Page 117 of A Scot in the Storm
“The cobbler crossed himself when he saw the old pair.”
“Reasonable response.”
“I thought they had character.”
Mrs. Gable removed her cloak with the grim satisfaction of a woman who had personally defeated winter through practical planning.
The afternoon passed quietly after that.
Rory worked through the correspondence near the hearth while Abigail helped Mrs. Gable bundle dried herbs and tiewinter greenery with bits of wool ribbon scavenged from somewhere upstairs.
Not garlands. Nothing grand. Simply enough pine and holly to soften the stone walls against the dark part of winter.
The kitchen smelled of rosemary drying near the fire, baked apples, bread, and peat smoke curling warm into the rafters.
Rory glanced up from his papers and found Abigail staring into the fire with that faraway expression he recognized too easily now.
America. Whatever she’d left behind.
“What is it?” he asked quietly.
She blinked once before looking toward him. “Nothing.”
“You’ve been quiet half the afternoon.”
For a moment he thought she would refuse the question entirely.
Then she said softly, “My brother.”
Rory set down the papers.
“Sam,” she continued. “I keep thinking about him being sick while I’m sitting here by a fire drinking tea and…” Her mouth tightened faintly. “I feel guilty for being happy.”
The honesty of it struck him harder than expected.
“Aye,” he said quietly. “I know that feeling.”
She studied him carefully across the firelight. “Does it ever stop?”
He thought of Murtagh. Of eating breakfast while his brother lay beneath the sea. Of sunlight on his face, waking each day.
“Nay,” Rory answered at last. “But eventually sorrow stops feeling like the only thing inside ye.” He looked down briefly toward the whisky in his hand before continuing more quietly.
“One day ye realize grief’s sitting beside other things again. Warmth. Hunger. Laughter. Ordinary life.”
Abigail watched him for a long moment after that.
Then she nodded slightly like someone storing the words carefully away.
By late afternoon Mrs. Gable decided the lighthouse required greenery before Christmastide properly arrived.
“Take those upstairs,” she ordered, gesturing toward a pile of pine branches and holly tied with scraps of faded ribbon.
Rory gathered the greenery while Abigail collected the ribbon basket, and together they climbed toward the lantern room while the wind hummed through the tower stone, and snow battered the narrow windows in bursts of white.
The stair smelled faintly of pine resin and lamp oil. Halfway up, Abigail slowed near one of the windows.
“There’s something there.”
