A Soldier's Salvation (Highland Heartbeats Book 7)(15)

This knowledge helped her dismount smoothly, without looking all about herself as she tied the mare off to the post which ran the length of one side of the old church. Some of her earliest memories involved it, or standing in the shadow of it, during so many burial services. Too many for a child as young as she was to attend.

Connor had insisted she attend for her brothers. She’d insisted she be there for her mother.

As had Sorcha.

All the more reason for the risk Caitlin took that day, walking about in the shadow of the church to avoid notice while fetching a bucket of water for the overheated horse. “There, girl,” she whispered, stroking the smooth, gray neck of the sweet beast as it drank deeply of the cool liquid.

Sorcha had stood up for Caitlin so many times—for a quiet, unassuming woman of small stature and even smaller voice, she’d become a tower of strength and fortitude in the face of Connor McAllister’s callousness.

Would that she could’ve talked him out of Caitlin’s marriage. Not that she hadn’t tried, but both ridding himself of the daughter he’d never wanted and securing his friendship with the Andersons had been far too tempting a prospect for him to give in.

The familiar sight of the wagon which her aunt and uncle had always used to carry crops to the village brought tears to Caitlin’s eyes. There it was, passing under the low-hanging branches of a towering birch tree. She recognized the team of workhorses which pulled it and noted the way their heads hung low.

As though they felt the absence of their master.

She wouldn’t doubt it, as Uncle Gavin had been so wonderful to them and every animal on the farm. A born farmer, really, though he could easily have bred horses and possibly made a much more comfortable living.

“I’d miss the earth, lass,” he’d remind her whenever Caitlin asked why he wouldn’t choose the more profitable vocation. “I’d miss watching things grow,” he’d said.

How sad for him that he’d never gotten the chance to watch children grow—then again, she reflected with a bittersweet smile, he had. Nearly every happy memory of her childhood could be attributed to either her aunt and uncle or to Rodric.

There was Aunt Sorcha, riding beside the deacon. A young man, fresh-faced, he held the reins. His forehead was deeply creased, the weight of his task clearly written there.

Caitlin barely spared him a glance, focusing on her aunt instead. Why, she looked five years older than she had the last time they’d seen each other on the day of Caitlin’s ill-fated wedding. There was a faraway look in her eyes, a sort of lost expression on her face. Rather blank, unfocused. The gray-streaked auburn hair was arranged in a messy braid, as though the fingers which wound it cared little even for such deeply ingrained movement.

She should’ve left in the night, no matter the dangers of traveling in the dark. She should’ve found a way. She might have provided comfort the night prior to Gavin’s burial, might have washed and braided her aunt’s hair and seen to it the woman had something solid in her stomach and a little tea to fortify her.

Caitlin’s heart wrenched. How terrible it must’ve been to lose one’s love so suddenly, without the chance to express all that had been left unsaid. To face the prospect of a life spent alone.

Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she watched from behind an overgrown hedge. The wagon came to a stop beside the church, not far from where she waited. The deacon—a man Caitlin had never met, indicating his status as a newcomer—alighted from the driver’s box and hurried around to help Sorcha from her seat.

She stumbled.

Before she could stop herself, Caitlin lunged forward and darted over to where her aunt struggled to right herself.

The deacon made a fretful, sympathetic noise which she supposed was meant to comfort Sorcha.

Caitlin took her aunt’s arm, wrapping her other arm around the older woman’s waist and nodding in the deacon’s general direction.

If anything, he looked relieved as he walked to the back of the wagon and motioned for the gravediggers to join him—Caitlin hadn’t noticed them before, meaning they must have emerged from wherever they’d been resting at the approach of the wagon.

They’d be removing the body from the wagon. Caitlin bit her lip, struggling to hold back a fresh flood of heartbroken sobs at the thought of her uncle’s body being so close, wrapped in linen in preparation for what was to come.

Sorcha hadn’t noticed who held onto her, eyes fixed on the ground. “I’d like to visit my sister-in-law,” she whispered, clutching the hand which gripped hers.

Another wave of emotion threatened to knock Caitlin off her feet, but she complied, helping her aunt to the site of her mother’s grave.

Sorcha trembled slightly as she stood there, looking at the humble marker which time had already begun to wear down. “You see, Caitriona lost her husband as well,” she explained in a voice hoarse with strain. “And with a young daughter, too. Though at the time I thought—God forgive me—that at least she had young Caitlin to remember him by. I have nothing of Gavin. No child.” The trembling increased until the bereaved woman shook from head to toe.

“You have the love he shared with you,” Caitlin whispered. “That love was a great comfort to your niece when she needed love the most. She thought of you two as her parents after her mother’s death. You were her strength and solace.”