A Laird to Hold, Angeline Fortin [top 10 non fiction books of all time .txt] 📗

any sense. What had happened? “How? How are you here? I saw you in there. I saw you…”

Laird pulled back, eased her down until her feet were once more on the floor. Bewilderment churned in his gray eyes, but just as quickly comprehension filled them.

“Ye disappeared before my eyes. I thought ye gone forever. Then…nay, it cannae be.”

He turned to Emmy and Connor who were both looking rather bemused. “Ye died,” he said to Connor.

“A dream? Just a dream?” Emmy suggested, but her grip on her husband’s arm intensified visibly.

“The same one?” Scarlett pointed out, then stiffened. “Donell!”

She whipped around and opened the motel room door expecting to see the old wizard dead on the floor. The room was empty. No sign of Donell, Jameson, or the devastation that had taken place.

Or had it?

Scarlett rubbed her temple again, trying to remember what had happened. Jameson had been about to kill her. Then Donell had sent her…to the future. Five minutes? Ten minutes ahead? An hour? She didn’t know.

In that time the others had come. Fought with Jameson. Killed him. And been killed in the process.

It had to have been a dream. They were all here. Alive.

Scarlett turned back into Laird’s arms and held him tight.

His heart beat against her ear. His chest rose and fell with each breath. She saw herself draped over his lifeless body, reliving the vicious pain of knowing he was dead. Whatever had happened, she was eternally grateful it wasn’t real. She didn’t ever want to experience such agony again.

“Laird, I thought I’d lost you forever. I couldn’t bear it.”

“Mo chroí, ye will ne’er lose me.”

Laird kissed her lightly to seal the promise and wrapped his arms around her, binding her against him.

But she had lost him. The grief she’d experienced had been so devastating. A remnant of the pain lingered in her heart even as the memory slipped from her grasp.

What had happened?

Where was Donell?”

Scarlett asked the question aloud but no one had an answer. “Where did Donell go? He was hurt. Badly.”

“So was I,” Connor reminded her, his tone strained with the memory. “Yet I am here. Unharmed.”

“Not just hurt. Oh, God, Connor, you were dead! I saw…oh, God, I just can’t…!” Emmy cried out and hugged him. Words of love tumbled from her lips. Promises to never leave his side again. To never let him go.

“Shhh, my love. We are safe. Whole.” Connor smoothed her tangled hair back from her face and whispered back. His thumbs caught the tears at the corners of her eyes. He pressed his lips to her forehead for a lingering kiss. Their expressions were both of devastation over the memory.

Whatever had transpired, they’d been given a gift, Scarlett realized. A second chance. But wasn’t that what Donell had always been about?

She glanced up at Laird, met his loving gaze. Raking her fingers along his bristled jaw, she thanked God, Donell, or whoever had orchestrated that chance. She wouldn’t let it go to waste.

“I love you, Laird. I swear I’ll never walk out another door as long as I live without making sure you know it.”

“Och, mo chroí, ye’re assuming I’ll e’er let ye oot of my sight again,” he whispered huskily. “I love ye so.”

He caught her in his arms and kissed her again. Sweet and soft. She’d savor each moment with him until her dying day and never forget what it was like to lose him.

He was here. Whole. Hers.

Grief faded and joy burst in Scarlett’s heart. He swung her around until she was laughing.

God, it was good to be alive.

 

Scarlett

“That’s an unbelievable tale,” Rhys gasped after they ended their narrative of the afternoon’s events.

“Tell me about it,” Scarlett agreed from where she sat perched on the arm of the chair. Laird had their girls in his arms next to her. Holding them. Cherishing them.

Their return to the hospital had been met with relief from everyone there. Now that relief was compounded, knowing what might have been lost.

What had been lost.

“Do ye think Donell did it?” Hugh asked, holding his wife’s hand tight. As if he, too, had lost his true love and been presented with a second chance himself.

“It had to have been him,” Emmy maintained. “Who else could have managed it? I guess it really is Donell’s will that we be together.”

She and Connor were perched close together on the windowsill. She hadn’t strayed from Connor’s side since they’d left the motel. Scarlett doubted she’d ever let him leave her sight again.

Scarlett envisioned more of the same from herself and Laird. The old adage that you didn’t know what you had until it was gone had been proven in spades to Scarlett twice.

There was no doubt they would all savor what they had a bit more fully. Live as completely as possible to wring every ounce of love out of it as they could.

No matter where…or when, they were.

Donell had been severely injured. There was no telling when he’d be back to send them home.

Or if he would at all.

“So, with Donell gone…”

“Och, lassie, dinnae count me oot just yet.”

Donell appeared near the door looking no worse for the wear. Scarlett hurried to his side and hugged him hard despite his objection. She’d never be suspicious of the old man again.

“Enough of that!” he complained, though he patted her shoulder when she withdrew.

“What happened?” Scarlett asked.

Laird and Connor bombarded him at the same time. “Is Jameson dead?” “Do we need to fear him still?”

“Nay. To both.” Donell shook his head. “He lives but ye needn’t fear his interference in yer lives any longer. I took him