In the east, away over the hills, the first star appeared in the sky. Jeannie made a fervent wish on it and, as if he heard, Finnan’s fingers tightened on hers.
Almost, she did not want to speak and break the spell, so wide and deep. She did not care if she ever emerged from this place where she rested, one in which Finnan MacAllister loved her and nothing in their world could change.
Yet things must be said. So many of them crowded Jeannie’s mind she did not know how to begin.
Finnan spoke before she could. “This is gey peaceful. You know that first day when we met, I was lying in that pool trying to learn some wisdom from a trout.”
“Eh?” Jeannie turned her head and looked at him. The hazy twilight blurred his features and nearly erased the new wounds he wore.
Finnan MacAllister, as she knew, bore wounds in plenty. But her eyes could see nothing but perfection.
He gave her the smile she loved, the one that turned her bones to water.
“They will speak to you, you ken, if you lie very still and keep the proper frame of mind.”
“Still, and naked?”
The gathered light glinted in his eyes. “That too. The trout did speak to me. He urged me to choose peace.”
“An uphill battle on the part of the trout.”
“Aye, so. I did not imagine such an elusive thing would ever be available to me. I did not know then I needed only choose love over all else. You taught me that, and far more bonny than any trout.”
He leaned toward her, cupped her cheek and very gently laid his lips on hers. Jeannie’s heart leaped and sped helplessly, as it would forever when she touched this man.
“It needs only for you to forgive me,” he whispered then.
“I already have.” Surely he had sensed that, back in the library at Dun Mhor.
“Aye, but I find it hard to reconcile how any woman, be she angel or otherwise, could put aside what I ha’ done. Jeannie, I tore your heart out—I hurt you the worst way I could, and on purpose. I chose hate and vengeance even over what I felt for you.”
“But you chose love in the end, over everything—even your hate for the Avries.” Now she kissed him so softly their lips barely made contact. “Just tell me one thing: is it over? Can we believe Deirdre’s heart is truly altered?”
“Nay.”
She started. “No?”
“Yet I think we can believe Stuart’s is. He, as much as I, wishes an end to the killing and strife. I slew his father, even as his father slew mine. What good will it do to keep that battle alive?” Finnan’s fingers caressed Jeannie’s face softly. “I suspect he was driven to the worst of his actions by two women—his grandmother and his wife. Like me, he knows we are of one blood. Our families lived here in harmony for centuries. Why not again?”
“But Deirdre?”
“It shook her, thinking she had lost Stuart. It seems she is very like me after all, and I know how I felt, thinking I might lose you.”
Again his lips brushed hers softly, the merest whisper of sensation.
Third time is the charm, Jeannie thought fervently.Only let the spell hold and last all our lives. For this man carried as many charms about him as battle wounds.
“Will you be able to forgive her? She took a knife to you in hatred.”
“Nay, not in hatred: in hurt and fear. If I cannot forgive her, Jeannie, how can I forgive myself? I carried that same bloody banner so long. And it almost cost me everything.”
Jeannie drew a breath that seemed to fill her whole body, gazed into his eyes, and said, “I would have suffered far more to win you, Finnan MacAllister. Just promise me one more thing: there will be no more lies or deception between us.”
He raised her hand to his lips. “I do so promise.”
“Then finish telling me of Culloden.”
“Ah.” He froze with her fingers caught in his. “Does it matter, Jeannie? Could you not find it in your heart to love a turncoat?”
