“I want you to know that I’ll die happy. All … all I ever wanted … was to be yours. Your … wife. Even if for a while. You are mine and I am yours.”
Alaric stared up at the sky, sorrow crushing down on him with the weight of a boulder. “You’ve always been mine, Keeley. From the moment you took me into your cottage. There’s never been another woman who captured me, body and soul, the way you did. There’ll never be another. I should have been willing to give you what was rightly yours before now. I tried to do what was right and in the end, none of it matters if I lose you.”
“Hold me,” she whispered. “Stay here with me and hold me until the time has come for me to go away. I can feel myself growing weaker. I don’t think ’tis a long time.”
A raw, gut-wrenching sound of agony ripped from Alaric’s throat. His chest burned as if he’d swallowed fire. His hands shook so badly that he worried he’d let her fall.
“Aye, I’ll hold you, Keeley. I won’t let you go alone. We’ll stay here together and watch the sun go down over the loch and I’ll tell you every dream I ever had of our life together.”
She smiled and shivered against him. She went completely limp in his arms as if she’d expended all her remaining strength to say what she needed. For a long moment she lay there until she roused herself, seeming to have one last thing that she needed him to hear.
“You’re my dream, Alaric McCabe. And I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment your horse dumped you at my cottage. I spent so much time being resentful and lamenting the circumstances of my life, but ’tis true that I wouldn’t change a single thing because then I would have never known your love.”
He cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. Their tears mingled and the salt slipped onto their tongues as Alaric tenderly kissed her lips.
He closed his eyes and rocked her back and forth in his arms. The day faded to dusk and the evening grew colder. Gannon came out with furs and quietly wrapped them around Alaric and Keeley before leaving the two alone again.
The keep was already preparing to mourn. No one expected Keeley to live through the night.
Alaric settled into the furs and made himself as comfortable as possible on the face of the rock where he sat. He began to tell Keeley of all the things he loved most about her. How she made him laugh with her temper and her sharp wit. How she didn’t back down from either of his brothers.
He told her of his dreams of their children and how he wanted girls as beautiful and as fierce as she was and boys with her fire and courage.
Night settled in and the stars popped overhead. The moon splashed onto the loch, illuminating the pair as Alaric hung on tightly, willing Keeley not to slip away from him.
She grew quieter. He could literally feel the change in her as she grew weaker. The pain was too much for him to bear.
He laid his head atop hers and closed his eyes, wanting a brief moment of peace. When next he opened his eyes, the sky had paled with dawn’s imminent approach.
Panic stabbed through his chest. How long had he slept? He was afraid to look down. He was afraid to focus in on Keeley. What if she’d died in his arms while he slept? How could he ever forgive himself?
“Keeley?” he whispered as he shifted on the rock.
To his amazement, she moaned and moved fretfully against him. Her forehead gleamed with … sweat. With shaking fingers he touched her clammy skin and felt the sticky moisture that signaled the end of her fever.
Oh, God, he couldn’t function. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t process. He should get her back to the keep so that Ewan could look at her, but ’Twas God’s truth if he tried to stand now, he’d fall flat on his face.
He touched her face, her cheek, her eyelids even. “Keeley, Keeley, lass, wake up and look at me. Say something. Anything.”
Her lips parted the barest amount and it was obvious she tried to say something but lacked the strength. Her eyes opened a crack but she couldn’t keep them open.
“It doesn’t matter,” he soothed. “Your fever has broken. Do you hear me? Your fever has broken. ’Tis a good sign, Keeley. You’ll not die on me now, do you hear? You’ve fought this hard and long and I refuse to let you die now that you’ve given me hope.”
She whispered something he couldn’t hear. He leaned down and placed his ear next to her lips. “What did you say?”
“Brute,” she muttered.
He closed his eyes and laughed helplessly. ’Twas such a wonderful, exquisite feeling that he threw back his head and laughed until tears of relief streamed down his cheeks.
“Alaric, what is it?” Ewan demanded as he ran toward his brother.
Alaric turned to see his brother halt a few steps away, his expression wary and sorrowful. He glanced down at Keeley’s still figure and then back up to the tears streaming down Alaric’s cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Alaric. I’m so damn sorry.”
Alaric grinned broadly. “She lives, Ewan. She lives! Her fever has broken and she just called me a brute. Surely ’tis a sign she has no intention of dying.”
A broad smile split Ewan’s face. “Aye, ’tis a good sign to be sure. Any lass who can muster the gumption to be contrary is surely not to die.”
“I can’t lift her, Ewan,” Alaric admitted. “ ’Tis God’s truth I’m so poleaxed that I lack the strength to stand.”
Ewan hurried forward and lifted Keeley from his arms. It took Alaric a moment, but he was able to rise on shaking legs and walk alongside his brother back to the keep.
“They all think she’s dead,” Ewan explained. “Word went through the keep that you brought her to the loch to die.”
“ ’Tis a miracle, Ewan. A miracle I can’t explain but I’m so damn grateful for. She was dying. I could feel her dying in my arms. I held her through the night and I talked to her endlessly, telling her of my dreams and the children we’d have. I went to sleep and when I awoke, her fever was gone and she was bathed in a sweat. She’s still weak as a kitten but the fever has left her.”
“I’ll have a look at her wound as soon as we get her to bed,” Ewan promised. “Then we must address the issue of what is to be done about the alliance with the McDonalds. The king awaits as do the lairds of the clans who gathered here for your wedding. We cannot hold them off any longer.”