He tilted his head into her palm and the world fell away from her.
It was him.
ItwasSawny.
And he was real, not a specter or a ghost or a devil, and she was touching him. The heavy silence that filled the air pressed down on her. Her heart flailed in her chest as her breathing grew raw and erratic.
This time she did not hesitate. She threw herself against him, trying not to notice how bony his ribs felt. That meant nothing when his arms came around her and his face pressed into the delicate curve of her neck. He was embracing her as only Sawny embraced her.
It was him.
Tears whetted her eyes as she squeezed them closed and relished in the feel of the man.
It was truly Sawny. He had somehow returned from the brink of death or his absence, it did not matter which, because he had returned to her.
That was all that mattered.
Behind them, the storm outside had whipped up into a full tempest, as if only a storm could usher in the impossible.
Worse for wear, scarred and beaten, and dripping wet, the storm had made the impossible happen.
Sawny had somehow returned.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sawnywastired.Sotired. Had he ever been this weary in his life?
Nay.
Once he made it deep into MacDonald lands, he had to take a break. He was already falling off his horse, and as much as he longed to rush to Adaira, ‘twas better that he made it to her alive than die at her feet the moment he found her.
He slid off the horse and tied it to a tree. Then he found a few berries and hazelnuts to feed his growling wame before wrapping himself in his oversized tunic and sleeping half under a bush on the damp, grassy ground.
The damp sleeping arrangements were welcome – he was breathing fresh air as a free man. He’d sleep on the bush itself if he had to.
The next morning was still misty, but he felt more alive than he had in the past two months. The horse, too, seemed re-energized and made good time to Glenachulish. His weariness yet enveloped him like a heavy plaid, until he spoke to the wainwright near the tower who, with a shocked face, waved him down and told him that Adaira had gone to the church with her new intended. A violent strength, one fed on desperation and intention, reinvigorated him. He rode his stolen horse right to the church and with everything he had left inside him, burst through the door.
And there was Adaira, her face a beacon in the turbulent storm that has been his life the past months, standing at the altar next to another man. Rage burned inside his belly in an uncontrollable fire.
Adaira, however, moved straight from one of his dreams, rushing toward him and placing her hand on his bruised cheek before embracing him.
If he were to die there, he would have died a happy man.
There were other concerns to deal with, including the fact Adaira appeared to be marrying another man. Sawny reluctantly removed himself from Adaira’s embrace and turned to the MacDonalds in the church.
Though his arm shook, he pulled a slender knife from this waistband that he had requested from the wainwright and leveled his face at Maddock’s friend, Arran.
"Drop your sword,” Sawny intoned.
He knew he had no chance against a well-fed, well-rested Highlander holding a sword, yet he had to do something. Here Adaira was, the light of his life, standing in the church, ready to pledge herself to another man.
Had she forgotten him so quickly?
Nay, from the expression on her face, the needs of Highland politics had forced her into this position. He understood the nature of the beast that Highland politics rode upon.
Just as those needs had forced him.
He knew in the depths of his heart that she was still his, as much as Sawny was hers.
