Page 62 of A Memory Not Mine (Sanguis Amantium #1)
Chapter fifty-seven
Mira
W e got back to Baird’s house in the early afternoon, sea salt still clinging to our skin. I felt tired in that satisfying, sun-kissed way that only comes from being out on the water. But more than that, I felt…grateful. Grateful that I’d gotten to see this part of him.
I felt a pang of guilt for breaking down in his arms, for letting the déjà vu wash over me and steal the moment—when really, I should have been holding onto it with everything I had.
But I couldn’t help it. The feeling had hit me like a wave, so eerily similar to the vision I’d had in my dining room back in Marblehead.
Baird’s arms around me, the sea behind us, the weight of something ancient and invisible pressing close—it had all come flooding back, too much to carry without cracking a little .
But even through the guilt, I knew something else: that moment, that vision—it had been a gift.
From the universe, from Agnes, from something older and wiser than I could name.
Without it, I never would’ve come here. Never would’ve stepped into this strange, beautiful, terrifying world.
I wouldn’t have had the last week with Baird—the laughter nor the heartbreak.
I wouldn’t have had last night—the way he’d touched me like I was something sacred—or today, watching him reclaim the sea that still belonged to him.
And for that, I would never be anything but grateful.
After dinner and a shower, we settled in front of the fire, tucked into a chair just big enough for both of us, our bodies curved together in easy silence.
The fire crackled softly, casting flickering shadows across the stone hearth and warming the air with a slow, gentle heat.
I curled into Baird’s side, my legs draped over his, a glass of wine cradled in my hand, the stem cool against my fingers.
He held a tumbler of Scotch, the amber liquid catching the firelight like liquid gold.
I’d come to recognize that as more than just a drink—it was his crutch when the world pressed in too heavily.
A way to withstand memory, or the past, or an uncertain future that weighed on him in moments like this.
I felt the words pressing against the back of my throat—things I needed to say, questions I wasn’t even sure how to form, let alone expect answers to.
Maybe neither of us had them. Maybe some things weren’t meant to be resolved.
But still, holding them back felt like holding part of myself back from him , and I didn’t want to do that. Not now. Not after everything.
The truth was, the new parts of me—the ones I barely recognized, the way his eyes saw through every wall I’d ever built—those parts only existed because I’d let him in. Because I’d let myself be with him, fully, vulnerably, without pretense.
And if I walked away without giving him all of me—the messy, unfinished thoughts, the fears, the raw hope—I’d be carrying a version of myself forward that wasn’t whole.
So I took a breath, gathering the courage to speak, to let the unsaid find its shape between us.
Because this—whatever this was—deserved nothing less than honesty.
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked. “Why can’t I believe this—that it’s really for me?”
He sat with that for a moment, his thumb tracing idle circles against my arm, and I could see the thoughts flickering behind his eyes—see him reaching for the words that might explain it all.
Explain me to me, as if he understood something I hadn’t yet unraveled.
But whatever clarity he had faltered before it could take shape, and instead, he let it slip away in favor of something easier. Safer.
“Beyond ye being a stubborn, obstinate, headstrong thing?” he said, lips curving into a crooked smile, that teasing lilt softening the weight of everything he didn’t say.
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my mouth in response. It was his way of pulling me back from the edge—of reminding me that even in all the uncertainty, there was still this: the banter, the warmth, the knowing. Still us .
“I canna explain this fear ye have. I loved Agnes. I’ll never deny that,” Baird said quietly, his voice steady but thick with something deeper.
“But I’ve lived two lives—thirty-nine years the first time, and two hundred and forty since that life ended.
And in neither of them…neither…have I ever felt what I feel when I am with you, Mira Garvie. ”
He paused, searching my face, trying to gauge if I truly heard him this time—if I believed him.
“I’ ve tried to show ye, to convince ye,” he continued, softer now.
