No Sawny. No priest.
He must be to the side. Something with his parents . . .
Her eyes shifted around the altar, across the transept of the sanctuary, and around the pews.
She did not see Sawny or his family anywhere.
What is happening?
The dour-faced Father Geordie joined Alistair at the doorway, no Sawny at his side.
Her mind was ringing, and the thorniness pricked harder.
What’s happening?
“Seamus, a word, if ye may. Alone,” Alistair intoned, flicking his gaze to Adaira, and from the corner of her graying vision, she saw her father nod. He slipped his arm out of hers, and she faltered.
Immediately, Reade was there, taking her arm, and her mother’s slender hand pressed against her back. Maddock drew up on her other side and clasped her hand.
Then the doors closed on her face and she squinted at the sun’s eye-piercing reflection on the shiny wood.
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
Her right leg gave out, and she sagged against Reade who stood strong and stoic at her side, supporting her when she could no longer support herself. More than once, she noticed Reade's and Maddock’s eyes drift to the road leading toward the loch and back to the main road. Though it was nonsensical, her mind rationalized that if Sawny and his family were not at the church already or coming down the road, then mayhap they were taking boats across the narrow isthmus of the loch . . .
Finally, she could not take it anymore. The gossipy chatter from guests slipped to her ears and drove her to move. Before Reade and Maddock could react, she lurched out of their grasp to the heavy wooden door and grabbed it, rushing inside.
Sawny should have been at the altar, standing dark and proud in his finest plaid, his wild dark brown hair brushed back in smooth waves and his deep amber eyes washing over every inch of her form as she strode down the aisle to his side.
Instead, she found her father and grandfather and uncles huddled with Father Geordie, trying to cover their shouts in shrouded whispers.
“What do ye mean the lad is no’ here yet?” Seamus barked out.
Several cousins and kin had risen from the pews and formed a lose circle around the men who shouted at the poor, distraught-looking priest who had no answers.
The entire church was in chaos.
So much for reverence in the house of God.
Then a man burst through the door. Everyone spun and Adaira’s chest swelled, expecting to find a delayed and apologetic Sawny. Her shoulders slumped when she saw Rabbie MacDonald, Sawny’s cousin, sweating and panting at the door.
Seamus rushed the man. “What’s this? Rabbie? Where is Sawny and his family?”
“’Tis Sawny,” he said, gulping air and gripping the door’s edge in a white-knuckled grasp. “He’s gone.”
It was as if all the air was swept from the church and Adaira’s mind went blank. His words made no sense.
Sorcha had followed her sons inside after Adaira and reached for her daughter, but Adaira gathered her skirts in one hand and shoved past her mother. Sorcha’s fingers caught on the filmy cloth woven into her plaited hair and ripped the translucent veil off her head as Adaira ran to the church doors.
With wide, confused eyes riveted on her, she rushed to the stair’s edge to peer down the road Sawny would have taken to arrive. Surely, she would see Sawny striding down the pathway in his kilt, resplendent in his full regalia, a broad smile on his face, ready to marry her.
Surely, he is just late. He and his family are tardy, ‘tis all!
Other than a few children chasing each other and some chickens scuttling in the dirt, the road was empty.
His cousin spoke the truth.
Sawny was nowhere to be found.
