Jamie’s body lay against hers, one limp arm, the one she’d held on to as they tumbled, still draped over her leg.
She grasped him under his arms and dragged him into her lap, smoothing her fingers over his soft pink cheeks.
“Dearling,” she murmured. “Open yer eyes.”
“He only sleeps.”
Robbie, his eyes smiling and alert, watched her, a smug grin on his face as he sat up straight. “You did it, love.”
She froze for a second before reaching across the child in her lap to whip the blood-drenched bandage from his chest. It gave way easily, leaving a wet brown smear across his skin.
Skin marked only with a thin silver scar.
Isa ran her finger over the ancient wound, finding herself speechless for one of the few times in her life.
“I told you. You did it.” Robbie placed his hand on either side of her face and, leaning forward, pulled her toward him until their lips met.
What began as soft and gentle soon became desperate, and they broke apart, each of them gasping for air.
“Let me get our lad settled.” He scooped Jamie into his arms and climbed off what had to be the biggest bed Isa had ever seen in her entire life.
“Yer sure he only sleeps?” His breathing did sound like that of a sleeping child, but she hardly knew what to believe after all she’d seen in the past twenty-four hours.
“Time travel is hard on Mortals. He’ll sleep for a good twelve hours or more and wake as hungry as a bear in spring.” Robbie chuckled as he walked away from the bed carrying the boy. “Dinna you move from that bed, wife.”
Wife.
If he’d intended to freeze her to the spot, he couldn’t have chosen a better word.
Wife.
It rattled around inside her head and dropped into her heart like a heavy lump of lead.
Wife.
What she wanted most. What she couldn’t have.
“Ugh! Let’s get rid of that.” Robbie returned, snatching up the bloody bandage between two fingers and walking through another door with it, continuing to talk even after he disappeared. “I was thinking as I put Jamie to bed, I can only guess it’s the Guardian Mark we wear that brings us through the travel so alert.”
Isa changed her position to try to see into the room where Robbie had gone and her knee hit on something hard. Reaching down, her fingers tightened around a small, oval object.
Leah’s stone.
Without this, they’d still be in MacQuarrie Keep.Without this, Robbie would be... She couldn’t finish the thought. After days of staying strong, her reserves crumbled and, like some dam they had broken through, tears coursed down her cheeks.
“What’s all this? We’re fine now, love. You’ve nothing else to worry about. No ever.”
Robbie had returned, pulling her to him. He held her in his arms, stroking his large hand gently over her hair, making little shushing noises that only seemed to elicit more tears.
He was so good to her and she wanted to be his wife more than anything in the world. She wanted to bear the children he’d spoken of when he shared the vision of his home.
She wanted him, but she was already the wife of another man.
“It’s no fine. It’ll never be fine,” she finally managed to blubber.
“Of course it is. You’ve brought us here to our home. Jamie sleeps like an angel in the other room. We’re together. What more could you ask for?”
“To be yer wife,” she sobbed, unable to stop the tears at this point.
