Page 16 of Here in Your Arms (Far From Home: A Scottish Time-Travel Romance #10)

Rain lashed against the outer walls of Dunmara. The wind moaned through the cracks in the old keep, a sound so eerie and hollow it sent a shiver curling up Rose’s spine. She moved quietly through the corridor, her bare feet silent on the cool stone floor, the MacIntyre plaid around her shoulders offering only slight protection against the chill that crept through the mortar.

Tiernan’s chamber was dim as she peered inside, the hearth fire burning low. Sensing no movement within or from the bed, she cautiously stepped inside and closed the door behind her, careful not to let it latch too hard, and paused just inside, letting her eyes adjust.

Rose crossed the room slowly, hoping not to disturb him. She stopped at the foot of the bed and watched him, her hands tucked inside the wool of the plaid. He was asleep, stretched out across the bed where Maud and Agnes had tended him earlier. The heavy furs had slipped halfway down his chest, revealing the broad slope of his shoulders and a linen bandage darkened by a small spot of blood that had seeped through.

It amazed her—how someone could look so strong even in sleep. Even now, unconscious and still, he didn’t look vulnerable. Nothing about him was soft—there was no gentleness in the line of his mouth, no ease in the set of his brow, and no peace in the lines of his face. He looked like a man ready to wake swinging. It was as if he didn’t know how to let go, not even when sleeping.

Late in the afternoon while helping to set up a bath in Rose’s chamber, Agnes had muttered to Rose in passing about her concern of fever, how it could settle quick, often in the night, and how it killed more men than the blade ever did. She’d said it almost casually, unthinking, distracted maybe, but it had unsettled Rose more than she’d expected. The thought of Tiernan’s body failing him, of the wound turning worse by morning, stirred something low and anxious in her chest.

She stepped forward and gently lifted the edge of the fur, drawing it higher over his shoulder. She dared to lay her hand against his forehead, determining with a frown that he was warm, but not dangerously so; he wasn’t burning up. Not yet. Worried that it might worsen, that he might yet come down with a fever, Rose thought to linger silently for a while, and approached the hearth.

The fire was growing dim, the light beginning to retreat into the coals. Rose took a moment to shift a few logs, nudging the embers with the iron poker until the heat began to gather again and new flames licked at unburnt edges of the wood. She didn’t want the room to get cold. She didn’t want him to wake to chill or discomfort.

Settling back into the deep upholstered chair in front of the fire, she pulled her knees up and wrapped the plaid tighter around herself.

Her gaze drifted back to Tiernan, and her thoughts, ultimately, to the events of this morning.

This wasn’t what she had come to Scotland for. She had boarded the plane in Wisconsin, had taken a connecting flight in New York to Edinburgh armed with textbooks, plans, a research proposal focused on fourteenth-century Scottish culture and political life. She had packed boots for hiking ruins and notebooks for sketches. She had prepared for weather, for language, and for history that lived in moss-covered stone. She had crossed an ocean and an entire century’s worth of expectations to study people like Tiernan, not... meet them. She had wanted to explore ancient stone ruins and sit through long-winded lectures about fealty and kinship ties. She had planned to sketch diagrams of longhouses and scribble notes about Gaelic naming customs. Her project proposal had been all about ritual and daily life in the Middle Ages of Highland society.

She hadn’t meant to live it.

Weeks ago—God, had it really only been weeks?—she had grumbled to a colleague that she hadn’t done enough sightseeing. That she had come all the way to Scotland and spent most of her time buried in books and conference halls. “I’ve seen more maps than mountains,” she’d joked. At the time, it had felt like a legitimate complaint.

Now she wanted to laugh at herself. Her life before felt thin now, too clean, too clinical, but far safer, so much less dramatic. She had wanted history —but this wasn’t what she’d meant. And while many would argue that this was so much better—while indeed she’d entertained that idea herself only days ago— Rose understood that it was not. Not the sweat and blood of it. Not standing frozen while men died in front of her. Not kneeling beside Tiernan’s broken body, praying he’d draw another breath.

