Page 10 of A Land So Wide

She looked up, grinning. Heaps of feed bags and hay bales were stored in the upper loft.

He must have hidden away in their shadows, watching her progress.

Greer found the loft ladder and began climbing.

After hoisting herself onto the platform, she pulled the wooden frame up, too, which would stop Lachlan from following after.

Satisfied, she wiped her hands, surveying the shadows surrounding her.

Bales of straw were arranged in towering stacks, turning the loft into a miniature maze. She cocked her head, listening, but the only thing that caught her attention was Lachlan at the fire circle, chatting with friends.

“Where are you off to?” Greer thought it was Callum Cairn who spoke.

“Tired of wasting the night with you lot. I’ve already found my girl. Might as well go and claim her now. Who needs to wait for the Hunt?”

“Charming,” Greer muttered.

The boys hooted with delight. “Who? Who is it?”

“Mackenzie’s daughter.”

Noises of surprise and disgust followed, each a tiny twist in Greer’s heart.

“Greer?” Stephen McNaleigh asked. “She’s completely crazy! My old man said she’s got the Devil himself whispering his secrets to her.”

“So? She’s Mackenzie’s only child,” Lachlan explained. “She’ll inherit everything he’s got. The farm. The mill. All that money.”

Stephen clucked uncertainly. “You’d still have to marry that mad bitch to get at it. I’ll take someone like Rose McTaven any day. All I want is a pretty girl to come home to and to come all over.”

The boys fell into fits of wild laughter that reminded Greer of the harbor when the white-coat seals were in rutting season. Their coarse antics spurred her to action.

The hatch to the roof was open, filtering moonlight through the square and reminding Greer of Ailie’s quilts, stitched together with constellations and stardust.

Greer shimmied up, her boots scrambling to find purchase on the thin rungs. They were nothing but slats of wood nailed to the wall, and for one moment she feared she’d miss a step and come crashing down, alerting Lachlan to her exact location.

But her balance held, and she was soon outside.

The hidden platform was a long stretch of boards, just two meters wide, jutting from the steep angle of the roof. Ellis had laid out a fur and blankets, creating a nest cozy enough to ward off the night’s chill.

“You know, when we were building this barn, I couldn’t understand why Roibart insisted on leveling out a section of the pitch,” he called out in greeting. Moonlight limned him in blue, highlighting the lines of his face and hair. “But this is splendid.”

“It is.” She squinted over the edge, judging whether Lachlan might be able to catch a glimpse of them. “Do you think anyone can see us up here?”

“Not unless they’re all the way at the Andersans’ house. Angle’s too steep. Tree line’s too close. It’s the perfect place to hide away.” Ellis patted at the spot beside him and nodded toward a brown jug.

“You brought provisions,” she noticed approvingly.

“Swiped a few of Widow Sturgette’s crowberry tarts, too,” Ellis said, gesturing to a nearby basket. “If we’re going to squirrel away and watch the stars, we ought to feast like kings.”

“I doubt even kings have a view like this,” she said, joining him.

She pulled a quilt over her shoulders and took a long swig of the cider.

It filled her with a pleasant heat, and she bumped her shoulder against Ellis’s with familiar affection.

“You can see all the way to the Narrows from here,” she admired, snuggling against him.

“When we have a barn of our own, we should make a hidden spot just like this, just for us. It’s beautiful. ”

“You’re beautiful,” he confided, running his fingers thoughtfully across the swell of her cheek.

“You always are, but tonight…” He hummed his appreciation, and there was a look in his eyes that sparked something in the air, sending an electric charge down her sternum.

He touched her crown of braids, toying with the sprigs of late-blooming yarrow blossoms she’d woven in. “I like your flowers.”

She was inordinately pleased he’d noticed.

“I like you,” Greer said, echoing his darkening tone before pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I like you, and I very much like this.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to join the festivities?” he teased, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close for another kiss; their lips met for a moment, and another, and another.

“I am saying exactly that, yes,” she murmured. She dared a final peek toward the bonfire below. It seemed impossible they wouldn’t be caught. In a town as small as Mistaken, eyes were always somewhere, watching, judging. “You’re certain no one can see us?”

