“Hold there!”
The voice came through the mist ahead. Elena’s breath caught, her fingers curling reflexively into Jacob’s sleeve.
He peered out from behind the tree.
Then he straightened a fraction and called out, his voice steady and carrying. “Jacob Jamison,” he said clearly. “With me, Elena MacTavish.”
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the riders moved forward at once, and Elena tensed. But Jacob did not. His tension eased completely.
He exhaled once, slow, and turned back to her. “It’s them,” he said quietly.
Before she could ask more, he stepped out from behind the tree, drawing her with him into the open.
Only then could she see what he had.
The colors struck her first—plaids unmistakable even in the gray light, Jamison and MacTavish both, riding together. And then she saw him.
Her father sat his horse like a man carved of iron, his posture fierce, his gaze already locked on her. He did not wait for the animal to stop. He swung down in one fluid motion, boots hitting the ground hard as he strode toward her, his expression unguarded now, raw with something that made her chest seize.
“Elena.”
She tore her hand free of Jacob’s and ran.
The sound she made surprised her—broken, breathless—as she collided with her father, his arms closing around her with crushing force. He held her as though she were still a child, lifting her off the ground, his breath shuddering against her temple.
“SweetJesu,” he said, the words breaking apart as they left him. “Thank God. Thank God.”
Elena pressed her face into his shoulder and sobbed, finally, the sound wrung from her by exhaustion and relief and the fierce, undeniable truth of him. She clung to him as she had not since she was small, sobs wracking her body.
Behind him, Gabriel Jamison had dismounted as well, his expression rigid with control until his gaze found Jacob. Something unspoken passed between them—relief, gratitude, and the hard acknowledgment of what had been borne without witnesses.
“We were just riding out,” Gabriel said hoarsely, as if he needed to say it aloud to make sense of the timing. “Third day searching. Thought we’d missed ye again.”
Liam drew back at last, though his hands did not stray far from Elena’s shoulders, his fierce eyes scanning her face, her posture, as if cataloguing every sign of harm. Whatever he saw there nearly undid him again. He took a steadying breath, then turned sharply toward Jacob.
For a heartbeat, he only looked at him, his lips moving with emotion. Then he stepped forward and seized Jacob by the forearm, his grip iron-hard, the gesture as much a warrior’s clasp as an embrace. He drew him in once, briefly but powerfully, a collision of shoulders that spoke more plainly than any words might have.
“Ye brought her back to me,” Liam said, his voice rough, unpolished with emotion he did not bother to hide. “I will remember that as long as I draw breath.”
Jacob bowed his head slightly, his own hand tightening in return. “Aye, sir.”
Only then did Liam turn back to Elena, his piercing gaze raking over her one more time. “Let’s get ye back,” he said, more command than comfort now. “Both of ye.”
Her father’s horse was brought forward. Hands steadied her as she was lifted, settled into a saddle with care that bordered on reverence.
Only then, as the party turned back toward Strathfinnan, did Elena look for Jacob again.
He rode behind his father, rain-dark and quiet, already yielding the place beside her that he had held so fiercely for days. Their eyes met briefly—long enough for something to pass between them. Elena tried to smile at him. Jacob acknowledged it with a nod.
The ride back toward Strathfinnan felt unreal, as though she were returning to a place she’d not visited in years. The road curved downward into the valley, and the keep emerged slowly through the thinning mist, first the dark line of its outer wall, then the towers rising beyond, stone deepened by rain to a somber gray. The banners hung heavy and damp, barely stirring, their colors muted by dreariness.
The courtyard was already stirring, word having been carried ahead of them. Her father pulled her from his big black stallion, steadying her, before he led her toward the castle, where at that moment the door was pulled open in front of them.
A sharp, breathless cry that cut through the murmur like a blade.
“Elena!”
