Page 27 of Gardening and Gargoyles

“I don’t have a lot of respect for our past, Daniel.” June’s voice is flat, and I feel her shoulders rise and heave under my touch. “I feel like a lot of it was probably a lie. I was just a prop for the next part of your life, for your career.”

“Oh, don’t act like you didn’t love having some rich boy toy to spoil you!”

June shakes her head. “No, that’s the crazy part. I really did love it—because I thought every gesture was an act of love. Or that you were wooing me. If you’d been making minimum wage, but you took me for walks in the park, or to the Philadelphia Flower Show in March, or any thousands of little, cheap things—I would have loved them just as much as a thousand expensive things. It was b-because they came from you,” June’s voice trembles, “and I thought I was finally in love with someone who wanted a future with me, a real future.”

My arms fasten around her tightly now, and I don’t care if it’s wrong. My lips come to press against her ear. “I promise you, my lady, that there is one who would lay down his life for you and put all his treasures at your feet. He has nothing now, but if you’ll wait...”

June gives a silent gasp, one I can feel but not hear, and spins to face me. “Duncan?” she whispers.

I cup her delicate face between my wide palms, talons carefully resting on her scalp.

There are no words to describe the hope and fear in me.

All I can do is bob my head once.

Daniel, the pig, ruins it. “Fine. Name a price. I’llbuyit back.”

June looks up at me for a long moment, so long that Daniel asks, “Did I lose you?”

Her hands land lightly on my chest. I wonder if she can hear my heart pounding in the moonlight, if she can feel it in the tips of her fingers. “Yeah, he lost me,” she whispers.

My head bows to hers, and my hands move south, daring to land on her waist, to keep her close. “I found you. You found me.”

“Oh, God... Duncan, what if—”

“It’s no mistake, my lady. No one in the world could have thrown us together like this, and here we are.”

“June! Did I lose you? Are you there? Name your price, damn it!”

“No,” June’s voice is firm and clear. Her hands travel to my shoulders, to my face, touching me with wonder as she explores my skin. “I wouldn’t trade him for anything. Goodbye, Daniel.”

Chapter Seven: Love Is Always On Time

“Don’t say anything.” I put my finger gently over Duncan’s lips. I haven’t moved from the shelter of his arms and wings. The speaker on the phone is still crackling as Daniel tests my tolerance for insults and belligerent cursing before he finally ends the call. “I know you’re going to leave, and I can’t stay here. I know it’s too soon, and we don’t know each other that well. If—”

Duncan’s huge hands squeeze down, just enough to get me to be silent. His head, with its elegant curling horns, rests on mine so that I can’t do anything but sink into his eyes, into his touch. “I will remain by your side for as long as it takes for you to see that my heart is yours. I lost it almost at once. I would stay in some tiny flat with you, or take you home to Scotland with me—or perhaps both of us could make a new home, here in Pine Ridge.”

“But your clan—”

“You are my clan. My ally. My love.”

My head spins with the intensity of his declaration. I’ve known him for only a handful of days, but I trust him with my life. He doesn’t have anything material to bring to the table, but his obvious devotion and determination to be with me, to give me all of himself—that’s all that I ever really wanted from anyone.

“You said gargoyles can only love once, and there’s a heartstone thing...”

“I’ve known since meeting you that I would never carve one—unless it was to offer to you. Would you accept it?” Duncan’s deep voice ripples through me, touching spots on my body that I didn’t know were voice-activated.

Heat races to my cheeks and my middle. This sweet, wonderful protector. I don’t know if he’d be ashamed or aroused to know the kind of things I’m thinking. “I would, but—but I don’t know if it’d be fair to you.”

“Fair? To offer me the fairest flower I have ever seen, and tell me it is mine to cherish? To spend my life learning about you and adventuring with you? We have so much to teach each other about the times we’ve lived in, and we can discover the future together. I may not have much to offer you now, June, but I swear on Castle Mackintosh that one day you’ll have what you dream of.”

What I dream of?

I dream of Duncan touching me. Of walking in the hills of the Highlands together. Of long nights in front of a fire together. Of knowing that once again, this tough girl can take her armor off with someone.

There’s no better person to do that with than Duncan.

“Are you sure this isn’t only some misplaced loyalty on your part?” I whisper. “I’m not the lady of the manor or anything. And I don’t have to be rescued. I know Daniel is a jerk, but I’ll get over him, and I’ll land on my feet.”