She eased away, let go of him and released a shuddering breath, but wouldn’t look at him. “I’m terrified that my life will go on the same way it always has.”
Turning away, Lauren crossed her arms, hugging herself as she stared out at the valley. “I didn’t realize it, until a little bit ago. Maybe because we talked about my future, and going home, and then standing here, seeing what my aunt and uncle poured their lives and hearts into, and realizing how fully they’d lived their lives and how I’m…not.”
Reginald dinnae dare breathe. Or hope. “Ye wish tae change yers?”
She shrugged. “Parts of it, I guess.”
“No’ the writing, I ken.”
“No. Not the writing. It’s the only thing that really brings me joy. The only thing I’m good at.” She lifted a shoulder. “Which, as always, is subject to opinion.”
“Yer family, then?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to change my family. I love them. All of them. I just wish I could change their expectations.” Her shoulders visibly drooped. “I’d just like to not be such a disappointment to them.”
Moving behind her, Reginald slid his hands around Lauren’s waist and eased her back against his chest. She leaned her head back and covered his hands with hers. “I wonder how old I’ll have to be before I can give up that fantasy.”
“So, ’tis disappointin’ them, that has ye frettin’ so? No’ that mayhap ye’re disappointin’ yerself, in some way?”
She turned in his arms, puzzlement and a touch of annoyance, painted on her face. “What do you mean?”
He kissed the tip of her nose, drawing an impatient scowl from her. “I only ken what little ye’ve shared of yer life, but ye seem tae have spent a good deal of it waitin’ for yer parents tae like what ye do, instead of doing what ye like.”
“That’s not true! I’m writing, doing what I love, despite their opinion.”
“Aye. But then wishin’ and waitin’ for them tae come around with their approval. How long are ye willin’ tae wait for it?”
She pushed out of his arms. “Well, aren’t you the expert on family dynamics! You, who haveno family of your own.”
He swallowed and tried to breathe the pain away. He deserved that stab. She was right. He had no family and little hope of ever having one. He had no business interfering with what happened to Lauren a continent away, with hers.
Nodding, he backed several steps away. “I was out of line. Please accept my apology. ’Twill no’ happen again.”
“Reggie!” she called as he turned away.
He dinnae stop. Couldnae. Instead he wound his way through the headstones, looking for the family he no longer had.
Chapter Eleven
The passage of time read like a book as Reginald made his way through the stones and markers. Years of sweeping illnesses or some other critical event were evident, where whole family groups passed almost at once. And other stretches of time seemed to have gone by where very little death touched the glen. As the decades and centuries played out, fewer and fewer graves were represented in this ancient resting place.
He spoke every name aloud as he moved past each marker, honoring those whose stewardship of the glen had preserved it through the centuries. Many stones were unmarked but he offered a moment of respect, nonetheless.
The names he found rolled over his tongue like a litany, until… YVAINE IDONIA PREAS MCCOLL, and beside her LYALL EVANDER MCCOLL.
They’d stayed!
Reginald’s gaze fell to their years of death. Both - 1746.
No!
Trembling, he dropped to one knee. Neither were ill when he left in early March of ’46 to join the Jacobites. It dinnae take a scholar to ken they’d been caught in Cumberland’s bloody hunt for Jacobite sympathizers, after Culloden.
He closed his eyes, picturing his mither on his last night at home, bent over his longshirt in the dim light, her calloused hands mending a tear. He could almost hear the crackle of the fire and the careful scrape of his father’s carving blade, as he worked across the room.
His mouth formed the soundless words.I came back, as I promised. I’m sorry ’twas so long.His breath hitched in his throat and hot tears burned the back of his eyelids.But, I cannae keep my promise tae stay. The grandsires’ legacy is lost now. The glen belongs tae another, and I dinnae have the means tae reclaim it. I hope ye can find a way tae forgive me.
Fresh grief swamped him. Though he’d lost them centuries earlier, he’d prayed they’d lived out their lives in the glen. And if no’ that, then an escape to America, like so many others.
