked.
“Aye.” Agnes smoothed both hands down her apron. “Flora’s only sister. Just a year older than Flora—barely eighteen summers—leavin’ a husband behind t’care for two wee-uns that shouldna have t’say goodbye to their mum at such tender ages.”
Ramsay turned away, gut wrenching at the thought of a young girl almost the same age as his baby sister, dying while trying to bring a child into the world. He snorted against the burning gall of the injustice—death found instead of life. He recalled how his mother had said how relieved she was that such things were so much safer for a woman in the twenty-first century, safer for her Esme t’bring bairns into the world.
He turned back and stared at Katie. The same thing could happen to his dear sweet love. If they stayed here, if she became pregnant, if the time came and something went horribly wrong. Ramsay closed his eyes against the cruel possibility, and a new sense of resolve coursed through him. He would find the way to get them back. He would get his Katie back to the safety of the twenty-first century.
He felt a hand slip into his and squeeze. He opened his eyes and met Katie’s sad-eyed gaze. “We’re going to take care of Flora and her family, right?”
“Absolutely,” Ramsay said without hesitation. “Whate’er they need will be done.”
Chapter 22
“And a crock of butter.” Katie pointed the young girl toward the other end of the larder where the cream pans, jugs of milk, and butter were kept and preserved in the coolest part of the dirt-walled cellar that was basically a basement dug out and built against the kitchen’s outer wall. “One of those pails of milk too. Toddlers need milk. And cheese. Get that skin of cheese—make it two.”
Still scanning the shelves for whatever else Flora and her family might need, Katie pulled a good-sized bag of turnips and carrots up from the pile under the shelves, hefted it on her hip, and toted it across the packed dirt floor toward the doorway.
