“There, ye see?” He nodded, satisfied with his brief experiment. “I dinna know what happened tae ye, but I think ye are just a little confused. And who wouldna be? Living out here all alone. It’s not yer fault. When ye come with me back tae the village, I’ll make sure that ye get the help ye need. If ye dinna have someplace tae stay, me brother, Lachlan, has more bedrooms than any person could possibly use. Brynne, his wife, is a motherly sort. She’ll look after ye.”
“And what will ye do?” she asked, allowing herself, just for a moment, to imagine a fantasy that would never–could never–come to pass.
“I…” Scratching his chin, he diverted his gaze when a flush stole up from beneath the edge of his collar. “I could look after ye, too. Once ye are feeling better. I’m not…that is tae say, I’m not married. Or committed tae anyone.”
She put her tea aside. “Would ye commit yerself tae me, Callum Campbell?”
His eyes, as crystal blue as a clear sky in the middle of winter, pierced hers. “Aye, perhaps I would.”
“There’s only one problem.”
“Aye, and what’s that?”
With a cruel but necessary ruthlessness, she extinguished the kindle of hope in her breast before it flared into a flame. “Ye canna commit yerself tae dead things.”
He gritted his teeth. “Mara–”
“Ye need tae leave. While ye still can.” And so did she. Before she committed an act that was truly unforgivable.
In her haste to escape, she knocked her tea off the table. The cup shattered on the floor, but she didn’t stop to pick up the pieces. Sometimes, things that were broken just had to stay that way.
The night passedin a blur of sleepless pacing. Mara didn’t hear Callum leave the castle, but she felt his absence in the same way that a solider felt his limb after it was taken from him. There, but not there. And no amount of wishing it back would make it so.
Ye did the right thing,she said silently in an attempt to console herself and her aching heart.The noble thing.
But if that were true, then why did she feel so bloody awful?
When dawn rose on the horizon in streaks of pink and pale gold, she made her way downstairs. Her boots waited at the front door, but she stepped barefoot out into the morning dew, curling her toes around the damp blades of grass.
Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes and willed her skin to feel the warmth of the sun…but as usual, there was nothing. Jabbing her thumbnail into her palm harder than was necessary, she indulged in a quick sigh of relief when sensation flooded her hand and shot up her arm, slicing through all of the nothingness like a star shooting through the night sky.
She didn’t know how much longer she had, but she had today.
And for that, she would be grateful.
Singing as she walked, she left the castle and the keep behind, following a dirt trail winding through a meadow of waving seagrass to the stables. Made of stone and timber, the barn had been dug out of the side of a hill, affording it protection from both the harsh weather and invading armies.
“Do ye fancy a ride, Skye?” she called out to her mare. The horse had no need for shelter, but she spent her nights in the barn for the same reason Mara stayed in her bedroom. Tradition helped tie them to whatever mortality they had left. Without it, they’d both be adrift, floating on a tide that never changed.
“Skye?” she repeated when the mare didn’t respond with her customary whinny. “Are ye still asleep, ye lazy bones?”
“She’s in here with me,” a familiar masculine voice replied.
Callum.
Mara froze even as the echo of her heartbeat accelerated, slamming against her sternum with such force that she nearly tipped forward. But when Callum emerged from barn with Skye following behind like an adoring dog, she hastily scrambled onto her heels, backing away from him as if he were the devil himself.
And maybe hewasthe devil with his auburn hair loose around his shoulders, and his shirt partially unbuttoned, and his sleeves rolled to the elbows, exposing far more muscular skin than her eyes had seen in a very, very long while.
While she and Hugh had been intimate on their wedding night, he’d insisted on dousing the candles and covering them in a quilt of scratchy wool. The bed of the inn they were staying in had been hard and lumpy, and the air had smelled of ale and must. When she’d tried to explore his body, to run her fingers down his arms and across his back, he’d grown uneasy, and thus she’d laid in the dark with her eyes closed while he did what he wanted, concentrating on the sounds emanating from the tavern below them instead of the animalistic grunts coming from her new husband.
Losing her maidenhood hadn’t been the unpleasant, painful experience that her friends had warned her it would be. But neither had it been particularly pleasant, either. While Hugh was mindful of her comfort, he’d not seemed very concerned with her passion, and thus for the short duration of their marriage she was left…wanting.
But she had a feeling, and instinct, such as it were, that if a woman laid with the likes of Callum Campbell, she’d not be trapped under a thick, suffocating cover…nor would she be discouraged from putting her hands upon every inch of that fine, firm flesh.
When her stomach knotted, Mara licked her lips and took another step of retreat. “Why–why did ye return here? I told ye it wasna safe.”
“I didna return.” He slung a companionable arm across Skye’s withers and the traitorous mare turned her head and nuzzled his chest. “I never left. I told ye, Mara. I’m not going back tae the village without ye.”
