Chapter Two #2
“I did naught wrong!” Her father’s voice, belligerent. “Just went calling for what was promised to my daughter long ago. Lennox won’t hold to his father’s word. We may have to declare war on him, Sloan. It’s only right.”
Daughter. War. Promised.
The words barely registered through the roaring in her ears. She tore back down the stairs and out to the courtyard.
“Da! Please stop!” She hadn’t meant to shout, but the words tore out of her anyway.
Her father turned, his expression shifting from fury to dismissal in an instant. “This is not your affair, Sheona. Go back inside.”
That gesture. That careless wave of his hand, as if she were a serving girl to be dismissed. As if her own future weren’t the very thing being discussed.
Rage, white-hot and clarifying, burned through the humiliation.
“Is it about me?” She moved down the steps, her voice shaking with barely contained emotion. “Because if it’s about me, then it is my affair, Da.”
“Sheona Rankin, you’ll hold your tongue—”
“Keep your mouth closed until we are in your son’s solar, Dermot,” Lennox said to her father, his voice sharp with warning.
“Don’t tell me what to do, MacVey. This is my land now.”
“I’m telling you so you won’t embarrass your daughter further.”
The words hit like a physical blow. Further. As if she weren’t already humiliated enough.
Sloan grabbed their father’s reins. “Get your arse down, Da. And you’ll do what Lennox says until we’re inside. Close your mouth.”
They disappeared into the keep, still arguing.
Sheona shook her head, unable to speak past the tightness in her throat. She followed them inside on numb legs, her mind spinning.
Taskill. Marriage. Promise.
The words jumbled together, making no sense and perfect sense at the same time.
She reached Sloan’s solar just as her father tried to bar her from entering. His hand caught her shoulder. “Not you.”
“Oh, Sheona needs to be here, Dermot,” Lennox said firmly. “I insist.”
“MacVey, you sure are ornery. Is your new wife mad at you?”
Sheona slipped past the men while they argued and took a chair in the back corner. Sheona gripped the arms of the chair, her knuckles white, and waited for her world to finish crumbling. Eva appeared inside a moment later. Her friend must have followed her home.
The door closed. Sloan rounded on their father immediately. “What now, Da?”
“You know what. I told you that Douglas gave me his word a long time ago on that issue, and I’m not letting it go. Lennox will do what his sire promised me. It was his sire’s word, and we agreed on it.”
“I’m not willing to commit to a promise made by a dead man,” Lennox said coldly. “A promise that exists only in your mind, Dermot. Da said naught to me about this, so I’ll not be honoring it.”
Sheona wanted to scream. They kept dancing around it, speaking in circles, while she sat there with her heart in her throat.
“Lennox, you’ll not be expected to honor it.” Sloan’s voice carried the weight of exhaustion. “We’ll handle this.”
“Aye, you will, MacVey. If I have to drag him to the chapel, I’ll do it.”
“Da, he already rejected me.” The words exploded out of Sheona before she could stop them. “I know you are talking about me, but I should have a say in this.”
Her father spun around so fast it startled her. “You’ll sit down and be quiet. This is a discussion among chieftains, and your thoughts have no bearing on it.”
“I will not sit down!” Every muscle in her body trembled with rage. “This is my life you’re discussing! I have every right—”
Her father charged. Three chairs went flying as he barreled toward her, his arm raised, fury twisting his features into something unrecognizable.
Sheona’s back hit the wall. Her hands came up instinctively to protect her face. He’s going to hit me. My own father is going to—
Sloan and Lennox caught him before he reached her, wrestling him back. Her father struggled, his voice raw with anger. “Let go of me, Sloan. She’s got that slap coming. This is not her affair. Women do what they’re told.”
Sheona’s legs gave out. She slid down the wall, her hands still raised, her whole body shaking. This wasn’t her father. This was a stranger wearing his face. A man who’d been slowly disappearing since Mama died, leaving behind this angry, unpredictable shell.
“It is her affair, Dermot.” Lennox’s voice cut like ice. “Hers and mine. I’ll not force my brother to marry your daughter. He’s not interested. Get over it!”
The words landed like arrows, each one finding its mark.
He’s not interested.
He’s not interested.
He’s not interested.
“Taskill.” The name came out as barely a whisper. Her throat had closed around it.
“Aye, he’s your betrothed, and it’s time to announce it,” her father said, finally stopping his struggle. “Douglas and I agreed on it long ago.”
The room tilted. Sheona’s vision blurred at the edges. She heard more arguing—Sloan’s voice raised, Lennox’s cold fury—but the words meant nothing.
Taskill.
The only man she’d ever loved.
The man who’d rejected her five years ago without explanation.
The man who wouldn’t even look at her today while her father tried to force him into marrying her.
He’s not interested.
She had to admit that once her father had left, perhaps Taskill would rethink the betrothal. They’d known each other forever. But his brother spoke the words that he knew in his heart.
She shoved away from the wall and ran. Stumbled through the door, down the corridor, her vision swimming with tears she refused to let fall. She needed air. Needed to be anywhere but here, with everyone’s pity following her like a stench.
Her feet carried her to the parapets—the highest point, where the wind was strongest and the sea stretched out forever. Where she could breathe.
She burst through the door and stopped short.
Her dear sister Marta sat on a stool, her newborn daughter nestled against her shoulder, patting the bairn’s tiny back in a gentle rhythm.
