Wickham shrugged. “So ye can understand how glad I was.”
“I dinnae ken. Why hunt me doon?”
“Glad or not, I took something from ye that day, though unintentionally. I stole yer possibilities. There was always a chance ye might have survived the battle and gone home to yer family. And I took that chance of happiness away from ye. So, to make amends I needed to find ye and ensure ye had another chance to be happy.”
He looked at me and smiled. Very handsome, and very deadly. I almost pitied the woman who had to wake up to that every morning and still be expected to breathe all day.
“Wait a minute.” I had to look away to keep my thoughts straight. “He probably could have made a happy life all on his own if he wasn’t worried you’d send him back. Why didn’t you explain all this a long time ago?”
He cocked an eyebrow at Cian. “I would have, happily…”
Cian grunted. “But he couldnae find me.”
Wickham nodded.
I looked down at the man I adored and kissed him on his forehead. “You should have believed the posters.”
“I did try everything I could think of,” Wickham insisted. “Coded messages never worked. Ye were just too clever for yer own good.” The man bit the side of his lip, holding a grin in check, then let it go. “Had I found ye sooner, though, yer heart might have chosen another woman.”
Cian stiffened. “Nay. Fate played a hand here. Ye should have seen the storm…” He frowned and looked at the sisters. “An unearthly storm.”
They shrugged.
“I dinnae suppose it was one of ye that was oot in that weather playin’ wil-o’-the-wisp?”
Wickham chuckled. “One rarely gets into mischief without the other.”
I didn’t understand and asked Cian to explain wil-o’-the-wisp.
“A phenomenon of blue lights. But they never happen in winter, and usually only on the moors. Wee blue lights that some might believe are mystic spirits guiding them home.” He glanced from sister to sister and lifted a brow. “Science claims ‘tis merely bog gas.”
The women admitted nothing. Nor did they deny anything.
“If ye had a hand in the storm, and a hand in nudgin’ Matty and I together, that means ye found me long before tonight.”
Wickham nodded.
“May I ken where I went wrong?”
One of the sisters scooted to the edge of her seat, bursting to speak, but she waited for a nod from the brother before answering for him.
“After someone reported that they’d seen the MacInnis tartan on the Ghost of Glenmore, we put a map on the wall, and each time the ghost was sighted, we would find out the location and mark it with a pin. After a while, we could follow a straight line from the foot of the mountain to Aviemore—not just the town, but to John’s armory.”
“We’d also marked our calendar,” the other offered. “So we knew you were always spotted near the first of the month, and on Saturdays. Catching you was a matter of waiting a few hours. Tracking you home was simple enough.”
“And very exciting,” said the first sister.
“When?” Cian croaked, then cleared his throat and tried again. “When was it ye followed me home?”
“December,” she said. “A foot of snow on the ground. We held back and just followed the tracks.” She leaned forward, her smile gone. “We are sorry for the loss of your grandmother. The ring of stones is lovely.”
Cian gave a curt nod, then tapped my leg and helped me off his lap. “Weel, ladies, Wickham, if there is nothin’ more?”
The siblings shook their heads and stood. All three looked nearly as relieved as I was.
Cian rubbed his hands together. “This is where I thank ye fer all yer troubles, fer bein’ the force that removed me from the battlefield, and for guiding this woman into m’ lonely wee glen. And now, I will guide ye to the door.”
They were all in the hallway when one sister turned back and winked. “When I kick someone out, I like to say,‘Here’s yer hat, what’s yer hurry?’”
