Page 86 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

She reached for his belt, and he stripped the sark over his head before watching her lithe, nimble fingers unfasten the buckle. When his kilt fell to the floor, her eyes widened, taking him all in. He wanted to hide himself, but he reached for her hair instead, tucking a stray curl behind her ear.

Len lay back upon the bed and he stretched himself alongside her. She turned, and kissed him, playing her fingers along his chest hair and down to his navel.

Si pressed his forehead to hers. They could do it spooned together as they had before, but he wanted to see her face, so he rolled onto his back. She tilted her head at him curiously, and he almost wasted himself right then. But he guided her to straddle his belly, and when she bent down to kiss him, he whispered, “Like this, you’re in control.”

Tilting her head to the other side, she smiled and kissed him, and when she was ready, she eased onto him and gasped, but not with pain.

After a moment, she took him deeper and began to rock against him, undulating like the currents at the hot spring, tiny gasps and moans escaping from her lips, driving him to distraction, and he tried to hold perfectly still lest he explode.

Then she tipped her head back, moving faster, and Si synced himself to her rhythm, following her lead, as he would follow her for evermore. And when at last she reached her peak, her voice was the loudest Si had ever heard it, and he joined her, surrendering to the agony and ecstasy of whatever might come next.

Epilogue

3 YEARS LATER…

Ellen stooped to lay a bouquet of purple hydrangeas on the old laird’s grave. The recent rain had just about washed away the newness of the earth. Beside her, Si laid his own flowers at his mother’s headstone.

The loss still weighed heavily on him after only a few months. Ellen wasn’t sure she had the right words to comfort him. What did she know of being an orphan, except that she’d loved the Old Kintail dearly and had watched Jory experience the same loss as a girl?

“I know they’re both so proud of you,” she told him.

“D’you think so?” he asked, drawing her close to him under the shade of the large rowan tree. “D’you believe there’s an after from where they’re looking down on us, then? Watching everything we do?”

His voice was laced with concern, for if the dead could see acts that would make them proud, they could see cowardice and failure too.

“I think,” she said slowly, trying to draw all her thoughts into focus and put them into words. “I think they’re aware. And they remember better than we do what it’s like to be human, so our successes are all the sweeter.”

Si wrapped his arms around her and hunched to rest his chin upon her head.

“Besides, your father told me exactly how proud he was before he died.”

“Did he? When?”

“Every day for three straight years. Every time I read to him. I never saw a more delighted father. Except for you.”

A squeal and a cry sounded from the far side of the kirkyard, and she and Si both spun to see baby Marjorie fall to the ground, two-year-old Alex standing over her looking half-guilty.

“Oi,” Si yelled. “Play gentle, mind. Both of you.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“I knew we’d be in for it as soon Marjie found her legs,” Ellen moaned.

“They’ll be fine,” Si shushed. “They bounce at this age. And she’ll keep the lad busy,” he added with a bemused chuckle.

That made Ellen laugh, and she stood on her tiptoes to pull him down for a kiss.

“Well, if they’re proud of me, ’tis your doing,” he whispered in her ear. “All that I am is because of you.”

* * *

Despite the aching loss of his father, beneath it and between it, Si was content. Two healthy bairns who had been their grandfather’s absolute delight, the crofts were finally producing, and Len, well—she was a wee wonder. The whole of clan MacKenzie would be literate by the time she was through, and little by little she’d seen Leod restored.

Si remained convinced there was nothing she couldn’t do.

“Glad you stayed?” he whispered, because he liked the way she wriggled when his breath tickled her neck.

It was a jest they shared, but he meant it in earnest every time he asked, and it soothed his soul like dock leaf when she whispered back, “Even Buttercup couldn’t drag me away.”

With his arm around her, tucking her close to his side, they walked over to their children, where the one-year-old was attempting to bury the two-year-old in fallen leaves.