Isla felt transported back to the girl she had been. And Tavish, with every passing hour, became more and more her Tavish.
Isla had ravaged her inner emotional landscape in venting her grief. But within the debris, new seeds had taken root. New memories of Tavish and perspectives on their love. New insights and ways of seeing him.
He hadn’t changed so much as evolved. Just as she had.
And like the new seeds, her affection for him flowered and bloomed, sending out a branch here and a tendril there.
No, they were not the same people. But they still understood one another. Still saw the same beauty in the world and laughed at the same jokes. Still thought along the same paths.
They were still two halves of the same soul.
The knowledge was both euphoria and catastrophe.
What was Isla to do?
Tavish feared forhis sanity.
Each morning, Isla emerged from her bedchamber, fresh-faced and neatly dressed. And each day, the expression on her face softened a bit more—moving from impassive to warm to a happy smile upon seeing him.
And with every interaction—every look exchanged, every lively conversation—he tumbled deeper in love with her.
She was all he could see, all he could want.
If he possessed an ounce of self-preservation, he would force more distance between them.
Leaving her once had nearly ended him. But losing her again? He wasn’t sure he would survive it. The first time, he had held onto hope that she would write, that there might be a reconciliation. But this time . . . with the finality of divorce and her remarriage, there would be no return.
Granted, Isla hadn’t mentioned the prospect of their divorce in several days. But then, she had also never once indicated she was interested in continuing with their marriage.
Tavish could scarcely blame her.
His lacking prospects had not miraculously improved. Her understandable attachment to Malton Hill remained the same.
He knew Isla wrote letters most days to her people there. She had even described her plans to assist a widow named Mrs. Tippets in gaining employment with a local seamstress.
Isla couldn’t look on suffering and not rush to help, such was the nature of her heart.
And Tavish couldn’t listen to Isla’s hopes and dreams without longing to help her achieve them.
Such was the nature of his heart.
And so, even though it nearly broke him, Tavish did what he could to assist her.
He wrote to Fletch, apologizing again and reiterating his support of his friend’s suit for Isla’s hand.
He wrote to Ross and urged his friend to stand by their business plans in Pennsylvania.
All while trying to stem his own free fall back into love with Isla.
Each day felt like running a gauntlet, dodging the punishing force of his adoration of her and praying he could make it to sunset without tripping up and doing something ruinous, like kissing her again.
The evening of their fourth day at Cairnfell, they had just finished tidying up after dinner when Isla turned to him, a hand on her hip.
“Do you dance?” she asked.
His locket rested on her chest, dangling from a gold chain and glinting in the warm light of sunset pouring through the west-facing window. She hadn’t taken the locket off since he had gifted it to her. It did something to him, seeing that wee representation of his affection. Like those precious fleeting minutes so long ago when she had worn his wedding band.
“Pardon, lass?”
