Page 21 of Outlaw Ever After

She nodded as he spanned his hand across the wall they faced and the remnants of an old hearth, now piled with desiccated nesting from beasties who’d used the chimney. He brushed back a tendril of her hair, scoring a trail across her neck as if picking the perfect place to kiss.

“A man who wants a peaceable life? Wants a family?” he continued.

She blushed as her eyes darted to the cradle.

He continued his revolution around her.

She breathed, “Wants the simple pleasure of cozy nights before a fire, playing his flute whilst—”

“Whilst his woman sings and the fire crackles and their bairns frolic and their villagers grow strong and jubilant—”

“Who is faithful.” She was nodding again, and had they stepped flush with each other? This was foolish. Why on earth was she playing his game? Considering what ? A future with him? She knew not a whit about this penniless rogue, laboring as a hired pen or sword, she couldn’t tell which, judging from his muscles and weapons and his ink stains.

He seemed like a speck of barley tossed about at the wind’s pleasure, incapable of putting down roots. And yet she couldn’t deny the energy flowing between them, this impulsivity to do the wrong thing. An impulse she’d only felt once before as a little girl with a young lad. She chewed her cheek.

“Who wouldst move a mountain to ken we’re safe. A man who would love me when I’m gray, and wrinkled, my body humbled by time—”

“From a life weel lived and a man who loved her body good,” he gruffed softly, pushing back her hair again, so tenderly. “And a wife who’d do the same for her man when he’s stooped and silvery—”

“A man who’d nay appraise me for my value. Who wouldst make peace with his past so he can look toward his future and lay down his arms and never bring terror to our threshold—”

He turned her around to face out the doorway over the landscape. It overlooked the village, glowing in the glen.

“Goodness,” she breathed, slowing, taking his hand again and resting her head to his shoulder. “’Tis beautiful.”

The jubilant village, as if the one they imagined, lay before them upon the shimmering river waters, surrounded by golden fields piled with haystacks. Their music echoed up the glen.

She looked up at him as his gaze connected down to hers. Gone was that cocksure swagger, replaced with that same solemn reverence he’d gazed at her with when she’d played the song his mother had sung—desperation.

…

He chewed his cheek. His hand tightened upon hers like a reflex. He might jump out of his skin with primal satisfaction at this reluctant lass’s head resting upon his arm and tightening her grip on his hand in return.

He glanced at the kirk spire protruding through the tree canopy atop the craig. Down at the village. And for the first time in years, let himself…submerge into the past.

“I have a cottage. On a loch,” he whispered roughly. Breathed in rosewater. “Taigh Spealaidh .” Scythe House.

He’d never shared that with anyone for the pang it evoked in his chest, for the risk it put him at to divulge it. He cleared his throat to scrape the gravel from it, swallowing, but couldn’t look her in the eye when he spoke.

“It-it’s nay much. A ruin like this, but it’s mine and my songbird wouldst make it a home…” He shrugged, so sheepishly he ought to be ashamed. “I’d be honored to lay down my sword and finally come home to it if I kenned someone like ye were there. The soil and grass is lush for grazing and I’m afraid if I walk away ye’re going to vanish like an apparition that was never real and that song, that bloody song—”

He cut off his rambling and cleared his throat again , his fist to his lips. She was still; he dared not look at her to see her shock, or worse, her fear of the eejit who’d just met her in one breath and was asking for a lifelong commitment in the next. What the hell was his problem? Rambling like a fool? Jaw pumping, he stepped back.

Scouring his face, he gave himself a rousing shake, as if waking himself from a dream, and landed his stride to leave. “Christ, lass, I’m sorry. I shall return ye—”

Soft fingers tentatively touched his forearm.

“Wait.”

He halted as if she’d commanded him. Rubbed the back of his neck and felt her gaze upon his twitching bicep, sucked his lower lip in and ran his tongue across it, too nervous to speak with his boot wedged firmly in his mouth. He didn’t like feeling disoriented. But he liked her. Liked her voice and that sense of humor lurking within the gilded cage of her demureness. Liked her smell and her genuine simplicity.

She pushed up on her toes, fingers slipping around his nape, and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“What are ye asking?”

He froze. This skittish woman, who had a right to detest every man, was offering him this boon and he was standing here like a green lad who had no idea what end of his arse was up.

He swallowed.