Not to anyone.
She cupped his cheek. “Of me?”
“Aye,” he breathed. “And of livin’ long enough for you tae break my damn heart.”
Fiona’s chest ached.
She stepped closer until her forehead touched his; warmer now, softened by what they’d survived and what they hadn’t said.
“Then don’t give me reason,” she whispered.
When they finally settled onto the narrow loft bed, the rain whispering against the roof, Fiona realized Harris wasn’t lying back yet.
He sat at the edge, fingers combing through the wet curls that brushed his collarbone, dark ringlets heavy with rain and tension.
Fiona nudged his shoulder. “You look like a tangled sheepdog.”
He gave her a weary, lopsided smile. “Flora says if I dinnae cut it soon, it’ll give us away. Folk on the island ken my face well enough, but they ken my hair better.”
“Aye,” she teased, “your precious curls. Saints forbid we lose them.”
He held out a small knife: clean, well-kept, the blade catching the lantern glow.
“Would ye…?”
He cleared his throat.
Fiona blinked.
Cutting a Highlander’s hair wasn’t a task for just anyone. Not in the world they came from. Warriors let lovers or kin do it. People they trusted with their throats bared.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
Harris turned, exposing the nape of his neck, bending his head in a subtle bow that made her breath catch.
“I’ve trusted you with worse,” he murmured.
Her fingers trembled as she took the blade.
Fiona slid onto her knees behind him, gathering a thick lock between her fingers. The curl coiled warmly against her palm, soft in a way nothing about him ever was.
“Hold still.”
“Aye.”
The first cut was quick, clean.
A curl fell against his shoulder, then drifted onto the quilt.
Harris inhaled sharply. Not from pain, but something else.
Something deeper.
Fiona stilled. “Did I pull?”
“No.” His voice was low, rough-edged. “Just… go on.”
She worked slowly, cutting the curls shorter so they brushed the nape of his neck instead of falling wild down his collar. Her fingertips grazed his skin now and again—hot, intimate, unbearably tender.