And yet here she was, elbow-deep in it, caught in the middle of something that made no sense.

With her head leaning against the tall arm of the chair, she watched the slow rise and fall of his chest and told herself she wasn’t cut out for this life, for this century.

And not even her inexplicable, maddening fascination with this enigmatic man was enough to make her want to stay.

Rose leaned forward now and rested her arms on her knees, watching the man in the bed as the storm continued to hammer the world outside. She clung to what she’d told Emmy earlier, that it no longer mattered why she’d been brought here, that it was time to stop chasing answers that probably she wasn’t meant to find. She didn’t belong here—not really. The sooner she found a way to return, the better. It was the only logical thing to do. The only safe thing.

And yet, as she watched Tiernan’s chest rise again, steady and slow, she couldn’t pretend she didn’t care about what happened to him. She couldn’t pretend that the idea of leaving him behind didn’t feel, just a little, like abandoning something unfinished.

She drew her knees tighter beneath the plaid and turned her face toward the fire, getting lost in the golden flames.

***

Tiernan stirred beneath the weight of thick furs, consciousness returning slowly, as if he were rising from deep water. The ache in his shoulder was the first thing he registered, a dull throb that pulsed with every beat of his heart, though it was not nearly as sharp as it had been earlier. That was something. His head felt heavy, his limbs leaden, but there was a strange stillness to the room that pulled at his attention.

He opened his eyes, blinking into the low light. The fire had been fed recently, the heat reaching gently into the corners of the chamber. For a moment, he didn’t move, content to breathe in the warmth and quiet. Then he turned his head slightly, shifting his gaze, and held his breath.

Rose was curled in the chair nearest the fire, her legs drawn up beneath her, her chin resting on her knees. He saw that she wasn’t sleeping, but she was so still, gazing into the flames, her profile etched softly in the shifting light.

She hadn’t heard him wake.

He studied her in silence, unwilling to make a sound that might disturb the strange peace that he felt at finding her near. The wind battered the keep beyond the shuttered windows, but here, inside, she looked calm. Thoughtful. Beautiful in a way that made his chest tighten.

He let his gaze linger on the curve of her cheek, the slope of her nose, the way the soft shadows caught the glint in her dark hair. Her scar caught his attention, that long, jagged line that cut across the right side of her face, from just beside her nose toward her ear. It should have marred her. It should have changed the way she looked to him. Strangely, the scar didn’t seem to distract from her beauty, but neither did it define her. It merely marked her as someone who had survived something, endured something, and still stood. It was, somehow, part of what made her so alluring to him, he’d begun to understand.

He closed his eyes again briefly, though he was no longer tired. The storm continued to howl beyond the walls, the old stones of Dunmara creaking as the wind pressed against them in long, sighing bursts. He supposed the violent storm meant that he should have been grateful for Brody’s insistence that he wait until morning to depart. After his shoulder had been sewn shut, front and back, Tiernan had planned to depart as soon as Brody had returned, as soon as he’d learned what his friend had discovered of the MacRae men and anything he might have learned of those outlaws.

But Brody had been gone longer than expected, which had begun to cause Tiernan consternation late this afternoon, since by then it had been half a day since Brody had been gone with dozens of men, riding hard to find answers.

Brody had knocked at the door of this chamber sometime before the supper hour, confirming some of Tiernan’s fears. Two of his men had been lost. Thomas, the youngest of today’s party, whose voice Tiernan recalled as the one to give the shout at the moment of the rockslide, had been crushed beneath it, swallowed by stone and dust.

Another, Eòghann, his logistics officer, had been lost to the reivers. Clever, competent, and careful, Eòghann was, too careful Tiernan sometimes thought. Not today, though. According to Brody’s report, Eòghann had died with his blade drawn and bloodied, and his throat slit.

They’d buried both Thomas and Eòghann beneath a cairn near the forest’s edge, Brody had said. Tiernan had simply nodded at the news, swallowing his emotion.