“But maybe it’s not just that ye canna believe I love ye enough—for who ye are, all the stubbornness, and fear, and doubt and boldness that’s all part of this…
whirlwind… ye are,” he said, struggling for the right words.
“Maybe… maybe it’s really all the rest that comes after , if ye did believe it. Maybe that’s the part ye canna face.”
He looked at me then, and I know he saw my confusion—the way I leaned in, trying to follow but not quite grasping what he meant. And something in him dimmed. The light behind his eyes faltered, his shoulders dropped just slightly, and he looked…crestfallen.
Like he was about to speak a truth he wished he didn’t have to. Like if I hadn’t realized what was coming, then maybe he shouldn't be the one to say it.
And still, I knew—whatever it was, it mattered.
“I canna give ye a normal life, Mira,” he said, the words slow and heavy, as if each one cost him. “We won’t have children of our own…and I ken that alone would be a good enough reason for ye to walk away.”
His voice didn’t waver, but there was grief in his eyes. I saw it there, plain as day: the image of a life he’d imagined, perhaps only briefly, but deeply. A version of us where we had a family, where laughter echoed through stone walls and small feet pounded across old wooden floors.
And knowing it was a dream that could never be—it gutted him. That truth lived behind his eyes like a bruise, dark and quiet, and it hit me with sudden clarity: he hadn’t just accepted this loss. He had mourned it. Before I even realized it might be mine to mourn too.
“This life—it’s not easy,” he said, his voice low, roughened by the weight of what he was trying to make me comprehend. “Ye stayed with me a week, and I know ye saw glimpses of it. But living it, day after day…that’s different. That’s heavier. ”
He didn’t look away, didn’t flinch, even as the pain behind his eyes deepened.
“And then there’s the truth that ye’ll grow old, and I won’t—unless ye choose to become what I am.” He paused, jaw tightening, as if just saying it aloud cost him. “But I wouldn’t want that for ye. Not truly. And it would take me a long time to even accept the thought of it.”
With every word, I realized just how much he had thought of this—of us . He had walked this path in his mind, weighed every angle, every impossibility, every sacrifice. And he was laying it all at my feet now, not to sway me, not to guilt me, but because I deserved to see the full truth.
“But if ye ever want to come back,” he said, his voice a whisper edged with something that trembled, “know we could make a life together. Here, or on the island, or elsewhere. It dinnae matter where to me—as long as ye are by my side.”
The truth of these words weighed heavily on him—no bravado, no shield, just quiet, aching hope. He wasn’t asking me to promise anything. He wasn’t trying to sway my choice.
“There are a hundred good reasons not to be with me, but it canna be because ye doubt how I feel. I do love ye, Mira. I love ye so much it hurts. So much it frightens me. So much that if letting ye go means sparing ye pain, I’ll do it. But not because I dinnae love ye. Never that.”
We went to the bedroom then, the silence between us full of tenderness and gravity, the kind that settles in when both people know a chapter is ending.
Baird helped me pack, folding my clothes with that same quiet care he brought to everything—methodical, gentle, never rushing.
Neither of us spoke much. There was nothing left to say that hadn’t already been said with eyes, with hands, with hearts too full to bear .
When the suitcase was zipped shut and there was nothing left to do but face the goodbye waiting on the horizon, we crawled into bed together for one last time.
When we made love that night, it wasn’t frantic or wild—it was solemn. I pulled my hair aside and bared my neck to him, offering it not just as permission, but as trust. As a parting gift.
But he shook his head. “Nae, Mira—I want the man in me to remember this. Only the man,” he said, his voice hushed and aching as he cupped my face and kissed me deeply.
And so, like the previous night, it was Baird Campbell the man who made love to me.
Who claimed me not with hunger, but with devotion.
With every touch, he memorized me. With every kiss, he marked the moment as something no time, no immortality, could take from us.
And he made sure I knew that, so when I left in the morning, some part of him would be with me forever.