“Ye belong wherever ye wish to belong.”
“You don’t want a wife.Isn’t that what you told me?Isn’t that what you told Mairwen?”
“Have ye never had a change of heart, lass?Never changed yer mind?”
“What changed your mind?”A defensiveness came over her.She jutted her chin higher, challenging him to answer.
He would much rather sweep her into his arms, haul her up to his bedchamber, and spend the rest of the day convincing her to stay and make a life with him.The thought surprised him, but then again, it didn’t.His heart had known it all along.’Twas his mind that had to catch up with the realization that he needed to make her his—permanently.
“What changed your mind?”she repeated.
He closed the distance between them.If she wouldn’t come to him, he would go to her.“Yer stubbornness changed my mind.”Pulling her into his arms, he locked eyes with her, daring her to move away from him again.“Yer fire.The way ye fought to protect Griselda and her wee dog.”He slid his fingers along the curve of her cheek and deeper into her hair.“How cold and empty I feel whenever ye are not in my arms.”
“That is just lust,” she said, attempting to seem defiant, but the quiver in her voice gave her away.
He shook his head.“Nay…” Then he shrugged and offered her a faint smile.“Well, mayhap a wee bit of lust, but this is different.A far sight stronger than the mere need to bed a comely lass.This feeling is more like I finally found my way home, and I never wish to leave the warmth of this elusive hearthstone ever again.”
“Home.”She licked her lips as if hungry for the feeling.“That word kept coming to mind when we kissed.”
“Could be because we both yearn to be where we belong.”
Recognition flickered across her before she hid it.“This is your keep.You already belong.”
“Nay, love.That is not the belonging of which I speak, and ye know it.This attachment between us is something a great deal rarer, a precious thing few ever find.”He longed to cover her mouth with his, but instinct warned it was not yet the time.“Do ye not feel it at all?Not even a wee bit?Or are ye simply afraid to admit it?”
“I am not afraid.”
He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.He had asked her that purposely, knowing she would hate being accused of being fearful.“Then ye dinna feel that of which I speak?Are ye telling me this powerful connection is one-sided?”
“I didn’t say that.”Her reddish blonde brows knotted in a worried frown over her troubled eyes.“I feel everything you have described, but I can’t imagine staying here in the past.It’s so…so…”
“What, lass?”He had no idea what she would be giving up, but surely the future could not be so grand as to wish to live there alone and leave behind this connection.This thing between them was addictive.The longer he was around her, the more time he needed with her.“This age is really no different from your own.”
She stared at him as if he were mad.“How can you possibly say that?The first hour I was here, you couldn’t figure out half of what I said.”
“And yet, here we are.”He tightened his arm around her waist and continued stroking her cheek with his thumb.“What does your future possess that ye canna possibly live without?”He held his breath, praying she wouldn’t gush out a long list of things, or worse, another man’s name.
She opened her mouth and then closed it three times, reminding him of a fish pulled from the sea.Finally, she clamped it shut and gave him a pitiful frown.“I miss Emily.”
Ah, yes.The sister by choice and not by blood.A strong connection, indeed.“Leaving kin behind, losing them, is a hard and ugly business.For that part of yer coming here, I am sorry.But I am also a selfish man, m’love, and an honest one.I will not lie and tell ye I wish ye had never come, so ye would not have lost yer Emily.At first, I wanted to help ye find yer way back because I never wished to live a life with someone who hated me at my side.But I dinna think ye hate me so much now, and I damn sure know I dinna hate ye.”
“So now you want a wife.”
“Nay, love.Now, I want ye.No one else.I want the other half of my soul to traverse this life’s treacherous path, a partner, a friend, a lover, and, aye, a wife if that is what ye wish to name it, but that one word hardly seems apt to describe all ye would be to me.”
“Even if it means I have to sacrifice everything I’ve ever known to stay here?”
His heart shifted, sagging with a heaviness that felt as if the bottom had fallen out of his world.“If ye dinna think me worth the sacrifice, then no, I dinna want ye to stay.As I said, I dinna wish to go through this life with someone who hates me.”He released her, dropping his arms to his sides as he stepped back.
“I do not hate you,” she said, her voice quivering with the tears that gleamed in her eyes.“I think…”
He waited, bracing himself and holding his breath.
“Jessa!”
He whirled toward the excited shriek, then turned back again as Jessa squealed just as loudly.
“Emily!”