“Marta?” Sheona’s voice cracked. “What are you doing here?”
Her sister looked up, her brown eyes warm despite the exhaustion written in every line of her face.
“Trying to get her to sleep. I think she likes to listen to the water lapping against the shore. Rowan is with his father, so I thought I would try this spot. It’s peaceful here.
” Then her gaze sharpened, taking in Sheona’s face. “What’s wrong?”
The kindness in her voice shattered what little control Sheona had left. She burst into tears—ugly, gasping sobs that she’d been holding back for what felt like years.
“Da,” she managed between gulps of air. “He’s having a fit. He went to Clan MacVey and told Lennox he was going to announce the betrothal that his father agreed to.”
Marta’s eyes went wide. “What betrothal, Sheona?”
“Da claims Douglas MacVey promised that Taskill would marry me.” The words tasted bitter. “Can you believe it?”
“Oh, Sheona.” Marta’s expression melted into sympathy. “Sit down, love. I’m sure Lennox told him nay. Da is getting up in his years—”
“I know, but he’s so mean now.” The words came out small, childlike. Because that’s what she felt like—a small child who’d lost her father and didn’t know how to get him back. “He was going to hit me. Marta, he raised his hand to me. Sloan and Lennox stopped him, but he would have—”
“What?” Marta’s voice went hard. “He tried to strike you?”
Sheona nodded, hugging herself against the cold. Or maybe against the memory of her father’s rage-twisted face. “I don’t understand what’s happening. It’s like he’s not himself anymore. Not since Mama...”
The door banged open. Their father stormed out, saw them, and opened his mouth to bellow—
“Don’t you dare wake this sleeping bairn, Da,” Marta hissed, somehow managing to sound like a protective wildcat while barely raising her voice. “Or I’ll wake you up tonight to walk her. Do you hear me? Take your loud mouth away from here.”
Their father actually retreated, hands raised in surrender. “Calm down, Marta.”
“I will not calm down. How dare you pull this now?” She stood, cradling the baby protectively, and thrust the sleeping bundle into Sheona’s arms. “You’ll follow me back inside. If Mama were still here, she’d never allow this to happen.”
To Sheona’s amazement, their father did what Marta said. Meek as a lamb, he followed her sister back into the keep.
Sheona settled onto the stool, arranging wee Margret Ailis in her arms. The baby sighed in her sleep, one tiny fist escaping the plaid wrapping to flex against Sheona’s chest.
“Don’t you worry, wee one,” Sheona whispered, her throat tight. “Your mama will protect you from the ornery man. And so will I.”
She pressed her cheek against the baby’s impossibly soft skin, breathing in that sweet newborn scent that smelled of milk and hope and new beginnings.
Would Sheona ever have her own? She’d dreamed of it once—a wee lass with copper hair and bright blue eyes, like her Da. A boy with Taskill’s smile, his laugh, his gentle strength.
Impossible dreams. Foolish dreams.
The baby’s tiny hand found Sheona’s finger and gripped tight, the simple gesture somehow grounding. Life went on. Hearts broke and healed and broke again, and life just... went on.
“I loved him, you know,” she whispered to the sleeping bairn. “He could have been your uncle Taskill. Loved him since I was old enough to know what loving meant. But he doesn’t want me. Mayhap he never did.”
The wind carried her words away, out over the sea, where all the broken dreams went to die.
She’d been nine when she first realized Taskill MacVey was special.
Not just another boy to play with, but someone who made the world brighter.
Who understood her in a way no one else did.
Who never made fun of her foolish questions and taught her to skip stones and never once told her she should act more like a lady.
At fourteen, she’d understood she loved him. Real love, the kind the bards sang about. The kind that made her heart race when he smiled at her. The kind that made her imagine a future—marriage, children, growing old together.
At fourteen, she’d lost him. One day at the water’s edge, one scolding from her mother, and everything had changed. He’d looked at her like a stranger. Walked away without a backward glance.
She’d waited five years for him to come back.
He never did.
And now, hearing it spoken aloud—he’s not interested—that was somehow worse than the silence. Worse than the distance. Because there was no ambiguity anymore. No room for hope.
He didn’t want her. Had never wanted her. And now everyone knew it.
A tear splashed onto baby Margret’s blanket. Then another. Sheona let them fall, too exhausted to hold them back anymore.
She’d never marry. That much was clear. Because Taskill MacVey was the only man she’d ever love, and he’d made it abundantly clear that the feeling wasn’t mutual.
So be it.
She’d rather spend her life alone than settle for someone who wasn’t him. Even if it meant watching from a distance as he eventually married someone else. Even if it meant dying an old maid with nothing but memories of what might have been.
And after what she’d found out about married life, she had to admit that it was probably for the best. She had no desire for that life. Even with Taskill.
Some losses you never recovered from.
Some wounds never healed.
The baby stirred in her arms, making soft mewling sounds. Sheona rocked gently, humming an old lullaby their mother used to sing. The one about the selkie who loved a mortal man but could never stay on land.
Another story about impossible love.
Another reminder that some things were never meant to be.
“I’ll be all right,” she whispered to the baby, to herself, to the wind. “I’ll survive this. I always do.”
But even as she said it, she wasn’t sure she believed it.
Because surviving wasn’t the same as living.
And she’d been merely surviving for five long years.