Chapter 34 #2
"I was sixteen."
"You used an axe."
"It worked."
Eamon laughed. Then his expression softened. "Maybe not knowing exactly what happens next is good for you."
"Skye said something similar."
"Smart woman."
"Don't encourage her."
"Too late."
He clapped my shoulder and went back toward the sitting room before I could respond.
I stayed in the kitchen another moment. For most of my adult life, uncertainty had meant danger.
If I didn't know where someone was, where a road led, how many exits a building had, or what happened after a decision, then instinct demanded I eliminate as much unpredictability as possible.
Skye couldn't be solved like that. Neither could the future.
And for once, I didn't want to force either into a shape just because uncertainty frightened me.
By ten, Orla had decided everyone had enjoyed enough socializing and announced the conclusion with enough volume to make Brigid blame Eamon's genetics.
Niamh hugged Skye before leaving, which surprised both of them slightly, then hugged me without hesitation.
Eamon made me promise we'd meet again before I left Ireland, and this time I didn't answer with I'll try.
"I will."
He noticed. So did Niamh. Neither made anything of it.
Brigid was last out, mostly because getting her through the door required convincing her that Skye and I were capable of washing dishes without adult supervision.
Once the front door finally closed behind her, the silence felt different from every silence I remembered in the farmhouse, not empty but resting. Skye stood beside me in the hallway.
"Well."
"Never invite Brigid again."
"She'll come anyway."
"Aye."
"I like her."
"I know." Skye smiled. The scrape along her cheek had begun fading, though the bruising near her shoulder had darkened enough that I could see the edge above the neckline of her shirt. My expression must have changed. She noticed.
"Don't."
"I'm allowed to look."
"You're doing the medical stare."
"That's not a thing."
"It is with you." I stepped closer.
"Does it hurt?"
"Less."
"Truth?"
"Mostly." I touched her carefully below the bruise, nowhere near enough pressure to hurt.
"You scared the shit out of me." Her expression softened.
"I know."
"I don't want to make that your problem."
"It's allowed to be something we talk about." I looked at her. She rested one hand against my chest.
"There's a difference between feeling afraid and deciding I need to change my life so you never have to feel afraid again."
"Aye."
"Same for me." I covered her hand with mine. She looked toward the kitchen.
"Dinner was good."
"Brigid complained."
"Brigid would've complained if a Michelin chef appeared."
"True."
"I mean this." Her gaze moved around the hallway.
"The house." I understood.
"Aye."
"It felt lived in." The words went somewhere deep. I looked toward the staircase where old photographs remained beside shadows of people who had walked past them hundreds of times.
"I want more of that." Skye's gaze returned to mine.
"So do I." The answer changed the room. I tightened my fingers around hers.
"Come with me."
"Where?"
"Outside."
Her eyebrows lifted, but she followed. The rain had stopped completely, leaving the night cold and clear enough that stars appeared between thinning clouds.
We walked around the side of the farmhouse toward the low stone wall overlooking the fields, where moonlight silvered wet grass and the distant darkness suggested the coast beyond what we could actually see.
I leaned against the wall. Skye stood beside me.
"This where you bring all the women?"
"No."
"Good answer."
"You're the first woman I've brought here." Her teasing disappeared.
"Niamh?"
"Not like this. She came to the house. Everyone did. But this place..." I looked toward the fields. "Used to come out here when I wanted everyone to leave me alone." Skye smiled faintly.
"And now you brought me."
"Aye."
"Terrible strategy."
"Apparently."
The wind moved her hair across her face.
I tucked it behind her ear. For a moment I considered everything waiting after Ireland: her business, my club, Harrow, Vale, the Order, Scotland, America, and a farmhouse we had no practical reason to imagine sharing and yet somehow already discussed as though future arguments about bathrooms were inevitable.
"I don't want temporary." Skye went still. I forced myself not to look away.
"I don't know what shape this takes. I don't know whether it's flights every few weeks or months here and there or some ridiculous schedule Cipher eventually turns into a spreadsheet because he hates us." Her mouth moved. I kept going.
"But I don't want to leave Ireland and pretend this was something that happened because we were hunting the same people." Her eyes searched mine.
"I don't either."
"I can't promise easy."
"I don't want easy."
"I can't promise I'm going to stop worrying when you walk into buildings."
"You won't."
"I know."
"And I can't promise I'll stop walking into them."
"I know." That hurt enough to make her smile.
"But you'll ask for help." She nodded.
"And you'll tell me when you're scared instead of disguising it as orders." I grimaced.
"Working on it."
"Acceptable." I took her hand.
"I want you in my life, Skye. Not just while this investigation needs you. Not until one of us gets on a plane. Not because you're willing to rearrange everything around me." Something bright and vulnerable entered her expression.
"That's starting to sound suspiciously like commitment."
"Aye."
"Are you sure you understand the concept?"
"No." She laughed. I pulled her closer.
"I'm serious."
"So am I." Her hands settled against my jacket.
"I want you too. I want Edinburgh. I want Thistle & Stone. I want Isla to come back when she's ready. I want to build something in America if the work makes sense, not because I need an excuse to follow you around."
"Good."
"I want this house to become somewhere we come because we want to be here." My throat tightened.
"And I want you to stop treating geography like evidence that something can't work." I looked down at her.
"That seems aimed at me."
"It is."
"Fair." She smiled.
"Very evolved."
"You're ruining it again."
Her laughter softened when I touched her face.
This kiss didn't begin with fear, a rescue, a confession, or the sound of something collapsing around us.
It began beside an old stone wall after dinner with people who had known me before grief and a conversation about a future neither of us could map completely.
That made it more intimate than anything before.
Skye rose onto her toes, one hand sliding behind my neck while I drew her closer without touching the injured shoulder.
The kiss deepened slowly, warmth spreading through me despite the cold night air, until the distance between wanting her and choosing her felt nonexistent.
When we separated, her breathing had changed.
"So," she murmured.
"Aye?"
"Still planning to stand outside all night?" I smiled.
"Your shoulder."
"Is bruised, not detached."
"Skye."
"Callum." I stared at her. She deliberately used the other name. "Rory." That one landed exactly where she intended.
"You're manipulative."
"I prefer persuasive."