Page 19 of Her Scot of Bygones (MacLeod Dragons #2)

–Hazel–

I CAN HONESTLY say today was one of the best days of my life. Cooking, eating, and walking down memory lane with Lucas and Evan around a fire we had enjoyed many times together in our youth, and rehashing old times. It felt amazing. It was perfect being with them like this again, talking, laughing, and consoling each other as we had too many times to count.

They were truly my very best friends, and it saddened me we had lost so much time together. That Evan and Lucas hated one another for no reason because their memories about Lilias were false. Evan had gone on to believe he’d won the girl, only to lose her to Laird Dugal Sutherland, and Lucas had lost not just a good friend in Evan, but me, the love of his life.

Yet despite all of our conversations, we couldn’t figure out when I arrived or when I left, nor who erased our memories and left us with false impressions. That is, until rain turned to heavy snow, caking the ground in a soft layer of white, and something caught our attention outside.

“What is that?”

Lucas whispered, taking my hand as the three of us headed that way, trying to see what was near the base of my hazel tree.

“’Tis a man,”

Evan whispered, unsheathing his sword at the same time as Lucas, as we crept closer, only for me and Evan to stop short in shock at what had to be a memory. As it were, none other than a younger version of my father was striding away from the tree before disappearing into the crevice that led through the tunnel back to Sutherland territory.

“’Tis the man in the painting hanging in Sutherland Castle,”

Evan exclaimed.

“Your father, Malcolm Sutherland.”

“It is,”

I confirmed, trying to make sense of it.

“And ‘tis you again, Hazel,”

Lucas exclaimed, pointing at me as a little girl, seeming to materialize out of the tree's base.

“Oh my God,”

I gasped. Like it was for me and Lucas last night, a veil seemed to peel away, and I remembered that night like it was yesterday.

“Dad was worried about my mom’s addiction and he’d come back to check on her...help her.”

I blinked back tears and shook my head.

“One night I woke and found him standing outside, gazing at the hazel tree in our backyard. He didn’t know I was there.”

I widened my eyes, witnessing that moment all over again.

“Then he just walked into the tree and vanished.”

“And what did ye do?”

Evan asked.

“Because ye rarely mentioned your father. Only that he still loved ye even though he left ye and yer mother.”

“Of course I followed him.”

I smiled, missing that girl and glad she was returning.

“I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how he had disappeared into the tree until an uneven Y shape in the trunk caught my attention because it almost seemed like a map.”

I offered Lucas a soft smile, knowing we were way past keeping such things from Evan.

“Just like the one on the door leading to our secret lair.”

“No doubt ‘twas a map to a few things,”

Lucas said softly, figuring something out before us because he gestured at the shape of the cliff walls around the woodland area in which we stood, the tree being at the forked section of the Y.

“A map that was leading ye back where ye belonged.”

He threaded his fingers with mine.

“Back to us.”

“And it did,”

I murmured, more emotions welling up in me as I recalled the tree blurring, then stepping through it, and ending up here with large, heavy snowflakes falling all around me. Meanwhile, we watched me, as a little girl, do the same thing as the memory unfolded, then watched as I gazed around in wide-eyed wonder.

“I felt like I’d walked into an enchanted snowglobe. It was the most magical place I’d ever seen.”

“Yet yer father had no knowledge of ye following him?”

Evan wondered.

“I find that hard to believe given how powerful he's said to be.”

A tear rolled down my cheek when I spied the little pair of black boots that sat waiting, remembering my relief when I spied them because I’d been so curious, I had followed him wearing nothing but socks.

“My father had to have known I was following him because he left those.”

I pressed my lips together, fighting my emotions.

“My mother meant no harm. She was an addict. But that meant any money he tried to give her didn’t go where it should have. Those boots...he had tried...”

Lucas gathered me close as we watched me as a child slide the boots on and walk comfortably for the first time, marveling at the sensation. I still had a slight limp, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before.

“That’s how we found ye,”

Evan exclaimed, resting a comforting hand on my shoulder as the memory faded.

“Ye were tromping around in the snow with a big smile on your face, so verra happy.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

I chuckled and wiped away my tears, happy as swiftly as I’d become sad.

“Walking with a gait hadn’t been easy, never mind getting teased.”

I turned my smile Lucas’s way.

“You made me more shoes and boots fashioned after those as I grew older.”

“Aye.”

He met my smile.

“And will until our dying day.”

