And history would get it wrong.
But Fiona Cameron would never forget the truth:
That Harris Mackenzie brought her to stone older than kings—and knelt.
Chapter 31
Heather—Present Day
The ferry’s deck rattled beneath their boots, gulls wheeling overhead in lazy arcs. Flynn leaned on the rail beside her, coffee steaming faintly in the cold, the other hand tucked into his jacket pocket.
“Look at us,” he mused. “A couple of happy tourists headin’ home after a wee island holiday. Henderson’d be thrilled tae know we’re so harmless.”
Heather smiled into her scarf. “Harmless is our new brand. Maybe we’ll start a blog. Two idiots who definitely aren’t hiding eighteenth-century secrets.”
He laughed, low and warm. “First post: How tae blend in while bein’ extraordinarily suspicious.”
She nudged him with her shoulder. “You’d ruin it. You can’t whisper to save your life.”
“Whisperin’s for liars,” he said easily. “I’m just convincing.”
The ferry horn bellowed, and they both flinched before breaking into matching grins. For a moment, it all felt real—the ordinary world, the harmless lie they were wearing like borrowed coats.
By the time they reached the mainland, the clouds had thickened to slate. Flynn’s truck hummed along wet roads, the wipers keeping a steady rhythm. Heather rested her boots on the dash, her mother’s journal balanced on her knees, its familiar weight grounding her.
“We did it,” she murmured. “We fooled them.”
“Aye,” Flynn said. “For now. Kerr’s probably already filed his report sayin’ we’re domestic, dull, and entirely uninteresting.”
“Domestic,” she echoed, glancing at him. “I like being domestic with you.”
He smiled. “I love you.” Then, after a beat, “Even though you snore like a Highland coo with a sinus infection.”
“I do not,” she protested, hurling a napkin at him. He caught it one-handed without taking his eyes off the road.
The radio crackled with an old country song and somehow it made the drive feel slower. Safer.
When the Highlands rose around them again—wet, green, achingly familiar—Heather’s chest loosened. Glenoran waited somewhere ahead, the place that had started all of this.
“Almost home,” she said, softer than she meant to.
Flynn reached over, lacing his fingers briefly through hers. “Aye, mo chridhe. Almost.”
Dusk had folded into night by the time they turned off the main road and followed the long gravel lane toward Glenoran.The last of the light clung to the horizon like a promise that wouldn’t quite keep.
Heather wiped condensation from the window. The house loomed ahead, dark and still, the porch light unlit. Unease threaded through her before she could name it.
Flynn downshifted. “Did you not leave the porch the light on?”
“I guess not…” Her voice sounded thin to her own ears. “And the door…”
The front door stood ajar. Just enough to catch the wind.
Flynn’s hand slid from the gearshift to her knee. “Stay here.”
Her blood ran cold. “Flynn—”
He was already out of the truck, the door slamming far too loud in the quiet. Heather watched him move up the steps before he disappeared into the dark.
