Chapter 16 #2
“Come and see.” She tugged him inside, where the portrait she’d painted of him on the stone wall was still drying.
“Little Esme still needs to meet you when her grandmother comes to clean the place. I don’t know how time travel works, or if painting it myself matters. I just know it needs to be here.”
He gave her a troubled look. “You didnae think to instead leave a warning for yourself?”
“No, Darro.” She was not going to cry all over him, not now. “I wouldn’t miss meeting you for either world.”
From there she went with him to the rooftop solar, which the chieftain had claimed as theirs.
Everything she had done over the last few days had been reckless and foolhardy and against all she had planned for her future, and yet seemed absolutely right.
Although when she had come here her work had been the most important thing to her, now she didn’t care that she might never be able to do it again, or return to her world.
The career she had worked so hard to have no longer took first place in her heart.
Although they would miss her, her aunts and uncles and cousins had each other.
Darro and the clan could be her world until they found a way out.
What happened after that she would leave in the hands of God.
“I envy you, mi corazon,” she said as she walked into the solar with him, and lit a lamp before hanging it well away from him. “You have hundreds of brothers here. All of my family is on the other side.”
“Someday you shall be reunited with them,” he said, looking away so she didn’t see his expression.
“That’s going to be impossible if I’m living with you in the twelfth century.” Esme almost laughed out loud when he whipped his head around to stare at her. “Okay, you convinced me. I’m not going back. You need me more than they do.”
“Be sure, my lady,” Darro said as he came to her, and took her into his arms. “For if you offer to stay, I cannae say but aye.” He gave her a slow, sweet smile. “Mo chridhe.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You’re just happy that I chose you over everyone and everything else, Chief.”
“’Twas the first time anyone chose me over all else in their life,” he said, his smile slipping.
“That any lady should, it yet baffles me, for I shall always be the laird’s second.
I’ve no talent for words or any true skill other than what I might do with my size and strength.
I attract fire, no’ admiration of others. ”
“In that you’re wrong, mi corazon.” Esme drew him toward the bed he’d placed by the glass wall. “You’re very, very good at one thing.”
“’Tis no’ a difficult task when I’ve such a lover,” Darro said, running a big hand over her hair. “The moment I see you all manner of unseemly thoughts fill my head.”
Esme laughed and hugged him. “Good, then I’m not the only one thinking naughty things.”
He eased her down on the bed, and then sat beside her.
The way he looked down at her, as if she were the only thing worth watching in both worlds, made her want to cry again.
That he loved her with all his heart she no longer doubted.
It was what they would soon have to face that scared her on every level.
“We don’t have much time before the bad man comes for us,” Esme told him. “I know you have to prepare for it, and I don’t want to keep you from your work.” She clasped his hand between hers. “Let me help you. Let all the women help defend this place.”
He didn’t say anything for so long she guessed he was trying to think of a way to refuse her without making her angry. Then he pulled her up and held her pressed against his chest, tucking her head under his chin.
“Aye, so you may, if you shall accept a terrible truth. I dinnae wish to put such a burden on you, but ’tis a choice you must ken.
” He drew back and looked into her eyes, and when she nodded he said, “I cannae live without you, my lady. Should you fall, I shall follow. ’Tis naught more I wish than to be with you, in this life or in death. ”
Esme didn’t realize she was crying until he stroked away a tear from her cheek. She thought of making a joke, but what he’d said was the same for her.
“Mi vida means my life,” she said, wiping her wet eyes with her fingertips. “That’s who you are, Darro. I chose you over everything else I’ve wanted because there is no living without you for me. So yes, I accept your terrible truth, because it’s mine, too.”
He bent his head to kiss her, and she tasted her tears on her lips and his. The moment seemed almost sacred, as if they’d said their marriage vows. Perhaps in a sense they had, Esme thought as she drew back to look at him.
“What does mo chridhe mean?” she asked.
His lips curved into a smile. “Mayhap you can tell me the meaning of mi corazon.” He paused to wipe away a stray tear. “But for my part mo chridhe ’tis–”
“My heart,” she said, just as he said the same thing.
For a moment they simply stared into each other’s eyes. Although Esme knew she was grinning like a fool, she didn’t care.
“Can I be in charge again tonight?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes, and he laughed as he rolled with her, putting her on top of him. “Good. We didn’t get to finish the last time. So where were we…?”
THE END