Page 61 of A Memory Not Mine (Sanguis Amantium #1)
Chapter fifty-six
Baird
A s Baird guided the thirty-seven-foot sailboat out of the marina, his hands were sure on the wheel, movements measured and precise.
The early morning light cast a golden shimmer over the water, and the air was thick with the scent of salt and seaweed.
He kept a slow, steady course, steering with the patience of someone who understood the rhythms of the harbor—the tide, the currents, the dance of vessels coming and going.
He nodded to a passing skipper on a fishing boat returning from a long night offshore and gave them a wide berth, letting their wake roll past harmlessly beneath the hull.
Once they cleared the last of the buoys and the harbor fell behind them, he brought the bow head-to-wind.
The mainsail went up first, lines taut and snapping, the canvas billowing briefly before catching.
Then the headsail unfurled, crisp and white against the pale blue sky.
He reached down and cut the engine, the hum falling away to leave only the sound of water against the hull and the gentle creak of the rigging.
Sailing was second nature to Baird. It steadied him, gave him a sense of control and quiet power all at once.
And more than anything, he wanted Mira to see him like this—in his element, as the man he used to be .
The boat heeled softly as the wind filled the sails, and Baird adjusted his course, easing them into a clean tack. The bow sliced through the swells, steady and true, the sea opening wide before them. Ahead lay nothing but open water and a distant horizon.
He stood at the helm, legs planted wide for balance, facing east as the first blush of sunrise painted the sky in soft pinks and golden light.
Cotton candy clouds stretched across the horizon, their edges glowing, and the sea mirrored it all in gentle ripples.
The wind tugged at his hair, the sails hummed with tension, and beneath his feet, the boat moved like a living thing—responsive, steady, free.
Baird loved it out here. Always had. There was a clarity on the water he couldn’t find anywhere else, a peace that came not from silence, but from a kind of honest motion.
And yet somehow, over the years, he’d let this part of his life slip away slowly.
Maybe because this had always brought him joy—and for so long, he’d convinced himself joy was something he didn’t deserve.
But this past week had cracked him open.
Mira had cracked him open.
The joy had come back, not as a whisper but as a roar, a desperate, exhilarating rush that had reminded him who he used to be—who he still was, underneath all the guilt and the grief.
He could feel it now, stirring like wind in the sails, impossible to ignore.
He’d been empty too long. And now that he knew what fullness felt like again, he couldn’t bear to go back.
Mira stood with her back to the sunrise, its golden light turning the tips of her dark hair to fire.
She wasn’t watching the dawn—she was watching him.
Her arms were folded loosely across her chest, her body swaying gently with the motion of the boat, and her gaze stayed fixed on Baird at the helm.
There was a smile on her lips, soft and steady, and it reached her eyes in a way that told him something had shifted.
She was seeing a part of him she hadn’t seen before.
And that scared him just a little.
Not because he had anything left to hide, but because he knew Mira’s mind—sharp, relentless, always reaching for the deeper layers.
She questioned everything, doubting before she dared to trust. It was part of her nature.
He loved that about her, even when it unsettled him.
But standing there, feeling her eyes on him, he couldn’t help but wonder if her thoughts had drifted to all she didn’t yet know about him.
She had a way of taking the unknown and wrapping it around the things she refused to see, obscuring what stared back at her too plainly. That was how she held the thing between them: not with open hands, but with caution, with the kind of careful distance a person uses when they’re afraid to hope.
It wasn’t that she didn’t feel it. He knew she felt it, and he held on to that knowledge. But believing it? Trusting that it could be real, enduring, meant letting go of the part of her that clung to logic and control. No, he saw how hard that was for her.
He beckoned her over with a tilt of his head and a soft lift of his hand, the invitation clear and wordless: Come here, lass.
He needed her close—not only for himself, but for her.
He knew her too well. Knew how silence gave her mind space to spiral, how she could take a rare moment of peace and twist it into doubt.
But when she was in his arms, the spinning slowed.
And maybe—just maybe—she could feel what she still struggled to believe.
She crossed the deck, and he stepped back from the helm, pulling her into him with practiced ease. One arm wrapped firmly around her upper back, anchoring her to him, while the other hand stayed steady on the wheel .
“Will ye take a picture with me? I want one of ye to remember this—remember us ,” he said, his voice low, thick with emotion he was trying hard to steady.
