Page 30 of For a Wild Woman’s Heart (Ancient Songs #3)
D arlei had never so much as glimpsed the sea before journeying to Murtray. She had certainly never dreamed of riding out upon it in a tiny boat like a leaf on a stream.
The boat was, indeed, very small. Made of slatted wood and coated hide, it looked more like an oversized drinking vessel than a watercraft and tipped alarmingly when Deathan helped her in.
Terror might well have swamped her, had she not placed herself wholly in his hands.
In his hands, precisely where she wanted to be.
He had grown up here and, he told her, had sailed all his life. He handled the oars competently, and anyway, she gladly embraced the possibility of ending in a watery grave, if it meant she could be with him.
“Where will we go?” she asked once she was settled and he pulled powerfully on the oars. There was a sail on a slender spar, but he had not yet unfurled it.
“I thought we might hug the coast so ye could see how far our land reaches and”—he grinned at her—“ye might no’ be too afraid.”
“I am not afraid.”
“Liar.” He smiled again.
“Very well, I am lying. But people will be able to see us from shore. I long to get clear away.” Alone with him. “Can we not sail out?”
“We can.”
Away into the blue sea, which today held the exact color of his eyes. She longed for that almost as much as she longed for his company.
Because now here out on the breast of the water, once her heartbeat settled, this seemed strangely familiar.
Like everything else to do with him.
She sat where he’d put her and watched the beautiful way he moved, the serenity that came to his eyes, the color of his hair against the sea and sky. Never, never had she been so happy.
“How far can we sail?” she asked after a time, when the settlement had slipped out of sight.
The corners of his mouth crinkled and his eyes smiled. “All the way to Ireland, if ye like.”
She liked. She did. They could make a life together there. Never come back.
“What are those lands, there?”
He named them, the islands that guarded Scotland’s coast like sleeping dragons. He told her there were other lands far, far to the west.
“In the old days, our ancestors believed Tír na nóg lay there. The place warriors went when they died. A land of revelry and ever-youth.”
That caused her a pang, though she could not say why.
“Do you believe in such tales, Deathan MacMurtray?”
He shrugged. “There must be something better than the sorrows we face here in this place.”
Sorrows. His mother was slowly dying, his family wrought asunder. Could she be his joy?
With certainty, she said, “I cannot imagine anything better than being here with you. And I would not embrace any prospect that would take you from me.”
His gaze met hers, deadly serious this time. The oars froze in his hands. She leaned forward, rocking the little boat perilously, and pressed her mouth to his.
A kiss.
Ah, and she had been living for this. Living a lifetime, though she had not suspected it. His lips, warm and soft beneath hers, tasted of sweetness and desire. They tasted of eternity.
Surely she had done this before, somehow, somewhere, if only in dreams—kissed him and felt her very soul pull him in, lost a bit of herself as it did so, the one of them becoming part of the other.
“Darlei,” he breathed, and suddenly she was in his arms, the oars in the bottom of the boat, for he had the presence of mind not to lose those.
The little boat rocked again and she did not care. She did not care.
For his arms were around her where they needed to be, as hers were around him where they needed to be, and their mouths were open, searching, taking, giving without measure.
She could feel his heartbeat thundering against her breast. She could smell the sunshine on his skin, and she could ask for no more of life.
There was no more to be had than this.
How long that kiss went on, she could not say. It lit her, calmed her, excited and yet reassured her. There was a place she belonged. Here.
After a time, he began to murmur. “Beautiful lass, glorious lass.” He lifted each of her hands and dropped kisses into the palms. Kissed each corner of her mouth, her cheeks. Blessed her with a kiss upon her forehead. “My lass.”
“Yours. I am yours. For all time.”
The little boat drifted, its sail still furled and the oars at angles in the bottom. The motion of the sea matched what filled Darlei, fluid and dreamlike, half wonder and half memory.
She reached out and touched his face. The freckles beneath the tan. The golden hairs growing along his jaw.
