Could you get tetanus from a bear’s bite? she wondered, swabbing and rinsing. She’d made sure to have all the kids’ shots up to date—including tetanus—before they’d left, but a tetanus immunization was only good for what, ten years? Something like that.

The puncture wound was still oozing blood, but not gushing. She wrung out the cloth and tied it firmly but not too tightly around his calf.

“Tapadh leat, a gràidh,” he said, and smiled at her. “Your mother couldna have done better. Here.” He’d saved two bannocks and a bit of cheese for her, and she leaned back against the cliff between him and Ian, surprised to discover that she was very hungry, and even more surprised to realize that she wasn’t worried by the fact that they were chatting away in the near vicinity of a large carnivorous animal that could undoubtedly kill them all.

“Bears are lazy,” Ian told her, observing the direction of her glance. “If he—is it a he-bear, Uncle?—has a fine deer down there, he’ll no bother to climb all the way up here for a scrawny wee snack. Speakin’ of which”—he leaned past her to address Jamie—“did it eat your sandal?”

“I didna stay to watch,” Jamie said, his temper seeming to have calmed as a result of food. “But I’ve hopes that he didn’t. After all, wi’ a perfectly good pile of steaming deer guts just at hand, why would ye bother wi’ a piece of old leather? Bears aren’t fools.”

Ian nodded at this and leaned back against the cliff, rubbing his shoulders gently on the sun-warmed stone.

“So, then, cousin,” he said to Bree. “Ye said ye’d tell me how it was ye came home. As we’ve likely a bit of time to pass …” He nodded toward the now-rhythmic noises of tearing flesh and mastication below.

The bottom of her stomach dropped abruptly, and her father, seeing her face, patted her knee.

“Dinna trouble yourself, a leannan. Time enough. Perhaps ye’d rather tell it to everyone, when Roger Mac’s with ye.”

She hesitated for a moment; she’d visualized it many times, telling her parents the whole of it, imagined herself and Roger telling the tale together, taking turns … but seeing the intent look in her father’s eyes, she realized belatedly that she couldn’t have told her part of it honestly in front of Roger—she hadn’t even told him everything when she’d found him again, seeing how furious he was at the details she had shared.

“No,” she said slowly. “I can tell you now. At least my part of it.” And washing down the last bannock crumbs with a handful of cold water, she began.

Yes, her mother did know men, she thought, seeing Ian’s fist clench on his knee, and hearing the low, involuntary growl her father made at hearing about Rob Cameron’s cornering her in the study at Lallybroch. She didn’t tell them what he’d said, the crude threats, the orders—nor what she’d done, taking off her jeans at his command, then slashing him across the face with the heavy denim before tackling him and knocking him to the floor. She did mention smashing the wooden box of letters over his head, and the two of them made small hmphs of satisfaction.