Chapter 22 #2
“So…” I gesture lamely at the buckets. Like a complete moron. “You did all this for me?”
“Do others do so little?” His reply is quick, heartfelt.
I open my mouth to defend my world, but then I shut it again. He has a point. Poppa is thoughtful, when he has a chance to be. Otherwise, I’m usually the one doing the heavy lifting for the people in my life.
Callum lets me silently contemplate this as he empties the buckets, two pots, and Donag’s kettle into the tub.
When he speaks again, his voice is low and soft. “You have a wee soak, Rosie. I’ll be back midmorning to fetch you.”
That catches my attention. Immediately puts me on high alert. “Fetch me where?”
“You’ll have to come with me to find out.” With a wink, he’s out the door.
I’m analyzing our conversation as I gingerly step into the tub, but the bath quickly distracts me. The tub is small and rusty around the edges, and the water is warm at best, but Callum left me several strips of linen to use as toweling, and the sliver of soap he’d tucked inside smells like roses.
I must enter some sort of timeless fugue state, because before I know it, the water is cold and coated with a gray, soapy film. But I’m pink and shiny and clean.
When I’m dry and wriggling into the dress, I have a flash of missing my old sack. This kirtle thing has so many layers, seams, and laces. I desperately hope I don’t have something on backward.
I finally make it inside all that fabric, and it’s time to deal with the vest. It’s cut low, and I’m horrified to realize I’m not really sure where my boobs should go. Do I shove them under the vest, or should they rest over it?
I try to picture the women from last night. There was a lot of bouncing and jouncing, which means—yikes. They wore them pushed up, didn’t they?
Definitely that.
I think.
In the end, I smoosh them down into some strange hybrid position. The fabric provides a thick shelf that holds me securely in place, which is good. But my meager assets now resemble a couple of apples perched on a table.
I can’t decide if I feel mortified or like a fairy tale princess.
I’m still fretting over my hair—I settle on letting it hang loose down my back, drawing the front layers into a thin braid—when there’s another knock at the door.
“Just turn the wee knob,” Callum says. “In case you’re standing on the other side, unsure again what to do.”
I smirk as I open it. “I know how to open a door.”
He steps back with an oh, taking me in with wide eyes.
My stomach drops. All the blood in my body pumps to my cheeks. I must’ve done something wrong.
I smooth my hands down the front of the dress. “That bad, huh?”
“Aye, it’s that bad,” he says, but his voice is strange. Hoarse.
And when I look up, his hand is pressed to his chest, right where his heart is.
“You’re fair as a summer morning, Rosie-love. ’Tis enough to injure a lad.”
Rosie-love.
My brain short-circuits.
I don’t know what to do with my hands. I don’t know what to do with my face. I don’t know what to do with the entire rest of my body.
“Thanks,” I stammer. “You too.”
Duh.
Callum blinks.
I fumble. “I mean, you also look good. I like your kilt. And the hat.”
Great save, Rose.
Though, clearly, Callum could be half-naked in a dirty leather apron and I’d still find him attractive.
“Och, you wee misguided thing,” he says, amused. “I’ve told you the proper words to use. This is my plaid.” He rustles all that yellow and brown wool wrapped around his waist and flung over his shoulder. “And this”—he taps the cap on his head—“is my bonnet.”
I point to what looks like a mountain of blankets slung over his arm. “Then what’s that?”
“This is your arisaid.”
“My air of what?”
“Arisaid,” he repeats, grinning. With a flick of his hands, he unfurls a swath of wool so massive, the hem of it slaps against the floor. “’Tis a cloak.” He mimics a courtly bow. “For milady.”
“That’s a cloak?” I sound so astonished, you’d think he just told me it has magical powers.
Which, honestly, would be my second choice after the power of warmth.
Because I have never been so cold in my entire life as I have been here.
Especially this past week. I’ve shoveled ten tons of snow in my lifetime.
Scraped ice in a T-shirt. Trudged through sleet at five a.m. to do barn chores.
But New York weather has nothing on the Highlands.
It’s nuts here, and getting worse as winter settles in.
One minute, the sky is all sunshine and chirping birds, and the next, it’s steely gray gloom and bitter-cold gusts that slice sharper than any knife.
Even with the extra layers Donag gave me, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that I’ll never be truly warm again.
“You mean…for me?” I reach out then hesitate—like if I touch it, the whole thing will disappear. “Like, I can wear it?”
“Aye,” he chuckles, “that’s the generally accepted course.”
He extends it again, but when I still don’t take it, he simply turns me around and drapes it over my shoulders himself.
The heavy fabric settles around me like a warm hug, and I must make some kind of swoony sound, because he says, “You like it then?”
“I love it.”
I grab a thick handful and snug it tighter around me, absorbing the weight of it, the scent of it—woodsmoke and something crisp and earthy, something that smells like him.
“Are you sure this is all right? Who does this belong to?”
Please don’t say Donag. Please don’t say Donag.
