“Captain?”
He blinked his swollen eyelids andfocused on the voice floating above him.“Denys?”hecroaked.
“Aye.”
Talon stared up into a face much thesame, yet much changed from the lad he’d last seen.“What happenedhere?”he asked, his voice as raw as the gaping maw in his chest.“Where is my lady?My child?”
Denys shrugged and shook his head andhis mouth curled into a strange smile.“I don’t know.But they’renot buried here.”
“They’re not?”
“No, sir.”
Talon’s heart went from stone cold andstill to beating triple time.“Then who is?”
“Goats.”
CHAPTER 22
Isabeau Juditha
Lara
Sleep.Lara wanted sleep, neededsleep, craved sleep, but with Isabeau howling to nurse, the goatsneeding to be milked, and the last of the squash needing to beharvested, she wasn’t going to get it any time soon.Yawning andleaning her head back against the headboard, she put her daughterto breast and gave a weary sigh as the babe suckled with vigor.Atleast one of them was thriving.With every pennyweight of fleshIsabeau gained, it seemed Lara lost two.Her gowns, let out forpregnancy, now hung on her like sackcloth, but she had neither thetime nor the energy to take them in.There were more importantthings to tend to, such as keeping the Hollow producing and herchild fed and clean and clothed.A never-ending cycle of gardening,cooking, and nursing and changing cloths, a basket of which awaitedher now.
She let herself doze while Isabeaunursed, then set the babe in a front sling, slung her bow andquiver of arrows across her back, picked up the basket of washedlaundry to be hung to dry, and opened the cabin door.
“Come on,Wolf.”
The hound loped after her, free of thelimp that had plagued him for a month after the fire.The pads ofhis feet had been blistered when they’d climbed out of the smokycellar and run across the smoldering ruins of the house, despiteLara having wrapped them in strips of wet cloth.The soles of herboots had been singed as well when she’d kicked white-hot embersdown into the cellar, making sure it burned.
With their sore feet and her bellyheavy with child, it had taken them three days to reach the Hollow,a journey that would normally take a day on horseback.But Lara hadleft all three horses in the stables and had only taken her besttwo milking goats with her, leaving the paddock gate open so Denyswould think they’d wandered off.She’d made sure to leave no signsshe’d survived, not even a message scrawled in the dirt floor ofthe barn for Denys, whom she’d been teaching to read.It was vitalthat Nithard think her dead.
She set the bow and quiver against thedrying line post, settled Isabeau into her own basket with ablanket tucked around her, and began to hang the laundry, Wolf onguard beside the babe’s basket.She was hanging the last ofIsabeau’s changing cloths when Wolf’s ears stiffened, and the jaythat had been scolding them nonstop went quiet.She picked up herbow, slung the quiver over her shoulder, pulled an arrow, andnotched it to the bow’s string.
“What is it, Wolf?”shewhispered as the dog stood at full alert, his ears cocked towardthe high brush along the stream’s edge, a low growl rumbling fromhis chest.
There was movement along the edge ofthe brush, movement that took the shape of a man, thick-set andcrouching low as he crept toward the yard.She set her sights onthe man’s head, which was covered by a cap and his face with afull, dark beard.She lowered her aim to the man’s chest and let itfly.The man dropped.
“God’s blood, woman,” afamiliar voice yelled as she set a second arrow to her bow.“You’veshot at me.”
“Talon?”
“Who else bleeds for youon sight, you troublesome wench?”
Lara threw down her bow and quiver andran straight for him as he stood to his full height and stepped outfrom behind the brush.
“Talon.”She threw herselfinto his arms.“It’s you.It’s really you.”She leaned back to seethe tear in the upper sleeve of his jerkin.“Your arm.”
He laughed it off.“It’s only ascratch from a wildcat.”
“You were sneaking up onme.”
“I wasn’t sure of who orwhat I’d find here.”He pressed her close.Lara burrowed her noseinto his neck and inhaled the scent of leather, horse, andhim.He ran his handback through her shoulder-length hair and held her face in hishands.“Thank God, I’ve found you alive and well,” he rasped.“Andour babe?”
Of course, he knew.He’d have riddenthrough the valley, where any number of people would have told himof her pregnancy.“Our daughter is alive and well.”She lifted herchin toward the yard, where Wolf stood guarding the babe’s basket,wagging his entire body, waiting for the okay to come greetTalon.
He slapped his thigh, and the houndcame bounding over, leaning up against Talon’s legs, whining andwagging his tail as Talon rubbed his ears and patted his rump.“Thank you for watching over my wildcat and her kitten, old man.”Talon gave the dog a good-natured thumping along hisribs.