“I want you, Deathan MacMurtray. I do not just mean—” Though she did want him that way, shockingly, as she’d never desired any other man. Between her legs. Covering her body with his. The most natural of things. “I want you. At the center of my life.”
“I believe,” he told her most certainly, “ye are already there—at the center o’ my life, I mean. Beautiful lass.”
She gave a broken laugh. “You keep saying that. Fool! I am not beautiful. I have this nose and this wild hair that will not—”
“Ye be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
His eyes said so, and his hands as they cradled her, cherishing her. His lips when they returned to hers. Their tongues met and twined, the bonds between them strengthening impossibly.
The little boat bobbed, aimless as Darlei’s life. Love for this man. Only this man.
Eventually she glanced back, searching for the shore. She could not see it.
“Where are we?”
How long had they been out here? Impossible to say. There existed only the sun on the water and the light in his eyes. The warmth of him. Those kisses.
“Deathan, Deathan, I do not want to go back. Not ever.”
Amusement filled his eyes. She loved it when he smiled at her that way, with his eyes.
“Darling, I doubt there is any going back fro’ this.”
He drew her down to lie against him, her cheek against his shoulder and her head tucked beneath his chin as the sea rocked and rocked them. The sun arced high overhead, and for the first time in more days than Darlei could number, she let go of her worries.
But even if they both desired it, they could not go on so forever. At length he sighed in her ear and said, “We maun go back. Let me tak’ up the oars.”
“Nay.”
“Darlei, my heart, we are a long way out. ’Twill be a hard pull. And people will start looking.”
“Not yet.” To silence any further protests, she kissed him, and the little boat bobbed on while they remained so, one attached to the other. The taste of him was now hers, as was the feel of him. But that had always been so.
“How is it,” she asked, still cuddled to his chest and gazing into his eyes, “I can love you this way?”
“Ye love me?” His eyes grew intent and once more serious.
“Fool,” she said again, with affection. “I have never dreamed of loving anyone the way I love you.”
“And I ye.” Another kiss that stole her breath and nearly her sanity.
“Yet it does feel,” she persisted, “as if we have done all this before. Kissed one another. Lain together. Sailed in a wee boat. As if my heart…my heart knew all along without knowing that you existed, and it needed you, would not stop needing you till it found you.”
He said nothing for several moments. The boat rode a swell and tipped its way down again. There might only be the two of them, the water and the sky, in all the world.
In all time.
“I do no’ ken what yer people believe,” he said then. “Some o’ our holy men teach that we live life after life. Time after time.” He stroked her hair tenderly. “They say the gods send us back through the cauldron o’ creation to learn lessons. To perfect our spirits and become heroes. Heroines.”
“I am far from perfect.”
“I ha’ yet to meet anyone who is. If ’tis so—well, to learn the lessons we must, they say we are thrown into similar situations. We even meet the same people in differing guises, in order to understand the meaning they hold for us.”
“Do you believe all that, Deathan?”
“I never gave it much thought, not till now.”
“It would explain much. But if it is true, if I knew and loved you before, how may we now seize hold of the fabric of life, and shape it so we can be together once more?”
He shook his head with regret. “That, I do not know.”
“And how”—her emotions came up in a storm—“having tasted you, been with you this way, am I to go back and behave as if you are naught to me?”
“Faith,” he told her. “Ye must believe that if we were born into this world to be together, all will come right—so long as we believe.”
“Hard. So hard,” she whispered, “when all is in strife and confusion.”
“Save for this,” he reminded her, “ye, and me.”
“Yes. Being with you feels like—well, like I can breathe freely for the first time ever.”
“Aye so. Promise me, Darlei. Promise ye will keep faith wi’ me when we return.”
“I will. I will. But—must we return?”
“Aye.” He sat up, making the little boat rock like a leaf upon a river and setting her from him gently. “’Twill no’ be easy. Yet aye, return we must.”