“I—”
“You should have left me to die. Then I’d be with them now, not stuck in this hell. Feeling them die again and again. This is your fault.”
“I couldna leave you, mo charaid. We’re brothers. Kin. Muinntir. We dinna leave one another behind.”
Grant’s voice became a roar. “I told you . . . to leave me. Why did you not leave me?”
With his free arm, Grant lifted the short end of the table and overturned it, rushing forward. Logan was swept up in the momentum and smashed against the stone wall. He felt the swift burn of the blade slashing his flesh, but he couldn’t let it slow him down. Gathering his strength, he caught Grant by the shoulders and shoved him back.
The big man tripped over the upturned table leg, and together they tumbled to the floor. Logan had the advantage now. He straddled Grant’s torso, pinning his arms at his side. Holding him still.
“Breathe, mo charaid. Just breathe.”
He held his friend there, immobile, until a familiar cloudiness overtook his eyes.
And then, just as he had a thousand times since that mortar blast, Grant startled back to life.
“What’s all this, Captain? Where are we?”
Logan almost choked on a wave of relief. “The war’s over, Grant. We’re home in Scotland. Safe.”
“Oh. Well, that’s bonny.”
“Aye. So it is.” Panting, Logan moved to the side. When he moved to stand, he winced at the pain in his chest. He’d likely broken a few ribs when Grant had smashed him against the wall.
He turned, seeking Maddie. There she was, holding the spurtle like a weapon. Fully prepared to bludgeon her favorite person on Logan’s behalf.
Sweet lass.
“Be easy,” he told her. “All’s well now.”
She lowered the spurtle, but her face remained pale and wary. “Logan, you should be seated.”
“I’m fine. Just a bit shaken up.” He winced. “I might have a broken rib or two. Nothing that willna mend.”
“Logan, please. Sit down at once.”
Her voice was so cold and serious.
Even Grant kept staring at him.
“What is it?” he asked. “Have I grown a second head?”
Then again, it wasn’t his head that seemed to be holding them rapt but something several feet lower. He followed Maddie’s gaze downward.
Ah. So that’s what had her so concerned. Grant’s knife was embedded in his thigh. To the hilt.
Strange, that. He had been so focused on the ache in his ribs that he hadn’t even noticed.
He stared down at it, feeling like a detached observer of his own body. When he spoke, his voice sounded distant to his own ears. “I expect Munro will want a look at that.”
He blinked. Twice.
And then the world went dark.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Logan!”
Maddie wasn’t prepared to catch six feet and fourteen stone of Scotsman, but she did her best, lunging to reach his side before he could fall.
She helped him slide to the floor, all the while being mindful of the knife. She didn’t want to jar it and injure him further.
Once he’d lain down on the floor, his head in her lap, she tried to better assess his injury. She pulled aside a fold of his kilt.
Oh, Lord.
The wound might have worried her less if it had been bleeding more. But this was no superficial slash. The entirety of the five-inch blade had been buried in his thigh.
To the hilt.
And if not for Logan, that same blade could have been buried in her throat.
“Logan. Logan, can you hear me?”
His eyelids fluttered. “Mo chridhe?”
“Yes. Yes, Logan. It’s me.” She pushed the hair from his brow. “Be still, my love. We’re going to have you mended in no time.”
Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and his grip on her hand went slack.
Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord.
She found his pulse with her fingertips. So long as that beat kept pounding, she could tell herself everything would be fine.
“What’s happened?” Grant came to sit beside her, now oblivious to the mayhem he’d caused. “The captain’s been hurt?”
“He’ll be fine,” Maddie said, needing to convince herself as much as she needed to convince him. “Don’t worry, Grant. He’ll be just fine.”
“He’s come through worse, the rogue.” He smiled a bit, then looked up at her. “Who are you then?”
“I’m Madeline. The sweetheart who sent him letters, you recall? Now I’m his wife. I’m . . .” A hot tear spilled down her cheek. “I’m Mrs. MacKenzie.”