His laughter was low and rich and so wonderfully warm. “Very. Why? Is there something you want to do up here that you wouldn’t want anyone else to see?”

In response, Greer drew her hand across his chest, flicking aside one of his suspenders with a wicked gleam.

Ellis laughed again. “I have no objections to that, truly, but I do want to show you something first.” He rolled over to rustle through the basket.

Feeling cold without him, Greer shifted, leaning against the curve of his spine. Her chin fit perfectly into the crook of his shoulder, and she dared to take a quick nibble of his earlobe, knowing it drove him wild.

“Save those thoughts for later,” Ellis said, and, with a triumphant flourish, he handed her a folded sheet of parchment. “Here.”

“A map!” Greer exclaimed, spreading open the paper. She squinted at the lines in the dark, just able to make out a series of mountains, the dots of towns, the bend of a river unfurling over their laps. “But of what?”

“That’s Mistaken,” he said, pointing to the bottom corner, near her hip. “And that…” He ran his fingertips over the rest of the sheet. “All of that is the land to the north of us.”

“North,” Greer echoed distantly, her eyes round as she took in the information.

Beyond Mistaken’s cove—no bigger than an inch on this rendering and unlabeled, unimportant—was an entire landscape of lines wholly unfamiliar.

The seacoast, only ever glimpsed from the top of the Narrows in the very best of weather, spanned the full height of the parchment, impossibly long and full of bays completely unknown to her.

Mountains she’d never seen raised to astounding heights.

Greer had never beheld anything so wondrous.

“Where did you get this?” she demanded, leaning over to follow an alien river that cut through the land. It didn’t look very remote—only a day or two’s travel at the most—but, so far from the Warding Stones, it was a journey she could never hope to take.

“Bought it off the captain today when he came to see Tywynn. I thought you would like it.”

“I do,” she said in a rush. “I love it. I…” Greer looked up, meeting his gaze, and her eyes filled with unexplained tears. “I love you.”

“I love you,” he echoed, and kissed her again.

“This is incredible,” she said, turning back to the rendering.

Her heart ached as she studied its lines. Greer knew there were so many things in the world she would never be able to see, but to have such tangible proof of them in front of her gave a unique kind of pain.

She wanted to explore every inch of the map, to experience it all in actual scale, to see the light falling over the impossible mountain ranges, to hear the babbling of the river, to feel the mist off the white rapids.

A ribbon of wanderlust unspooled within her, tying its knots around her limbs as if she was a marionette.

Her feet itched to go, go now, go and leave, go and learn.

“Can you believe the world is so big?” Greer asked. “That it goes on so far? And farther still, really. This is just where the paper ends.” With a touch of reverence, she set the map aside, unable to take in any more.

“It is a wonder,” Ellis admitted.

“Do you remember that time we went out to the Narrows?” Greer asked, and a sudden flurry of goose bumps raced over her. She rearranged the quilt so that it spanned across both of them. “When we climbed to the top of the cliff?”

Ellis nodded, shifted, and brought his arm around her, drawing her close. “The Great Bay was so much bigger than I ever imagined it would be.”

She nestled against him. “Remember there was that ship out on the coast? It had so many sails on it. And we thought it was going to come into the bay with supplies.”

“It was the biggest one I’d ever seen,” Ellis said, leaning back against the incline of the roof.

Greer followed, laying her head on the broad plain of his chest. She listened to his heartbeat, lost in the memories of that day.

Staring out at the world beyond the Narrows had been like discovering a long-locked door left open.

Her imagination had run wild, making her dizzy as she tried to envision what wonders were out there, waiting to be found.

“But it didn’t,” she went on, sadness creeping in. “The ship. It just…went by. It was as if it didn’t even know we were here.” Her gaze fell back onto the map’s corner uneasily. Her entire world, everything she’d ever seen, was rendered there in minute detail. In just one tiny square.

“Two kids perched on a cliff is hardly cause for a clipper to stop,” Ellis allowed.

“Not us,” Greer clarified, her hand falling on him. “ Us. The town. Mistaken.” She swallowed. “There’s a whole giant world out there, and we’re not a part of it. Ships sail by every season with places to go and lives to lead, and we’re just here.”

