Chapter 11
Heather—Present Day
H eather hadn’t left her room in days.
The curtains stayed drawn, Glenoran’s dim morning light cut down to a gray hush. Byrdie curled tight against her ribs, warm and loyal as if she knew Heather was barely holding herself together.
When Heather’s phone buzzed against the mattress, she almost let it ring out.
But then she saw the name.
Mark.
Her fingers shook as she answered.
“Well if it isn’t Anne Shirley herself!?” Mark’s voice barreled through the line, bright and sharp as ever. “You alive, or did the Highlands chew you up and spit you into a peat bog?”
A laugh burst from her throat.
“Marky.” Her voice wobbled. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“I’ll say. You vanish off to Scotland and all I get are cryptic texts about castles and rain—the occasional romantic details… snippets of life on Instagram, I’m starting to think you’re ditching me.”
Heather snorted. “Close. But no.”
A pause.
“You sound… off,” Mark said quietly. “What’s going on?”
Heather’s chest tightened. She latched onto the safer wound first. “Have you heard from Ivy?”
Mark exhaled in that there it is way. “Yeah. She moved back to Chicago with Sam in tow. It’s messy, Heth. Really messy. I cut ties after what she did to you—I couldn’t keep rescuing her from her own matches while she played with kerosene.”
Heather swallowed hard. “Yeah. That sounds… right.”
Silence stretched. Not heavy, just waiting.
Mark’s voice gentled. “Okay. You asked about Ivy. Your turn now. What happened?”
Heather stared at the dark corner of her room. And then the dam broke.
Everything spilled out.
The attic.
The book.
The flag.
Culloden.
Loch Arkaig.
Her mother.
How the truth felt like a punch she never saw coming.
She spoke until her voice cracked. Until she couldn’t breathe without shaking.
Mark didn’t interrupt. Only released a soft inhale every now and then, like he was bracing himself for her.
When she finally stopped, small and hollow, he spoke.
And his voice was nothing like before.
No brightness.
No theatrics.
Just quiet heartbreak.
“Oh, Heather,” he whispered. “Honey. I’m so sorry.”
Her lip trembled, a sob threatening to break free. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”
“I’m not sorry for you,” Mark corrected gently. “I’m sorry with you. That’s different. You were lied to about the most important person in your life. You found out in the cruelest possible way. And then you stood on the very shore where she died.”
A beat passed.
“That’s not something a human being just… shrugs off.”
Tears burned. She pressed her palm to her eyes.
To stop herself from sobbing, to stop him from hearing it—she blurted the next shield she could grab:
“And to make matters worse… I pulled a Heather .”
Mark sighed knowingly. “Oh no. What kind of Heather? Classic Heather? Runner Heather? Or my personal favorite, push-kindness-away-like-it’s-on-fire Heather?”
She made a strangled noise. “The… last one.”
“What did you do?”
She swallowed, shame thick in her throat. “After Dr. Henderson told me about my mom… I shoved Flynn away. I told him I was done. That I wanted to go home. I—” Her voice cracked. “I couldn’t breathe, Mark.”
“And what did Flynn do?”
“He… stayed.” Fresh tears slipped down her cheeks. “He just stayed . He didn’t argue. Didn’t try to fix it. He held my hair while I puked in a parking lot.”
Mark was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice had dropped into a softness she only heard once or twice a year.
“Heth… listen to me. You were drowning. And sometimes drowning people hit the only hand reaching for them. It doesn’t make you cruel.”
A small pause.
“It makes you human.”
Heather blinked hard, her breath shaking.
Mark exhaled softly, then—because he knew her—lightened the moment by a single shade, just enough to keep her from collapsing. “Plus, let’s be honest… You pushing a man away just makes him more obsessed with you. You’re powerful like that.”
A weak laugh sputtered out. “Shut up.”
“Absolutely not.” A beat. “But seriously, has he called? Checked in?”
Heather wiped her eyes on the sleeve of the sweatshirt she’d been wearing for three days. “He left space. But he’s been texting. Bringing groceries to the door. Starting the fire downstairs so the house wouldn’t be cold if I came out. Little things.”
Mark’s voice warmed. “Sounds like someone who loves you.”
Heather froze.
Her heart jumped so hard she felt it in her teeth.
“…He told me that,” she whispered.
“Told you what?”
“Flynn,” she breathed. “He told me he loves me.”
Silence.
Then—
A scream so loud she had to pull the phone away from her ear.
“HEATHER MACKENZIE CAMPBELL—YOU MINX! I KNEW IT! I KNEW THE CONTRACTOR WASN’T JUST FIXING YOUR ROOF, HE WAS FIXING YOUR FREAKING HEART!”
Heather buried her face in her hands, laughing through her tears. “MARK.”
“NO. LET ME HAVE THIS. I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS LIKE IT’S THE NEXT OUTLANDER SEASON.”
Heather groaned. “Please stop.”
