“I have business for my chieftain,” Alex said. “And some of my own as well.”
He should have kept his mouth shut about his own business. Before she could ask about that, he said, “’Tis a dangerous world, Glynis. Like it or no, ye need a husband to protect ye.”
His own words caused an annoying sensation in his gut.
“Like my last husband protected me? No thank ye,” Glynis said. “My mother’s family will look after me. Besides, Edinburgh sounds like a tame place.”
Alex didn’t like the idea of her alone with only a family of Lowlanders and priests to protect her. “Ye should find yourself a strong Highland man.”
“Hmmph. I’ve had one of those,” she said
A heavy fog had rolled in. Alex heard a faint mewling sound in the distance and lifted his oars to listen.
“What is that?” Glynis asked in a hushed voice. “It sounds like a cat caught in a tree.”
That was no cat. Alex rowed the boat toward the sound through the billowing fog.
CHAPTER 11
Help! Someone help me!” The cry came through the dense fog.
“It’s a woman,” Glynis said, leaning forward and grabbing Alex’s knee.
“Aye.” He had known it was a female from the start. The question was, what kind?
Alex wasn’t a superstitious man—for a Highlander—but every story he’d ever heard about selkies came back to him as he rowed closer. A selkie was a sea creature who was known to take the form of a beautiful woman and lure sailors to their deaths. In nearly all the stories, selkies appeared to men when a dense fog lay over the water.
“Help me!”
In front of him, the black shape of a rock emerged out of the mist.
“I can see her!” Glynis stood in the boat, pointing. “She’s clinging to that rock.”
Alex saw the outline of the upper half of a figure with long flowing hair above the water line. Her legs—or tail—were beneath the water.
“Hold on,” he called out. “We’re coming for ye.”
“She’s just there!” Glynis said.
“Get in the back of the boat.” Knowing Glynis was not the sort to follow orders without an explanation, he added, “I need ye to keep the boat steady while I pull her in.”
But if Alex saw a tail, he was dropping this creature back into the sea.
He brought the boat up next to the rock. When he leaned out to lift her, she kept her arms wrapped around the rock. Ach, this was no selkie. The poor thing was shaking like a newborn lamb.
“Ye can let go now,” he said, using the same soft tone he would use with a riled horse. “I’ve got ye.”
Only two feet of the rock remained above water, and the tide was still coming in. Another hour or two, and she’d have nothing left to hold on to. How long had she been here, clinging to it as the water rose around her? No wonder she was afraid to let go.
“Don’t worry, lass,” he said. “You’re safe now.”
“Alex?” the woman asked in a hoarse voice. “Is that you?”
God in Heaven, the woman clinging to the rock was Catherine Campbell.
“Aye, it’s me,” he said. “Put your arms around my neck. I promise I won’t drop ye.”
Catherine’s skirts were heavy with water as he lifted her into the boat. Moving quickly, he loosened his plaid and wrapped it around them both, then he set to rubbing her back and limbs to get her blood moving. She was so cold her teeth were chattering.