The other two—Ruairidh and Arailt—had survived. They’d spent the day combing the woods, trying to find their laird, their faces hollow with worry by the time Brody and his men had encountered them.

If there had been more outlaws, Brody had said, there was no sign of them. Arailt suspected that two or perhaps more had slipped away in the chaos, but he and Ruairidh had decided to find and follow the path their laird had taken, not the reivers’, “unwilling to lose ye in the forest’s tangle,” Brody had relayed, “even if it meant letting those bastards escape.”

Tiernan had thanked Brody with a short nod, and Brody had grunted a reply before an argument ensued over Tiernan’s leavetaking. Brody had cut him off, unusually forceful, refusing outright to provide an escort until morning. His tone, sharp and unyielding, had surprised even Tiernan. It wasn’t often that Brody denied him anything outright, but tonight, there had been no room for negotiation.

In truth, Tiernan hadn’t fought the decision as hard as he might have. He’d been bone-weary, the pain in his shoulder a dull, dragging ache, made heavier still by the grim news of the day—Thomas lost beneath the rockslide, Eòghann cut down by outlaws.

And another reason to delay... Rose was here.

That truth circled back to him now as his gaze drifted toward her. He studied her for a long moment, something in his chest loosening just a little as he watched her. Of all the strange turns his life had taken of late—or in years—her presence remained the most unexpected.

And the most impossible to ignore.

He watched her in silence, his eyes again tracing the soft lines of her face, the gentle set of her mouth, the way the firelight touched her hair. He wasn’t sure what had brought her here tonight. Was it concern for him, to see how he fared? Or had the storm unsettled her, pushing her toward the one place in this strange and ancient world where she might find something—someone—familiar? Was he that to her? A familiar entity in the midst of the unknown?

The question lodged itself in his chest, taking on an unaccountable importance, causing him to wonder why the answer was suddenly so significant.

Admittedly, she had taken up space in his thoughts, whether he liked it or not. Of that, he was certain.

He stirred beneath the covers and shifted just enough to ease the strain on his shoulder, then turned his gaze back to her. Her soft, inscrutable expression was marred now with a frown.

He cleared his throat quietly, and when she glanced over, surprised to find him watching, he murmured, “What has yer brow furrowed as it is?”

Rose blinked, lowering her feet to the floor. “How do you feel? I thought you seemed a little warm moments ago—Agnes had me worried that you were in danger of having a fever.”

He waved off her concern with a flick of his hand, though something in him tightened at her answer. She’d come to check on him, it seemed. Had touched him while he slept. The knowledge left him more affected than he cared to admit. He sat up, careful not to let the pain show, determined not to wince as his shoulder pulled. “Nae fever,” he said. His voice was even, though he hadn’t taken proper stock of his condition. Whatever aches remained, he’d not let her see them. He’d not play the invalid before her.

As the fur slid down into his lap, he reached with his uninjured arm toward the bedside table, fingers closing around the small wooden cup he found there. He lifted it, expecting water or perhaps ale, and found himself not disappointed to discover it was the latter. He took a long sip and lowered the cup.

“What had ye frowning as ye were?” He asked again.

Rose sighed, as if she supposed he might keep on until she did answer him.

“I was thinking about sightseeing,” she said after a pause.

Tiernan lifted a brow, but said nothing, unfamiliar with the word.

She shifted in the chair, facing him more fully around the side of the arm. “That’s why I came to Scotland, originally. To study, yes—but also to explore. I’d planned to see castles and battlefields, to walk along the cliffs, to visit old ruins and museums. I wanted to feel history, not just study it in books. I had this whole list of places I wanted to visit, little things I wanted to try. I thought if I just saw enough, if I immersed myself in the right places, in the right moments, I’d come away changed.”

Only then did Tiernan stir, his brows pulling together, his voice thoughtful. “And what is it then?” he asked quietly. “This... sight-seeing as ye ken it?”

