Scot On the Moors #7
How was she supposed to leave him this morning?
How was she supposed to photograph the abbey and pretend that her heart had not been wrenched out of her chest for the second time by the same man?
It didn’t seem possible for them to be parted.
As if the laws of physics would not allow such a separation to occur.
Stretching, and finding several muscle groups protesting, she wished something untoward had occurred last night.
It would have made such physical discomfort far more reasonable than a cot that smelled like an unmucked barn.
The dream she’d had whispered in her mind.
The man, the woman, the brooch, the moon, the moors.
All she could recollect were flashes of images and profound feelings of rightness.
As if a pot had finally found its errant lid.
The feeling was pleasant, contented, and she couldn’t remember the last time she woke so rested while still so sore.
She rose and headed to the door, needing to find a privy, or what she suspected was more likely—a private copse of trees. The empty kettle and bowl were beside the door, waiting to be washed out at the well. She grabbed those, too.
As she stepped outside, Callum strode purposefully through the trees towards her, his cheeks ruddy from wind, his hair wild and tousled.
She could already smell that cold wind that seemed to be a part of him.
He looked up, his bright-blue eyes piercing her, lacking the distance he’d kept between them.
“You’re awake,” he observed. She couldn’t find her voice, watching him stride towards her, his health and vigor making him positively glow.
He was magnificent, and her heart turned over.
Overnight he had changed. Gone was the roughened, put-upon demeanor.
His gait was softer, his shoulders relaxed, and he seemed open and free in a way that he’d been when they were younger.
The man she’d fallen in love with. Or rather, the boy he’d been.
They’d thought they were grown then, their minds on independence and each other. How the years had changed them.
When he came close enough, he took the kettle and bowl from her. “I’ll take care of these.”
The objects seemed to disappear from her grasp without her handing them off.
Absently, she wondered if her mouth was hanging open.
It was like the intervening years had sloughed off of him in some ways.
He was still the broad man with roughened hands, a man over thirty, not a boy shy of twenty. She shook off her daze.
“Where did you go?”
He ducked his head, as if suddenly shy. “I left the carriage at the inn. With the horses, of course. I wanted to leave it before everyone was awake.”
She paused, letting the words take shape into meaning. Sleep had not entirely left her yet, though the early morning sun was helping. “With my trunks?”
“Pardon?”
“My trunks. Did you unload them, or are they still on the carriage?” She didn’t care about her clothes, those were replaceable. But her camera. Her blank plates. All of her supplies. Those were not easily come by, and quite expensive. She needed them.
Callum at least had the good sense to look embarrassed. “I left the trunks on the carriage. I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind concocting a story as to what happened? And if not, at least wait a few hours to let me get back to Scotland first?”
A flush crept over her entire body. She had not thought about the after. The time when he left and she did what she came here to do. What happened when he disappeared from her life all over again. “Where will you go?”
He swallowed hard, and she watched his throat muscles move, realizing that in his disarray from several miles of walking, his neck cloth had come undone. “Back home, I reckon.”
“Reckon?”
“I’ve family that have emigrated to the States.
There’s not much left to the Highlands. Most have moved to Glasgow or left the country completely.
The Highlands are practically empty now.
It’s worse than even when ye and yer da came.
” He looked down at his feet, a silent prayer for a civilization that disappeared.
“I’ve thought of going to the States after I deliver the brooch back home.
” They stared at one another. She was utterly lost in him.
Everything about him pulled her towards him, the weight of his presence impossible for her to ignore.
Birds chattered in the trees behind them.
The sun warmed a few degrees on her skin.
The day emerged bright and full, presenting her with lists of tasks and responsibilities.
Time was finite. Day was finite. The Highlands had been finite.
Her stay in England was finite. Her father’s good days were finite.
The tick of the clock was not anyone’s friend.
“What would make you move to the States?” she asked, hoping for an answer that she could live with. The kind where she saw herself as the center. She wished she could reach up and grasp the sun in her hand and squeeze. Exert control over that incessant pace. Give them room to breathe.
His jaw flexed, and she steeled herself for disappointment.
The kind that she’d always felt—that she was a good helper, but not a helpmeet.
She was pretty, but not wife material. That their love had been young and fleeting, but not the stuff of an entire life.
She wanted to tell him that there was not a second left to waste.
“If someone asked me to go there, I would go.”
“Someone?” she asked, a spark of hope flaring.
“Ginny,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I dinna know how the years have been for ye, but for me—” He broke off, his face flushing.
“There is no one waiting for me at home,” she said. “Except my father. I care for him, and he cannot be long without me. But we’ve a large home. A home that could easily see another family grow within it.”
She could not say for certain that understanding dawned in his blue, blue eyes, but it seemed perhaps that it had.
“I’ve not loved another since ye left, Ginny.
” Callum searched her face. His walls were fully down, his raw heart open for her to examine.
“Everything I’ve done since the day ye left the Highlands has led me here, to this moment.
I needed the brooch to prove to myself, to my clan, that I am a good man, descended from good men, and the only thing that might besmirch us is the gossip and lies of others.
I need to deliver this to my family so they might sell it or auction it, and have enough to live on without me.
And then, then, my beloved, I want to be with ye wherever the world takes ye.
I have lain awake each night, wondering if ye thought of me the way I thought of ye. The way I needed ye.”
He flung the kettle away, and it landed in the shrubs with a heavy thud, to much scuttering from insects and animals. Virginia laughed at the squawks, and Callum’s face lost its seriousness and he grinned like the boy he’d been.
“Very gallant,” Virginia said.
“I’m exceptionally debonair.” He searched her eyes. “Tell me I may hope. Tell me there’s a future.”
She took his hands, cold as ice from his morning outside. “There is nothing more that I want than for you to come to me in America. I have my responsibilities—my father, my photography, but there is ample room for you. For love. For us.”
“Is there? Your life sounds full already.” His brows drew together, and the lines that were already beginning to etch into his face were apparent. Someday, his brow would appear creased like this all day. And she would cherish that day, for it meant that they would get years and years together.
“I will always make room for you. And I hope you can find a life with me. It’s been years. But I’ve not met another man that could compare to you. Not one.”
“May I kiss ye, Ginny? See if we remember how?” His head already tilted towards hers, and as soon as she murmured her assent, his cool lips touched hers.
The tip of his nose was cold on her cheek, but all the romance that she’d remembered swirled about her.
Her stomach fluttered and her legs felt heavy.
She deepened the kiss, stepping closer into him, finding warmth burrowing into his larger frame. Desire—older, more knowledgeable now—ignited like a forest fire. Her heart sped up, craving, wanting, clear and insistent about next steps.
It was Callum who stepped away, his breath coming in short pants. “That doesn’t seem to have cooled.”
She touched her swollen lips, laughing. “No, I think we picked up right where we left off.”