She nodded, the answer clear in her eyes. He could see she wanted that memory too. Something tangible. Something to hold on to.
Baird pulled out his phone and raised his arm, angling it above them. They both leaned in, trying for smiles—shaky, tender, the kind that held more sorrow than joy. A bittersweet snapshot of a moment they both knew they’d never want to forget.
When it was done, he put his phone away and pulled her back into his arms, holding her close like he could imprint her shape into his memory more surely than pixels ever could.
He kissed the top of her head, lips brushing her hair, damp from the sea spray.
He moved his hand from the back of her neck, fingers trailing along the curve of her jaw until his thumb found that familiar dimple in her chin.
He lifted her face gently, urging her to look at him—not with words, but with touch.
Her eyes met his, and for a moment, she let it happen, her features open, searching.
But then something shifted. A flicker of something behind her eyes—a flash of confusion or fear—and a look of shock crossed her face.
His heart dropped.
He held her tighter, suddenly unsure what he’d triggered. What unseen battle she was waging inside that beautiful, relentless mind.
“Mira— what is it ?” he asked, his voice low, threaded with concern.
She didn’t answer right away. Her lower lip trembled, and then a single tear slipped free, carving a slow path down her cheek.
Without a word, she pressed her face against his chest and clung to him, her arms wrapping tight around his waist as though bracing herself against a storm only she could feel.
He held her close, resting his chin lightly against the top of her head, one hand stroking slow circles across her back. But the silence stretched, and the ache in his chest deepened.
“What is it? Tell me…” he whispered again. When she still didn’t speak, he tried to lighten it, just a little, his voice tilting into warmth. “Don’t tell me yer seasick after all.”
She let out a quiet sound—not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. Her grip around him only tightened.
“It was just—standing here with you, with your hand on my chin like that, it reminded me of something—that’s all,” she said into his chest, wiping her eyes, the wind whipping her hair, her words stopping briefly before continuing.
“It reminded me of the first vision I had, the one when I touched Agnes’s portrait, the way you touched my— I mean, her —chin.
It was like it was replaying in my head.
Everything—the way you smell, the sun on my face, I don’t know. It’s silly, I know.” She trailed off.
He hated himself a little now for suggesting the sail in the first place.
At the time, it seemed like it might be something quiet and beautiful to ease the ache between them, to create one last memory that wasn’t heavy with endings.
But he hadn’t considered how easily the memory of Agnes could slip in like a shadow beneath the sunlight.
He tightened his arms around Mira as the realization settled in, the guilt creeping in slow and sharp.
He hadn’t meant to bring her pain—not again.
But maybe he’d misjudged her strength or misunderstood what she still carried.
Agnes’s ghost wasn’t gone. It lived in Mira in all the quiet moments.
The single touch of a portrait that had turned Mira’s world upside down .
“Dinnae fash,” he whispered, head bent so she could hear. “Today is no’ for cryin’, lass. There will be time for that, but let’s not waste a moment of our last day together on tears.”
He swallowed hard, pressing another kiss to Mira’s hair, and said no more.
Just held her tighter, wishing he could pull her far enough into his chest to protect her from every ghost, even the ones he’d unwittingly summoned.
He wondered if Mira’s tears weren’t just for what she was leaving behind but for what she might never truly be able to make peace with.
For the space Agnes still occupied—uninvited, unresolved—between them.
But he hoped, with everything in him, that someday she’d come to understand what he already knew deep in his bones: Agnes had never stood between them.
Not really. Not in any way that mattered.
Because what he felt for Mira had never been a shadow of the past—it was its own light, fierce and hot.
And he needed her to see that, even if it took time. Even if it took letting her go.
Trying to hold on to her now would be the worst thing he could do.
She needed space, time to make sense of it all.
Time to breathe. So he would let her go, even as every part of him wanted to try to make her stay.
And he hoped—whether through fate, or divine mercy, or some quiet whisper from the universe—that she would receive the one message he couldn’t give voice to: That his love for her was hers alone. Singular.
That she was not merely someone he loved—but the one he was meant to love.The missing piece that made him feel whole for the first time in his long, fractured life. And in the strange symmetry of it all, he found himself clinging to the words of the man he had hated for so long.
Bastien had said Baird knew Mira better than she knew herself.
And God help him, he hoped that was true.