Page 120 of Outlaw Ever After

She remembered the oven, too, topped with metal stove plates, now off-kilter, when she’d once searched frantically for Mildred!

“This is where my brother hid us that day! This is where I lost my pup!” Could the ancient wolfhound be her dog? So old for a wolfhound. Had the Samhain fates destined it all?

“It can be fixed. If we roll up our sleeves. A little oil and a rag is all it would need.” A table lay broken. “But this?”

“I could craft a new one easily,” he said.

“Was the pallet over there?” she asked, pointing to a corner.

“A bed actually.” Alex smiled. He strode to the remains of a bed rope, coiled in the dirt among roots.

“The mattress, ’twould need restuffing for certain,” she jested.

“’Twould need to be replaced,” he chuckled, squeezing her hand, “and stuffed with rushes scented with fresh rose petals each spring.”

She grinned.

On the wall were two scythes. Once upon a time, mounted after a day of labor. Covered in moss and abandoned nesting tucked into the crux where the shafts crossed. And above the hearth hung a metal crest. She pushed up on her toes and wiped the webs clean of it with her cloak. A scythe and a lyre.

She stilled. Heart racing. Taigh Spealaidh . Scythe House—

Pulling up her ring on her necklace from between her breasts, she brushed her thumb over that signet. The same exact crest. Like the designs on his arm.

She whirled back to him as he removed a scythe from the wall and tested its state of decay, fiddling with the metal head.

He was a miller’s son… labored in the fields, reaping corn, and managed the granary .

Jossy’s words whispered through her thoughts.

Alex carried a war scythe on his back and yet, when she looked at him, she pictured a farmer holding his harvesting scythe in his fields, wiping his brow on his tunic as he labored in the sun. Nay a warrior, but a man who’d come from meager roots…

Reaper.

Her eyes misted and her fingers crept over her mouth.

It was never meant to be a warrior invoking the Pale Death. It had been who he was and where he’d come from. It had been a bairn’s attempt to honor his family, desperate to cling to a tendril of roots. A boy who’d managed to stay a dreamer at heart, despite having every excuse to become a monster. The wheel turns ’round and ’round unless someone knocks a spoke out.

“There’s much to fix.” He nodded.

“Aye, but it’s rife with possibilities,” she whispered, her emotions too strong.

She hooked his fingers with hers and pulled him with her. He tossed aside the scythe, searching her eyes.

She nodded, pushing up on her toes to kiss him. Needing to hold him, feel the realness of their dreams and stave off fears of the pending melee.

He stilled, then cradled her nape and tilted her head as his lips dove in for the boon. She swallowed the thickness in her throat and drank from his offering.

His tongue delved between her lips, demanding more, as if letting go.

She thought on his happy childhood here, wanting those rich memories for her own bairns, too. It had only been one miscarriage. The nuns had cautioned her that she’d been under duress and not to fret. She could see him sitting beside this crackling hearth, crafting a cradle while she hummed and chopped vegetables for their stew. Could see him a year from now, rocking a wee lassie, or years from now, playing games with their bairns while she strummed her lyre.

She could see him in twenty years, white peppering his temples and streaking his beard as he worked upon his contracts for the treasury or planned the next spring’s planting, mayhap a paunch, a body sated from a life well lived. Mayhap grandbairns snuggled on their laps as he played his flute.

She wanted to be cherished in his arms. Wanted to feel his body press to hers, like it once had. Wanted to feel him sating her like a husband did his wife, no longer fearful of what might come of such a joining.

She wanted to try again. Wanted to let go.

He cupped her cheek as his tongue stroked earnestly over hers and he walked her back to the crumbled wall like so long ago, braced her there, devoured, and blanketed her with his chest.