Free When Highland Lightning Strikes by Willa Blair

Shona had argued in the woods, before she’d run from him. He hadn’t really believed the rash story he’d spun, and she’d admitted nothing, but he was happy, nonetheless. It was impossible for her to have had anything to do with Colin’s death.
    Shona, he finally noticed, eyed him, looking like a dog that had been kicked too often and waited for the next blow to land. Did she fear him? Or something else? He squatted beside her, shrugged, and huffed out a breath. “Ye couldna have done anything.” Knowing his statement would raise questions in Brodric, he counted on his friend’s discretion. They were all on tenterhooks, nerves raw from the accidents at the hall, Colin’s death, the storm…nothing seemed to be going their way.
    Her only response was a shallow dip of her chin before she turned her back to him and faced the fire. He deserved that, he supposed.
    Brodric’s frown deepened as he looked from Shona to Angus, back and forth several times. He rose, as if to go to the lass. Angus held up a hand, forestalling any more questions. With a nod and a glance toward Angus’s bed, which earned him a frown, Brodric fetched the whisky, plunked himself down and leaned back in his chair, then took a long pull on the bottle. Angus yanked the only other seat away from the table, grabbed the bottle out of Brodric’s hand and offered it to Shona. She took a sip and passed it back to him without comment. They settled in to wait out the storm.
    ****
    Two days later, Angus crossed the village on his way to answer the council elder’s summons. He expected to face a storm of a very different kind when the Council met again to choose a new chief, but given their history, that day might not come for months.
    The clan had ridden out the windstorm with no further casualties. A day spent chopping wood freed Colin’s crushed body, and they’d buried what remained quickly, on clear ground next to where he’d died, turning the blood-soaked soil beneath him into the grave. It was grisly, awful work, but it was done. The condition of his body made moving it to bury him with those who’d died in the invasion last autumn too difficult to contemplate.
    They had no priest to sanctify the ground, but the clan prayed over him, and Angus hoped that was enough. Colin had been laird, after all, if only for a few days. One of the stone masons would fashion a marker for his grave. Angus didn’t know what else they could do, except carry on. Despite his best efforts, it seemed like that’s all they’d been doing since the lowlander army arrived all those months ago. Carrying on.
    When, he grumbled to himself, would they be whole? Rebuilt? Recovered and back on solid footing? Colin’s death was another blow—one that left them, once again, vulnerable to internal strife as well as external threats. Over the winter, Angus had done his best to suppress clan and lowlander infighting by keeping everyone as busy as possible. They’d gotten through with the Lathans’ help, but he did not want to depend on their largesse forever. MacAnalen was a proud clan with deep roots in Scotland and Ireland. He would not be responsible for letting this branch wither away, no matter who became the next laird.
    Shona, who’d avoided him these last days, had been on his mind much of the time. Her arrival had brought about a change in his outlook, and plunged him into fantasies of a better future with her by his side. Yet here he was, caught in the same doubts and frustrations. He needed her more than he wanted to admit, but she seemed determined to have nothing to do with him. He couldn’t blame her, not after he accused her of trying to trap him into marriage. God, he’d even accused her of killing Colin.
    And if he became laird? If her uncle still wanted to curry favor, the thing she most dreaded might gain him the thing he wanted most. Angus stifled a laugh at the irony, then stopped dead still in his tracks.
    The thing he wanted most? Shona? When had