Page 63 of Of Heather and Thistle

Flynn

The first time Flynn set foot in Glenoran, it was just a job—stone and mortar, permits and plans. A structure to fix. Nothing more. Now, standing at the edge of the land, watching dusk spill across the heather-covered hills, he knew better.

Glenoran wasn’t just a house.

It was hers—and somehow, it had become his, too.

The wind carried the scent of rain and earth, the crisp promise of an autumn storm rolling in from the west. Somewhere behind him, Heather was inside, curled up with Byrdie in one of the grand old chairs by the fire, a book in her lap.

She’d said she was reading, but Flynn knew better.

She was probably staring into the flames, lost in thought the way she so often was—half in the present, half tangled in the ghosts of her past.

And yet, she had chosen to stay.

He hadn’t asked her to. He wouldn’t have. It had to be her choice. But when she told him she wasn’t leaving, that Glenoran was where she belonged, something had settled inside him, quiet and sure—like a stone finally finding its place at the bottom of a river.

Flynn ran a hand over the rough stone of the outer wall, glancing to the old outbuildings beyond the garden.

He’d have to take a look at them soon—Heather was convinced that the answer to the lost Jacobite gold was buried somewhere in Glenoran’s past. And though he wasn’t one for legends or ghosts, he’d follow her lead anywhere.

If there was something to be found, he’d dig until they found it.

And if not? Well, he had already had everything he needed.

The sun dipped lower, casting Glenoran in dusk’s soft, fading glow. With one last glance at the land stretching out before him, he turned back toward the house, toward the woman who had unknowingly changed everything.

Home, he realized, wasn’t just a place.

It was a person.

And his had tumbling auburn curls and eyes the color of wild Scottish ferns.