“I’ve been called many things in my time, but never irresistible.I like it.I like the way you see me.”
Caroline lifted her chin imperiously.“I am a very observant person; I’ve often been told I see things that others miss.Perhaps one day you’ll learn to trust that I am usually correct.”
“Ah, sweet,” he said, “Have patience.I am still learning you, after all.”He lifted her over him as though she weighed no more than a feather.He brought her down onto his stiff organ, sliding into her on an easy silken glide that made her moan and lean back against his raised thighs.
“I’ll learn you, if it takes a lifetime,” he promised roughly, working his hips, his gaze intent and savage and tender all at once.
Leaning down to bring their mouths together, Caroline gasped at the change in angle.Savoring the closeness, the intimacy of their bodies moving in tandem, she smiled at her wonderful, impossible, ridiculous man and said, “One lifetime might not be enough.”
They both had a lot to learn, she thought, in the brief moment before passion clouded her mind and whisked all thoughts away.
A lot to learn about love, and each other, and how to make a life of meaning and purpose that both of them could fit into—but that was all right.They had time.And they would learn.
Together.
Epilogue
Isle of Rùm, six weeks later…
Brisk, briny air filled Fitz’s lungs with every deep breath as he followed the steep dirt track up the flanks of Hallival.Walking alongside a rushing burn, Fitz hitched the rucksack higher on his shoulder and relished the heat in his leg muscles as he pushed himself as quickly as he dared over the rocky deer path.Each step brought him closer, a drumbeat in his blood pushing him onwards, onwards, back to her side.
Back home.
His lady wife waited for him at their small camp just below Hallival’s ridge.
Well, probably she hadn’t waited.Fitz laughed to himself, utterly certain that the moment he left for the tiny village of Kinloch, Caroline had grabbed her sketchbook and pencils and scrambled down the gully to check on the breeding grounds of the manx shearwaters they’d come here to study.
As eager as he was to reach Caroline and pop a bonnet on her head before she scorched all the skin off her dainty little nose again, Fitz had to stop and stare when the trail reached the open slope up to the main ridge and a sudden, heart-stopping view of the peaks of the Rùm Cuillin.
Wind buffeted him, forcing him to brace his feet against the grassy ground.For a heartbeat, looking at those jagged hills spearing up into the brilliant blue sky, Fitz felt as though he were rooted in place like an ancient oak, solid and immovable and connected to everything.
The breeze shifted, bringing the sound of the manx shearwaters’ raucous, joyous shrieks to his ears.Grinning, Fitz began walking once more as he thought about the first night they’d spent on Hallival.In the lonely landscape of one of the most remote islands off the coast of western Scotland, in a place inhabited by far more wildlife than humans, he’d awakened from slumber to a cacophony of eerie moans and blood-curdling wails.
In an instant, he’d been standing in his smalls over his new wife’s slumbering form, a pistol in one hand and a hunting knife in the other, ready to defend her from whatever demons or specters from hell could be making that ungodly noise.
It rose and fell all around them in a multitude of voices, seeming to come from above and below all at once, from the sky and from the very ground beneath their tent.
“They’re here!”
Caroline’s muffled exclamation came from the tangle of blankets they’d been sharing.Fitz glanced down to see her emerge from the nest with her wild curls spiraling out of control and a gleam of something in her eye that, confoundingly, did not appear to be gut-liquefying terror.
“Who’s here?”Fitz demanded, brandishing the knife at nothing.“What is that—who is screaming?”
“The birds,” she breathed, clasping her hands beneath her chin.“We made it in time.The manx shearwaters have come ashore to mate.”
“That’s never a bird.That is someone slaughtering innocents and drinking their blood, surely.”
“Fitz!You are ridiculous.”Caroline had looked up at him, standing guard over her, and a new light had come into her lovely violet eyes—a light that had less to do with scientific jubilation and more to do with the fact that she seemed to quite enjoy the way Fitz looked without his clothes on.
“Sheathe those weapons and come here,” she said throatily, lying back upon the pillows where he’d just had her a few hours before and already could not wait to have her again.
“I’ll show you where I sheathe my weapon,” Fitz had growled, setting the gun back into its case carefully before tossing the knife down within easy reach of their sleeping pallet.
Just in case.
It took an hour and a liberal application of soothing caresses and distracting kisses to bring Fitz entirely down from his battle-ready stance, but eventually he allowed himself to be convinced that the most chilling sound he’d heard in his entire life was nothing more than the normal speaking voice of the manx shearwater.
Caroline had assured him he was in good company in being ever so slightly unnerved by the shearwater cry.Evidently when the good old Vikings visited the isle some centuries ago, they’d been so convinced the hair-raising screams emanated from fearsome trolls inhabiting the mountains, they’d named one peak ‘Trollaval.”
