Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“So, you see,” I said to Rowan, “it started as an accident. He wasn’t supposed to be there.
Instead of murdering him, she gave in to her humanity and caregiving instincts and gave him a fighting chance.
She made it seem like it was in the hands of the gods, but really, it was her skill set that brought him back to life.
He would have croaked right there in that inlet had she not found him. ”
Rowan had been working all morning like a madman at the kitchen table—as he had done every morning since the whisky business got restarted and even madder so this morning with the Rembrandt missing—filling out distribution tables in his spreadsheet for Glentree Gold.
His shirt was his old RAF training shirt, well-worn gray and fitting tighter now over his musculature than it did back then.
I took a big slurp of the coffee I’d poured right after settling Rowan with his.
His was heavily laced with milk and sugar for sustenance.
Mine was giving me rocket fuel to boost my already jubilant morning.
I felt like the battle memory and the trauma of it had been lifted off my shoulders after working with Ethel, writing in the journal, and having my dreams transform into useful stories.
It was progress, and while I still had work to do—Ormr was still within me and the land was still inert—progress meant hope, and hope was intoxicating.
“The MacLaoch plaque up in the castle infers she was stolen away. Honestly, the way she took to Ormr—oh, look, I said his name without flinching!—tells me she wasn’t happy under the leadership of her father.
Her father was the chief, but as we all know, women were popular trading items in those days.
Her father seemed to be gaining power and wanted to keep it, so he arranged to have her wed a man with ties to the crown and land.
Ethel says Ormr and Orabilia do the humpity, which…
they must not have done it a ton because she never got pregnant from him. ”
“Mmm,” Rowan said, thinking of something, looking up from his laptop’s spreadsheets. “She would have known what herbs tae take to avoid pregnancy. Any chance he told ye where he got a coffin full of coins?”
“Oh, right! I did ask. But he didn’t answer.” I thought on it. “I wonder if I need to be clearer in my question or intent. I’m still new to all this.”
“Or it might be one of life’s mysteries.” Rowan refocused on his data and tossed my way, “Although, DNA.”
“DNA?”
“DNA test it. Maybe Peabody has an extra kit.”
“Ha! Peabody’s kits are for the living. The bones in the coffin would need an entirely different setup. What are you thinking?”
Rowan looked at me pointedly. “Yer kind does nothing by half measures, so I’ll bet my left nut the bones in there are a matched set to some of your DNA.”
“Like…” I didn’t like where this was going. “Peabody last year said they never had kids so… He killed a nephew or something as a gift to Laoch, so the Vikings lost power in the outer isles, and Laoch could be all-powerful or something?”
Rowan shook his head. “Nae, more like ‘here are things tha’ are valuable to me,’ like my child who didn’t make it…”
I choked on my own breath. “But you made a good point about Lady MacLaoch taking precautions to not get pregnant…” Then added, “We’ll check it against your DNA test too, then…”
His eyes opened a bit wider in surprise. “If it’s a close enough match?”
“Could Peabody be wrong?”
We held a whole conversation in our gaze. If Ethel was to be believed, a love match between Orabilia and my ancestral granddaddy was fated to never work. But they’d tried, maybe? If we tested the bones in the coffin and they matched us both…
“Shit,” Rowan mumbled under his breath.
“But why would he do that?”
“Obvious, isn’t it?”
“I’ve got four hundred theories swirling around right now—please tell me which one you’re referring to.”
“What better way to tell a man—the man who refuses to let his daughter marry ye—tha’ he’s already had all the benefits of marriage, a child too, and if it’s money you want, I’ll give you that too.
The wedding would have been an important ceremony, but the meat of uniting the two families was already done. ”
“What, like, in a way he was saying, ‘Give me your daughter; we’re doing this anyway, and you’re either with us or against us’? That’d mean she spent at a minimum—because their dresses hid a lot back then—the last trimester away from home…”
“Aye.”
“We know where your ancestor, Chief Laoch, fell with those two questions.”
“Definitely against.” Rowan tapped a few keys then thought of something and added. “I can’t imagine Lady MacLaoch approving the coffin with coins.”
“Right? Maybe she thought he was going to present her father with money. But Ormr couldn’t resist the dig at Laoch. The one that said, ‘I’ve already had your daughter—here’s the proof. What say you now?’”
“Or, more likely, the coins were separate and Laoch buried them together after beheading Ormr.”
“But before that, it’s ‘load up the ships, boys; there’s a murder I’m gonna have.’”
Rowan grinned at me. “Ye sound like you’re making a wee history documentary…after spending the afternoon getting pished.”
“What are you saying? People don’t serve up murder like a menu item?”
Rowan came over to me and put my mug aside on the kitchen counter before setting me up there next to it. My university tee just covered my bum. “Nae. Most just say they’re out for revenge, then oopsie-daisy, aye?”
“Back then?”
Rowan nodded, conceding. “Aye, back then, they likely had different societal qualms about murder.”
I agreed and then brought up the real issue. “So, she did bone him before it all went horribly wrong.”
“Until then, it went right for them,” he said, cradling my cheek in his hand and gently kissing my lips.
“Wed and sharing a bed every night. We just need to fulfill the fantasy your ancestral grandfather had. I will grow my hair out, stand at the prow of the dragon ship you build, and let the wind rush through it while heavy with your child.”
