Sìleas stood on his father’s other side, coaxing him forward. “It will be lovely to have ye take your meals with the family again.”
“Will ye no come sit at the table, da?” Niall said.
The instant his father began to raise his cane to strike Niall, Ian started across the room, but Sìleas was closer. His heart stopped when she stepped between the two men.
“Don’t ye dare touch him!” Sìleas shouted.
When his father checked the blow in time, Ian breathed again. His father still had the arms and shoulders of a powerful man. God in Heaven, he could have killed her.
Niall walked past Ian and out the front door without even seeing him. Sìleas locked gazes with his father, going nose to nose with him—or she would have, if she were taller. Neither appeared to take any notice of Ian’s presence or the slamming door.
“If ye speak that way to Niall again, I swear I’ll not forgive ye,” Sìleas said. Her chest rose and fell in deep breaths as she and his father glared at each other.
“He should have let me die on the battlefield,” his father said. “He took away my manhood, bringing me home like this.”
She spoke in a slow, deliberate voice, and there was steel in her eyes. “Ye ought to be grateful to have such a son, after what he did for ye.”
“Grateful? Look at me!” his father shouted, pointing at his missing leg.
“Shame on ye, Payton MacDonald, for wishing you could desert your family,” she said. “ ’Tis long past time ye stopped feeling sorry for yourself.”
She turned on her heel, her hair swinging out like a shooting flame, and stormed out of the house.
His father hobbled to the nearest chair, dropped onto it with a thump, and rubbed his hands over his face. Ian got the whiskey down from the cupboard and filled a cup.
“Here ye go, da,” he said, as he set the cup on the table next to his father. He started to put the bottle back, then set it on the table as well.
His father clenched the cup as if holding a lifeline and stared at the wall.
“I’d best see to Niall,” Ian said.
His father nodded without turning to look at him. “Do that, son.”
It was raining buckets, so Ian hoped Niall hadn’t gone far. He tried the old cottage first—and found Alex and Dina in the midst of enjoying the ways of the flesh. They didn’t notice him. From there, he splashed through puddles to the byre.
The smell of cows and damp straw filled his nostrils as he peered into the dim, musty interior. He paused and listened. Behind the sound of the pounding rain, he heard the murmur of voices and followed it to the back of the byre, where he found Niall and Sìleas sitting side by side on a pile of straw between two cows. They didn’t hear him approach.
“It’s your father’s pain speaking,” Sìleas said. “He doesn’t mean it like it sounds.”
“He means precisely what he says.” Niall slammed the side of his fist against the byre wall beside him. “He couldn’t be plainer.”
“Well, I am proud of ye, if that matters at all to ye.” Sìleas put her hand to Niall’s cheek. “I am so proud of what ye did that my chest fairly bursts with it every time I think of it.”
“Ye mean it, Sìl?” Neill said, blushing bright red.
“Ach, of course I do!” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’ve watched you grow into a man we can all rely on. To tell the truth, I’m sick with jealousy over the woman who is going to have ye, because you’re going to make the finest husband in all of Scotland.”
Ian felt the bite of criticism in her words.A man we can all rely on. The finest husband in all of Scotland.He felt his shortcomings on both counts.
“But don’t forget that it was your father who taught ye to be the man ye are,” she added in a softer voice. “I’m spitting mad at Payton just now, but I’m also praying he’ll get back to himself again. When he does, I know he’ll regret every word he said to ye.”
“So here ye are,” Ian said, pretending he had just come into the byre.
They both turned as he stepped into view.
“I’m sorry da was so harsh with ye,” Ian said.
“Do ye think I did the right thing, bringing da back?” Niall was looking up at him with earnest eyes, seeking his approval as he used to years ago.