Page 5 of I Loved You Then (Far From Home #12)

Gently, he went to his haunches beside the woman, checking first for a pulse before he swept her hair aside, revealing her face in its entirety.

He jerked his hand back, frozen by the sight. Memory slammed into him—the field at Berwick, the stench of smoke and blood, the weight of a dying woman in his arms. Her gray eyes, burning with that odd calmness, her last words rasped in a voice weak with imminent death. I’ve been waiting for you.

Ciaran shook himself. This was not her. Of course it was not her, could not be. That woman had gone to her grave years ago. And yet the likeness was enough to stagger him, to briefly turn his knees to pudding.

“Do...do you know her?” Ivy Mitchell’s whisper broke through the haze of his shock.

His eyes cut to hers, raw, still snagged by the moment, the resemblance. “Aye,” he answered unthinkingly. Then, after a beat, harsher: “Nae. Nae, I dinna.”

Rigidly, he thrust aside pots and cloth with reckless force and gathered the limp figure into his arms. She sagged against him, her hair spilling across his shoulder and arm, the heat of her felt instantly, unmistakable as fever.

For a moment he did not move, staring down at her with a stunned expression, feeling almost as if, before he moved, he needed to understand why she looked so exactly like that other woman.

Then he clenched his jaw, leapt from the wagon, and barked, “Summon the midwife!” His voice cracked hoarse with urgency, but it carried.

Caeravorn had no healer, and the army’s barber-surgeon employed methods too coarse and dubious to tend the woman in his arms. Ruth, the midwife, would be better suited to the task.

He strode directly toward the hall while the tinker and villagers carried on with their business as if a half-dead woman had not just been discovered in the back of the cart.

He was aware that Ivy hurried after him, but he concentrated on the woman, getting her safely abovestairs, where she might be tended properly.

He shouldered his way into the first empty chamber he came upon, which happened to be directly adjacent to the one Ivy Mitchell occupied.

More gently than he’d had cause to be in years, he lowered the woman onto the bed.

He stood rooted, still amazed by the uncanny likeness.

The line of her jaw, the shape of her cheek, even the curve of her mouth—every detail struck him with the force of memory.

Her lips were the same, full and pink-tinted, a shape he recognized too well, so familiar it unsettled him to see them on another face.

And her hair—aye, that same wheat-blonde, the hue of barley fields beneath clouded skies.

He did not yet know the color of this woman’s eyes, but it hardly mattered.

The face of that other had been etched into his memory for nine long years, refusing to fade.

His mother’s image had grown hazy, his father’s voice dimmed in recollection—but hers remained, sharp as the day he first saw it among the blood and fire at Berwick.

Ivy moved beside him, pressing a hand to the woman’s brow. “She’s burning up,” she murmured.

Ciaran’s throat worked, but no words came. He only stared, taut, feeling as if he’d been eviscerated, until Ivy touched his arm.

“Sir, I can’t do the stairs again,” she professed, laying her hand over her rounded stomach. “But while we wait for the healer, we need cold water and clean cloths to try and get her fever down.”

Her voice jarred him back to the present. He blinked, drew a sharp breath, and nodded brusquely, forcing his feet to move toward the door.

But as he left, the image of the woman’s face stayed with him. And he knew, without any resistance to the idea, without any doubt, that he needed this woman to live, to survive, as that other woman had not. He didn’t question even once why that seemed so important to him.

***

Claire’s eyes fluttered open slowly. For one stunned second she didn’t breathe.

A stone ceiling loomed above her, dark beams crossing it, and the faint glow of firelight flickered against rough-hewn walls.

Not a hospital. Not her bedroom at the quaint hotel where she and Jason had been staying.

Not anywhere she knew, but somewhere that had an ancient look to it.

A woman sat in a chair at her bedside—young, with thick strawberry-blonde hair and soft features that, at first impression, seemed dreamy, or at the very least distracted. Having the fifty-yard stare, her mother would have said.

Confused again—or still—Claire didn’t know what to say or if she should speak. But then the young woman seemed to recover from her daydream, blinking rapidly before she turned a pair of hazel eyes onto Claire.

The woman jolted upright, nearly upsetting the chair, and bent over her, a wide smile breaking across her face.

“Oh my God—you’re awake!” she exclaimed, words rushing too fast.

Claire flinched at the sudden brightness of her tone. Awake? Had she been asleep? Well, yes, that made sense; she realized she was in a bed. And then she flinched again as the woman reached a hand toward her, but she only laid it over Claire’s forehead.

“No fever,” the woman pronounced cheerily. “We’ve been fighting it for days. You should’ve seen the awful draughts they made you drink, and I’ve been at you with cool cloths day and night. The midwife’s been here three or four times, I can’t remember—”

The flood of words blurred together, the strange ones lingering. Draughts? Healer?

Her lips cracked open, her voice nothing more than a rasp. “Where...am I?”

The woman froze, her smile faltering. Claire saw something flicker across her face—alarm, hesitation.

“Oh, gosh,” she stammered, gripping the blanket between her fingers.

