“He’d smile to hear you say that.” Ula reached over, squeezed her arm. “He goes there now and then, pokes around the sea caves and climbs the cliffs to brood about the shell of a ruin that was once his family’s pride.”
“I am so sorry.” Alanna’s heart hurt, her chest tightening. “I can’t imagine losing Seacliffe. It would shatter me.”
“Ah, well, I don’t think you need to worry.” Ula pushed to her feet, brushed at her skirts. “With the King looking out for you, it’s no’ likely you’ll lose your beloved home.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I usually am.” The Irishwoman winked. “Leastways about matters of the heart.”
And then she ducked out of the sailcloth shelter, leaving Alanna alone with Gubbie, her aching back, and a lot of whirling thoughts. Callum MacCulloch wasn’t a pirate any more than he was a kidnapper, but he was heir to a place closer to her heart than he would ever dream.
She just didn’t know how or when to tell him.
Chapter 15
“So, lassie, what do you think of Skerray?”
The big man stood before Alanna in the middle of the island’s broad sandy beach, his booming voice rivaling the pounding of the surf. His wide smile flashed bright in the morning’s damp, gray gloom. In the distance, sheer black cliffs dropped straight to the sea and whatever lurked anywhere else was hidden by the long wisps of cloud that drifted everywhere.
Alanna didn’t care, for the big man – Blackie Bain, Pirate King of the Skerries, had charmed her from the start by wading out into the water and insisting Callum hand her into his arms so he could carry her ashore, so sparing her a dousing if she’d been rowed to the beach in such rough surf.
More than that, he’d done the same for Gubbie in his cat-sack and now stood cradling her cat, shielding him from the knifing wind. He smiled at Gubbie, the expression on his black-bearded face marking him a cat-lover.
For that reason alone, he won her heart.
“We have fairer days in summer,” he said then, glancing round at the men and women gathered on the beach. “Still cold, though!” He laughed, drawing mirth from all present. “That’s why our blood is so hot,” he teased, tossing a look at Ula. “’Tis the only way to stay warm hereabouts.”
“I live for the cold and wind,” Alanna enthused, loving the whirling mist, clouds so low she wondered they didn’t rest on the turfed roofs of the low, stone cottages that lined the shore. If there were more, she’d see them later, when the day cleared – if that even happened here, so deep into northern seas.
Skerray seemed a place of its own, harsh yet full of softness and haze. Cold, wet, dark, and all around, the roaring winter sea. To her, a wonder that took her breath and thrilled her soul.
No, she felt more alive than ever before.
“She was made for the North,” Blackie said, pride in his voice.
“So it would seem,” Callum agreed, standing beside him. “The cold and wild suit her.”
“That has always been so.” She pressed both hands to her breast, hoped she didn’t shame herself if tears spilled down her cheeks. In truth, she didn’t care if they did.
She smiled at the two men, then at Ula and everyone else. Even savage-looking, ring-bearded Grim who, if she wasn’t mistaken, appeared a bit misty-eyed as well.
“You are so blessed to call this place home.” She turned to Blackie and Ula. “There is magic here.”
Callum chuckled. “So speaks the lass who sees enchantment everywhere.”
“Nae.” She shook her head. “This is different.”
“Humph.” Callum crossed his arms, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
Ula beamed, her smile lighting up the beach.
The mists shifted then, parting to reveal fishing nets laid out to dry, a few upturned skiffs sleeping on the sand, well away from the kelp-marked tideline.
Gubbie wouldn’t go hungry here.
And she was in love.
Awed, she turned in a circle, catching glimpses of huge piles of driftwood she supposed were for Yuletide bonfires, also glimmers of yellow in some of the cottage windows, the glow from candles, or perhaps fish oil lamps.
