“Are ye awake,” he whispered softly, careful not to wake her if she slept.
“I am,” she whispered back.
“Warm enough?”
“Yes. You?”
“Aye.” Though they both needed their rest, he wished they could haver for hours. There were words, however, that he didn’t wish to leave unsaid. So, he summoned his courage and spoke quietly. “For all my days, I will remember kissing ye in the snow…”
After a stretch of silence, he worried she hadn’t heard him, that perhaps she had fallen asleep after all. When she finally answered, his heart soared into the rafters on childish wings.
“I will never forget it either, Cian. How could I possibly? It was the most romantic moment of my life.”
He held his breath, waiting to hear more.
After a wee sniff, she breathed, “Goodnight.”
Hours later, he was pulled from a sluggish sleep when Mattie called out to him.
“Cian?”
“Aye, lass. Are ye cold?”
“Freezing.”
He climbed to his feet and blinked to see his way. “I’ll stir up the coals and add some wood. It willnae take long.”
“Cian?”
“Aye?”
“It’s not that kind of cold.”
He chuckled. “There’s another kind?”
“I’m…I’m freaking out.”
“Aw, lass. Have ye not slept at all?”
“I have. But…would you mind…just holding me?”
He didn’t make her ask again. Scooping up his pillow and blanket, he strode to the bed and joined her. Before pulling her back against him, he placed his pillow between their hips.
She wrapped her arms over his and held tight. “Sorry,” she whispered.
“Not a’tall.”
“I just felt like I was lost, like I was treading water, and I could go under any minute.”
“Ye’re safe now. Be at ease. The morrow is still a long way off,” he lied. He could already taste the dawn coming. And no matter how the day went, he knew how it would end—with him back on that bed, forever and truly alone.
CHAPTER 20
Cian woke with his arm around a pillow and his breath turning to clouds in the cold air. The bed beside him was empty, and he panicked. Had he bloody dreamt it all?
Nay. The bed had yet to cool from her body, and the air tasted of his Matty lass. He just hoped she hadn’t struck out on her own with some foolish notion of sparing him the bother of seeing her back to the world.
She’d compared her Yeti-man to the Beast. Perhaps she worried he wouldn’t allow her to leave…