Ellis studied her. “Well…yes.”

“Doesn’t that ever make you sad?”

He frowned, considering. “Not exactly. It’s fun to imagine what that world might be like, but…I don’t need to know. Not really. Everything I need, everything I want, is right here.”

“In Mistaken?” Greer asked dubiously.

He let out a snort of laughter. “On this roof. You, Greer Mackenzie, with all your wild wonderings and yearnings, are all I want. You’re all the world I need.

” Ellis pressed his lips into her braids.

“And every day I think how lucky I am that, of all the places in the world that you could be”—his breath was hot in the curve of her ear—“you’re here, with me. ”

Greer wanted to give in to his kisses, wanted to sink into the heated bliss of his embrace, but the vast expanse of the map still poked at her, a splinter snagging her attention. “Does it bother you that I do? Wonder? About”—she waved her hand toward the Great Bay—“all that?”

Ellis cupped her face between his hands, pressing more kisses to her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose.

“Not at all. I fell in love with all of you.” He brushed his mouth across her cheek.

“Your traces of stars.” He brought her hands up to his lips.

“Your ink-stained fingers.” He nuzzled at her temple.

“All those giant thoughts caught up in that extraordinary mind of yours.” He traced down her frame, squeezing at her arms. “You.”

Greer tipped her face to his so their mouths met, catching against each other’s. He tasted bright and crisp, the first bite of a polished green apple.

The kiss deepened and Ellis grasped her arms, trailed his fingers along the curve of her back, exploring every inch of her as if she were a map to be studied and learned.

“Ellis.”

His name hissed from her like a whispered prayer, an oath. Desire flushed deep as Ellis’s hands ran over her breasts, palming the curves, before moving to her hips, her thighs. She tugged him on top of her, welcoming his weight. She was pinned and could scarcely draw breath, and it was glorious.

His grip tightened, and she felt his hard length against her. She shifted, letting Ellis’s hands roam beneath her layers of skirts, running their way up her legs. He tickled at a spot behind her knees, and her laughter was hushed and breathless. “Stop!” she giggled.

“Stop?” he repeated with innocent amusement, drawing his hands back. Their absence sent a chill across her skin; it prickled her breasts and set her teeth on edge.

“No, don’t stop.” Greer covered his hands with hers and brought them back across her thighs. “Here.”

His grin deepened, dimples winking wickedly. “Don’t stop here?” Ellis reached higher, lingering at the top of her woolen stockings. “Or here?” He toyed with the knitted edge, teasing the pad of his thumb against her bare skin. “Or here?” He dared to go higher.

“Definitely there,” she whispered, holding back the cry that wanted to tear itself free as he found her center. Nestled away in their heated cocoon, it would be all too easy to forget where they were. All too easy to let out a hungry moan and draw the attention of everyone below them.

Ellis crushed his lips against hers, catching every whimper, stifling each cry.

Greer slid her hands down his chest to tug at the waistband of his trousers. “I need more, I need you,” she murmured, echoing his earlier sentiment. “All of you.”

As her fingers ran along his length, he released a soft groan that she felt all the way down her middle. She brought her legs up, catching him and curling round his waist.

“Greer, I—”

A scream ripped through the night.

It was loud and long, its pitch ugly as a gut punch, and Greer clasped her hands over her ears as it tore into her mind. They fell apart. The night air washed over them as quickly as an icy wave, dowsing their desire.

In the yard below, the barn warming’s merriment hushed with concern.

“Just a fox,” Ellis said. His words were meant to be a reassurance, but his eyes flickered with uncertainty.

The cry came again, a jagged ringing off the trees and boulders. Greer fancied she could hear it racing over the water to echo against the cliffs of the Narrows.

She shook her head. “That’s not a fox.”

Again and again the scream came, breaking up into a maddening cadence that drove into Greer’s skull like a hammered nail. The surrounding forest fell silent as its nocturnal denizens paused, attuned to the anguish playing out on the far side of Mistaken.

“Help! Help!” came the voice, clearer now, carried on the night breeze. “For God’s sake, someone help us!”