Page 121 of Highlanders for the Holidays
Epilogue
“Da is here!”
Lily turned from where she was hanging boughs over the cottage door to look at her six-year-old daughter. “Are ye certain, Teàrlag?”
Roderick had said not to expect him until much later.
“Aye,” her daughter said. “My brothers too.”
At times Lily found it unnerving how strongThe Sightwas in her small daughter.
“They brought a present for me,” Teàrlag said.
“It’s meant to be a surprise,” Lily reprimanded her. “Ye know ye shouldn’t look.”
Her daughter lifted her shoulders and gave her an unrepentant grin.
They had lost Seanmhair earlier this year, and Lily had wanted to return to the cottage to clean and decorate it for the Yuletide as Roderick’s grandmother would have done. In the morning, they would all return to the castle.
“Da and my brothers are verra hungry,” Teàrlag said, tugging at her skirts.
Lily just had time to set the bowls for the venison stew on the table when her three sons burst into the cottage with a cold wind and boisterous greetings. They smelled of damp wool, dogs, and fresh pine boughs. They were strapping lads who would become fine men and great warriors, a credit to their clan like their father. She was so proud of them.
Roderick entered last, ducking his head through the doorway. The sight of him still made her heart flutter.
Later that night after the children were asleep in the loft, Lily lay in her husband’s arms, watching the flickering flames in the hearth and thinking about how lucky she was.
“Do you think we would have found each other,” she asked, “if your grandmother had not had that vision and persuaded the Lord of the Isles to send you into the Lowlands?”
“Aye,” he said. “We were meant to be together.”
“That we were,” she said, smiling up at him.
“She told me that love has a magic all its own.” He kissed her forehead. “One way or another, I would have found ye.”
THE END
