Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
The wind hit the stillroom door like a fist, and Dawson barely managed to shoulder his way through before the storm tried to tear it from his grip.
He stumbled inside with an armload of firewood, snow cascading from his shoulders onto the stone floor.
The door slammed behind him with enough force to rattle the jars on their shelves.
Elspeth looked up from her worktable, her gray eyes widening slightly before she schooled her expression back to careful neutrality. “Ye should have stayed in the hall.”
“And miss the chance to freeze to death carrying firewood?” He dumped the logs beside the small hearth, his teeth already chattering. “Connor said the storm’s getting worse. They’re moving the livestock into the lower barns.”
She set down her pestle and crossed to peer through the gap in the shutters. Even from across the room, Dawson could see the snow driving sideways, thick as a curtain. The wind shrieked like something alive and angry.
“You will not be going back out in that,” she said flatly. “Not unless you want to wander off a cliff and save me the trouble of tending your wounds.”
“Is that your way of saying you’re worried about me?”
She shot him a look that could have curdled milk, but he caught the faint tremor in her hands as she returned to her work. The stillroom was small—perhaps ten feet by twelve—and the fire had burned low in the brazier, leaving the air cold enough that their breath misted between them.
“The fire needs building,” Dawson said, already crouching before the hearth.
His fingers were clumsy with cold as he arranged the new logs, coaxing the embers back to life.
The first true flames licked upward, and he held his hands toward the warmth, feeling the painful tingle of blood returning to his frozen extremities.
“There’s a blanket in the chest,” Elspeth said without looking up. “If you’re cold.”
He was bone-deep cold, the kind that settled into your marrow and made you wonder if you would ever feel warm again.
But he didn’t move toward the chest. Instead, he found himself watching her—the way the firelight caught the auburn in her hair, the movements of her hands as she ground something fragrant in the mortar, the small furrow between her brows that appeared whenever she concentrated.
She was beautiful. He had known that from the first moment he had seen her standing over him on the beach, looking at him like he was a particularly inconvenient piece of driftwood.
But the beauty had sharpened since then, deepened, become something that caught in his chest and made breathing difficult.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“Sorry.” He wasn’t sorry, not even a little.
A particularly violent gust rattled the shutters, and Elspeth flinched. He pushed himself to his feet, suddenly aware of how inadequate the fire was against the creeping cold.
“We should move closer to the hearth,” he said. “Both of us. This room is going to get a lot colder before the storm passes.”
She hesitated, and he saw the calculation in her eyes—the weighing of physical comfort against proximity to him. Then another blast of wind sent a spray of ice crystals through the cracks around the shutters, and practicality won.
They settled onto the floor near the fire, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. Dawson retrieved the blanket from the chest and draped it over both of them without asking permission. Elspeth stiffened but didn’t pull away.
“The market is day after tomorrow,” she said quietly. “If the storm passes.”
His jaw tightened. He knew what the market meant to her—and who would be there. “Malcolm MacKenzie.”
“Aye.” Her fingers twisted in her lap. “He’ll have been trapped at the inn by this storm, same as everyone else. But there on neutral ground...” She trailed off, staring into the flames. “He enjoys reminding people of my ruin. It entertains him.”
“I could break his nose,” Dawson offered. “Would that help?”
The surprised laugh that escaped her was small but genuine. “It would cause more trouble than it’s worth.”
“But it would feel satisfying.”
“Perhaps.” She glanced at him sideways, and something in her expression softened. “You shouldna concern yourself with Malcolm MacKenzie. He’s not your problem.”
“He insulted you and keeps insulting your. That makes him my problem.”
The words hung between them, more revealing than he had intended. Elspeth’s eyes searched his face, wary and wondering in equal measure, and Dawson felt the weight of what he hadn’t said pressing against his ribs.
The fire crackled and popped, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. Outside, the storm howled like a hungry beast, but inside the stillroom, the world had shrunk to the small circle of warmth they shared.
“Tell me something,” Elspeth said quietly. “Something you haven’t told anyone else here.”
The request caught him off guard. He considered deflecting with humor, with charm, with any of the protective mechanisms he had honed over years of avoiding real connection.
But there was something about the flickering firelight and the storm’s isolation and the steady gray of her eyes that made honesty feel not just possible but necessary.
“I’m afraid,” he said. The words came out rough, unfamiliar. “Not of the storm, or of Malcolm MacKenzie, or even of being trapped in the wrong century. I’m afraid that I will find a way back or the goddess will open a door—and I’ll discover I don’t want to step through it.”
