Heart in the Highlands by Heidi Kimball
Chapter Thirty-Six
By the time Callum arrived home, the sun had broken over the horizon. Desperation dogged his heels. He’d gone to the lambing shed to find it abandoned. And while he’d expected that, seeing the tiny shed empty and dark had made his heart chafe with worry.
The manor was still dark, so he let himself in the back door and moved through the house quietly. His clothes were still dripping wet from the earlier rain, and it took him several minutes to light a taper, but once he did, he headed directly upstairs.
He was surprised to find Katie’s door ajar. Knocking quietly, he pushed the door open. The room was empty, the bed made, not a thing out of place. Panic gripped Callum. Would she have left? Not without Charlotte, surely. Could she be up in the nursery?
He turned on his heel to go, pulse racing like a madman. But out of the corner of his eye, his gaze caught on Katie’s sketchbook, resting on one corner of her dressing table. The sight of it drew him forward, his fingers itching to turn its pages.
Desperate, lonely, impossibly troubled, Callum picked up Katie’s sketchbook. He thumbed through the pages she’d already shown him and finally found one he’d not seen before. His face grew hot, tight. Vision blurring at the sight of a baby. Not Charlotte. His son.
His shoulders shook, grief pooling in his belly. How had Katie endured it? No wonder she’d pushed him away for so long. She had only ever mourned alone. Her grandfather. Her son. The possibility of future children.
He turned another page. Charlotte, recognizable to him even as an infant. Katie’s joy shone through the simple sketch. The sweet daughter in her arms. Roses blooming outside the window.
And then a page of blackness, charcoal marks scored against the sheet. His hands tightened on the page, his knuckles turning white. He knew what it meant without having to be told. The desolation Katie felt at learning she was barren.
But Callum could never think of her that way. Katie had given life to their daughter, filled her with light and joy and wonder. Katie had sheltered Charlotte and provided for her when he was an ocean away. She had allowed him back into her life and shown him how to love even when he’d been certain it was impossible.
He closed the book, wrenched with panic. She wouldn’t have left, would she? He sickened at the thought. He’d go after her, find some way to help her see that it was her, and her alone, that could fill the empty chambers of his heart.
Kate trudged up the stairs, leaning on the banister when she felt too tired to go a step farther. After all she’d been through, her chest was a tight ball of emotions, too knotted to be sorted out. And truthfully, she was too numb to try. How, she wondered, could she feel so hollow when the knot inside her seemed so big?
At last she forced herself forward, up the rest of the stairs and down the corridor. Her door was wide open, and soft light emanated from within. Had Flora waited up for her? She stepped into the doorway and . . . froze.
“Callum?” He was unshaven, his clothes dripping wet, his hair plastered to his forehead. But the sight of him here made her feel as if she’d been turned inside out. What did it mean? Did he—?
“Katie.” His voice was low, hoarse. In a few long strides he was across the room, crushing her against him. The intensity of his embrace knocked the breath from her lungs, yet at the same time it felt as if she’d taken her first breath in hours. She was intoxicated by his closeness—the press of his shoulders, his arms, his chest against her, as if he couldn’t get her close enough.
“I love ye, Katie,” he said. “I love ye.” With her head pressed against his chest, the rumble of his voice vibrated through her. “I told ye I’d stumble. But I will get it right.” He pulled back, cupping her face in his hands. “Ye are all that matters to me. Ye and Charlotte. I don’t need anything more.”
Rain dripped from his hair and eyelashes. His cheeks were ruddy and cold, his clothes sopping wet. She’d been damp before, and now she was as wet as he. But it was nothing compared to the joy soaking through her.
She couldn’t speak. He wiped away some of the rain he’d splashed on her—or were those tears? “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” she said. “I feared—”
His thumb brushed over her lips, silencing her. “I was not there four years ago to carry your grief. But I am here now.” He eased out a breath. “I don’t know how to put all that ye are to me intae words. But I’d like to try.”
A river of warmth poured through her. After living in doubt and fear for so long, it hardly seemed possible that this could be real. He fumbled for something in his pocket and pulled out the thin cord from the lambing shed. Her eyes widened. The cord had still been there, discarded in the straw, when she’d left. Had he gone back for it?
The marked determination in his gray eyes affirmed her suspicions. “If ye’ll let me, I’d still like to speak my vows.”
She nodded. Her heartbeat was everywhere. In her chest, her neck, her fingers, behind her knees. “I need to sit,” she whispered.
Hand on her elbow, he led her to the low chair near her dressing table and guided her into the seat. He reached for her hand and got down on one knee. His strong hand clasped hers, and with his other, he wove the cord around their wrists.
It felt as though a live coal had been placed in Kate’s chest. It burned through past agonies, the doubt and loneliness, the grief and despair. The pain of the past turned to nothing but ash. All that remained was the searing glow of Callum’s love.
