The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon Read Free Book Online Page A

glint of steel, knew the fear of it in heart and bone when I looked in Jamie’s eyes.
    The chill had gone, and hot blood throbbed in my hand as though to split the ancient scar and spill my heart’s blood for him once again. It would come, and I could not stop it.
    But this time, I wouldn’t leave him.
     
    I FOLLOWED JAMIE out of the trees, across a scrabble of rocks and sand and tufted grass, to the well-trampled trail that led upward to our campsite. I was counting in my head, readjusting the breakfast requirements yet again, in light of Jamie’s revelation that he had invited two more families to join us for the meal.
    “Robin McGillivray and Geordie Chisholm,” he said, holding back a branch for me to pass. “I thought we should make them welcome; they mean to come and settle on the Ridge.”
    “Do they,” I said, ducking as the branch slapped back behind me. “When? And how many of them are there?”
    These were loaded questions. It was close to winter—much too close to count on building even the crudest cabin for shelter. Anyone who came to the mountains now would likely have to live in the big house with us, or crowd into one of the small settlers’ cabins that dotted the Ridge. Highlanders could, did, and would live ten to a room when necessary. With my less strongly developed sense of English hospitality, I rather hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.
    “Six McGillivrays and eight Chisholms,” Jamie said, smiling. “The McGillivrays will come in the spring, though. Robin’s a gunsmith—he’ll have work in Cross Creek for the winter—and his family will bide with kin in Salem—his wife’s German—until the weather warms.”
    “Oh, that’s good.” Fourteen more for breakfast, then, plus me and Jamie, Roger and Bree, Marsali and Fergus, Lizzie and her father—Abel MacLennan, mustn’t forget him—oh, and the soldier lad who’d rescued Germain, that made twenty-four . . .
    “I’ll go and borrow some coffee and rice from my aunt, shall I?” Jamie had been reading the growing look of dismay on my features. He grinned, and held out his arms for the baby. “Give me the laddie; we’ll go visiting, and leave your hands free for the cooking.”
    I watched them go with a small sense of relief. Alone, if only for a few moments. I drew a long, deep breath of damp air, becoming aware of the soft patter of the rain on my hood.
    I loved Gatherings and social occasions, but was obliged to admit to myself that the strain of unrelieved company for days on end rather got on my nerves. After a week of visiting, gossip, daily medical clinics, and the small but constant crises that attend living rough with a large family group, I was ready to dig a small hole under a log and climb in, just for the sake of a quarter hour’s solitude.
    Just at the moment, though, it looked as though I might be saved the effort. There were shouts, calls, and snatches of pipe music from higher up the mountain; disturbed by the Governor’s Proclamation, the Gathering was reestablishing its normal rhythm, and everyone was going back to their family hearths, to the clearing where the competitions were held, to the livestock pens beyond the creek, or to the wagons set up to sell everything from ribbons and churns to powdered mortar and fresh—well, relatively fresh—lemons. No one needed me for the moment.
    It was going to be a very busy day, and this might be my only chance of solitude for a week or more—the trip back would take at least that long, moving slowly with a large party, including babies and wagons. Most of the new tenants had neither horses nor mules, and would make the journey on foot.
    I needed a moment to myself, to gather my strength and focus my mind. What focus I had, though, was not on the logistics of breakfast or weddings, nor even on the impending surgery I was contemplating. I was looking farther forward, past the journey, longing for home.
    Fraser’s Ridge was high in the western mountains, far beyond