Page 18 of The Scot Who Loved Me (A Scots Through Time #3)
His strong arm circled her waist, calloused fingers splaying across the small of her back, drawing her closer until the heat of his body melted into hers.
The kiss deepened, transforming from tentative exploration to something urgent and necessary, his mouth claiming hers with a passion that made her knees weaken.
The faint scar along his jawline brushed against her fingertips as she reached up to trace the contours of his face, memorizing him by touch.
Time seemed to stop. Ironic, she thought distantly, for someone who had traveled through the centuries.
Nothing existed beyond the warmth of his mouth on hers, the intoxicating pressure of his lips moving with perfect precision against her own.
His scent enveloped her, heather and peat smoke, leather and something uniquely him, earthy and wild like the Highlands themselves.
A soft sound escaped her throat, half sigh and half moan, as his hand tangled in her hair, cradling her head with unexpected tenderness.
The contrast between his warrior’s strength and this gentle touch undid her completely.
Here, wrapped in his embrace with the wind sighing through the grass around them, Harper finally understood what it meant to belong somewhere, to someone, across the impossible divide of time itself.
When they finally parted, both breathing unevenly, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’ve wanted to do that since I found you on that beach,” he confessed, his voice rough with emotion.
As they walked back toward camp, their hands remained joined between them, a silent acknowledgment of what had almost happened and what might yet be.
The camp was quiet when they returned, most having succumbed to sleep or whisky. William walked Harper to her tent, pausing outside the entrance flap.
“Rest well,” he murmured, finally releasing her hand. “Tomorrow may bring the prince, and with him, our future.”
“Goodnight, William,” she replied softly.
He hesitated, then leaned forward, pressing his lips gently to hers in a gesture that felt both protective and reverent. “Sweet dreams, a leannan ,” he whispered against her mouth before stepping back into the darkness.
She watched him go, the Gaelic endearment warming her more than any fire could.
She entered her tent with her heart full of contradictions, joy at this newfound closeness with William, fear for what the coming days would bring, and the ever-present knowledge that she walked between two worlds, belonging fully to neither.
As she settled onto her pallet, her mind raced with contradictions.
William’s kiss still lingered on her lips, but the sweetness was tempered by growing dread.
The historian in her recognized the immutable timeline unfolding around them.
Prince Charlie’s arrival, the early Jacobite victories, the inevitable march toward Culloden where so many Highlanders would die.
Could she change it? Should she?
She’d spent years studying the butterfly effect on geological timescales, how tiny alterations in conditions could lead to massive changes millions of years later.
What might happen if she warned William about Culloden?
If she helped the Jacobites avoid their devastating defeat?
The entire course of British history could change, potentially erasing the future she came from altogether.
Yet watching William tonight, hearing the pain in his voice as he spoke of Mercer, feeling the gentle strength in his kiss, how could she remain silent knowing what awaited him and his people? The ethical dilemma twisted in her chest like a physical pain.
For the first time since arriving in this century, Harper realized she no longer thought constantly of returning to her own time. Instead, her thoughts were anchored here, to this time, these people, this man, in ways that both thrilled and terrified her.
Tomorrow the prince would arrive, setting in motion events that would change the course of Scottish history forever.
Harper knew the historical outcome with academic certainty.
What she didn’t know, what no history book could tell her, was whether her presence had already altered that timeline, or whether some paths were truly fixed, immutable despite her interference.
As sleep finally claimed her, Harper’s dreams were filled with maps, not of coastlines and mountains, but of possible futures branching like rivers, each choice creating new tributaries of time.
And in every version, William’s blue eyes watched her, questioning, trusting, unaware of the terrible knowledge she carried.
Ian MacPhail pulled his boat higher onto the shore, glancing furtively over his shoulder to ensure he hadn’t been observed. The meeting with Lieutenant Foster had gone well, fifty pounds sterling now rested in his pocket, with a promise of fifty more when the information proved accurate.
He hadn’t started out as a traitor. When the English officer had first approached him six months ago, Ian had nearly spat in his face.
But then Foster had mentioned Ian’s younger brother, imprisoned in Fort William for suspected Jacobite sympathies.
The choice had become brutally simple. Information in exchange for his brother’s life and eventual freedom.
What had begun as reluctant cooperation to save his brother had evolved into something more complicated.
The English money meant his aging mother could eat well through the winter.
The promised pardon meant his family name might be cleared.
And increasingly, Ian found himself believing Foster’s arguments about the futility of the Jacobite cause, the inevitability of Hanoverian rule.
Still, as he tucked the purse of coins into his hidden pocket, guilt gnawed at him.
These Highlanders, who’d made camp on Eriskay, were his countrymen.
The strange woman with her unusual knowledge treated him with more respect than most. Was their blood worth his brother’s life? Worth the comfort money could buy?
Ian pushed the thoughts aside as he secured his boat. He’d made his choice months ago. There was no turning back now, not with the prince’s arrival imminent and the stakes higher than ever.
Tomorrow he would return to camp, smile, and continue his deception.
He would report on the prince’s landing when it happened.
And he would try not to think about what would happen to William MacGregor and his companions when English troops intercepted them, guided by Ian’s detailed reports of their strengths, weaknesses, and plans.
Fifty more pounds. His brother’s freedom. These were the prizes that mattered, Ian told himself as he trudged up the beach. Not the friendship of rebels. Not the respect of a strange foreign woman. Not the cause of a doomed prince.
Yet somehow, the coins felt heavier in his pocket with each step.