His chest constricted. “My love?”
She bit her lip and nodded, her gaze dropping and her blond hair falling to either side of her face. “I’m sorry, Reikart. I told ye I could live with what ye could offer me, but I can nae.”
God, he wanted to take her in his arms, kiss her, and show her how much she meant to him, but he knew she needed words. He swallowed the hard knot in his throat. “I’m glad you can’t live with me not loving you.”
“Aye,” she said, still looking down, “I’m certain ye are. Ye can go back to yer time without me.”
“No.”
“Nay?” She raised her head, her gaze finding his. “Nay what?”
“No, I’d never go back to my time without you.”
“I’ll be all right,” she said, waving a hand at him.
He caught it and tugged her to him so fast that she crashed into his body. God, he loved the feel of her, the smell of her, the light inside her. “Iwouldn’t be all right,” he said, kissing her forehead, her nose, her chin while gliding his hands over her back and splaying his fingers against her. “I wouldn’t be all right,” he said again, setting his forehead to hers and breathing her in.
“Ye would nae?” she whispered.
“No,” he replied. “I love you.”
“Ye love me?” She pulled back from him.
Their eyes met. “Yes. You are the strongest, bravest, truest woman I have ever known. If I’ve learned all that in the short time I’ve been with you, I can’t even fathom how I’ll feel in seventy years.”
“Seventy years?” she asked, tears streaming out of her beautiful eyes and down her face.
He wiped them as they came, deeply glad for the chance to be able to do so, and then because he could neither help nor stop himself, he kissed her damp cheeks over and over. When he finally stopped, she lay her head against his chest and sighed into him. He stood there for a moment, letting the silence stretch, thinking on his past, the present, and the future. He’d been searching for a woman strong enough to love him for a long time, and he hadn’t even known it.
He pressed his lips to the top of her silken hair. “Despite my trying to destroy any chance we might have, you drew me in, tangled me up in you, and made me fall in love with you. I need you. I love you. I don’t want to be in any time except the one you’re in… I hope you’ll still have me.”
She lifted her head and raised onto her tiptoes before brushing her lips to his. “I’ll still have ye because I know ye and ye know me, and someday soon neither of us will know where the other stops or begins.”
“Oh God,” he groaned, laughing. “I hope we don’t—”
“Complete each other’s sentences?” She smiled at him.
“Yeah, like my—”
“Parents,” she finished with a chuckle.
“Do you know what I want to do right now?” he asked her, gathering her as tightly as he suspected was possible without hurting her.
“What?” she asked, arching her brows.
“I want to turn you on,” he replied, feathering kisses up the alluring column of her neck.
“That is an offer I will never refuse, Husband.”
And with those promising words, he claimed her mouth, her soul, her body, and she completely claimed his heart.
Epilogue
So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