I bit back a fresh wave of emotion, praying it happened because I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Refused to. Yet I was acutely aware of Evan by my side and the role he might play in my life if things didn’t go as hoped.

“Which is something we need to discuss,”

Evan murmured, clearly disliking bringing up the subject, but he was right to do so.

“Let us return to the fire so we might speak of such difficult things because they cannae be avoided, and we all know it.”

To be expected, our spirits weren’t quite the same when we sat again, and Evan eyed us gravely, sharing what he thought should happen next. What had to happen.

“I will return home to Sutherland Castle this evening, so too long an absence isnae noted,”

he said.

“Then I will wait until the morrow after next before coming forward and showing Dugal and Elspet my tattoo. This will give ye two some time here before returning to MacLeod Castle. When ye do ye’ll let yer clan know what happened here and ‘tis highly recommended they escort ye to Sutherland Castle so all might witness Hazel shifting for the first time, confirming whether or not she’s the lass meant to fulfill the pact.”

“Or you both can hide your tattoos, and all of this can be avoided,”

Lucas countered, frowning.

“We both know that can’t happen.”

I wrapped my hand with his again, showing him the strength he needed to see.

“Eventually it will be discovered, it’s inevitable, and it won’t go well for us if we don’t come forward, given the MacLeods and Sutherlands alike swore on their honor to see the pact through.”

I shook my head.

“If war breaks out between your clans, just think what that will do to the stability of your country, especially with the ongoing skirmishes with England. And if that happens, it could very well alter Scotland’s history.”

Lucas’s heart was in his eyes as they lingered on mine, his pain and turmoil right there to see.

“So I’m to give ye to my rival clan for what might be the rest of our lives?”

He clenched his jaw, fighting emotion.

“Give our future bairns to one of my closest friends because of a pact we had nothing to do with?”

“Both clans swore an oath to King Robert. One, I know you will not break. Deep inside, you know it, too. You’ll do what's right for the king and country you love because that’s who you are,”

I said softly, refusing to tear up because that’s not what he needed to see right now.

“And you’re supposed to trust that we’ll find our way back to each other.”

I nodded once.

“I have absolute faith in that, and you need to as well.”

I pressed my hand over his heart and gazed at him with all the confidence I felt.

“We will be together in the end. Always together.”

He gazed at me for a stretch, fighting his emotions and his spontaneous nature, as he wanted to steal me away then and there, may the Sutherlands never find me. But instead, being my Scot of Bygones when I needed him most, he nodded once in return and remained tried and true. Dependable and steadfast when I needed him to be.

“Aye, then, lass,”

he replied, much to my relief.

“We will do what we must for king and country, then be together at last as the fated mates I know we are.”

Never so relieved yet sad at the same time, we continued discussing the details of how things should go before Evan finally stood, swung his fur cloak around his shoulders, and said it was due time he left.

Evan embraced me first, murmuring in my ear that no matter what, it would be okay. He would keep me safe during my first shift, and if my dragon did have the gem over its heart, we would take things slowly, and he would never make me do anything I didn't want to do.

After he embraced me, he held out his hand to Lucas, understanding how difficult this moment was.

“Ye are entrusting me with your greatest gift, and I willnae let ye down. Ye have my word, old friend.”

Lucas eyed him for a long, strained moment before he, at last, clasped his arm hand to elbow in the way of the Scots, his dragon eyes meeting Evan’s. Where I thought he would threaten to kill him if he didn’t, because I knew it was on the tip of his tongue, Lucas again showed me the man I needed him to be.

“I know ye will, Evan,”

he replied, a flicker of emotion in his gaze not just for me and our situation but for Evan.

“Because ye are and always will be one of my closest friends, may we find what we lost after all of this is behind us.”

“I would like nothing more,”

Evan said, meeting our eyes one last time before he vanished into the snowy night.

The next time I saw him, things would be much different. We would pretend not to know each other and could only assume our inner beasts would keep that secret, as it seemed they always had, but then, dragons were good like that when they were as close as we three were. And somehow we knew, or at least hoped, we would remain each other’s secret no matter whose fated mate I was.

Until then, I had an inner beast to soothe because I felt her unease writhing inside me. Felt her more by the moment, the longer I was in this place with the men who meant so much to me. I looked at Lucas. The man who meant the most.

“Do you remember our spot here?”

I asked softly, giving him a look he couldn’t mistake.

“The place I finally gave myself to you because it wasn’t at our lair. That was too risky.”

It turned out he did.

More than that, he remembered what he had done next and did it again.