Page 11 of I Loved You Then (Far From Home #12)

When they reached the landing, Ivy paused and pinned Claire with an anxious look. “Claire—what was that about? The way you reacted when you saw Ciaran? My God, you looked just as he did, when he saw you in the back of the cart when you came in with the tinker—like you’d seen a ghost.”

Claire blinked, shocked by this new bit of information. “What?”

Ivy nodded and spoke in a rushed hush. “When Ciaran looked at you—you were unconscious at the time—I swear to God, his face went white, and he...he just stared at you. I asked him if he knew you—obviously, that’s not possible.

.. but now... Claire, you just had the same exact reaction to seeing him. ”

“I don’t...” Claire began, still unable to process the coincidence—it was more than that, though, right?

—let alone put it into words, “I don’t know, but.

..” she paused and straightened, blowing out a long breath.

And then she explained as much as she knew, or thought she understood.

“Ivy, nine years ago I was in a car accident, a really bad single car crash at nighttime on a quiet country road. I thought I would die there, that I wouldn’t be found in time.

It was terrifying, thinking you’re going to die all alone.

Anyway, I guess I probably floated in and out of consciousness, but for quite a while there was a man there with me.

I don’t know where he came from and he never said a word, but he opened the driver side door,” she said, and swallowed before continuing, “and he just sat there with me. And...I knew such peace, like just his being there eased all my fear.”

“And?” Ivy prompted, with a trace of impatience.

Claire breathed a laugh, still incredulous. “And the man, he looked exactly like Ciaran Kerr. I mean, exactly—that’s not a face you mistake for another, right?”

Ivy’s jaw dropped. “What? But that’s not—how is that even...?”

“I know, right?” Claire concurred heartily. “That’s why I just freaked out. I was so sure it was him.” She shook her head, frowning rigidly. “But it’s not. Of course, it can’t be. But wow, Ivy, the resemblance is...unreal. Down to his expression, it’s spot on.”

“But it was nine years ago...” Ivy put forward delicately.

Claire shook her head again, not unaware of the years that had passed—not any less aware that she was now seven hundred years away from that moment. “Trust me, I...I think about him a lot. I can never...unsee him. His image, his face—it’s always so crystal clear. I never lost it. It never fades.”

“Ooh, you just gave me goosebumps,” Ivy said. “Claire, that’s...amazing, astonishing, but what do you think it means?”

Claire laughed, she couldn’t help herself. “Well, hell if I know,” she replied. “I don’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore. Time seems to have...departed. Or it never was, not as we know it. I’m so confused.”

“But you have to tell Ciaran,” Ivy insisted. “You have to ask him how he knows you. Or where he knows you from. I’m telling you, Claire—he knows you. I saw the recognition. Somehow, someway, he knows you. Maybe only in the same way you know him, like in that wispy, nebulous way you just described.”

“I will,” Claire agreed, but knew she wouldn’t be anxious to approach the medieval laird, and ask him if he knew her, and oh, by the way, I wasn’t born for seven more centuries—but do you know me? Another shaky laugh followed. “Just when I thought I couldn’t be more confused than I already am.”

Ivy grinned irreverently. “Welcome to time-travel.”

***

The keep should have felt like sanctuary after more than three weeks away on campaign, but Ciaran found no rest in his bed.

The stone walls seemed closer than he remembered, the silence too loud after the constant thrum of men and horses.

Two hours after finding his bed with the hope of sleep, he rose and donned his breeches and tunic, and shoved his bare feet back into his boots.

He did not prowl the keep like a restless hound but went directly outside, into the night, where the stair to the battlements beckoned him, seeking high ground as if he were yet on expedition, in pursuit of the English.

His boots rang soft on the steps in the midnight quiet, and the night air met him cold and sharp, brine from the firth riding the wind, familiar and welcome, and he breathed easier for it.

He nodded once to the first guard he passed. Giles straightened quick enough, though his jaw cracked with a yawn he couldn’t hide. Farther on, another lad leaned against the parapet, his back to the dark hills, idly picking at his nails with the tip of his dagger.

Ciaran’s gaze and jaw hardened. A Kerr guard with his back to the world was about as useful as any other man lucky enough to be asleep in his bed.

He didn’t bark at the lad, but let his stride become heavy, just enough for his boots to scrape the stone.

The sound was warning enough; Andrew jolted upright, dagger vanishing, nodding a greeting before whirling around to stare out over the vast expanse of Caeravorn.

Ciaran carried on without a word, having let his displeased glare speak for him.

Further along, on the sea side of the wall, another figure stood near a brazier set against the wall, the fire’s glow catching on the fall of dark blonde hair, over the folds of a wool shawl wrapped close against the night.

She was still, her gaze lifted to the sky where the moon rode high among the clouds.

Ciaran paused, and for a heartbeat he thought of turning back the way he had come, slipping into shadow and leaving her to her solitude, sparing them both the awkwardness of a meeting.

But she turned. Gray eyes met his, clear even in the firelight. She started faintly, then spoke quickly.

“I was told it was all right for me to be up here,” she said, as though she feared reprimand. Her hands clutched the shawl more tightly at her throat, but her chin did not lower.