“It belongs to you,” he says simply. “To do with as you will.” Still behind me, he reaches around to fasten it at my throat with a thick metal clasp. His hands settle lightly on my shoulders. He leans in, close. His voice brushes the shell of my ear. “Truly, Rosie.”
I shiver, his breath on my cheek, there and gone in an instant.
He turns me back around. His eyes roam down my body, slow and unhurried, taking in the dress, the arisaid…all of me. I feel so seen. So noticed.
Like the only girl in the world.
“Bonnie as the dawn, you are,” he murmurs.
That might actually be illegal. Calling someone bonnie like that.
“I’ll need to be on guard,” he adds, his mouth curving into something that looks entirely too dangerous. “The way you look isn’t safe.” He gives me a slow, predatory smile—then winks.
My brain completely stalls. Before I can recover, he whisks me out the door like this is all perfectly normal. Meanwhile, I feel anything but normal.
I replay every syllable in my mind as we wind down the path.
The way you look isn’t safe.
Was he just being polite? Or did he actually mean it?
I stay silent for too long, so of course, I start rambling. “So, I, um…” I don’t even have an end to that sentence, but I have to say something. Anything. “I’m sure I’m perfectly safe.” I cringe. “Unless we run into one of those malevolent fairies, then all bets are off.”
So lame.
But Callum just laughs, stopping short to look down at me, light dancing in his eyes. “Heaven forfend, lass. Nothing dare threaten you with me by your side.”
Then, as if proving his point, he sweeps his arm around me. Pulls me in.
The world shifts.
The way my shoulder slides into place beneath his arm—it’s effortless. Like it was always meant to be there.
Like I was always meant to be here.
A second ago, I was so nervous, buzzing with too many thoughts. But now? His warmth steadies me, his arm anchoring me to something solid, something certain. The tension in my shoulders melts. Matching his easy, loping stride feels as natural as breathing.
As we wind through the trees, I let my mind wander to the first time I walked this path. If I hadn’t taken Una’s advice and attempted a shortcut…if I hadn’t gotten lost…if I hadn’t knocked on Callum’s door… Would I ever have met him? I can’t imagine never knowing him.
Which is irrational. I should be wishing I’d never left. That none of this had ever happened.
Instead, I’m all dressed up, walking side-by-side with a thoughtful, attentive, protective, seventeenth-century clansman, who also happens to be hot in a rugged, capable, blacksmithy kind of way, raising the bar where the male population is concerned, which’ll make things difficult when I return to the modern era, there being a shortage of blacksmiths and all.
He’s like the sea—steady and twinkling on the surface, but with ferocity slumbering in the depths. And somehow this powerful, dangerous person has nestled me effortlessly at his side, as if I’ve always belonged there.
The enormity of what I’m feeling overwhelms me, and I insert the slightest bit of space between us. His arm slides from my shoulders, and I know a twinge of regret. I could’ve simply relaxed and enjoyed this moment. Instead, I overthink everything.
But Callum is blissfully oblivious to my internal drama. He just nonchalantly scoops up my arm, hooking our elbows like it’s what we always do.
And what if it were?
With each switchback, I wonder—what if this trail suddenly whooshed me back to my own time? Would Callum be swept along with me?
The thought warms me from the inside, like sunlight finding my darkest corners.
Callum jiggles my arm, and when I look up, he sweeps loose strands of hair from my face. “Thoughts of water horses and fairies have plowed quite the furrow along this bonnie brow.”
I give him an abashed smile. “Sorry. You lost me for a minute.”
My mind has been going a thousand miles an hour, inventing every anxiety I can conceive of, and all the while Callum’s been breathing fresh air and enjoying the sun on his shoulders.
I’m not going to solve anything this minute. The day is unseasonably mild, the sun uncharacteristically bright. I’m almost too warm in my new cloak. It’s time to be where I am for once, instead of worrying about all the bad things that either did or might yet happen.
“What’s got your mind in a tangle?”
Determined to adopt some of Callum’s ease as my own, I give him a sly grin. “I’m still recovering from the idea that fairies are so evil.”
“Best prepare yourself then.” His tone is serious, but a quiver at the corner of his mouth tells me he’s stifling a laugh. “I’ve got something even more exotic to introduce to you.”
He lets go of my arm and takes my hand instead, threading his fingers through mine. A delicious thrill races through me. Has anyone ever held my hand like this? Such a simple thing, palm-to-palm, and yet it’s oddly intimate, hinting at other expanses of skin that might press along mine.
I manage to ask, “What’s more exotic than fairies?”
“Bluebells in autumn.”
“Bluebells?” It comes out a little breathlessly, and I hope he’ll just assume I’m super excited about flowers.
“Aye, you’ve never seen one. We’re away to set that to rights.” There’s something in his voice—a quiet certainty. Like he’s sharing more than just flowers.
He guides me off the path, holding aside a branch so I can follow him into a dense thicket. I duck through and step into a clearing.
Where two horses are waiting.