Page 90 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
The air by the loch was cold enough to wake every part of her. She did not care. She looked up once, then down toward the end of the loch, trying to find the best place, then back up again in case the sky had changed in the breath she had spent moving.
Ciaran took off his coat. “Lie there,” he said.
He spread it on the ground with care, before Ava sank down onto it and gathered her skirts close. The grass beneath still held the dampness of the night, but the heavy wool kept the worst of it from her.
Ciaran lowered himself beside her, one shoulder nearly brushing hers, one arm bent behind him for support, before he shifted and lay more fully on his back. She did the same.
The loch stretched dark at their side, and the sky opened wide above them. The cold air touched her cheeks, and the ground pressed firm beneath the coat.
She was aware of Ciaran every second, the heat radiating from him near enough that she couldfeelhis breathing. She could even feel just how small the space between them was, and she knew one careless moment would close it.
“Me mother once told me that she would stand outside with her father to see it when she was young. She wrote that down once. She said she thought the sky had opened just for them.”
His voice came low beside her. “And did it?”
Ava smiled despite the lump in her throat. “She believed it did.”
She kept watching the sky as she spoke.
“After she died, I used to take out those notes and read them when I missed her worst. Some daughters inherit jewels. Some inherit recipes. I inherited this.” Her hand moved once over her middle, then settled again. “Dates and stars.”
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.
