Chapter 28 #2
“No,” he said, eyes catching hers with startling honesty. “That I need you.”
Fiona’s breath hitched.
He went on, voice barely above the rain:
“I’ve needed plenty of things in my life. A blade. A roof. A horse that wouldnae kill me. But needin’ a person…” He shook his head. “That’s how men die.”
“So you don’t need me?” she asked, chin lifting.
He closed the gap between them in a single, quiet step. Not fierce, not rough—just present. Real. The kind of closeness that undid her more than the wall or the table or the bed downstairs ever had.
“Fiona.” Her name left his lips like an oath. “I needed you long before I ever admitted it. That’s the problem.”
Her heart fluttered. “You think it’s weakness.”
“Aye,” he whispered. “And I dinnae have much left to spare.”
She touched his hand and something in him flinched, not from fear, but from recognition.
“You carried treasonous gold under your arse for months,” Fiona murmured. “But somehow I’m the dangerous thing?”
His laugh came out hoarse. “Dangerous doesn’t begin tae cover it.”
They stood in the soft lantern glow, a hair’s breadth apart.
She reached up, her hand grazing his cheek. “Are you regrettin’ last night?”
His eyes closed—just briefly. “No. God help me, no.”
“Regrettin’ the Prince’s order?”
“Aye,” he said. “Only because now, I dinnae think I could bear the sacrifice yer makin’ takin’ me as yer husband.”
She smiled slowly. “You weren’t doin’ a great job o’ that before.”
He huffed a breath—half laugh, half surrender.
Fiona slid her fingertips along his jaw, lifting his face enough that he had to look at her, really look.
“You’re not alone anymore, Harris Mackenzie,” she said. “So stop pretendin’ you were ever good at it.”
His throat bobbed.
Then, quietly—
“I’m afraid.”
The words hit her like a blow.
Not because she hadn’t known.
But because Harris Mackenzie was not a man who admitted fear.
Not to anyone.
She cupped his cheek. “Of me?”
“Aye,” he breathed. “And of livin’ long enough for you tae break my damn heart.”
Fiona’s chest ached.
She stepped closer until her forehead touched his; warmer now, softened by what they’d survived and what they hadn’t said.
“Then don’t give me reason,” she whispered.
When they finally settled onto the narrow loft bed, the rain whispering against the roof, Fiona realized Harris wasn’t lying back yet.
He sat at the edge, fingers combing through the wet curls that brushed his collarbone, dark ringlets heavy with rain and tension.
Fiona nudged his shoulder. “You look like a tangled sheepdog.”
He gave her a weary, lopsided smile. “Flora says if I dinnae cut it soon, it’ll give us away. Folk on the island ken my face well enough, but they ken my hair better.”
“Aye,” she teased, “your precious curls. Saints forbid we lose them.”
He held out a small knife: clean, well-kept, the blade catching the lantern glow.
“Would ye…?”
He cleared his throat.
Fiona blinked.
Cutting a Highlander’s hair wasn’t a task for just anyone. Not in the world they came from. Warriors let lovers or kin do it. People they trusted with their throats bared.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
Harris turned, exposing the nape of his neck, bending his head in a subtle bow that made her breath catch.
“I’ve trusted you with worse,” he murmured.
Her fingers trembled as she took the blade.
Fiona slid onto her knees behind him, gathering a thick lock between her fingers. The curl coiled warmly against her palm, soft in a way nothing about him ever was.
“Hold still.”
“Aye.”
The first cut was quick, clean.
A curl fell against his shoulder, then drifted onto the quilt.
Harris inhaled sharply. Not from pain, but something else.
Something deeper.
Fiona stilled. “Did I pull?”
“No.” His voice was low, rough-edged. “Just… go on.”
She worked slowly, cutting the curls shorter so they brushed the nape of his neck instead of falling wild down his collar. Her fingertips grazed his skin now and again—hot, intimate, unbearably tender.
Harris swallowed each time, Adam’s apple bobbing like he was fighting something rising inside him.
“You’ve done this before?” he asked, trying for casual.
“No,” she murmured truthfully. “But I wanted to learn.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “Of course ye did.”
She shaped the sides, evened the weight of his curls, brushed loose strands from the curve of his ear. Her thumb lingered a heartbeat too long.
He stilled.
“Fiona…”
Her name buckled in him, like the start of a confession.
“Hush,” she whispered, steadying her hand even as her pulse thundered. “I’m concentratin’.”
He obeyed.
By the time she finished, Harris looked different.
Sharpened.
Less fugitive… more man.
She set the blade down gently. “There.”
He turned to face her, a dark curl falling slightly across his brow despite her efforts. His eyes warmed, softened, darkened.
“Ye did it well,” he said. “Better than I deserve.”
She brushed the stray curl off his forehead. “I’ll keep it short for ye. As long as ye need.”
His breath caught.
No kiss followed. No rush, no wildfire.
Just a moment so thick with unspoken vow the air trembled.
Harris reached out, taking her wrist with a care that felt like reverence.
“Fiona,” he said softly, “dinnae go makin’ promises unless ye mean tae keep them.”
She met his gaze head-on.
“I do.”
The lantern guttered.
The rain softened.
And Harris Mackenzie—who had carried gold across half of Scotland without breaking—closed his eyes, bowed his head, and let the weight of her words settle into the one place he still protected:
His heart.
Her lips brushed his. Gentle. Barely-there. Nothing like the wildfire from before.
It was worse. More dangerous.
Tenderness always was.
“You drive me mad,” he murmured against her mouth.
“Good,” she whispered, kissing him back just as lightly. “I’d hate to suffer alone.”
He laughed then, a quiet and shaky sound, and rested his forehead against her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around his back, feeling every slow breath he took as if it were threaded through her own ribs.
For a long time they just stood like that: two rebels in hiding, two fugitives bound by gold and lies and something far more terrifying:
Choice.
Intention.
Future.
Finally, Harris shifted, brushing his thumb along her lower lip. “Sleep, lass. We’ve a long road tomorrow,” he murmured.
She nodded, letting him guide her to the bed. When they lay down, he didn’t reach for her.
No, she did.
Curling against his chest, burying her fingers in the fabric of his shirt, like he was the only warm thing in the whole storm-washed island.
Harris hesitated only a moment.
Then his arm came around her waist; careful, steady, and utterly irrevocable.
“Fiona,” he whispered into her hair, the truth pulling itself out of him in the dark, “I dinnae ken how to not want you.”
She smiled into his chest.
“Then don’t.”