The Wellspring (Kaitlyn and the Highlander #12) - Diana Knightley Page 0,68
and clung to me.
“I know honey, that was awful.”
Archie had changed into his favorite pajamas and came and sat beside me. Leaned back in the sofa, his feet didn’t touch the ground, but his face held the seriousness of his father. His hands palms up on his thighs, his chin trembled.
I looked down at his hands, the ends of his fingers bloody and raw. “Aw honey, look at your fingers.”
His face screwed up and he burst into tears. “It hurts.”
He curled up against me sobbing with his arms around my neck his crying face in my hair. Then, needing to be closer, he climbed onto my lap, sobbing and clutching me, dislodging his sister to the side. She stared at her brother with big wide eyes. I wrapped my arms around him and held on. “I’m sorry it hurts. It looks awful, my love, I’m so sorry. It was the bravest thing in the world what you did — your father will be so proud of you when he hears about it. You saved all of our lives and I know it was so scary but we got through it together.”
And then I just let him cry.
Finally he calmed and I asked, “Can we put Band-Aids on your fingers? Emma brought a box and she wants to put them on you.”
He nodded putting his hands through my hair over the back of the couch, with his chin on my shoulder. I heard Emma tut-tut behind me. “Oh Archie, this looks painful.”
“Tis.”
Ben, who wandered over to watch, asked, “What you were doing?”
“Digging under the Guardian Tree.”
Ben said, “Oh,” as if that explained the importance of it all. Quentin sat down across from me.
Emma murmured as she worked. “Your fingernail is peeled back here and this one is split, and this cut looks deep. I’m cleaning it, okay? And now some ointment, poor guy this is… ouchie, huh?”
He nodded.
Zach brought me a tall glass of ice water, placed it on the coffee table but then on second thought put it right into my hand. “Thank you.”
Hayley sat down, Fraoch was there, and then James joined us too.
And Beaty sat down on the couch right beside me because as she put it. “Mookie needs tae be able tae see Archie.”
Archie turned his head to look at Mookie and said, “Mookie, I got ouchies.” He waved his fingers, now covered in bandages, for the pig to see, and then he used one bandaged finger to give Mookie a scratch under the chin and the pig grunted adorably.
Then Archie climbed off my lap and got right beside Mookie scratching, petting, and hugging him.
I sighed.
“Thank you, Emma, I’m having a hard time focusing.” She squeezed my shoulder and came around to sit with Zach.
Hayley said, “I was mounting a rescue, I just want you to know, Quentin, Fraoch, and I were coming.”
“I know you were, I’m just rescued already. But we have to go back for Magnus.”
Quentin said, “Tell me what happened? Fraoch said you were being followed?”
“Yeah, Fraoch and Magnus were taking turns on watch, but then, the last night, Magnus invited me and the kids outside to see the night sky. It was only going to be for a couple of moments, but we were surrounded.”
“Who was it, was it that Sir Paddy, dude?”
“They were his men, I think. Their clothes were modern looking, and not like SWAT team, like Secret service, or like Military men on the weekend off or…”
“They were soldiers in civilian clothes.”
“Yes, those are the words I was looking for.” Isla scrambled across my lap to tickle Mookie under his chin too. “Archie and Isla? Can you go run off and play for a bit?”
Beaty said, “Dost ye want tae go tae my rooms? Mookie needs a bath and I need ye tae hold the cookies for him. He haena had enough attention since ye were gone on vacation.”
I dropped my head back on the couch. “Vacation, I almost forgot that’s what it was supposed to be, sure feels like a terror—”
Archie grasped my hand, his little fingers covered in scratchy bandages. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Aw honey, it’s okay, we’re home. We’re safe. We’re going to be okay. Help Beaty give Mookie a bath, eat some cookies. I will be here making a plan, okay?”
Quentin followed Beaty and the kids over to their side of the house and made sure the security guards were on alert.
When he returned, Hayley said, “Okay, out with it.”