‘Donald?’ It was Mary, her voice breathless as she made her way over the uneven ground. ‘Oh Donald!’ Her hands flew to her mouth.

‘It’s all right, Mary,’ Lorna said quickly as his wife sank down beside her, beside him. ‘He’s got a nasty cut to his head. It’s deep but it’s not bleeding out. He’s going to be a wee bit doollally a few days but as long as we can keep it clean, and he rests, he should be well.’

‘You promise?’ Mary looked at her urgently, her hands on her swollen belly.

Lorna swallowed. ‘As much as I can. I’ll take good care of him . . . I’ll stay with you for the next few nights, it’s the most critical time.’

Mary looked comforted by the thought. She was hardly nimble on her feet. How could she nurse him?

Lorna looked up at the men. ‘We need to get him into the house and onto the table so I can clean him up. Infection will be the biggest risk now.’

The men moved as one, lifting the injured man as the women ran ahead, gathering their skirts and fussing. Only one man stayed back.

Sholto reached for his jacket in the boat. There was a rip in his shirt by the shoulder and as he turned she saw great smears of blood across the front of it. His face was flushed and he looked utterly spent. She supposed he had never had to row an eight-mile medical emergency before.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly as he trudged up the beach to where she stood.

‘Why are you thanking me?’

‘For helping Donald and Uncle Hamish.’

He frowned. ‘What kind of a man would I be if I hadn’t?’

She could feel that the offence caused by their earlier ‘moment’ on the ledge, the one that she had rebuffed, still sat between them. Their careless ease together and childlike spontaneity had gone.

‘. . . You look tired.’

He gave a small smile. He had just run down a mountain and rowed to Boreray and back. ‘Yes.’ He wouldn’t be restless today. No midnight swim tonight.

‘You should rest. Have something to eat.’ She remembered their earlier joke. Boiled fulmar was no reward. ‘You said you had some apples?’ she asked, willing the edginess between them to ease. ‘You can have those.’

‘True. I can have those.’ He blinked back at her. ‘At the very least I need to change my clothes.’

They walked together up the path. Neither one of them spoke but the silence between them seemed swollen with unsaid words, and as they reached the factor’s front door he turned to face her. ‘Well, it is a relief to hear that Mr McKinnon will likely recover,’ he said, falling back into his usual mannered mode.

‘Aye,’ she agreed. ‘Mary was awful worried.’