Elspeth was quiet for a long moment. The fire cast shifting shadows across her face, and he couldn’t read her expression. “Why would that frighten you?”
“Because it would mean admitting that everything I built in my old life was worthless. That I spent thirty-five years chasing the wrong things, trying to fill an emptiness that couldn’t be filled with money or achievements or adventures.
” He laughed, the sound bitter even to his own ears.
“I’ve climbed mountains, crossed oceans, done things that would get my name in the history books. And all I felt was tired and bored.”
“And here?” The question was barely a whisper.
“Here I feel...” He struggled for the right word. “Present. Like I am actually living instead of performing for an audience.”
She turned to face him, and he became suddenly, acutely aware of how close they were. Her knee pressed against his thigh beneath the blanket. He could see the faint freckles scattered across her nose, the pulse beating in her throat.
“I know what it is to perform,” she said softly.
“To smile when ye are empty inside, to move through each day as though ye are playing a part in someone else’s play.
After Alasdair, after the—” She stopped, swallowing hard.
“After everything, I learned to be what people expected. Quiet. Useful. Invisible.”
“You are not invisible,” Dawson said. “Not to me.”
Her breath caught. He watched her eyes widen, watched the walls behind them tremble. For a heartbeat, he thought she would retreat—would push him away and rebuild the careful distance she maintained with everyone.
Instead, she reached up and brushed a snowflake from his hair. Her fingers lingered, trailing along his temple, and the touch sent fire racing through his veins.
“Dawson...” Her voice was barely audible above the storm.
“I know,” he said, though he was not sure what he was agreeing to. “I know.”
He raised his own hand, letting it hover near her face, giving her the chance to pull away. She didn’t move. Slowly, carefully, he cupped her cheek, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. Her skin was soft and cool, and she leaned into his palm like a flower turning toward sunlight.
The world narrowed to the space between their mouths—inches that felt like miles, distances that could be crossed in a breath if either of them found the courage.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered, echoing words he had almost spoken days ago in this very room. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
“I cannot.” Her eyes were bright with something that might have been tears or firelight or both. “I cannot tell you that.”
He leaned closer. She tilted her face up. Their lips were a breath apart, a heartbeat, a—
The door crashed open with the force of a battering ram, and they sprang apart as Connor’s voice cut through the storm.
“The barn roof is collapsing! We need everyone—now!”
Dawson was on his feet before his mind caught up with his body, the cold hitting him like a physical blow as he moved away from the fire. Behind him, he heard Elspeth rising, heard her sharp intake of breath, but there was no time for words.
Connor was already gone, disappearing into the white chaos of the storm. Dawson paused at the door, turning back to look at Elspeth. She stood by the hearth, the blanket pooled at her feet, her eyes wide and dark in a face gone pale.
Something passed between them in that moment—acknowledgment, promise, the weight of what had almost happened and what might still.
“Go,” she said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. “I will ready supplies for any injuries.”
He nodded once and plunged into the storm.
The cold was brutal, immediate, stripping the breath from his lungs and the feeling from his skin. Snow drove into his face like needles, and the wind nearly knocked him off his feet before he found the rope line someone had strung between the keep and the outbuildings.
He stumbled toward the barn, guided by shouts and the orange glow of torches fighting against the darkness.
Men were already on the roof, working frantically to reinforce the sagging beams, while others herded panicked livestock to safety below.
Dawson threw himself into the chaos, hauling timbers and holding ropes and doing whatever he could do against the fury of the storm.
But even as his body worked, his mind stayed in the stillroom.
The ghost of her skin against his palm. The tremor in her voice when she said his name. The look in her eyes had told him she had wanted the kiss as much as he had—and that wanting terrified her more than she could say.
He had spent his life seeking thrills, chasing the rush of adrenaline that came from conquered peaks and survived dangers.
But nothing—not Everest, not the Empty Quarter, or coming face to face with a great white the size of a bus—had ever made his heart pound the way it had in that small, warm room with Elspeth MacLeod looking at him like he might be something worth keeping.
A beam cracked overhead, and he barely rolled clear before it came crashing down. Someone shouted his name—Connor or Brodie, he couldn’t tell through the wind—and he staggered back to work, muscles screaming, lungs burning.
But the question circled through his mind like the howling storm, impossible to silence.
Would she let him get close to her again? Or would the walls be back when the dawn came, higher and thicker than before?
The not-knowing was almost worse than the cold.
Almost.
He hauled another timber into place and prayed to whatever gods were listening that he would live through the night to find out.