“Never! I need details. Did he say it with his whole chest? Was his shirt off? Did his accent get thicker? I bet it got thicker.”
She laughed helplessly. “You’re something else.”
“And yet? You love me.”
“Unfortunately.”
Mark sucked in a breath. Then, gently—quietly—
“Do you love him?”
Heather stared at the ceiling, tears slipping sideways into her hair.
She didn’t dodge.
She didn’t deflect.
She didn’t swallow it down.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Then stronger—“Yes, I love him.”
“Good.” His voice softened again, gentle but firm. “Then start there. One step at a time. And when you can’t stand up anymore, call me. I’ll hold you up.”
Heather closed her eyes, tears spilling fresh, but this time they felt different. Not just grief—something steadier.
Something like hope.
Heather finally dragged herself from bed, her body stiff from days of sleeping in one tight, protective curl. The shower scalded away the heaviness clinging to her skin—steam coating the mirror, water beating hot against her shoulders until she finally felt something like herself beneath the ache.
She wrapped her hair in a towel turban, letting it drip slow warmth down her back, and reached for the blush cashmere robe draped over the vanity chair.
She’d bought it in Millhaven on a whim: a small, defiant act of wanting softness after years of bracing herself.
A part of her had never felt worthy of it then.
Now, as she slid her arms into the sleeves, the robe settled around her like a reminder:
I’m still here.
And I deserve gentleness.
Bare feet padding across Glenoran’s floors, Heather felt the house exhale around her.
The halls were quiet, dust motes drifting lazily in the slanted evening light.
Byrdie trotted at her heels, her bell-like mew cutting through the hush, keeping her company, as if she’d appointed herself emotional support cat for the day.
Heather ran her fingertips along the wainscoting as she passed, the wood warm under her palm. Glenoran felt… different. Not magically healed, not suddenly light, but something in the air had shifted since her phone call with Mark.
Less suffocating.
More watchful than grieving.
Like the house was still cracked from the weight of its past, but was willing to hold her anyway.
In the kitchen, Heather stirred a pot of tomato soup. She sliced bread, arranged cheese, and fought the strange tightness in her chest every time the spoon clinked against the pot.
Her mom had loved tomato soup.
They’d eaten it on rainy Sundays, two bowls steaming between them at their old laminate table.
Heather inhaled deeply. For the first time since Loch Arkaig, her stomach didn’t twist, it growled. A tiny victory.
Dusk stretched across the windows, bruised purple and Highland gray, when a knock sounded at the door.
Heather froze, ladle suspended mid-air.
The knock came again.
Lower this time.
Deliberate.
Byrdie perked up, ears tilting forward, tail flicking at attention. As if she, too, recognized the footsteps on the other side.
Heather wiped her palms down the front of her robe, pulling the sash tighter. Her pulse kicked hard, a frantic flutter behind her ribs. She crossed the kitchen, then the hall, each step echoing louder in the stillness.
When she opened the door—
Flynn stood there.
Rain in his hair.
Jacket damp at the shoulders.
Eyes clear and steady and unbearably familiar.
His gaze flicked over her—towel, robe, flushed cheeks—and something unreadable passed through his eyes. Not lust. Not pity.
Recognition.
Worry.
All tangled together.
“You look…” His voice caught, roughened. He cleared his throat, trying again. “You look like you’ve been hidin’ from me.”
Heather lifted her chin defiantly. “Maybe I have.”
She internally cringed.
What the fuck was that, Heather?
Byrdie wound around her ankles, purring at Flynn like he was the best thing that had happened all week.
Traitor.
Silence stretched between them.
Heather gripped the doorframe.
Flynn’s jaw clenched, rain dripping from his hair onto the old stone step.
“I came back,” he said quietly, “because I’m not lettin’ you shut me out, Heather Campbell.”
Her throat bobbed.
“Not after what you heard,” he continued. “Not after what you’ve carried alone for all these years. You don’t get to face this by yourself anymore.”
Her vision blurred. The robe felt suddenly too soft, the air too warm, his presence too steady.
“You don’t understand.” she whispered.
Flynn stepped closer.
A wall.
A dock.
Somewhere safe to land.
“Then make me,” he said, voice cracking just enough to undo her. “Because I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
Heather’s pulse thundered so loudly she wasn’t sure if the house could hear it too. Glenoran seemed to lean in around them, the air holding its breath.
She swallowed hard. “Flynn… I don’t know if I can—”
“You don’t have to know.” He shook his head, rain slipping down his temple. “You just have to let me in.”
Her eyes flicked to his, seeing the earnestness, the steadiness, the fear that she might run again. Byrdie butted her head against Heather’s calf, purring louder, as if encouraging her to move.
Heather stepped aside.
Just a few inches.
But enough.
Flynn didn’t smile. Didn’t rush in. Didn’t exhale in triumph.
He simply nodded once and crossed the threshold.
Glenoran breathed again.