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“I expect the only remedy is another kiss.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“You are absolutely impossible.”

“And yet ye love me.”

“Apparently, I’ve suffered a serious lapse in judgment.”

“A lifelong affliction, I’m afraid.”

She kissed him again, and this time Jamie remembered to keep his injured arm still.

When she finally settled beside him, he kept her hand in his, enjoying the simple pleasure of having her close.

Beyond the window, the last of the rain was passing over the hills. Dunarraidh still needed a new roof, the east stair was dangerous, and Robertson would doubtless find some new way to make a nuisance of himself before winter. Jamie had a dozen things to mend and a week’s worth of orders from the healer forbidding him to do any of them.

But Olivia was beside him, her fingers warm between his own, and he’d finally told her that he loved her.

“When my arm’s sound again,” he said, “I’ll build ye a room with a roof that doesna leak.”

Olivia turned toward him.

“Jamie, if you’re going to make romantic promises, I think you can do better than a roof that doesn’t leak.”

He considered that.

“A privy that’s indoors?”

She laughed so hard she had to lean against his good shoulder.

“Now you’re talking.”

He pressed a kiss to her hair, smiling as he looked toward the window. He didn’t know whether the passage would ever open again or whether Olivia would choose to remain in his time if it did. Those were questions they’d have to face together, and he intended to give her whatever time she needed.

For tonight, he was content to have her beside him.

And tomorrow, provided the healer didna catch him, he might see about that privy.

Chapter 26

Olivia

Aweek after the raid, the sun came out over Dunarraidh so Olivia carried her sewing out into the courtyard to enjoy every minute.

Who would have ever guessed she’d learn to sew? The women in the village still teased her about her stitches, but she was getting better and planned to make Jamie a shirt for Christmas.

It was late autumn now. The hills had traded their last green for tawny gold, frost lingered in the shadows long after breakfast, and the little burn below the castle ran clear and cold between stones slick with fallen leaves. The season had changed while she’d been learning to make bannocks, sorting whisky from wash, and discovering that eighteenth-century Scotsmen could be every bit as stubborn as the men she remembered from Boston. She’d been in Glenbrae long enough to know which shutter rattled in a north wind and when the old mare expected an apple. She missed her grandmother even more on ordinary afternoons when nothing much was happening.

Today she wore the deep blue wool dress she’d bought at the harbor, with the blue, green, and black checked shawl that Morag had gotten the blood out of, draped around her shoulders. Her boots were planted comfortably on a flat stone beside the chair she’d dragged outside.

Jamie was on the far side of the courtyard instructing Ewan where to fit a length of timber beneath the east roof. Every so often he glanced across to make certain Olivia was watching, then made some outrageous claim about the quality of his work that she was obliged to correct.

“You’ve got it crooked,” she called.

“The wall’s crooked, lass. I’m building it to match.”

“That explains the entire castle.”