“Thank you,” she said. “For comin’ back. In the forest. For… not lettin’ them touch me.”
He shifted, the movement small, as if the words landed heavier than any blow.
“Dinna thank me for that,” he said. “Any man worth breathin’ should do as much.”
“Well,” she said, climbing onto the narrow bed and pulling the blanket over her. “It’s a pity how few of ye there are, then.”
He huffed a laugh.
The candle sputtered down to an ember.
Fiona lay on her side, the wall at her back, the creak of the inn and murmur of voices below slowly thinning into quiet. She listened to the even drag of Harris’s breathing by the door, the soft scrape when he shifted his weight, and the occasional restless exhale of a man who’d seen too much to sleep deeply.
Somewhere between one breath and the next, she realized she was matching her breathing to his without meaning to—an unconscious truce in the dark.
Chapter 22
Heather—Present Day
They left the museum with their pockets full of photocopies and the real prize—Eilidh’s translation and the coded Norse letter—tucked seamlessly among Heather’s harmless Mackenzie genealogy notes. Flynn kept a warm, unobtrusive hand at the small of her back as they slipped into the midday crowd, his presence a steady counterweight to the lingering echo of Kerr’s watchful stare.
They didn’t talk at first.
Not about Kerr.
Not about Henderson.
Not about Skye.
“We need a place to sleep tonight,” she said once they’d cleared the museum steps.
“Scotsman?” Flynn nodded toward the old stone hotel standing like a handsome bookend to North Bridge. “Good beds. Good whisky. No one’ll blink twice at a pair of tired tourists havin’ afternoon tea.”
“I can be a tourist.” She nudged him with her shoulder. “Can you, or do you just lurk around in dusty boots and stare at historic architecture?”
“Lurk? Me?” He put a hand to his heart, wounded. “Lass, I’m a delight.”
She snorted—and felt the first real loosening beneath her ribs in hours.
The Scotsman wrapped around them like a sigh. Warm wood, quiet tartan carpet, the lemon-polish scent of old libraries. A place built for privacy, not questions.
Flynn checked them in; Heather accepted the key with a polite smile meant to look like vacation ease, not “fleeing possible criminals with an illegally smuggled museum document in her tote.”
Thankfully, the receptionist didn’t even blink.
Upstairs, their room overlooked Edinburgh’s sloped rooftops and that hulking castle silhouette that felt half guardian, half omen.
Heather brewed two small coffees while Flynn shed the stiffness of the museum—jacket off, forearms bared, stretching like a man who had spent the morning fighting beams and the afternoon fighting museum politics.
They sat at the tiny table by the window, the city rolling out beneath them like a reminder that the world still spun even when the ground felt uneven.
“All right,” Flynn said, tone shifting to business. “Plan of action.”
Heather slid the photocopies between them: the Norse script, her mother’s translation, the evidence of a three-hundred-year-old secret sitting between two mugs of instant hotel coffee. “We need to move fast, but not loud.”
“Aye. You play the bright, curious American.” He gave her a look full of affectionate mockery. “Smile. Ask obvious questions. Act like the most dangerous thing in your day is decidin’ between scones or shortbread.”
“I can do charming,” she snorted. “I used to work customer service… I’ve trained for this.”
