“Couldn’t sleep,” she said softly. “Didn’t want to waste a second.”
He smiled, that slow, devastating grin that made her heart tumble in her chest. “Ye talk as if we’re runnin’ out of them.”
“Aren’t we?” she asked. The words came out quieter than she meant them to.
For a moment, neither spoke. Only the wind moved outside, whistling against the eaves like a ghostly lullaby.
Finally, he reached over and cupped her cheek, his thumb tracing the curve of her jaw. “If time means to steal me away, let it work for its prize.”
Her laugh broke, half joy and half ache. “You’re a naughty lad,” she teased.
“Precisely.”
They spent the morning in an easy rhythm. Donell cooked them breakfast with curious enthrallment at the stove, and she watched him, still utterly fascinated that he was here. When the rain cleared, sunlight filtered through the trees beyond the cottage, turning the glen into a tapestry of green and gold.
Lainie slipped on her boots and grabbed her jacket. “Come on,” she said. “I want to show you something.”
Donell followed her outside, pausing to tilt his face to the sun. He seemed utterly alive in the light; a man carved from a kilted legend yet breathing her air.
They walked until the cottage disappeared behind a veil of heather and mist. The glen opened wide before them. Rolling hills stitched with stone fences, the scent of wet grass and pine heavy in the air.
Lainie climbed onto a low boulder, turning to him with a teasing smile. “See? Not all of my world is glass and metal.”
He looked around slowly, reverently. “Aye,” he murmured. “She remembers what she was.”
She frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”
“The land. The way she breathes. Your world still carries the bones of mine. Look.” He gestured toward a distant rise, where a circle of stones caught the light. “That’s where the old ones called to the stars. Even now, they wait to be answered.”
Something in his voice made her chest tighten.
“You miss it,” she said quietly.
He didn’t deny it. “Every day. But this… ye, here…” He took her hand, rough fingers curling around hers. “Ye’re proof that what I lost was never truly gone.”
Her throat closed. “Donell?—”
He pulled her gently down from the boulder, his hands lingering at her waist. “Hush now. No words, not yet.”
The silence between them was full—not empty, but alive with things unsaid. Birds called from the heather; the stream below whispered secrets neither of them could translate.
He bent his head, brushing his lips softly over hers. A kiss that wasn’t about desire but something more profound. Lainie melted against him, her palms pressed to his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart beneath.
When they finally broke apart, Lainie pressed her forehead to his. “I don’t know how to live in a world without you.”
“Then dinna. Let us think in moments only,” he murmured.
The air had a sweetness he’d never known in his own time. Even the wind sounded different. Gentler, less burdened by smoke and sorrow. And yet, beneath it all, the earth hummed the same low song.
He watched Lainie kneel by the stream, cupping her hands to drink, the sunlight sparkling off her hair. No woman, not even his beloved, had looked half so radiant.
He should have been thinking of home—of the men he’d left behind, of oaths unfulfilled—but all he could see was the way she smiled when she caught him staring.
Gods help him, he wanted to stay.
He crouched beside her, letting the cold water run over his fingers. “Your streams run clearer than mine,” he said. “No ash, no blood.”
She looked up at him, brow furrowed. “Do you think it’s always been like that? That your world had to burn so this one could exist?”
