Chapter 25 #3
The lantern room suddenly felt too small. Below them laughter drifted faintly upward through the tower.
Rory looked at her like a man walking willingly toward something dangerous because some things mattered more than safety.
“I love ye.”
Abigail stared at him helplessly while emotion crashed through her so hard it nearly hurt.
“I think,” he said, “I fell first when I found ye on the rocks, and then I was lost to ye forever when ye told me ye could help me, that ye wished to be useful.”
“You accused me of being a spy.”
“Aye.” His mouth twitched faintly. “And still somehow I remained ensnared in your spell.”
Abigail laughed again, properly this time, tears burning hot behind her eyes.
Rory pulled her close as warmth surrounded her. When she pressed her face against his chest she felt his heart pounding every bit as hard as hers.
“I love you too.”
And then finally, at long last, he kissed her. Slow and certain and deeply tender, like something restrained too long finally being allowed into the light.
His hand slid gently into her hair while snow drifted softly beyond the lantern glass and the great lens turned endlessly overhead, sending its beam out across the sea.
Abigail rose instinctively into the kiss, one hand gripping the front of his shirt while the other curled against his shoulder, and the world narrowed immediately to warmth and salt and the softness of his mouth against hers.
Nothing in her life had ever felt less careful. Not the years spent building a career or the endless practical choices. Not the constant exhausting effort of being responsible while Sam ran laughing toward every dangerous thing life offered him.
This was not careful, this was surrender.
Rory kissed her like a man who had spent too long denying himself something he desperately wanted.
Slow at first, almost reverent. Then deeper when Abigail made a small helpless sound against his mouth and his restraint finally slipped.
And for one suspended impossible moment, Abigail forgot there had ever been another century waiting for her at all.
By midmorning on Christmas, the house had grown loud enough to feel alive from cellar to lantern room.
People came up the kirk road despite the snow.
Reverend Ogilvie with reddened ears, Mistress Haldane with a basket beneath one arm.
Janet Cruickshank, who had put Rory’s shoulder back in place, and then around noon, Mary Hunter arrived with little Beth in a red wool hood clutching a carved wooden horse Tobias insisted he’d made himself, though the horse possessed the general proportions of an emotionally difficult potato.
Beth adored it immediately. Children had forgiving standards where craftsmanship was concerned.
By afternoon the hall downstairs had become the sort of Christmas gathering that would have caused any modern fire marshal to expire on sight.
Too many people, too much smoke, way too much whisky, one fiddle, three competing songs, at least four dogs nobody claimed ownership of, and one chicken that absolutely did not belong indoors.
Rory stood beside Abigail near the long table.
“Is this a normal Christmas?” Abigail asked.
Rory looked slowly around the room. Ewan was arguing theology with Reverend Ogilvie over whisky. Tavish was attempting to teach Beth how to whistle. Duncan was feeding crumbs discreetly to the unauthorized chicken while pretending not to.
Mrs. Gable was pouring cider with the calm authority of a woman who could probably command a naval fleet if sufficiently annoyed.
“Nae,” Rory said. “But it’s ours.”
Ours.
The word settled deep inside her as Abigail looked up at him.
Then one of the man asked for his help. Abigail watched him move through the crowded hall, stopping to greet the villagers.
He crossed toward the hearth to take another log from Ewan without being asked, paused to steady Beth when she nearly slid across the floor chasing one of the dogs, then bent his head automatically so Mrs. Gable could straighten the collar of his coat with the distracted authority of a woman who’d been fixing him for years.
Rory belonged to people the way the lighthouse belonged to the cliffs, steady and unquestioned and built so firmly into the lives around him that everyone simply leaned toward him without thinking.
Even Duncan.
Across the hall Tavish said something that made Rory laugh under his breath while Beth tugged insistently at his sleeve, demanding immediate attention for whatever catastrophe involved the chicken now.
Abigail hadn’t fallen in love with him because he’d found her on the rocks or because she’d read his letters. Not even because he’d kissed her beneath the lantern light.
She’d fallen in love with the man who stayed. The man who carried grief without letting it harden him. The man who built a light so hopefully others would come home safely. For who he was as a man.
And suddenly the idea of leaving this place felt less like survival and far more like tearing out a living piece of herself with both hands.
When he returned, he handed her a cup of whisky.
“Tell me more about him.”
Abigail’s throat tightened.
“Sam?”
“Aye.”
She looked across the crowded hall where Beth had finally produced a shrill whistle sharp enough to startle the chicken into flapping directly at Duncan’s face.
“He would’ve loved this,” Abigail said softly.
Rory waited quietly.
“He would’ve acted like he didn’t. Made jokes. Asked questions about the plumbing. Tried the whisky. Made a face, then tried it again just to confirm his findings.” Her mouth trembled faintly. “He would’ve liked Duncan.”
“That speaks poorly of him.”
Abigail laughed softly and wiped quickly beneath one eye.
“He was always the brave one.”
Rory’s thumb moved gently across the back of her hand.
“No,” he said quietly. “I think bravery runs in the family.”
She leaned into him until their shoulders touched. Across the room Mrs. Gable saw. Her expression softened for one brief bare second before she shouted at Duncan to remove the chicken from the table immediately, this was Christmas, not a barnyard parliament.
Later, when dusk gathered blue beyond the windows, Rory took Abigail upstairs to the lantern room.
The tower stairs curled cold and quiet after the warmth below while laughter faded softly beneath them.
At the top, the lantern room opened around them in gold.
Beyond the panes Christmas night settled over the North Sea. Snow drifted lightly through the beam. Each flake flashed bright for one brief instant before vanishing again into darkness.
Below them Fraserburgh glowed with scattered candlelight. Lanterns moved slowly along the harbor road. Farther out, a fishing boat held carefully beneath the beam before turning safely toward home.
He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms gently around her waist as she leaned into him.
Beyond the reach of the lantern beam, something dark moved briefly along the rocks beneath the Wine Tower. Abigail blinked and looked again, shivering, but nothing was there but snow and the sea.