Page 96 of Sweet Home Highlander
Aisla shifted, feeling him slide from her body. He tucked her into the side of him, and she left one leg draped over his hair-roughened thighs. She felt satiated and content.
“I’m sorry I didnae fight for ye before, Aisla,” he said after a while, breaking their comfortable silence. “In Paris. I should have told ye I was there.”
“It’s not important.”
“But it is,” he said. “I spent six years reinventing myself, and becoming a better man for ye. I should have fought harder. All of this would be for nothing without ye. I realized that the day ye left to go back to Paris.”
“I’ve changed, too,” she said. “I’ve gotten stronger in who I am, both the girl from Montgomery and the woman from Maclaren. I was lost when I came here, trying to find my place. And with the drinking, it was…”
He placed a finger on her lips. “As far as the drink, I was a fool. I’m no’ the same.”
“I know,” she said, rising to her elbows to look down at his beloved face. She kissed him softly. Gently. “And I love you more for it. I regret that we were apart, but without it, I don’t think we would have become the people we are today. You would not be this amazing, incredible, talented, resourceful laird, and I would not be…who I am.”
He smiled. “A strong, smart, beautiful, powerful woman.”
Aisla blushed, seeing the sincerity in his eyes, but she didn’t want to hide her feelings from him. He deserved to know everything she was feeling, even her emotions made her vulnerable. “I fell in love with you from the start, Niall, but I didn’t know what love truly meant then. I do now. Falling in love is easy. Loving someone with all their faults together with all your own faults, and fighting for what you have is the hard part. It’s easy to leave and to give up. Sometimes, love takes work, but it’s worth it. It’s worth the reward in the end.” She traced his cheek with her finger. “And now I know—this is where I belong.”
“At Tarbendale?”
Aisla tapped his heart and spread her palm wide over his skin, feeling his steady heartbeat beneath it.
“Here with you.” Her lips found his. “Wherever you are, I’m home.”
Epilogue
Two (lengthy) months later
Niall stood, stiff-backed, at the altar, his heart beating like a battalion of war horses on the attack. Hell, his nerves needed to calm down. He was getting married, not hanged. And he was marryingAisla. The woman he loved. The only woman he’d ever loved. Why the devil was he so bloody nervous?
Beside him, Ronan cleared his throat as the rest of the wedding guests waited in the pews, their heads turned toward the church doors in preparation for Aisla’s appearance.
“Ye look like ye want to retch,” Ronan whispered.
“Shut yer gob.”
“What’s wrong? I thought ye wanted to marry the lass.”
Niall shifted his footing. He did. He wanted nothing more than to be able to call Aisla his wife again, and this time, for it to be real and legal in the eyes of God and the law. And for the love of Christ,he’dbeen the one to insist on a church wedding. The night she’d returned during Ronan’s birthday celebration, Aisla had lain in bed, her foot rubbing up and down Niall’s shin, and proposed they elope.Again.
“We’re already practically married,” she’d said, her luscious, naked body flush against his. His child—theirchild—growing inside of her.
Niall had refused. No, this time, they were going to do things the proper way. It was their second chance. Their new beginning, and he was going to make it right, with absolutely no regrets. Aisla had readily acquiesced, and now, after two months planning and waiting for the Montgomery clansmen and women to travel to Maclaren to see her wed in truth, the day had arrived.
And Niall wanted to kick his own arse for rejecting the idea of elopement.
“I want to marry her more than I want to take my next breath,” he told Ronan as the conversation in the church continued, thankfully masking their voices.
“Then what’s the problem,bràthair? I already told ye, scrubbing the debt ye owe me is yer wedding present.”
And Niall had been surprised and grateful for Ronan’s generosity. His brother had insisted he’d won the wager, after all. In truth, his nerves didn’t have anything to do with the number of people waiting to watch them wed. It didn’t have to do with the formality of it all. The ceremony or tradition.
“I want to make her happy,” Niall answered.
It wasn’t something he’d given much thought to the first time around. He’d been too young and selfish. Now, however, it was all that mattered. Had he already muddled everything by insisting on a church wedding with a grand reception after?
The doors to the church opened, letting in a wash of near-blinding early afternoon sunlight, and when Aisla stepped forward into view, every last worry was sucked straight out of his mind.
She looked radiant. Her golden tresses loosely piled atop her head, ringlets framing her lovely face. A harpist began to pluck the strings of her instrument, and Aisla started slowly down the aisle toward him, her oldest half brother, Brandt, the Duke of Glenross and the Montgomery laird on her right, and Lord Leclerc on her left.
