She heard him before she reached the shelter.
"Get that beam in the ground, now, daenae let it—" A crack of thunder swallowed the rest of the command.
Then she was around the corner of the structure, ducking into the partial shelter of its frame. Fergus was there. He was soaked to the bone, his dark hair plastered flat against his face, and his massive shoulder braced against a support beam that two of his men were trying to anchor into the rain-slicked earth. A third man worked on the loose barrier with a length of fraying rope.
Fergus saw her the instant she appeared. His eyes widened, dark and fierce.
"Go back!" The words cut through the roar of the storm, sharp and immediate. Even in the chaos of wind and rain and men shouting, his gaze found hers with a directness that left no room for misunderstanding.
Margaret ignored it. She reached for the swinging barrier. It was heavy, far heavier than it had looked from the window. The wet wood was dense and unwieldy, vibrating with the force of the wind. It took both her hands and the full weight of her body to stop its lethal swing and drag it back toward the post.
"I said go back, Margaret!"
"They need help!" She jammed her shoulder against the wood, her arms shaking with the effort. The cold was a physical weight. "Someone tie this! Now!"
For a moment, one suspended moment, with rain pouring off his jaw and the storm howling around them like a pack of wolves, Fergus looked at her. Really looked at her. She looked back, her jaw set, her hazel eyes burning with a light that rivaled the lightning. Neither of them moved.
Then another gust hit, harder than anything before it. The roof gave a sound that raised every hair on Margaret's body, a deep, agonizing groan of timber under terminal stress.
Fergus was already moving.
"Fine!" The word came through his gritted teeth. "Stay. But ye do exactly as I say."
"Gladly," she shouted back. It was a lie, but this was not the moment for the truth.
The next half hour was a blur of noise; Fergus called instructions, and she followed them. She did not do it because he was the Laird; she did it because he knew this wood. He had built it. He understood its weaknesses, and she was not foolish enough to let her pride get in the way of survival.
She braced where he instructed her to brace. She pulled when he barked, "Pull." She moved out of the way instinctively, like a hunter, when a section of rope snapped free and whistled past her head like a lash.
They did not speak. There was no space for anything but the work. But she was aware of him every second.
She was aware of the weight of his voice cutting through the gale. She watched him move through the chaos with a contained, furious efficiency. There was no wasted motion in him. She had seen him work before, from the safety of a window. This was different. This was alongside him. The heat of his body was a ghost through the rain.
By the time the structure was finally secured—the beam anchored, the barrier roped tight, the sheep herded back to the covered end—the storm had not broken, but it had steadied.It settled into a heavy, rhythmic downpour, the savage, roof-tearing gusts finally passing over the ridge.
Fergus straightened, his chest heaving. He looked at his men. They were shivering, their faces pale in the torchlight.
"Go," he said, his voice a low vibration. "Back to the hearth. Warm yerselves. That's an order."
They went. They went without argument, moving with the speed of men who had been waiting for the word. In moments, the shed was filled with nothing but the sound of the rain and the soft shifting of the sheep in the dark.
And the two of them.
Margaret did not move toward the castle. She couldn't. Her legs felt like water, and the fire in her blood was too high.
* * *
She was still there.
She stood in the rain with her arms at her sides. Her nightgown was soaked through, the linen transparent against the curves of her body. Her hair was dark, plastered against her neck and face. She was not shivering. She was simply standing, watching him with that calm, steady look that had haunted his dreams since she arrived. It was the look of the dinner table. The look of the loch.
I see ye.
His jaw tightened until it throbbed.
"Did I nae just tell them all to go?" His voice came out lower than intended. It was a dangerous sound, stripped of the need to shout. The storm had taken the excuse of volume away and left him with nothing between them but the falling rain.
"Ye did," she said, her voice a soft bell.
