Flynn huffed a laugh. “I’ll be nearby. Not hoverin’. Just… available.”
“Shadowy and ominous,” she teased.
He winked. “Naturally.”
She flattened the pages on the table. “We go to Skye. But we do it clean—booked ferry, B&B confirmation, public travel, nothin’ secretive enough to spook anyone watching.”
Flynn nodded. “Make it look like a holiday. A photogenic one.” He tapped the table thoughtfully. “Post a picture of your coffee cup or somethin’. Let the world think you’re wanderin’ about takin’ pictures of buildings.”
“And if Kerr follows?”
Flynn didn’t smile this time. “Then we make him work for it.”
Heather glanced at him—really glanced—and felt a shift between them that wasn’t just danger or planning. Trust, maybe. Or the way he’d stood between her and Kerr without ever saying the word protector.
He looked down at their scribbled notes. “We keep our research surface-level until we’re on Skye. Don’t give Henderson any hint you’ve read somethin’ she didn’t hand you. We don’t risk your mum’s work. Or your safety.”
Heather swallowed. “You make it sound like I’m doing something brave.”
His expression softened. “You are, lass. The bravest.”
She stared at him for a beat, at the tired corners of his eyes, the quiet steadiness under the humor. “All right,” she said. “Then let’s set the course.”
They worked until the coffee went cold, mapping trains and ferries and safe daylight routes. Flynn knew men on Skye from a renovation project: names he trusted just enough to ask for directions, not enough to mention gold. Heather wrote them down.
By the time planning gave way to stillness, the room had shifted from late afternoon blue to amber.
Flynn closed their notebook, thumb resting on the edge as if anchoring something unseen. “We move careful. We move smart. And we watch each other’s backs.”
Heather felt something low and warm settle beneath her sternum.
“Deal,” she said softly.
He squeezed her hand in a steady promise.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
Outside, the city lived its ordinary life: taxis crawling past the Balmoral, bagpipes echoing distantly, the castle watching as it always had.
Inside, two people bent over a scrap of Norse verse and a map to Skye, plotting the most inconvenient genealogy project in Scottish history.
Heather closed the notebook and rested her hands on the table, the city lights catching in the glass behind Flynn’s shoulder. “Should we… go down? Get dinner before everything closes?” she wondered.
Flynn didn’t answer right away.
He just watched her. Quiet, unreadable, something thoughtful softening the sharp line of his jaw. His thumb brushed over the back of her hand where it still rested atop the map.
“Heather,” he said softly, like the word itself was a question.
She lifted her gaze, and whatever she was holding together—fear, adrenaline, the weight of the day—loosened all at once. His chair scraped quietly as he stood. He held out his hand, not to rush her, not to pull, but simply to offer.
She rose into him before she knew she’d moved.
His hands framed her waist; hers slid up the warm stretch of his arms to the back of his neck. Flynn exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath since the archives, his forehead brushing hers.
“Mo chridhe,” he murmured.
Just that.
