A Soldier's Salvation (Highland Heartbeats Book 7)(35)

Did it?

The smells. Burned wood, straw. Roasted flesh. She realized it was the animals in the barn, which had also been burned until it was little more than a few wooden beams. The creatures had been inside.

Animals.

Animals had done this.

She shook with despair, with grief. The memory of Fiona’s sweet smile, the love she’d shown by protecting her.

What had that love done? It had lead to her death. A horrible, painful death. Far too early. She and Kent had only been wed a year. They hadn’t been granted the chance to have children.

Children who would’ve died with them.

Her shoulders, her back, her ribs ached from sobbing and yet she couldn’t stop, just as there was no stopping the flood of words coming from her mouth. Begging God to make it not be true. Begging to take their places. Begging Him to forgive her for leading her loved ones to such an end.

Begging for them to forgive her, if they could somehow hear.

Strong arms held her in a tight embrace, rocking her back and forth as she mourned what she’d done. For it had all been her doing, just as much as it would be if she’d set the house ablaze. She had destroyed them, two people who’d never wanted to be part of anything with which she was involved. They had only wanted to live and work, to build something together. Just the two of them, along with the help of their friends.

“What have I done?” she asked over and over until no further sound would come from her smoke-clogged throat. And still, her lips moved. She raised her head from her hands, the side of her face against Rodric’s chest, staring at the carnage and asking silently what she had done to them.

“You didn’t do this, lass. You didn’t do it. It wasn’t you.”

She hardly heard him. His words meant nothing to her, as they were only offered out of pity. What else was he supposed to say?

Oh, the horror they must have gone through! Her chest clenched tight, pushing all the air from her body, making it impossible to draw in a breath. She gasped for air, struggling.

“Breathe, lass. Breathe. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do this.” He took her face in his hands, pulling her away just far enough to look into her eyes. “Listen to me. You did not do this. It was…”

He closed his eyes, hanging his head, a cry wrenching itself from his chest. “How did he know?” he asked, looking over the burned-out scene. “I didn’t tell him. I had no reason to. He wasn’t aware that I’d even seen you. I’m so sorry.”

There was no apologizing for what another person did, not really, but that hadn’t stopped Rodric from trying to apologize for his brother all their lives. Her husband. Look what he was capable of.

Quinn rode up, shaking his head. “Don’t go back there,” he warned as he dismounted. His color was considerably grayer than it had been earlier.

“Is that where they are?” she asked.

He nodded, exchanging a troubled look with Rodric.

He needed not have worried on her behalf. She had no desire to see her cousin’s beauty destroyed, charred. No need to see with her own eyes what she’d done by running away from Alan.

How could it be? She had only stood outside the door a day earlier, hadn’t she? And Fiona had watched from the doorway while she rode away.

Had she suffered? Had she been afraid? Had she regretted allowing Caitlin to hide with her?

Brice and Fergus rode up, leading a third horse by the reins. They both looked strained—so strained, in fact, that she didn’t notice until they came to a stop that there was a body hanging over the third animal’s saddle.

It didn’t shock her. She was certain nothing would ever shock her again after what she had just seen, the smoke still thick in the air and in her lungs.

“Who’s this?” Rodric asked, helping Caitlin to her feet. She could hardly stand but didn’t know it until she tried. Her knees were weak, her legs shaking. It seemed all of her strength had left her.

Rodric kept an arm about her waist, bolstering her. There was no question of whether she needed him.

“Just as you suspected, we had a pair of eyes on us.” Brice grimaced, shaking his head when his eyes grazed the charred remains of the house. When he ran the back of his hand over his forehead, the dried blood on his palm was evident.

“What happened?” she asked, her attention now on the lifeless figure over the horse’s back.

“He put up a fight,” Fergus explained with a short shrug. “He lost.”

Rodric looked down at her. “Are you strong enough to see this? Perhaps you ought to look away. Where is the well? You need water.”

“I know what I need,” she replied, surprisingly cool considering the situation they were in. “I need to see who he is. Who did this.”

Rodric sighed heavily but knew her well enough to know the futility of arguing. He nodded to Brice, who lifted the man’s head by taking a handful of hair.

And she gasped.

“You know him?” Rodric asked, his mouth agape.

Her legs were weaker than she thought. His arms held her up, but barely, as she slumped against him.

This changed everything.

“Who is he, lass?” Brice asked.

She looked up at Rodric, struggling to understand what it all meant. How could it be? “He’s one of Connor’s men,” she whispered.