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“Come for me. Do it, Maisie. Come all over me.”
She did.
Screaming his name, a sweet, blessed sound he never again wished to go a day without hearing, Maisie came just before Kieran released everything he had into her. With a roar of pleasure, he collapsed against her.
Neither of them moved, or spoke, for some time.
But they were in the haylofts, and It was getting cold. So reluctantly, he pulled out, and, with a quick kiss, stood and righted himself. Helping Maisie up, he brushed off her cloak as she pushed her skirts back down.
Fully dressed, Kieran smiled at the spot where they’d just made love.
“Now when you think of making love in the hayloft of the stables, ‘twill be this night you will envision.”
“Indeed,” he said, fully agreeing. “And I’m sorry for not saying as much earlier, but there was never a danger of me thinking of making love to any woman but you.” He took Maisie in his arms. “I know we agreed to wait until the stables were finished and we could afford to leave the inn to marry at my home, but I do not wish to wait. Let us do it here. My family can see the inn. We will have a banquet in the hall. More importantly, there will be no need to wait.”
She did not hesitate. “I would love that, truly.”
“And I love you. To think if I’d not learned of my birth in the manner in which I did, we’d not have met.”
“We were meant to meet,” she said. “As all things are meant to happen.”
“I believe you are right,” he said. And before she could correct him, Kieran added, “As you are most times.”
She laughed. “I am glad you remember it well.”
“I shall never forget it. Nor the moment we met or the first time we made love. Nor you, which will be easily done as you are not leaving my side, ever.”
“I have no desire to, Kieran. I am yours. Today and every day after.”
Epilogue
The inn, decorated for Christmas, had never looked so beautiful. With Kieran’s aid, they’d made so many improvements already. Maisie could not wait until spring when the weather improved and they could make even more of them.
“They’ve arrived,” she said, spying his father first. She fairly ran to the door as Duncraig’s clan chief embraced her. Maisie could not explain their connection, but from the moment the two of them met, she’d felt an affinity to him that she’d never felt with her own father. Perhaps, she’d mused to Kieran, it was knowing what he had done for Kieran when he’d gone missing, juxtaposed with her own father giving her to a man such as Baldwin.
“Greetings, daughter,” he said, a moniker he’d used from the day they’d held their wedding in this very hall.
“I am a MacKinlay,” Lina said to her father-in-law, “but she is married to one. There must be another reason I do not receive as many hugs as Maisie.”
Laughing, the chief pulled Lina into him, kissing the top of her head.
Both Niall and Kieran stared at the three of them, mouths agape.
“Has he ever once hugged you?” Niall asked, loud enough for all of them to hear.
“He did,” Kieran responded. “But I had to run away like a wayward child first to receive it.”
“Ahh, well, I do not wish to run away. But these two are given them freely when I remember very few as a boy and less as a man.”
“I’ve no reason to hug you,” the chief said to Niall. “You love yourself for both of us.”
Everyone but Niall laughed at that.
Greeting her mother-in-law, Maisie welcomed the newcomers into their hall. Alice took their cloaks and they all sat at a large table Maisie had set aside. Though they would celebrate Christmas at Duncraig Castle in a fortnight, Kieran had the idea to invite his family here to share their news. Though Maisie thought it could wait to see them at the holiday, she loved the thought of hosting them as well.
And so they’d prepared, the inn transforming in a way Maisie had never seen before. Already more than one patron had commented that they would be sure to come each year at this time if the Red Stag planned to decorate this way again.
Once a round of ale was served, she and Kieran stood.