I wrapped my arms around his middle. “Speaking of heavy with child…”
He leaned back quickly. “Are you…?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I was just thinking we might want to talk about it, you and me and a wee one,” I said, using his term. I was suddenly shy talking about this very real and life-altering question. “Do I take my IUD out or keep it in?”
“Make a baby…you and I?”
“Maybe not right away, but later? What do you think?”
His mouth opened and shut like a gaping fish.
“Too soon?”
“What? No. I want that. It’s as if another one of my blue-sky dreams has found me and it’s taken my breath away. I want to be ready, to be a good father.”
I gave him a soft kiss. “Of course, no rush.”
“Until then, we can practice.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his middle, and inhaled his sweet scent into my lungs, “Uh-huh. I love practicing.”
“That way when we’re ready, we will know what to do.”
I smothered my smile against his, and our shared breath held our laughter.
“Let’s start right now.”
He bent, and with a toss, I was over his shoulder. My laughter bounced off the slate floors of the cottage as he walked with me into our bedroom and tossed me onto the bed. I was still laughing, wiping tears from my eyes as he shucked his pants then shirt.
He stepped between my legs. “Oh aye, there’s the hole. Step, one, aye?”
I gathered up my university tee and tossed it, “Yes, step one, locate the hole. Luckily,” I said teasing him, “I’m not a virgin—”
“Thank god I dunnae have to make the hole,” he said, playing along. “And there he is.” Rowan took his firm erection into his hand, the red sweating tip of it protruding from his fist.
“What’s next?” I asked, and slipping two fingers down below, I spread my soft lips, giving him a good look and a hint at what I thought should come next.
Rowan’s gaze followed my fingers, and his inhale told me he thought she was beautiful, the kind of beauty that squeezes the chest with smoldering desire.
He picked up my ankles and drove me deep into the pillows of our wide bed before following me in.
His mouth was on my inner thigh, breathing me in, then exhaled the heat of his breath over the apex of my thighs and my tight nest of copper curls.
His fingers replaced mine and with a tentative touch, his tongue tasted the pearl hub of my erotic center.
Him teasing my clit with the tip of his tongue made me groan and grip the comforter.
My knees fell wide, and Rowan slipped three fingers inside, deliciously stretching me to accommodate him.
Open like a clam shell to him. Rowan worked my pearl nub with his mouth and tongue, sucking and licking as his fingers thrusted into me.
He worked me hard, his hand slipping in the slick warmth of my excitement.
My hands found his head and gripped his hair as if I could ride the orgasm that was coming.
As it built through my body, I crooned in pleasure. Rowan stopped and with a last lick had the wherewithal to say, “I thought we were practicing babymaking.”
I didn’t understand what he was saying, my body thrumming with a near orgasm, and wanted his face, hands, cock, all on and in me at once.
“Get in me, right now.”
He crawled up. “Your wish”—he settled over me and notched into my opening—“is my command.” Then groaned with his own suppressed need before thrusting in.
His hard thrusts brought my orgasm bursting to life, and it shook me as Rowan lost himself in our tangle of limbs.
My arms gripped him to me as his hand grabbed my hip.
Braced on an elbow he pounded into me with his engorged, overexcited blood-red cock.
It stretched up to my cervix, and his pelvis smacked against my opening like an erotic, rhythmic clap until he was crying out.
My name echoed through the room as his abdominals constricted, making him crunch with a groan.
He emptied himself within me as his body shone with the outward sign of his sensual efforts.
His head rested against my temple, and we sealed our lovemaking with a kiss.
“Tha gaol agam ort.”
“I love you too.”
We spent the next hour enjoying the soft afterglow of our connection. I lay on top of him, my head rested on Rowan’s chest as my left hand lay in his palm. I tapped our rings, making a slight clinking sound. Warmth lightninged up my arm, startling Rowan’s gaze. “That’s new.”
“Magic,” I whispered then kissed him. “Oh, speaking of, at our last meeting, Ethel said that she thinks I’m ready to put the cairn knoll back to rights.
It’ll take quite a few people to accomplish it in one go.
I suggested doing it by myself, and she said it would take a year; I don’t have the energy source. ”
“Mmm,” he said and kissed my naked shoulder. “How many people? Tonight, while we have a moment?”
“Yes, and maybe all the battle clanspeople? That many?”
“Aye, that will help with the energy too. They were there for the original doing.”
“Exactly.” I was impressed with his intuition. “This comes naturally for you, doesn’t it?”
“What does?”
“Magic.”
“When ye grow up as I have, it’s second nature.”
“True.” I ran my hand through his wild hair, deliciously tousled by our romp. “Eli definitely needs to be there. Hopefully, I can unplug my brother from Charmaine for a bit to come; I think the balance of Minory and MacLaoch will add to the potency of what I want to accomplish.”
“Oh aye, Tee will be there; ye know he comes running when ye call.”
“I think I need some time to get used to this new part of him that is in love with a woman who tried to exorcise me like I’m some demon. I mean, real recently, as in, less than a month ago. It’s fresh.”
“I’ll keep Charmaine off the list, then?”
“If she’s bold enough to touch this metaphysical body again, she can go full in and hold my hand,” I said, holding up my free hand.
I heard the smile in Rowan’s voice. “She’ll likely have sudden business to attend to.”