Chapter 36
Saoirse
I woke early, long before my alarm. If I was waking, that meant I’d slept, which I hadn’t truly expected. For a moment, I lay there, tangled in my covers, staring at the ceiling and trying to locate myself in my own skin.
My body ached in ways that didn’t make sense.
Muscle knots and bruises that hadn’t quite formed, nerves that didn’t know whether to calm down or stay on high alert.
But the heaviest ache settled somewhere else entirely.
In my chest. Under my ribs. A slow, quiet pulse of dread that hadn’t dulled overnight.
Finn still hadn’t come back.
At least, I hadn’t heard from him. Hadn’t gotten confirmation from anyone else. Not a message. Not a knock at the door. And yes, Alex said he’d gone after Sandhurst. Said he was fine. But that was yesterday. And silence had a way of twisting in my gut like wire.
A soft thump broke the quiet. Pippin hopping down from the couch. I pushed the covers back and padded into the living room, the floor cool beneath my bare feet.
Isla was still asleep, bundled in every spare blanket I owned like some grumpy little cryptid. Her mouth was slightly open, one arm flung out across the cushions. Pippin made a show of hopping right back up beside her, tail flicking as he nestled in close.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Seriously?”
He didn’t look at me. The sense of betrayal was palpable.
Apparently, it was going to be awhile before I was forgiven for vanishing off the face of the earth.
Back in my room, the air felt colder somehow, as if the cottage had exhaled overnight and forgotten to warm back up.
I pulled open a drawer, the movements mechanical, and started getting dressed without really thinking.
Jeans. A long-sleeved shirt that still smelled faintly of cedar and laundry soap.
I paused at the mirror, caught off guard by the woman looking back at me. My face looked the same. A little paler, maybe, a little more drawn around the eyes. But still me. Still standing.
I pulled my hair back into a tie, fingers fumbling more than they should have. Then I reached for my boots, tugging them on with the same kind of urgency I tended to feel before emergency farm calls or surgery delays.
My body was tired in ways I couldn’t name.
A bone-deep exhaustion that hadn’t come from mere physical effort.
But sitting still didn’t feel like rest. It felt like drowning.
I couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t keep pacing the same loop in my head, waiting for a knock on the door that might never come.
I’d go into the clinic. Animals would need feeding. Overnight patients checking. Something in my world had to still work the way it was supposed to. If it wasn’t going to be my heart, it might as well be my hands.
A familiar knock sounded on the front door.
Two quick raps, then the soft creak of the hinges as Grandda opened it only far enough to let himself inside, lest my cantankerous cat make a run for it.
He moved with his usual slow, deliberate rhythm, a battered thermos in one hand and a paper bag in the other, as he made his way down the hall and past the lounge.
He paused briefly, noting Isla still on the couch, before stepping into the kitchen.
His face didn’t show surprise at seeing me up. “Brought you something hot.” He set the thermos and paper bag on the counter. His voice was low, rough around the edges, and he didn’t look at me directly. Just scanned the room like he was checking for damage.
I reached for the thermos and poured the tea into a mug. The warmth helped ease the trembling in my hands.
He stayed where he was, leaning one hip against the counter. “Did you sleep at all?”
“A little.”
He nodded like that was enough, but I could feel his eyes on me.
“You’re back,” he said quietly. “But you havenae landed yet.”
That made something in my chest hitch. I didn’t look at him.
He kept his tone even. “I’ve seen that look before. No’ often. But I know it. Like you’re bracing for something to hit—only you’re no’ sure whether to duck or run straight into it.”
I swallowed hard, throat dry.
“I dinna ken what happened out there,” he added. “Dinna need to. No’ really. But I know you. And I know the difference between when you’re tired and when you’re scared.”
My breath wooshed out, as if the observation had been a direct blow to my gut. “I don’t scare easy.”
“No,” he agreed. “But you care harder than you let on. That’s always been the part that rattles you.”
I looked at him then. That surprised me. “What do you mean?”
He gave a faint snort. “You keep people at a polite arm’s length until they bleed into your ribs and you dinna ken how they got there. And when that happens, you get a certain look. Like your whole body’s already leaning forward—like you’re about to chase something or lose it.”
He broke off a piece of oatcake and took a bite, chewing like we were talking about the weather.
Then he swallowed and said, matter-of-fact, “So. If this man—this Finn—means something to you, the question is simple.” His eyes met mine, steady and unblinking. “What are you going to do about it?”
The room felt smaller. Thicker. Like I’d walked into the middle of a conversation I hadn’t realized I’d started.
He reached for the thermos again, tipped it slightly in goodbye, and headed for the door. “Dinna wait too long to decide,” he said. “Not everyone sticks around forever.”
The door clicked gently shut behind him.
I stayed where I was, the steam from my tea curling in slow, aimless spirals.
He didn’t know what had happened. Not really.
Not the details. Not the guns or bindings or nights where the dark pressed too close.
But somehow, he’d still seen it—that I wasn’t merely tired or out of sorts.
That something inside me hadn’t found its footing again.
That I was trying to hold together something that hadn’t even begun to settle.
He hadn’t asked for names or explanations.
But he looked at me like he’d already guessed where the fault line ran, and asked me what I was going to do about it.
I stared at the mug in my hands. It had gone lukewarm, untouched.
He’d made it sound simple. But nothing about this felt simple.
I wasn’t used to wanting like this. Not openly. Not without knowing how the other half of the thread would hold. I’d spent so long managing expectations that the idea of stepping toward something without a guaranteed outcome felt like walking out over frozen water and waiting to hear the crack.
And still… I couldn’t stop listening for the knock. The footstep. The sound that said Finn was back.
I set the mug down, the faint clink of ceramic against the countertop louder than it should’ve been. In the living room, Isla shifted. Pippin chirped once and settled again.
Still no knock. Still no sound.
I rubbed my palms over my jeans and reached for a pen. Found a scrap of paper.
Gone to the clinic. Back later.
I left it by the kettle—somewhere she’d see it—and grabbed my keys.
Outside, the sky was heavy and low, the kind of gray that blurred the edges of everything. But there was work waiting. A routine to slip back into. Some small rhythm I could move with, even if the rest of me didn’t know where it stood yet.
I couldn’t control whatever Finn was thinking.
But I could show up. Keep showing up. Until I figured out what it meant to stay.