“ ‘That is exactly why it stung you,’ his mama replied. ‘The next time you touch a nettle, grab it boldly, and it will be soft as silk in your hand and not hurt you in the least.’” Jillian paused meaningfully.

“That’s it?” Zeke demanded, outraged. “That wasn’t a story! You cheated me!”

Jillian bit her lip to prevent laughter; he looked like an offended little bear cub. She was tired from the journey and her storytelling abilities were a bit weak at the moment, but there was a useful lesson in it. Besides, the largest part of her mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the incredible kiss she’d received yesterday. It required every shred of her waning self-control to keep from trundling off to find Grimm herself, nestling on his lap and sweetly begging for a bedtime story. Or, more accurately, just a bedtime. “Tell me what it means, Zeke,” Jillian coaxed.

Zeke was quiet a moment as he pondered the fable. His forehead was furrowed in concentration, and Jillian waited patiently. Of all the children, Zeke was the cleverest at isolating the moral. “I have it!” he exclaimed. “I shouldna hesitate. I should grab things boldly. If you’re undecided, things may sting you.”

“Whatever you do, Zeke,” Jillian counseled, “do it with all your might.”

“Like learning to ride,” he concluded.

“Yes. And loving your mama and working with the horses and studying lessons I give you. If you don’t do things with all your might, you may end up being harmed by those things you try halfway.”

Zeke gave a disgruntled snort. “Well, it’s not the Berserker, but I guess it’s all right, from a girl.”

Jillian made an exasperated sound and hugged Zeke close, heedless of his impatient squirm. “I’m losing you already, aren’t I, Zeke?” she asked when the boy raced from the solar in search of Grimm. “How many lads will grow up on me?” she murmured sadly.

Jillian checked on Quinn and Ramsay before dinner. The two men were sleeping soundly, exhausted by the return trip to Caithness. She hadn’t seen Grimm since their return; he’d settled the patients and stalked off. He’d been silent the entire journey and, stung by his withdrawal, she had retreated to the wagon and ridden with the sick men.

Both Quinn and Ramsay still had an unhealthy pallor, and their clammy skin was evidence of the fever’s tenacious grip. She pressed a gentle kiss to Quinn’s brow and tucked the woolens beneath his chin.

As she left their chambers, her mind slipped back in time to the summer when she’d been nearly sixteen—the summer Grimm left Caithness.

Nothing in her life had prepared Jillian for such a gruesome battle. Neither death nor brutality had visited her sheltered life before, but on that day both came stampeding in on great black chargers wearing the colors of the McKane.

The moment the guards had sounded the alarm her father had barricaded her in her bedroom. Jillian watched the bloody massacre unfolding in the ward below her window with disbelieving eyes. She was besieged by helplessness, frustrated by her inability to fight beside her brothers. But she knew, even had she been free to run the estate, she wasn’t strong enough to wield a sword. What harm could she, a mere lass, hope to wreak upon hardened warriors like the McKane?

The sight of so much blood terrified her. When a crafty McKane crept up behind Edmund, taking him unawares, she screamed and pounded her fists against the window, but what meager noise she managed to make could not compete with the raucous din of battle. The burly McKane crushed her brother to the ground with the flat of his battle-ax.

Jillian flattened herself against the glass, clawing hysterically at the pane with her nails as if she might break through and snatch him from danger. A deep shuddering breath of relief burst from her lungs when Grimm burst into the fray, dispatching the snarling McKane before Edmund suffered another brutal blow. As she watched her wounded brother struggle to crawl to his knees, something deep within her altered so swiftly that she scarce was aware of it: the blood no longer horrified Jillian—nay, she longed to see every last drop of McKane blood spilled upon Caithness’s soil. When a raging Grimm proceeded to slay every McKane within fifty yards, it seemed to her a thing of terrible beauty. She’d never seen a man move with such incredible speed and lethal grace—warring to protect all that was nearest to her heart.

After the battle Jillian was lost in the shuffle as her family fretted over Edmund, tended the wounded, and buried the dead. Feeling dreadfully young and vulnerable, she waited on the rooftop for Grimm to respond to her note, only to glimpse him toting his packs toward the stable.