“That’s...that’s kind of complicated. I don’t even know where to begin.

But listen—” she leaned closer, eyes wide, her voice softer now, “you’re safe.

And you’re not alone. I promise you that. ”

It was vague at best, nearly alarming at worst, but Claire considered the woman’s friendly face, her words—safe, not alone—and decided it was better than what last she remembered, lost, alone, frightened, cold.

At the moment, she had only enough wherewithal to know she was too weak, too weary to make sense of anything just yet. Her lashes grew heavy, her body betraying her. She tried to hold on, wanted to ask more and know more, but the pull of sleep was too strong.

When next she woke, it seemed as if several hours had passed; the light around the bed suggested late afternoon, or perhaps early evening. The fire had burned low in the hearth, the shadows long across the stone walls.

A wisp of movement caught in her periphery, and she turned her head with effort. The same young woman sat nearby, rising quickly when their eyes met.

“You’re awake.” Her tone was calm this time, not breathless as before. She leaned forward, her dark eyes earnest. “Hi. I’m Ivy.”

Claire blinked, the name catching strangely in her mind. Her lips parted, but no sound emerged. Her throat felt dry, raw.

Ivy reached for a cup on the small table beside the bed, her movements brisk but gentle. Sliding an arm behind Claire’s shoulders, she propped her up. “Just a sip,” she coaxed. “You’ve had a fever for a day and a half.”

The cool water touched Claire’s lips and she drank, coughing once, then sagged back against the pillow, her muscles trembling with the effort. Her hair clung damply, almost sticky, to her neck.

“How...long?” she whispered.

“Since yesterday afternoon. You’ve slept most of it.” Ivy’s fingers brushed her forehead, then her cheek, and she gave a satisfied nod. “No fever now.”

Claire let her gaze drift across the chamber—rough stone walls, heavy beams, a tall, narrow window without glass. Nothing familiar. Nothing remotely modern. Her pulse began to race.

Her eyes darted back to Ivy. “Where am I?”

“Caeravorn Keep,” Ivy answered carefully. “On the west coast of Scotland. You were found up in the mountain, apparently, and brought here.”

Found. The word felt alien on her tongue. “Found,” she repeated, as though saying it might make sense of it. “By whom?”

“A traveling tinker,” Ivy said, then, seeing Claire’s confusion, added, “Think... repairman with a cart, with the personality of a used car salesman.” The corner of her mouth tugged upward, a quick, incongruous smile.

“He did the right thing, though, bringing you here. Do you...remember anything? About what happened—how you ended up in the mountain?”

Fog. That was all it was—fog in her mind. She tried to chase memory, but it slipped from her grasp. “I... I don’t know. It’s foggy.” Her voice broke with frustration. She pressed her lips together and shook her head faintly.

“That’s okay.” Ivy smoothed the blanket at her shoulder, kind but firm. “Don’t push yourself. You’ve been through a lot.”

Claire’s eyes roamed the room again: the stone, the beams, the flicker of firelight. This wasn’t a hospital. Not even close. Panic flickered at the edge of her thoughts. She reached for something solid, something normal. “My phone?”

“I didn’t see a phone with you,” Ivy said, cautious now. “You came with nothing but the clothes on your back. And, um... phones wouldn’t work here anyway.”

Claire frowned, clinging to the simplest explanation. “No service?”

“Right.” Ivy nodded gently, but her tone made Claire’s stomach twist.

“Is there a land line here?” she pressed.

Ivy winced. “There’s not. I’m sorry.”

Claire’s chest tightened. She was too weak to argue, too dazed to untangle what this meant. Ivy’s voice came again, a quick distraction: “Obviously, you’re from the States. Were you—are you—just vacationing in Scotland? How long have you been here?”

The word vacation sounded strange in her own mouth, but she heard herself say, “Vacation. With my husband.” A pause.

“We were separated—I’d been searching for him for a long time it seemed, but nothing.

.. nothing seemed right. Nothing made sense.

” Her fingers clenched at the blanket. “I can’t piece it together. ”

Ivy’s expression softened, a flicker of sympathy that only deepened Claire’s unease.

“Don’t force it,” Ivy urged. “Memories will come back when you’re stronger. Right now, all that matters is you’re safe.” She hesitated, then added, “Do you remember where you were last? What you were doing before you were separated from your husband?”

Claire shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Maybe you were hiking near the mountain? Where you were found?”

Another shake. Nothing.

“Did you notice anything...odd before you were separated?” Ivy’s eyes searched hers intently. “Like, something felt off, or odd?”

Claire stiffened. The question unnerved her. What kind of “odd” did she mean?

Ivy must have seen her alarm, for she quickly waved it off with a smile.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I’m interrogating you.

I just... thought it might help you, to talk it through.

” She pressed the cup back into Claire’s hands.

“Here. Another sip. You can rest, and when you feel stronger, we’ll talk more. ”

The suspicion lingered in Claire’s gaze, but weariness was stronger. She drank, then let her head sink back, her lashes lowering despite her fight to stay awake.