When he spoke, his voice was low, full of emotion. “Katie, I take ye as my wife. In honor, in truth. In love. I will be thy faithful husband from this day forward. Thy friend, thy lover, the father of thy daughter. These hands”—he tightened his fingers over her hand—“these hands will hold ye in times of joy and grief and cherish ye no matter what storms may come.” He looked down at the cord tied around their wrists. “I plight thee my troth,” he finished and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.
A small ripple pulsed down Katie’s throat as she swallowed. “What must I say?” she asked, looking up at Callum with wide eyes.
The sweetness of her expression nearly undid him. “There’s no need for ye to—”
“I want to,” she insisted.
He dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Ye may start by saying you take me as your husband. Then ye may list all of my best qualities—”
“Which would take no time at all.” She pushed at his shoulder, her dimple appearing.
“And then I’d hope ye would say something about how ye’ll forgive me, even, and especially, when I am an eejit.” His cheek ticked upward.
She grinned then, and the sight of her unfettered happiness warmed his blood. He kissed the back of her hand once more. “Whatever ye would have me know,” he said, growing serious. “That is all ye must say.”
She looked down at their bound hands. “I take thee as my husband, Callum, from this day forward. I swear to love thee with all that I am, to hold nothing back. To trust thee wholly and completely. To be thy companion and wife”—she paused, and her voice wavered—“and mother of thy daughter. I plight thee my troth.”
His hand tightened around hers, and she leaned toward him. He pressed a kiss to her temple, holding her against him, needing nothing more in the world than the feel of this precious woman in the circle of his arms. After all they had shared, an undercurrent of want and need tugged at him. But he was willing to wait until Katie was ready.
“Have ye not slept?” he asked, tugging at a strand of her unbound hair.
“Nae. No,” she corrected herself and shook her head, laughing. “I’ve come bearing good news. You have two new nephews.” Her smile flickered. “Olivia had twins after all.”
“Oh, Katie.” His stomach dropped at the thought of what that must have cost her.
“It was in that room that I knew,” she said simply.
“Knew what?” he asked with some hesitation.
She stroked a hand down the side of his face. “What we have is enough, is it not?”
“More than enough,” he agreed, his voice near to breaking. He hated to let her go. But she had to be beyond exhausted. “I will let ye sleep. I am sure ye are tired.”
Droplets clung to the hair framing Katie’s face, making her look like a water faerie. Her cheeks matched the plaid around her shoulders, a rosy red. Light danced in her eyes, and the corners of her mouth curled up. She’d never looked so beautiful. “I am, in fact, quite the opposite of tired. And I have something for you.”
His heart pounded, hammering against his chest, hoping but daring not to hope as she got to her feet and pulled him up to stand beside her. He followed her over to the wardrobe, where she used the small chair from her dressing table to reach the highest shelf.
“Shut your eyes,” she instructed. “And hold out your hands.”
He did as she bade, though he couldn’t imagine what she might give him.
She pressed something solid and round into the palms of his hands. “You may open them now.”
In his hands rested the quaich Blair and Aileen had given them as a wedding gift. Tarnished but still beautiful. He looked up into Katie’s face, and she smiled, her whole face alight. “If you would be so good as to fetch a wee dram of whisky, my lord, we can drink to our marriage.”
The look on her face was so sincere Callum’s knees grew weak. She had taken them back to their wedding night. He was touched by the gesture, deeply. But, to his surprise, he had no use for whisky. Not when the feel of Katie in his arms was as potent as any liquor. “Nae,” he said softly, setting the quaich on the wardrobe shelf. “Ye may drink if ye’d like. But I’ve no need of it. I thirst only for ye.”
She stood above him, still on the stool, and the air around them grew thick, weighted with expectation. Callum took a step closer to her. She reached out and braced her hands behind his neck, her fingers weaving through his hair. His scalp tingled under her delicate touch.
He bent his head forward, and Katie flooded his senses. Her softness, the faint scent of heather from the moors, the sound of her breathing. And the taste of her. Och, she tasted of Scottish hills and mint and burnt sugar.
How could one woman offer him so much? It felt so right to have her in his arms, her love overflowing in each kiss she bestowed, her lips like silk. But unlike four years ago, now he knew her, knew her very soul. She’d shared it all with him, every moment and thought and feeling he’d missed over the past four years.
She enchanted him. Her sweetness, her devotion to their daughter, her insistence that he be a better man. How could he not love her? All he wanted was to please her, to make her happy in every way. And he would.
She pulled him closer, feathering kisses across his jaw. “I love you, Callum.” At her whispered words, his arms tightened around her. He lifted her off the stool and into his arms and brought his mouth to hers, feeling as though he might drown in the warmth of this moment.
“I love ye, Katie,” he whispered back. “And I swear to always love ye as ye deserve to be loved.”