And now, knowing that her baby had been wanted, had been celebrated . . .
Grief replaced her relief.
Swallowing against the surge, she turned and carefully handed wee Dahlia back to Ewan before the sentiments could overwhelm her.
She pressed a shaking hand to her forehead.
“Eilidh?” Kieran’s voice reached her, as if through a fog.
Eilidh swallowed, biting back the tears that threatened to fall.
This was a happy occasion. Ewan’s joy and good fortune should be celebrated.
Her past was done and gone.
She hadn’t been able to save her baby, in the end.
She tried to imagine if Kieran had been there. Would she feel differently now? Would the pain and grief be lighter for being shared?
And if she supposedly loved Kieran MacTavish so fiercely, why could she not remember?
Why can I not remember?!
Again, she reached for memories of him. How many times had he promised her that there was good in her missing memories, things she would be happy to recall?
She mentally pushed and prodded at the black miasma that shrouded an entire year of her life.
Nothing surfaced.
It was as if the blast that destroyedThe Minervahad blown away all the moments she had lived upon it.
The thought caused something to shift abruptly within her, a lurching roil of the blank recesses of her memory.
Eilidh blinked.
And there it was, a glowing snippet of memory, as mesmerizing as moonlight on the ocean . . .
A chaotic mix of emotions churned in her chest.
Please, please let everything go as planned, she silently pleaded. There is no room for error. Thishasto go off perfectly.
She picked up a lit taper, grimacing at the tremor in her hand.
Steady now.
She lit the end of a fuse.
An explosion sounded.
25
The scene played through Eilidh’s mind, an endless loop of memory.
The dark of night.
Emotion pounding through her.
A plea that everything would go as planned.
