Page 50 of Highland Storm

Hawke shot the arrow, but as he let it loose, the MacNab’s horse reared up.

“Damn!” Hawke spat as the arrow shot off through the forest. “Why did ye do that?”

“The horse became skittish, I canna help it,” said the man.

Hawke rode back to Osla, but when he approached the place that he left her, she wasn’t there. Instead, the MacNabs were gathered around the edge of a steep drop off, looking down.

“What is goin’ on?” asked Hawke as he dismounted and walked to the edge of the drop of. “Where is Osla?”

“She’s there,” said their chieftain, pointing down the cliff. Hawke’s body stiffened as he looked down to see Osla lying face down on the ground with an arrow sticking out of her back. Her gown was soaked in blood. “The men tell me a stray arrow struck her and her horse reared up, throwing her off, down the steep rocks.”

“Osla!” he shouted, rushing down the rocks where another MacNab was leaning over her.

The man looked up and shook his head. “She’s dead,” he said.

“Nay!” Hawke shook his head and rushed forward, but another MacNab held him back. “Stay away from her,” snapped the one hunkered over her body.

“Isna that Hawke’s arrow in her back?” It was the man whose horse reared up and caused him to miss his mark.

“It is,” said the man on the ground, pulling it from Osla’s back and holding it up high. “Hawke MacKeefe killed his own wife.”

“Nay, I didna,” he shouted, trying once again to get to Osla, but now three MacNabs held him back. Then the chieftain came down the hill to join them.

“Hawke MacKeefe, we had an alliance, yet ye killed a MacNab,” said Angus MacNab.

“It was an accident,” he said, shaking his head, not wanting to believe his wife was dead. “I dinna ken how it happened, but I didna mean to do it.”

“He’s our enemy,” said one of the MacNabs.

“He broke the alliance,” said another.

Hawke drew his sword, ready to fight them all if need be. They closed in around him with eyes of fire.

“Nay,” said Angus, holding his hand in the air. “We will no’ kill him now. But he will go back to his clan and tell them that the feud between the MacNabs and the MacKeefes is no’ over. Now, it is goin’ to be even a worse feud than before.”

“Nay!” Hawke cried, as a fog surrounded him. “Nay, this canna be happenin’.”

Hawke awoke in a cold sweat, realizing it was just his nightmare again. But what happened was real and something he could never forget. If he hadn’t left Osla to hunt a deer and had been with her instead to protect her, none of this would have ever happened. He thought of the man whose horse reared up and then he thought of the one hunkering down over the body of his dead wife. It was ten long years ago and he hadn’t known the MacNabs, but a realization hit him hard.

He sat up in bed, seeing Phoebe sleeping soundly next to him. Looking toward the window, he realized it was close to daybreak. He’d never meant to fall asleep. But after the wonderful night of making love with Phoebe, it left him exhausted.

Hawke dressed and snuck out of the room, making his way to the stable.

“Where’ve ye been, Hawke?” Caleb was in the stable, no longer stinking if Hawke wasn’t mistaken. Lennox lay in the hay with his arms and legs still tied and Orrick was checking his wound. “It’s almost daybreak. I thought ye were goin’ to sneak into the MacNab’s castle durin’ the night.”

Hawke noticed both Lennox and Orrick look up when he said that.

“Haud yer wheesht, Caleb.” Looking down at Lennox, it was clear to him now. Lennox and Euan were the men from his dream. They were the ones he didn’t know ten years ago – the ones he was sure framed him somehow. He didn’t know how they did it, since it was his arrow in Osla’s back, but he was sure they were the ones to kill her, not him. Now, he just had to prove it. He walked over to Lennox, wanting to kill him right there. But if he were to prove his innocence, he’d need the man alive. “Ye framed me, I ken it.”

“I dinna ken what ye’re talkin’ about,” said Lennox.

“It bothered me for ten years that I was careless enough with a bow and arrow to shoot my own wife. But somethin’ never seemed right about it. There was a man who caused me to miss my mark and another that wouldna let me near my dead wife. Ye and Euan were those men, I ken that now. Ye two killed Osla, didna ye?”

“What? Nay.”

“Nay?” he asked. “Then mayhap ye need help rememberin’ and I just need to choke the truth out of ye.” He reached forward with his hands around the man’s throat, but his friends rushed forward and pulled him off.

“Stop it, Hawke,” said Ethan.