Highland Rake by Terry Spear

nine at the time. Had you been separated from them so when they were attacked, the brigands had not spied you?"
    "Why do you ask this of me now, Connell? Why not long ago?" She tried to keep her voice low, though she couldn't help the annoyance she felt. She'd been questioned mercilessly by her uncle, her father's advisor, her brother, by other clansmen. Only the women had let her be.
    And she had emphatically told everyone the same thing over and over again. She had seen nothing and no one. The men had used no names between them. Which her kin had thought suspicious at the time. She remembered seeing glances shared between them every time she was asked if any names were exchanged and every time she said no. She would have shared their names with her kin. She would have told them if she'd known. Instead, she could identify no one.
    "They moved in closer to you, nearly stepped on you," Connell persisted.
    "It happened so fast," she said under her breath. "So very fast. Aye, Da and the other men had ridden after a stag. One of the younger men stayed with me when I fell behind. But when we heard the fighting, he told me to hide and he rode into battle. Landon, he was…he was only five and ten."
    "Aye, I know. But you said Da told you to hide."
    He had. That's what had confused her. He had ridden back and told her to send her horse away and then to run and hide. All she could think of doing was burying herself in the leaves. She left her bow and quiver of arrows with her horse. She had the dagger that Da had given her the year before , and then she'd hidden and prayed that he would come for her soon.
    "Was Da already dead?" Connell asked.
    She took a sharp breath. "I..I dinna know for certain," she whispered. Yet she wondered, had her father already died, and she'd only seen his ghost? He'd seemed so real. Just like when he'd come back for her and taken her home. Just like Connell appeared to her now.
    "They had to have known a girl was with the hunting party," she finally said. then she frowned. "Dougald MacNeill found my horse and gave her to Odara's da, who returned her to the keep." Alana wiped tears away.
    "But the MacNeills took no part in the killings, our uncle said. And the others who did, searched for you. You saw the men."
    "Nay. I had my eyes closed."
    "They drew close, Alana. They were so close, you felt a man's leather boot brush past your arm. He knocked leaves aside, and you said you feared he'd see you. You had to have looked up at him. You had to have seen him."
    "I was buried. I…I lay very still. I didna move. I lay there as if I was a fallen tree buried by the leaves."
    "Think harder. You saw him. What did he look like?"
    "Why do you persist in this line of questioning? I saw naught that night. I saw naught."
    "For weeks, you screamed out in terror when you tried to sleep at night. One of the maids said you saw one of the men who participated in killing our men."
    Had she blocked the memory from her mind so that at night the terror revisited her, but upon waking, she could not remember what had happened no matter how hard she tried?
    "Alana," Dougald said, crouching in front of her, his expression one of concern, his brows deeply furrowed. "Are you all right, lass?"
    She felt her cheeks flame. "Aye."
    "'Tis time to break our fast." He was looking at her curiously, and she realized most of the men had left to hunt and gather wood to rebuild the fire to cook a meal, but she had an audience of four—Dougald, Angus, Niall, and Gunnolf.
    And her brother was…gone.
    So just how much had the men heard?
    ***
    Not wanting to send any of his men with Alana to watch her as she left the camp for a bit of privacy, but wanting to speak privately with his brother and cousin and Gunnolf over what they'd overheard Alana speaking of, Dougald opted to stay with her instead.
    He wanted to ask her what had occurred before dawn this morning, but it would have to wait. Storms were rolling in at a fast pace and though he had