Page 117 of Outlaw Ever After

For she’d seen how he’d thrown his scythe wide to miss the target so Thomas might win. A laugh rumbled in his chest as that divot in his cheek emerged.

“Would ye be like my maw if it were yer home, songbird? Scolding us, ‘Foolish man, they’re going to cut themselves and I’m the one who’s going to have to patch them up.’”

“Whilst ye all act as if I’ve said naught ,” she shook her head, “like a true mither is oft ignored.”

A rich laugh tumbled from his throat.

“I’d have to get used to that headshake.”

“Their sire’s fruits for certain, nay having fallen far from the proverbial tree,” she teased.

“Are ye saying I’d be a bad influence on these bairns of ours, songbird?”

She didn’t miss his word bairns as he waggled his brow.

“The worst sort,” she smiled.

His gaze danced. He brushed a wisp from her lip with great precision. So close, she could see the imperfections of his skin.

Their smiles waned as they fell silent, as if realizing in the same moment that somehow, the teasing had become tender.

“I’m hopeful, lass,” he breathed, feathering a kiss onto her forehead. “There will be another.” Another kiss, this one to the pulse beside her throat as his beard tickled and she dared to twine it around her finger. “And another…”

Her throat thickened. Would the loss ever stop hurting?

His hand slipped over her belly as his arms hooked her, pulling her to him and burying her in his embrace.

“We will try again, lass,” he croaked.

“If ye win—”

“Ye will nay marry Kendrew,” he growled, her heart squeezing with mounting concern.

“But Caleb, what if ye do nay—”

“Do ye hear me, Margaret Grant?” He clenched her. “I’d nay be here today had it nay been for ye , setting me free and binding me to come back to ye. I’m fated for ye .”

He guided her onward when she noticed a weathered stone. A headstone?

She pulled away from him and went to it. She traced her finger over the lettering she couldn’t quite read in the nighttime, surrounded by weeds and grass, then glanced up at him in question.

Stoic for the man who loved to jest.

“My mither died shortly after my da. They say from a broken heart,” he murmured with a wan smile.

This was his beloved mother’s headstone? She squeezed his hand.

“She never kenned my fate. I snuck back after MacLeod took me in and I’d regained my strength. I went in search of my da’s skull in hopes of burying all of him beside her.” He scoured his jaw and cleared gruffness from his voice. “There was a second fresh dirt pile here.” He pointed beside the headstone, now covered in meadow grasses. No headstone. “Jossy said Seamus gave them permission to bury his body.” He stared at the burial as he spoke, jaw tensing.

“Did ye find it?”

He shook his head. “Ye asked for my honesty. When I arrived to force yer brother to go before Arran, I also came to search for his skull. I’d hoped my list of renovations would lead to a clue, but alas…

“This was their favorite place to be together,” he changed the subject, “and Richard MacGregor tried to steal it from my maw. My da would have none of it. He demanded they leave, but MacGregor claimed he had no right to masquerade as a baron when he was nothing but a common crofter…”

“I wonder if he knew.”

“Who knew what?”