Page 16 of Lost with a Scot
“She told me that I could have the greatest love I’d ever know, but it would come at a terrible price. She said I was never fully a part of my world. That I was of the water and my love would be of the air. That I would have to give up my very soul to be with her. Ever since that night, I have dreamed of one person. I kenned the dreams weren’tjustdreams. I saw a girl at first in these dreams, but as I grew into a man, she grew into a woman... I never expected to meet her.”
“Have you? Met her, I mean.” Anna’s heart was filled with an intense ache of loneliness. She had foolishly begun to hope that Aiden might come to desire her someday, as she was starting to desire him, but it seemed this other woman was his destiny.
“Ye truly wish to ken?” he asked, his eyes catching the glow of the firelight.
“Yes, tell me.” She would pretend to be happy for him and hide her disappointment.
“I met this woman this morning when I rescued her from the ocean.”
For a long moment, she didn’t breathe. He was talking abouther.
“Aiden...” Her voice faltered because she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to say.
“It was ye, Anna. I have seen ye in my dreams for more than twenty years, and now here ye are. How that is possible, I dinna ken.”
“Me?”
“And what’s more, ye seemed to ken who I was as well. When I found ye in the waves, ye opened yer eyes and said, ‘You—it’s you.’”
Anna remembered him telling her that when she’d first awakened, but she didn’t know why she had said it.
“That is why I will guard ye, Anna. I will be with ye at yer side until ye tell me to leave.” Something about the way he said that made her feel as if he’d made a claim upon her. The thought created a well of complicated feelings within her that she couldn’t begin to sort out.
“We are bound, ye and I. It seems we have always been. I ken that may frighten ye, since we’ve only just met, but ’tis the truth.”
Her arms broke out in goosebumps at his words, and even though she had no memories of him now or how she should know him, shebelievedwhat he said. Perhaps that was why she felt so safe around him and drawn to him. Her bodyrememberedhim, even if her mind could not. The vision she’d thought she’d seen in the washbasin came back to her and she trembled. She’d heard his voice, but perhaps that had been an overactive imagination? Despite that being more possible, her very bones argued that what he said was true.
With all these sudden revelations, her limbs felt heavy. She stifled a yawn with a fist.
“Ye’ve eaten, and now ye should sleep. Rest, Anna, lass. I’ll still be here in the morning.”
She rose from her chair and moved toward the bed, her steps dragging. She pulled back the covers and crawled into the bed.
“Where will you sleep?”
He chuckled and came over to her. He pulled the sheets up to her collarbone, tucking her in as though she were a child.
“I’ll be here in a chair beside you.”
“Oh, that must be uncomfortable.”
He reached out and brushed the backs of his knuckles over her cheek and flashed her a roguish smile that stirred her body with a desire she’d never felt before.
“Perhaps, but I’m a gentleman, and it’s better than the floor.”
* * *
Aiden had toldher the truth. She was the woman from his dreams, the one the Romani woman had warned him about. He had not sought her out, yet she had found her way to him, as fate determined she would. He would not turn his back on her, however, no matter the price. Now that he’d seen her, held her in his arms, he felt the peace he had searched for all his life when he was near her. And she didn’t even know who she was.
That was just like fate, wasn’t it? To deliver to him a beautiful woman who clearly was brave and strong, yet when she looked at him, she had the most trusting eyes he’d ever seen and the sweetest innocence on her face as she slept. He couldn’t deny wanting her, couldn’t deny wanting to protect her, to give everything he had to her in whatever way she needed. Yes, this was a woman he would give his life for... just as fate had wished him to.
For most of his life, that Romani prophecy had hung over him like an invisible shroud. He’d never told his siblings, never told anyone. It was a weight that he alone must carry. As the years passed and he’d lived in the world as a grown man, his fear of finding the woman who would hold his heart faded. He’d dallied with maids here and there, finding passion in the dark and giving passion to those women in return, but nothing had touched his heart and soul.
Nothing like the way he’d felt when he’d first touched Anna. Even the cold water rushing around their bodies hadn’t dimmed the sudden heated desire or the ancient sense of “knowing” this woman as his in that moment he first saw her face clearly. The threat of dying still held a weight on him, but now he was ready to carry the burden because he’d seen and held the reason for his existence. This woman was everything to him. And what man wouldn’t die for that?
Anna lay asleep in his bed, as trusting and innocent as a wee bairn. His chest ached just to look at her, and despite that ache, he smiled as he settled down into a chair to sleep next to her. That peace, that sense of rightness, was so strong that for the first time in years he knew he’d sleep without dreaming about his father.
“Ye have me now, lass,” he promised her, and closed his eyes.