“Aye,” Ciaran said, voice low and rough. “?Tis nae a prison.”

He might have left it at that, might have only nodded same as he had to the soldiers on duty, but was held by her gaze, which flicked over him—sharp, wary, yet curious, he surmised—before it slid away, dropping to the sea below.

He hadn’t noticed his agitation until he realized he’d clenched his jaw. Yet under the low moon, with the brazier’s glow soft on her profile, the resemblance to that other woman seemed less stark, less disturbing.

She turned her face toward him again. “Ivy told me you and...um, your army, and the MacKinlay army were chasing an English army,” she ventured, her tone quiet, uncertain. “Was it...were you successful?”

“We succeeded in what we set out to do,” he said after a moment.

She nodded once and shifted her stance until she faced him fully, resting her hip against the parapet. “Is it... it awful? I’m sorry, that must sound like a strange question, but I...I’m not familiar with war—fighting in hand-to-hand combat... I just...” she shrugged and let the rest stay unspoken.

His teeth clenched harder. He nodded but gave nothing more. It was simply war.

“How long have you been the laird of Caeravorn?” she asked after a moment.

He kicked himself for not moving, for seemingly inviting conversation by lingering. He remained rooted though, his curiosity yet strong, needing to test again that likeness to another that was long buried.

“That can’t be easy,” Claire ventured, a hint of a question in her tone, “trying to run a clan, keep everyone safe, make sure everyone is fed and healthy, and then have to go off to war.”

“I dinna ken on it.” He simply did what was required of him.

With a resigned breath, he finally moved, stepping to the parapet beside her, close enough to share the view, but not so close to crowd her.

Below, the firth lay hushed in the night, its dark surface broken only by the silver trace of moonlight and the slow lap of water against the unseen cliff base.

“But does it... ever feel like too much?” She gave a soft laugh, the sound nervous but sweet. “I don’t suppose you get mental health days here.”

He turned his head slightly, not enough to look at her fully, though the urge gnawed at him, staring at the ends of her hair, tugged and lifted gently by the night’s breeze. He couldn’t say why, but her questions needled him. Perhaps she meant only idle talk, yet they seemed intrusive, probing.

Ignoring her query, he steered the subject away from him. “Where is it ye hail from?” Her speech was remarkably similar to Ivy Mitchell’s strange patterns and sounds.

“I, uh, grew up in the border region,” she said, turning her attention to the silvery water once again, planting both hips against the stone. “I understand my...dialect is unknown around here—well, except for Ivy, of course.”

“Aye, it is,” he agreed. “And how came ye to be found half-senseless in the mountains?”

She drew in a large breath, and he saw the profile of her swallow. “I honestly don’t know. I...I can’t seem to remember much.” She chewed her lip briefly before adding, “About how I got there, I mean.”

She fell silent after that, with no more questions or answers on her tongue.

Ciaran didn’t appreciate that he had no measure of her.

Her uncanny likeness to a woman long dead was troubling enough, but added to it was the manner of her coming, her rare speech, and the odd garb she’d been found in.

All of it made her a puzzle, and puzzles bred mistrust.

Though his body faced the wall and the sea beyond, his head remained angled toward her, attuned to every small movement, the way she blinked repeatedly and worried her lip still, as though weighing questions left unasked, wrestling with whether to speak again.

Finally, she tilted her face, though she kept her front pressed against the wall. “Do you... um, when I saw you this morning, it looked like you... I don’t know, maybe recognized me? Have we ever...met?”

Ciaran’s head snapped toward her, struck by the gall of her query, by how close she’d come to naming the very thought he’d tried to bury.

“Nae,” he said at last, his voice low, rougher than he meant. “We’ve nae met.” He drew a slow breath, jaw tight. “Nae,” he repeated, as if a strong and constant denial would erase his own uncertainty. “Nae.”

And maybe he denied it too firmly, that she stared at him now with an expression of suspicion, as though she sensed more in his words than he’d intended to give away.

“I was only surprised to find ye yet at Caeravorn,” he amended.

Her gray eyes widened dramatically. “Oh, well, I...I’m so sorry,” she paused and laughed nervously. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

He winced inwardly at his own impolite bluntness. “?Tis fine—I dinna mean...ye are welcome at Caeravorn.”

“Thank you,” she murmured then, given almost as a question and not a statement.

They removed their gazes from each other, giving their attention to the firth below once more. Half a minute slipped by in uneasy silence before she turned from the wall. A nervous half-smile flickered across her mouth, her eyes skimming past his without truly meeting them.

“I should go in. Try to sleep,” she said softly. “Goodnight.”

Ciaran nodded and watched her go, chewing the inside of his cheek in thought.

Bonny she was, aye—remarkably so, with a grace that drew the eye against his will. There was a softness to her mouth, a light in her gray eyes, that stirred something no other had, not in years. For a heartbeat he regretted that she left, that his coolness may have chased her away.

He caught himself hard, reminding himself that too often beauty was naught but bait, and fools snared themselves on it daily.

Whatever she was—stray, stranger, or ghost—he had no mind to forsake caution.

There was something about her he could not name, a wrongness he could not put his finger to, that made every instinct in him as wary as he was intrigued.