Loving A Highlander Read Online Free PDF

clearing.
    Gerard looked around the small property.  His gaze took in the chicken coop, an old horse and a scraggly garden patch lying fallow for the winter.  It wasn’t much.  His suite of rooms back at the castle were far bigger and much nicer. 
    “How do you make a living?” 
    A flush of anger stained Isabella’s cheeks as her gaze met his and fled. It was obvious he considered her to be a weak woman who needed a man to take care of her. 
    “I make do.”
    It crossed Gerard’s mind that maybe she didn’t want to tell him how she made a living.  There were plenty of women who were forced into prostitution just to survive.  It was a cruel world and he wouldn’t judge her.
    He sighed.  “I won’t pass judgement on you, lass.  It is a cruel world we live in and sometimes a woman has to do things she doesn’t want to just to survive.”
    Isabella arched a brow as she caught the meaning behind his words.  He thought she was a prostitute.  She almost laughed at the thought.  If Owen didn’t want her, what made him think that another man would?
    “I’m a healer,” she said, with a proud lift of her chin.  She was a healer and a damn good one if she did say so herself.  Some women who called themselves healers only dabbled in the craft, but Isabella had taken to it like a duck to water.  She had read her grandmother’s book of herbal recipes from front to back and had even added a few of her own.
    “A what?” Gerard asked, praying he had misunderstood.  Most healers were considered to be witches and the woman standing before him didn’t look like someone who dabbled in the occult.
    He suppressed a shudder as a memory surfaced.  It had happened during his travels.  He had been passing through a village far from here and witnessed a mob dragging an elderly woman.  By the time he had managed to break through the crowd of people, it had been too late.  The woman had been tied to a stake and set alight.  Sometimes at night he woke up in a cold sweat, certain he heard the woman’s anguished cries in the wind.
    Isabella straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eyes.  “I’m a healer.  The same as my mother and grandmother before me.”
    Gerard sucked in a breath.  She had given him little choice but to take her with him.  He couldn’t risk leaving her here.  He would always wonder if she was safe or if an angry mob had broken into her home in the middle of the night and taken her away.  It would kill him to find out she had met the same fate as the elderly woman.
    “You’re a witch,” he said firmly, wanting her to admit it once and for all.  He knew there was a difference between a healer and a witch, but most people considered them to be one and the same.
    Isabella sighed deeply and shook her head.  It wasn’t the first time she had been accused of being a practitioner of dark magic and probably wouldn’t be the last.  “I’m not a witch,” she said, her eyes flashing fire.  “I am a healer.  People come to me for help with what ails them.”
    Gerard gave her a slight smile.  The woman was beautiful when she was angry.  The rush of emotion causing her cheeks to burn a fiery red.  As if on demand, the wind had picked up, whipping her long blond hair about her face and shoulders.  And her teeth bit her bottom lip as if she fought to hold back a torrent of words.
    Gerard arched a brow and looked around him doubtfully.  There hadn’t been anyone arriving to seek out Isabella’s aid in the short time he had been here.  “Do you do a fair amount of business?”
    Isabella’s shoulders slumped slightly but the fire didn’t leave her eyes.  “Not as much as my grandmother and mother,” she admitted.  “But business has begun to increase.  It takes time for people to trust a new healer, but hopefully once news spreads about how well my herbs help, customers will come regularly once again.”
    Gerard suspected that people might arrive, but not to seek her