Page 126 of A Scot in the Storm
Nothing in her life had ever felt less careful. Not the years spent building a career or the endless practical choices. Not the constant exhausting effort of being responsible while Sam ran laughing toward every dangerous thing life offered him.
This was not careful, this was surrender.
Rory kissed her like a man who had spent too long denying himself something he desperately wanted.
Slow at first, almost reverent. Then deeper when Abigail made a small helpless sound against his mouth and his restraint finally slipped.
And for one suspended impossible moment, Abigail forgot there had ever been another century waiting for her at all.
By midmorning on Christmas,the house had grown loud enough to feel alive from cellar to lantern room.
People came up the kirk road despite the snow. Reverend Ogilvie with reddened ears, Mistress Haldane with a basket beneath one arm. Janet Cruickshank, who had put Rory’s shoulder back in place, and then around noon, Mary Hunter arrived with little Beth in a red wool hood clutching a carved wooden horse Tobias insisted he’d made himself, though the horse possessed the general proportions of an emotionally difficult potato.
Beth adored it immediately. Children had forgiving standards where craftsmanship was concerned.
By afternoon the hall downstairs had become the sort of Christmas gathering that would have caused any modern fire marshal to expire on sight.
Too many people, too much smoke, way too much whisky, one fiddle, three competing songs, at least four dogs nobody claimed ownership of, and one chicken that absolutely did not belong indoors.
Rory stood beside Abigail near the long table.
“Is this a normal Christmas?” Abigail asked.
Rory looked slowly around the room. Ewan was arguing theology with Reverend Ogilvie over whisky. Tavish was attempting to teach Beth how to whistle. Duncan was feeding crumbs discreetly to the unauthorized chicken while pretending not to.
Mrs. Gable was pouring cider with the calm authority of a woman who could probably command a naval fleet if sufficiently annoyed.
“Nae,” Rory said. “But it’s ours.”
Ours.
The word settled deep inside her as Abigail looked up at him.
Then one of the man asked for his help. Abigail watched him move through the crowded hall, stopping to greet the villagers.
He crossed toward the hearth to take another log from Ewan without being asked, paused to steady Beth when she nearly slid across the floor chasing one of the dogs, then bent his head automatically so Mrs. Gable could straighten the collar of his coat with the distracted authority of a woman who’d been fixing him for years.
Rory belonged to people the way the lighthouse belonged to the cliffs, steady and unquestioned and built so firmly into the lives around him that everyone simply leaned toward him without thinking.
Even Duncan.
Across the hall Tavish said something that made Rory laugh under his breath while Beth tugged insistently at his sleeve, demanding immediate attention for whatever catastrophe involved the chicken now.
Abigail hadn’t fallen in love with him because he’d found her on the rocks or because she’d read his letters. Not even because he’d kissed her beneath the lantern light.
She’d fallen in love with the man who stayed. The man who carried grief without letting it harden him. The man who built a light so hopefully others would come home safely. For who he was as a man.
And suddenly the idea of leaving this place felt less like survival and far more like tearing out a living piece of herself with both hands.
When he returned, he handed her a cup of whisky.
“Tell me more about him.”
Abigail’s throat tightened.
“Sam?”
“Aye.”