Rose turned her gaze back to him, the faintest shadow of a smile pulling at her lips, though her eyes remained tired, shadowed with thought. “It’s just what it sounds like. Traveling to a place to take it in with your own eyes.” She hesitated, then added more softly, “But for me—for historians—it’s about more than just looking. It’s about seeing . Noticing what most people don’t. The burn marks on old stone where a fire once lived. The wear on a step that tells you how many feet have crossed it. A name carved into a church door no one’s bothered to notice in six hundred years.”

Tiernan took a moment to absorb what she was saying, his attention wholly fixed on her. “And ye feel,” he said slowly, cautiously, “that ye’ve nae seen so much as ye wanted?”

Her smile faded. She shook her head once, her voice quieter than before. “Just the opposite. I think I’ve seen too much.” She exhaled and looked toward the fire. “I thought if I stood where something important happened, it would change me. That I could come home and say, ‘I saw it. I felt it.’ But nothing prepares you for the reality of living in a time like this. Sightseeing isn’t safe here. It isn’t clean, it’s not clinical. There’s no wonder when you’re standing in blood or watching someone...die.” A bitter smile curved her lips. “It feels so naive now. So small. I used to think seeing something beautiful or old or meaningful would be enough. That standing somewhere history had touched would somehow change me. But here... now...” She shook her head. “Living here isn’t about wonder. It’s not so much fascinating as it is frightening. Nothing’s simple, nothing’s safe. Sightseeing, in this world, means noticing the right thing fast enough to survive it.”

A beat of quiet passed between them, and she looked back to him. “I’m a historian,” she said, voice steadier now, more sure of the words. “Or I was training to be one, before all this. At university, I studied the past, the people in it—what people left behind, what we could learn from it. We used books, artifacts, sometimes ruins. Letters, if we were lucky. We’d stitch together a picture of how people lived, what mattered to them, what they struggled with.”

Tiernan’s brow drew together. “Ye study people who lived hundreds of years before ye? Dead people?”

Rose gave a faint, almost self-conscious smile. “Yes. We try to bring their lives back into focus. We tell ourselves we study the past so we won’t repeat its mistakes—but I think I misunderstood the whole point. Before this, everything I learned came from books or was delivered in monotone lectures. It was all so removed. I never truly tried to imagine what it was like to live in this world—the fear, the exhaustion, the decisions people had to make just to survive. You. Brody. Margaret. The villagers. I never thought about the weight of it all. And honestly?” She looked away for a moment. “I think I was happier not knowing what I was missing.”

He tilted his head slightly, watching her. “And now ye wish ye hadn’t learned it?”

Rose shrugged, her expression thoughtful. “In some ways, yes. I used to find history fascinating—like a puzzle you could slowly put together. Now I know it’s messy. Brutal. Sometimes beautiful, but mostly...it’s hard. It’s painful. And it’s real in a way I wasn’t prepared for.”

Tiernan didn’t pretend to understand her need to sift through lives already lived. The present had always been more than enough to contend with. For him, survival was a full-time burden, and there had never been much space for nostalgia or speculation about what came before. Still, he couldn’t ignore what her words stirred in him.

He didn’t care for the history itself, or for crumbling ruins or the long-dead names she carried in her thoughts. And yet, despite himself, despite a voice in his head telling him it was foolish, mayhap profane and improper, he cared about her. He could see her wrestling with the history she’d once loved—what had once been curiosity and wonder was now giving way to disillusionment, discomfort, and finally a raw, personal truth: that what she was learning wasn’t at all what she’d hoped to find.

He studied her face for a long moment, then said quietly, “Ye’ve lived the mystery ye once studied—and now that ye ken what it really is, it frightens ye. And ye dinna want to be here anymore.”

She gave a half-smile, sharp and seemingly self-aware. “That about sums it up.”

“That is nae why ye dinna want to be here,” he said, certain of it.

