Page 25 of Stolen Hours

“You’re so easy to talk to, Ian. So nice to touch. I mean, your touch is nice. I mean... I mean, it’s been lonely, straddling two worlds and not feeling settled.”

“But you feel settled around me?” he whispered.

“Like you’ve always been here. Like I know what to do now.” Her smile was soft and hesitant, but her eyes were steady, looking up at him as they sat, shoulder to shoulder, his body stooping and sloping because the little ache in his back was worth it to be closer to her beautiful face and hear her voice so close to his ear.

“Will y’ be going back to Pine Ridge before summer’s end?” he asked suddenly.

“It depends on who’s going with me. Why?” Farrah asked, voice and face still that same, serene beauty that calmed everything uncertain in him.

She’ll be your all.Finlay’s words echoed in his head as his lips formed the words. “Because Orcs marry in summer, and spend the fall and winter making a home and children to fill it, likely as not.”

There. The words were out. Escaped like Callum Oakdoor’s goats the night he’d had too much mead and left the latch off their pen.

“I always wanted a summer wedding. With white and yellow flowers in my hair.”

“A fairy crown for my girl who must be fae-kissed,” he murmured.

“I would rather be Orc-kissed.”

“I would rather that, too, but I don’t want you to think I’m not capable of being a gentleman,” Ian protested when her knee brushed his.

“I understand that you are just what I need. My eyes knew at first glimpse, and my bones knew it second. My soul has known all along.”

“Farrah Falkirk.” Ian slid to his knees, throat feeling as though strong hands were choking the air from him. “Would ye think me mad for proposing marriage to you so swiftly, if only so my heart will give me peace? I’ll court you properly, and build the very life you’ve dreamed of, but the question is burning on my lips like I swallowed fire, and I think there’s a good chance I’d die by morning without your answer.” He stayed there, speech out in the air, her hands clutched in his, eyes pleading for her to put him out of his misery.

“Of course I will,” she smiled, sliding into the sand to kiss him.

Part Four

Farrah expected her parents to pitch a fit when she told them that she’d promised her heart and hand to an Orc who lived in the remotest part of the island, a man without a degree, without a career plan, without anything but land and the knowledge of how to tend it and make it profitable.

But to her surprise, her father and grandmother had been ecstatic, and her mother, hearing that the wedding was to be simple and held in a few weeks, before summer’s end, left all of her worries behind to fly over and start planning a “simple, elegant wedding.”

And Ian’s clan? Welcomed her straight in, almost relieved, as if they’d known that she was supposed to come into his life, as if they knew what it was like to fall in love at first sight and find every doubt answered and washed away as soon as it was raised.

Where would they live? Pine Ridge, her home for the past few years, and his clan’s home from home. Were they suited? Like peas in a pod. A gentle giant of an Orc, a sturdy mountain to shield a dainty willow of a human witch.

And once their mothers got together to tackle an Orcish wedding that had to incorporate human traditions? Well...

“Did our relatives truly just abandon us out here to go to the pub in Maer Inbhir and plan our wedding? Without us?” Farrah stared after the little blue Polo darting down the road. “How did your parents even fit in there?”

“I’ve no idea,” Ian laughed and reclined on the large blue tablecloth that had become their picnic blanket. “I’m glad. In the fortnight since we told them, I’ve only gotten to be alone with you twice.”

“Mm, but I like our little walks at night.”