Wedded to the Highlanders by Katie Douglas

Chapter 7

When Lucy awoke, she was in someone else's bed. It was still light outside, which confused her a little. Hugh sat on a chair barely three feet away, watching her intently.

"Why am I here?" she asked.

"Ye fell asleep while I was carrying ye back from the sea, and I wanted tae check on ye, tae make sure there wasnae any lasting damage. How d'ye feel?" His voice was different to how she remembered it; softer and kinder, somehow. When their gazes locked, she saw beautiful autumn leaves in the patterns of his irises. How she had missed this side of him?

"My ankle still hurts. I have tae get home, though. I've cakes tae bake."

"Is this for Pauline?"

His question surprised her. It was rare for fishermen to know what the women of the village were getting up to.

"Aye. Edith Milton's planning it. But how did ye ken?"

"If it's supposed tae be a secret, it's the worst-kept one in the village! There's painted wooden signs everywhere tellin' people tae come. And anyway, how would Edith get people tae buy the cakes if the only people she'd told were the village's various cake bakers?"

Lucy giggled. "I hadn't really thought about any of that. Mind ye, I've been a little preoccupied with all sorts of nonsense tae do wi' ye and Steen."

"Nonsense? Go on, lass, explain." Hugh gave her one of his stern glares, and Lucy raised her chin—as best as she could while she was lying in bed, anyway—and stood her ground.

"Let's see, first there was that misunderstanding between Steen and Millie, then there's been this ongoing nonsense wi' your cat, and that's just the things I can tell ye aboot without getting anyone else intae your bad books." Lucy thought about Lindsay, with her seamstressing, and decided wild horses couldn't make her tell Hugh about it. Even after the effort she had gone to today, she was still almost positive that he hadn't forgiven her for what happened to his cat, and she didn't have the energy to ask, right now.

"My bad books?" Hugh's expression softened. "Lass, d'ye really think I'm some sort of ogre that ye have tae avoid?"

Lucy looked up at him, wondering how to answer. At that moment, he poured some tea. She sat herself up in the bed, and saw that he had brought a pot and two teacups upstairs on a little tray.

"I think ye've changed, Hugh," she said at length. "We used tae be friends. We used tae have good fun. Before your parents died—which I'm really sorry about—we used tae get up tae all sorts o' mischief. Remember how we caught that red squirrel, when I was twelve and you were fifteen?"

They had been out in the woods together, going to the stream to fish with makeshift rods made from sticks and string, which they'd been doing regularly since Lucy was old enough to go out without her parents. When they were very young, it had been because they'd wanted to actually try and catch fish, like the adults did, but as they'd gotten older, they'd gone out every Saturday afternoon, after their chores were done, simply to sit quietly, away from the rest of the village, and spend time together.

On this particular day, Lucy remembered, they'd found a squirrel on the forest floor with a nasty injury. It looked like a fox had attacked it. Between them, Lucy and Hugh had caught it. Lucy still wasn't sure how it hadn't bitten them both to pieces, but it hadn't. Instead, the injured squirrel had allowed them to take it back to the village, where they had hidden it in a chicken crate in Lucy's garden.

With no real idea how to look after a squirrel, they had fed it whatever they could think of. Lucy remembered asking her parents many very careful questions about squirrels.