This evening, she sat weaving a basket from reeds she’d been soaking when he came inside, his arms laden with driftwood. How he managed to carry such a heavy load with wounds still healing amazed her. He complained not once, though at night his grunts and moans disclosed the pain he must be feeling.

He shook a bit, flinging droplets of water. “’Tis raining.”

She pointed her reed upward at the leaking roof that had started dripping in the corner. “I ken.”

“Och, I’d best see to repairing that on the morrow.”

He turned in a circle, then set to stacking the pieces atop a pile already half-dry.

“I do not ken where ye’ll put any more. The bothy is already so full, there’s hardly room for us to sit.”

He grinned over his shoulder. Goodness, with the beard and a lock of hair dangling over his eye, he looked wild and dangerous. Yet Divana’s stomach fluttered all the same. Her silly stomach had been doing a great deal of fluttering of late, and it had nothing to do with hunger.

“They’ll nay come if we do not make a fire large enough to broadcast our presence,” he said, carefully placing the last stick on top of the heap, then held his palms out while he backed away. Thank heavens the stack held.

“Surely the folk on Rùm have seen the blaze these past three nights. And last eve was so clear—mayhap the clearest night in months.”

He brushed off his hands, wincing as he sat on his pallet—aye, he was still in pain for certain. “No one’s paid us a visit, have they? We must keep the flame lit until someone grows so curious, they cannot help but sail across the channel and investigate.” He winced again. “It could take months.”

Divana wove her reed through the basket’s spokes. “Aye, they’ll arrive with muskets at the ready, knowing how fate enjoys torturing me.” She had been afraid when Kennan first built the signal fire. Aye, she’d dreamed about being rescued. But now that there was a chance of it, she feared they’d come and taunt her—mayhap even try to kill her.

“They may have muskets, but I’ll talk them out of firing.”

Under, over, under, over, she worked the next reed. “Aren’t ye the confident one?” She puzzled, though. Hadn’t he been overrun by pirates? What kind of talking had he done then?

“I have to be.” He picked up a piece of driftwood he’d been whittling and examined it. “The captain of a ship must maintain order—and with that comes knowing what to say and when to say it.”

Divana’s hands stilled. “Captain, did ye say?” He hadn’t spoken much about his past or what had happened—wounds and all. And after listening to his tormented moans in the night, she hadn’t pressed him.

Sir Kennan’s grin was replaced by a shadowy grimace—one that spoke of the horrors he must have faced. But Divana was no stranger to horrors. She’d lived with the memory of the ravages of smallpox for the past two years.