The line unfurled, a promise of ships and oars and distant shores, the rhythm like waves under the drum. The tune hooked into her, sharp and sudden. Her spoon slipped from her fingers and clattered against the bowl.
Flynn’s brow knit. “Campbell?”
She barely heard him.
Because beneath the singer’s voice, another layered in her memory—soft and absentminded over the clink of a wooden spoon, sunlight on a worn kitchen table.
Her mother, humming the same rise and fall. No words then, just melody. The one Heather had never been able to place.
The drumbeat moved on, the refrain circling back. Heather swallowed hard. “That’s it,” she whispered. “That’s the song. Mom used to hum that.”
Flynn’s hand closed over hers, warm and steady. No joke. No comment. Just his thumb tracing once across her knuckles while the song moved through the room.
The last note faded into a quiet that held for a heartbeat before the pub broke into polite applause. Around them, conversation began to swell again, but the sound felt distant. The tune was still loud in Heather’s chest, like it had been waiting there all along and was only now making itself known.
She stared down at her whisky, fingers tightening around the glass.
I wish Byrdie were here.
The thought came out of nowhere, oddly sharp. That ridiculous, bossy cat would have climbed into her lap without hesitation, simply existing there until the tightness in her chest eased. No questions. Just presence.
Heather blinked, willing the sting in her eyes to back off. The lamplight blurred a little at the edges.
“Mo chridhe.”
Flynn’s voice cut gently through the fog in her head. She turned to find him watching her, his expression open and steady in a way that made something inside her unclench.
“Stay with me,” he said quietly.
Heather drew a breath and nodded. “I’m here.”
He held her gaze for a beat, making sure, then reached for his whisky with a small, crooked smile. “Good. Hate to think the lass beside me’s driftin’ off to Valhalla when I’ve only just ordered her supper.”
A laugh broke from her, thin but real. The knot in her throat loosened a notch.
As the warmth of the room eased back in—the fire, the clink of cutlery, the low murmur of talk—Heather’s fingers traced the rim of her glass.
“It feels like she’s… nudging me,” she admitted, the words slipping out softer than she meant. “Like my mom left bits of herself scattered around, and I’m just now seeing them.”
Flynn didn’t dismiss it. He just studied her for a moment, then lifted his glass in a small salute. “Then maybe you’re exactly where you’re meant to be,” he said. “And she ken it long before you did.”
The lump in her throat rose again.
Flynn’s hand slid back over hers on the table, rough palm warm. “Heather,” he said quietly, “I love you.”
There was no grand swell of music, no dramatic pause from the rest of the pub. Just his voice, low and sure.
Her heart jolted, like someone had changed the rhythm for a second. She’d felt it building between them for months, but hearing it out loud still knocked the air from her lungs.
She opened her mouth and found… nothing ready to come out.
He must have seen the panic flicker across her face, because his thumb stroked over her hand once, easy. “Dinnae say it back till you’re ready, lass,” he said, with that small, familiar half-smile. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
She eased with those words and swallowed, the edges of her vision sharpening again.
“You really don’t make things simple, do you?” she managed, a shaky huff of a laugh.
Flynn’s smile went a touch boyish. “Where’s the fun in simple?”
