Page 63 of Never Marry a Highlander

He shoved him away.“Aye?Think ye I willna try?”

“The whole thing will collapse in a matter of minutes.”With agony written on the laird’s face, he tried again to stop him.

In his panic, he grabbed Robin by the throat.“Would ye no’ try to get Helena out?"He pointed at the bothy."‘Tismy wifein there.”He pushed Robin away.“I willna stand here and listen to her die.”

Robin turned to the crowd.“Ye heard the mon.Get axes, heavy logs, and drag one of those wagons over here.”

“Ye better hurry,” one of the men in the crowd said.“The roof is about to fall in.”

If the roof collapsed onto his wife, she would burn to death.He grabbed the axe that was handed to him.Robin had a heavy log, and the village blacksmith strode up with a handful of irons from his shop.

Craig tore his leine off and dunked it into a bucket of water.“Toss water on this wall!”Craig shouted.“And keep it coming.”

After a few slams against the wall, the axe broke a hole, big enough for Craig to crawl through.Smoke billowed out from the opening.He climbed into all blackness and smoke.The heat from the flames made him feel as though he’d reached the bowels of hell.He draped the wet leine over his head.“Lorena!”

Once again panic seized him when he got no answer.“Lorena!Please answer me, wife!”

He heard her coughing and then a raspy reply.“I’m here at the back.I canno’ see anything.And ‘tis so hot.”

The wall he just crawled through began to collapse.Craig yelled, “Mo Chridhe, listen to me.Back into a corner if ye can.Once this wall falls, the air will add fuel to the fire.I’m coming after ye.”

He could hear the whimpering of the bairn and the choking sound coming from Lorena.“Please, Craig.”

“Hold on, Lorena.”

He shouted through the hole in the wall.“Get water in here.Fast.”

Robin passed buckets of water to Craig who tried to at least form a clear path to where Lorena was.

He handed the last empty bucket to Robin outside.“Have someone fetch Helena so she can treat Lorena and the bairn as soon as I get them out.”

He turned back to the room, still unable to see anything, choking on the smoke.“Lorena, call to me so I can tell where ye are.”

“O’er here, Craig.”

“Keep talking.”He followed her voice and the wailing of the bairn.Carefully stepping and moving his arm back and forth in the darkness, he eventually touched her hand, just as another wall fell in.“Come, we doona have much time.”He wrapped his arm around her waist, moving her forward.“Tuck the little one against yer chest.”Then he threw the wet leine over the three of them and more from memory than sight, pushed her and the bairn out of the bothy through the now collapsed wall.

Lorena stumbled and fell to her knees.Wanting to get as far away from the bothy as he could, he scooped her and the bairn up into his arms and moved away just as the entire structure collapsed.

Helena rushed up to them.“Lay her down on the ground.”

He placed Lorena gently on the ground as a man and a woman with the young lad who’d told him about Lorena in the burning bothy ran up and took the bairn out of Lorena’s arms, the woman weeping and thanking them over and over.

Lorena grabbed his leg, tears creating a path through the soot on her face.“Craig.Doona leave me.”

He stared into her eyes, relief flooding his body.“Nay,mo chridhe, I will ne’er leave ye.”He sat on the ground alongside her.He brushed the hair back from her forehead.“Ye scared me this time, wife.I ne’er want to go through something like this again.”

After checking over the bairn, Helena knelt next to Lorena.She gave her a cursory examination.“She has a few minor burns and ‘twill take a while for her lungs to clear out, but otherwise I think she will be fine.”

She studied him for a minute.“Ye have a few burns on yer face as well.”After she spoke the words, he began to feel the sting on a few places on his arms also.

Craig blew out a huge breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting the tears that threatened to fall.He almost lost her.

His wife.

The woman he loved.