Rose opened her mouth, hesitated, then gave a small, reluctant nod. “You’re right—or half right, anyway. There’s a part of me that’s still curious, still hungry to understand how this world really works. But that part is buried under something bigger.” Her hands folded in her lap. “The truth is, I’ve never felt more out of place in my life. It’s not just that I don’t belong here—though clearly I don’t—it’s that I’m reminded of it, constantly. That I look like someone else. That I’m standing in Margaret’s shadow. Half the people here think I’m her ghost. The other half act like I’m some trick sent to unsettle them. Every step I take feels like a trespass. It’s exhausting.” Her lips twitched, though it was not quite a smile. “And it’s not like I haven’t been the outsider before. I did high school in the twentieth century with braces and headgear strapped to my face and this”—she gestured vaguely toward her scar—“reminding everyone how...different I was. I know what it’s like to feel unwanted. But this is worse. Here, I don’t just stand out—I’m a threat. Or a ghost. Or a lie.” She lowered her eyes. “Sorry,” she murmured. “You probably don’t care about any of that.”

Tiernan rose to his feet, slowly, the movement deliberate as he tested his balance. His shoulder ached—there was no avoiding that—but it was a familiar ache, dulled now to something manageable, something he could push past if he had to. Rose stood as well, as if his motion had stirred something in her too.

As he steadied himself on his feet, he motioned toward the chair she’d just left, a silent invitation for her to sit again, to stay. But she didn’t take it.

“I’m sorry for intruding,” she said, her voice soft and edged with uncertainty, “for lurking as I am. As I said, Agnes had me worried that you might come down with a fever.” She spoke quickly now, nervously, mayhap with some irrational worry that she’d said too much.

She moved again, coming toward him, picking up the part of the fur throw that had fallen off the bed and to the floor as he’d stood. When she straightened, they stood but a few feet apart.

Though neither said a word, it seemed an undeniable current pulled taut between them. His gaze, sharp and steady, settled on hers and held.

She didn’t look away, not at first. But slowly, as if drawn by gravity, her eyes slipped from his, drifting downward, lingering a breath too long on the line of his mouth.

Tiernan felt the effect of it like a spark against dry tinder. Her eyes on his lips made something shift in his chest and tighten in his gut. He felt suddenly too aware of the space between them. Of the firelight on her skin. Of the way her breath caught, just barely, as if she realized too late what she’d done. Her blue eyes snapped back to him.

“Dinna look at me like that,” he said, the warning quiet but rough, scraped raw at the edges. His voice betrayed what he tried to contain—the want, the restraint, the fine thread holding both in place.

Her throat moved as she swallowed, the breath catching in her chest. “Like... what?”

His jaw ticked, and when he spoke again, the words came through tightly clenched teeth. “Like ye want me to kiss ye again.”

She didn’t startle. Didn’t blush or laugh or brush it aside. She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. Her brow lifted just slightly—almost in defiance—and then her gaze dropped, sweeping slowly over the plane of his chest, his bare skin still marked with bruises, his bandaged shoulder a stark reminder of the fight that had nearly been his end.

Her eyes came back to his.

“Are you leaving in the morning?” she asked, quieter now. “Going back to Druimlach?”

He nodded once, tightly.

Rose answered with her own nod, nervous again, he sensed.

“Then... maybe I do want you to kiss me again. Once more before you go.”

The impact of her words was louder in his ears than the sound of the storm, louder than his own heartbeat.

He reached for her, slow and careful, one hand brushing against her jaw, his fingers grazing just beneath her ear. She didn’t flinch but allowed herself to be pulled forward. Her eyes were fixed on his, wide and bright and waiting.

He lowered his mouth to hers, and when their lips met, it wasn’t fierce or rushed or demanding. It was slow and soft, reverent even. It wasn’t a claiming—it was a question, and her answer came in the way she leaned into him, in the way her hands rose to rest against his chest.

He knew it then, with absolute clarity, that he wasn’t strong enough to resist her anymore. He didn’t want to be. Whatever reason the gods or fate or the cruel pull of time had brought her here, he no longer had it in him to hold her at a distance. Not tonight, and not with her mouth against his, her body warm and willing and so achingly alive in his arms.

But then he knew, he was certain of one thing: this wouldn’t end with just a kiss.

And he no longer cared about the reasons why it should.