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“Och!” He released her long enough to retrieve her locket from the floor. “I’m verra sorry, Tait,” he said examining the broken bail. “I couldnae think of anything else tae do at the time. I’ll fix this, I promise.”
When Tait raised her face to his, Marcus dinnae need tae hear the words to feel her love.
She closed her hand around his, sealing the locket inside. “Hannah said she’d always be there for me and today she was. With your help, of course. But I think she’s ready to turn the task of being my guardian over to you. And so am I,” she stated. “If you accept, that is.”
“Wi’ all my heart,” he vowed. “I pledge my life tae the task.”
“And I pledge mine, to you.”
He watched a new light enter her eyes. The lingering fear he’d always seen there, was gone.
“Marcus Beaton,” she whispered so only he could hear. “Will you run away to Scotland with me?”
His laugh burst free and full. “Aye, love,” he grinned. “I cannae think of a grander adventure.”
This time, when their lips met, sweetened by the promise of a future together, the past fell away, making room for two solitary hearts to come together as one.
Epilogue
Tait stood beside Marcus at the Memorial cairn on Culloden Moor. He’d shared his story with her in the weeks that followed the turbulent ending of her time in Witness Protection.
She and Marcus met with authorities from several agencies as planned, turned over the microchip to Luca’s superiors and gave depositions on what they knew, including the information Parks had shared. Thankfully, he was in a jail cell awaiting trial and with the information Luca secreted away on the microchip, major players in theorganizationhad been exposed. Along with the confiscation of multiple offshore accounts. As Parks so aptly put it, heads were starting to roll.
And now, with new papers, a new identity and a new life, the Tait Keller that lived through those weeks no longer existed. Nor did Taylor Keene. Both of those women were in Tait’s past—where she was happy to leave them.
Now she was Tait Beaton and she’d never been more content or felt more loved.
“I’m glad we came here, so you could show me,” she said, squeezing Marcus’ hand. “I admit when you first told me how you got your scar, about the uprising and what life was like for you leading up to seventeen-forty-six, I didn’t doubt you—I could never doubt you—but I couldn’t grasp the enormity of what you were telling me.”
She leaned into her husband, savoring his warmth and his love. “But being here, seeing where it all happened, where you fought. Where you died. And where Soncerae’s magic brought you back, I want to fall at her feet and thank her for saving you. Without her, there wouldn’t be anus.”
“Ye’ll get tae meet her,” Marcus said. “She’s tae be wed soon, she and Simon. And I ken many of The 79 will be there, as well. ’Twill be wonderful tae see them again.”
“Imagine,” Tait laughed. “Seventy-plus instant brothers. It’s a bit overwhelming, and a whole lot wonderful.”
“Aye,” he smiled down at her. “Ye’ll love them almost as much as they’ll love ye.”
“What a journey it’s been for you. For all of you. And when I think how close you and I came to missing one another, and how critical that split-second of perfect timing had to be when I saw you and threw myself into your arms, it takes my breath away.”
She smiled up at him. “You’ll never convince me there wasn’t magic afoot in that moment. Or when the words tumbled out of me: “Kiss me like you’ve been waiting for me for a lifetime.”
She pressed her hands to her cheeks, feeling the warmth. “Who says stuff like that?”
“Yedid,” Marcus laughed, slipping his arms around her to nestle her against him. “And twasnae just a lifetime I waited for ye. ’Twas two! And now that I finally have ye, I fully intend tae keep ye.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead and another to the tip of her nose. “Besides, I made a promise to Hannah I’d take over as Guardian, remember?”
“I remember,” she snuggled closer. “I’m pretty sure that’s what Hannah and Soncerae had in mind, all along.”
THE END
