Page 218 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
A pause followed, and in it, all she could hear was her heartbeat. Then Ciaran asked, “Did ye ever think ye might nae see it?”
“Of course.” She gave a small breath that was almost a laugh. “Most years, I was certain I wouldnae. But that was part of it,too. I think Ma kent that one may wait for beauty and still never hold it. She looked anyway. I loved that about her.”
The cold had begun to redden the tips of her fingers, and she tucked one hand beneath the other to warm them. Ciaran noticed, and a moment later, his hand wrapped around hers and drew it nearer his side.
Ava went still.
He did not look at her. His eyes stayed on the sky.
“Yer fingers are freezing,” he murmured.
Ava let him hold her hand. The touch was simple, but the effect spread through her slowly.
“There,” she whispered.
The comet appeared at last with a clean, pale brightness. Then it grew, and the trail behind it became clear.
She forgot to breathe for one second as her eyes welled up.
“There ye are,” she said, though she did not know whether she was speaking to the comet or to her mother or to the years of waiting.
The tears came quietly, and she let them. Her hand tightened around Ciaran’s without thought.
“She saw it,” she whispered. “And now I do.”
She looked up at the passing light until the stars around it blurred. The memory and grief hit her all at once, and she felt another shudder run through her.
“I saw it, Ma,” she sniffed.
Ciaran did not speak. He stayed beside her and let her linger in the moment, a feat she could not be more grateful for if she tried.
She lay there with the comet overhead, her hand in his, and felt a rare peace settle over her. She had wanted this for years. She had carried it through girlhood, marriage, and everything that had followed. Now it was here, and Ciaran was here to witness it with her.
That mattered. It mattered so much that the tenderness of it felt almost too fine to last long. Even so, for that stretch of time by the loch, she let herself stay inside it fully.
The comet moved above them, and Ciaran’s hand remained wrapped around hers. And in that moment, under the dark and blinking sky, all Ava could feel was safe.
CHAPTER 26
The comet remainedvisible in the sky when Ava turned her head toward him.
Her hand remained in his on the coat. The air had gone colder, but she did not seem to feel it much. Wonder still sat on her face, and Ciaran could see the dampness on her lashes where tears had gathered and dried. He could see the quiet relief in her mouth.
When she spoke, her voice was low enough that the loch and the night completely blended in around it.“I am sorry I have been distant.”
Ciaran looked at her. She had every reason to hold herself apart from him. He knew that better than she did. Yet here she was, opening the door he had kept trying to close.
“The fire. Me father. Everything with us.” Her fingers tightened once around his. “I have been angry, and afraid, and tired, and some of it I didnae carry well.”
“It happens to the best of us,” he responded.
He should have let it rest there. He should have taken the grace she offered and kept his mouth shut. Instead, he listened to the part of himself that had been niggling at him for days.
Ava turned her face toward the sky again for a second, then back to him. “Ye have been very kind to me family.”
The line struck him with the same force as the others.
“I ken things are still difficult,” she continued. “I ken I havenae made them easier. But I do see that. It is important to me that ye ken that Iseethat.”
