Abi didn’t. There were a hundred questions going through her mind and she was struggling to frame what she wanted to say. She couldn’t even begin to fathom the enormity of what Reid had done. He’d rescued her from under his laird’s nose, defied his laird’s orders, turned himself into a fugitive. He’d given up everything for her.
“Why are you doing this?” she blurted.
He looked up at her. “Doing what?”
She gestured helplessly. “This. All of this. Why did you rescue me?”
“Isnae that obvious?”
“But what you’ve risked...”
“None of that matters,” he said, suddenly springing to his feet and grabbing her by the arms. “Dinna ye understand that none of that matters? I regret none of it. I promised I would keep ye safe didnae I? And I will keep that promise even if it costs me my life.” His gaze was intense, fierce even. “But that isnae why I rescued ye. I rescued ye because I couldnae let them hurt ye. It would be the death of me, Abigail. Do ye hear? The death of me. I love ye, lass.”
For one, long, timeless moment, Abi hung suspended in time. Those words vibrated right through her.
I love ye, lass.
She had not known how much she wanted, needed, to hear those words until the breath came rushing out of her in a whoosh and it felt as if the world had tilted beneath her feet.
I love ye, lass.
Thatwas why he’d come for her. That was why he always would.
He waited, saying nothing, awaiting her response. There was only one she could give, of course. The words had been sitting on her tongue for weeks, waiting to be spoken.
“I love you too. So much it hurts. So much that sometimes I can barely breathe.”
His nostrils flared and his chest heaved. He took her hand and placed it over his heart. “Do ye feel that?” he said. “It is yers. Now. Always.”
Her eyes slid closed and she could feel tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. “Oh, Reid,” she said. “What are we going to do?”
It was so goddamned unfair. Why could she not have met Reid in her time? Why could they not have found each other when their lives weren’t so precarious? Had they not earned that, at least?
Reid folded her in his arms and kissed the top of her head.
“For now? We rest, love. We’ll figure everything else out after that.”
She nodded. She felt exhausted but at the same time she didn’t want to sleep. She didn’t want to miss a second with Reid. Her body though, had other ideas. She yawned hugely, her eyelids feeling heavy.
Reid took her hand and steered her to a spot by the fireplace where he’d laid their bedding. “Sleep, lass. The dogs will warn us if anything approaches.”
Abi lowered herself onto the blanket and lay down. Reid settled himself behind her, fitting his body along hers, his arm coming around to hold her close. Abi held onto his arm fiercely, pressing her back against his chest. They’d lain like this many times after making love, sweaty and sated. This time they were both fully clothed and too exhausted to contemplate anything other than sleep, but even so, it felt more real somehow.
I love ye, lass.
Just as Irene MacAskill had predicted, she’d found the thing she’d been looking for all along. It wasn’t a career, or money, or success, or any of those things she’d once thought so important. It was this. This feeling. It was him. This man.
She drifted into sleep and dreamed that she was standing on a bridge. Behind her, at one end of the bridge, stood Reid, ahead of her at the other end, lay the twenty-first century and home. Both pulled at her like a magnet.
But she didn’t know which one to choose.
***
REID LAID AWAKE LISTENINGto Abigail breathe. Elation and despair warred within him, sending his emotions lurching from one to the other like a boat on a storm-lashed sea. Elation because Abigail loved him. Despair because he was going to lose her.
She was from the twenty-first century, he was from the fifteenth. From the first moment he’d met her she had made it clear how much she wanted to go home and he had vowed to help her. Even though she came from England, he’d hoped he’d be able to persuade her to leave this ‘Manchester’ behind and stay with him but now he knew the truth, he realized how ridiculous a notion that was. How could he compete with the wonders of the future?
And what could he offer her, anyway? When he’d decided to ask her to stay he had been Laird Campbell’s most trusted general, lord of a castle and commander of over a hundred men. Now what was he? An outcast, with no home and no future.
