Page 92 of The Highlander Steals a Virgin
Daisy nodded. “It’s nice. It makes me feel like I’m safe.”
That struck Amara like a stone straight to the ribs.
Safe.
That simple, sacred word.
She felt Daisy shift against her lap, small and warm, and she resumed the braid with gentle fingers.
“Ye remind me of who I think me maither was sometimes,” Daisy said after a while, almost like she didn’t mean to. “But only a little. Ye laugh more than she did, I think. And yer voice is different. But it’s the way ye touch things. Like they matter.”
The ache that had been curling slowly in Amara’s chest unfurled into something sharper.
“I’m glad,” Amara whispered. “That I remind ye of someone who loved ye so dearly.”
“I love ye too.”
The words were spoken so simply, so naturally, that it took a few seconds for them to land.
Amara’s hands stopped. Her breath caught. “Daisy…”
The girl tilted her head back, upside down from Amara’s lap, a grin on her face. “Daenae cry, Lady Amara. Ye’ll ruin me braid.”
Amara let out a watery chuckle and wiped her cheeks. “Bossy wee thing.”
“Papa says I’m a menace.”
“Well, I’ll tell him he’s wrong.”
They sat like that for a long time.
When the braid was done, Daisy took Amara’s hand and led her back toward the loch edge, behind a tall patch of lavender.
“Ye ken,” Daisy said, kicking her heels gently, “if yedogo away… will ye come back?”
Amara felt her heart squeeze. “Oh, lass…”
“It’s just… if ye daenae want to be me ma, that’s all right. But I’d like it if ye stayed anyway. Papa’s better when ye’re here.”
That broke something wide open inside her.
She looked away, blinking hard. “Idowant to stay. I want to stay more than I can say.”
“Then do.”
“It’s nae always that simple.”
“But maybe it is.”
Amara turned to Daisy, studying the soft roundness of her cheeks, the determined lift of her chin. This child, who had no reason to trust her, who had lived through her own losses, was asking her to be brave.
And Amara had never wanted to rise to anything more in her life.
She pulled Daisy into a hug, cradling her tightly. “I’ll try, sweet lass. I’ll try with all I have.”
From a distance, a bell rang. The afternoon chime.
Daisy popped up.
