“This is Buchanan Keep,” she said. “I’m Eilidh Donaghey.”
He startled at that, sending lancing pain throughout his body.
Somehow, despite the dizziness and the agony, he’d managed to reach his destination. He’d managed to get to the one place he needed to be.
And this lass… She was one of the Donaghey sisters. One of the old Laird’s daughters.
This was good. Or possibly very bad. He was still struggling with putting things together.
He had taken at least a few blows to the head during his beating. That was probably why he introduced himself in turn; or maybe it was just because Eilidh was so lovely, and she was smiling at him, and she waskindwhen she’d had no reason to be kind to a stranger.
“Ciaran Gunn,” he said in return.
Something flickered across her face—recognition, perhaps, or trepidation. He couldn’t tell for sure, not when he felt his eyes going blurry. The effort of this conversation had been too much for him, and darkness began to creep in around the edges.
He was seized by a sudden, irrational panic. He needed to know what the angel—what Eilidh—was thinking. He told himself that this was about his own safety, but another voice inside him, one that he’d suppressed for a long time, told him that itwasn’tabout survival—that, for once, this wasn’t about just surviving. It was abouther.
He reached up to touch her cheek, no matter the burning that coursed through his muscles with the effort. She didn’t shy away from the touch, but before he could make contact, the darkness overtook him.
The last thing he felt before he succumbed to sleep again was the thump of his hand back against the soft blanket that had been so carefully tucked around him.
2
“You are the most perfect, perfect little creature in the entire world,” Eilidh crooned to her new nephew from where he slept peacefully in Davina’s arms, while an exhausted Ailsa looked on happily from her place on the bed. Her labor had been long, but there hadn’t been any unusual complications.
And now, there was this boy. This wonderful, tiny little boy who, as Eilidh watched, stretched his wee mouth wide and waved around his miniature fist.
“Look at him,” Ewan said, sounding completely awestruck. He was sitting beside Ailsa, clutching her hand, which he’d only let go when he was holding the babe. “A wee warrior already. My son.”
“Mayhap let’s wait until he’s two or three days old before ye put a spear in his hand, aye?” Ailsa chuckled at her husband.
Ewan looked at his wife, affronted.
“I’m nae going to start him with aspear, Ailsa. We’ll begin with daggers, of course.”
“Ah.” Ailsa leaned her head back against the veritable stack of pillows holding her up and let her eyes drift closed. “Well, in that case, please. He’s obviously ready for such things.”
“And those are your parents, sweet boy,” Davina murmured to the bundle in her arms. “Dinnae fret, though. Ye have several highly sensible aunties to care for ye, too.”
“I am the Laird here,” Ewan commented without turning his attention away from where he was fussing with Ailsa’s blankets. “I could have ye exiled for such slander.”
“She used to be such a sweet girl,” Ailsa teased without opening her eyes. “But now she’s all married and happy andsaucy.” She peeked one eye at Eilidh. “And there was never any hope for Vaila, but at least we still have our wee Eilidh.”
“Och, aye,” Eilidh said, making a grabbing motion until Davina reluctantly let her younger sister take a turn at holding the child. “Now that I have seen this sweet face, I shall remain a spinster forever just so that I dinnae ever have to leave him behind.”
Her family all laughed, as she had intended, but Eilidh felt a pang at the idea of remaining at Buchanan Keep for the rest of her days. It wasn’t as though it wasn’t a nice enough place. It was. The surrounding countryside was lovely, and the people had accepted the Donagheys with more kindness than they could have expected, given all the strife that had come on the heels of the girls’ arrival.
But it wasn’t home.
The cliffs of Castle Dubh-Gheal still flashed behind her eyes whenever she thought of home, but strangely, the quip about remaining unmarried didn’t quite feel right any longer, either.
The baby let out a sleepy yawn, and Eilidh’s attention was wholly stolen by the action.
“What are ye going to call him?” Davina asked as she stroked a finger over the sparse, downy hair that covered the boy’s head.
Ailsa raised her head to answer this question, as though she could not bear to look anywhere besides at her son as she answered the question.
“We are going to call him James Alasdair Buchanan,” she said, love evident in her tone. “Though I reckon we’ll mostly call him Jamie.”
