Page 83 of Wild Highland Rose
"Maybe, but there's only one way to know for sure."
She rubbed a leaf absently and the sharp scent of thyme filled the air. "Have ye told Marjory, then?"
"She knows I'm leaving. But I didn't tell her when. It's better this way. Really."
She nodded, but he knew she wasn't any more convinced than he was. "Yer truly sure this is what ye want?"
"It's the only choice I have. I have to do what's right."
She sighed. "Everything is not always as it seems, Cameron. And sometimes we dinna know what it is we have until we've lost it."
"Grania, I came to say goodbye, not listen to your riddles." He hadn't meant for the words to sound so sharp, but he was tired of thinking. Tired of trying to figure out who and what he was. He needed the comfort of choosing a course of action andsticking to it. Still, he hadn't meant to hurt her. She was his friend. "Come with me."
"What?" She turned toward the sound of his voice.
"Come with me." With repetition the idea seemed plausible. "You're not from here. Maybe if you're with me, we could both get back."
She paused, as if considering, then shook her head with a smile. "I thank ye for asking me, but my life is here now. I'd no' fit in that time anymore. I've found a peace here that canna be duplicated. And I've a purpose as well. I care for these people and they care for me. I wouldn't want it any other way."
"Well then, I guess this is it." He stood up, a twig of lemon balm clinging to his hand.
She stood also, and with a trembling hand reached out to grasp his hand firmly. They stood facing each other for a moment and then, with a mumbled oath, he drew her into his arms.
"Thank you for everything," he said, stepping back. "You've been a true friend, and I'll never forget you."
Grania reached out to touch his face. "Nor I you…"
He stood for a moment more, smiling down at her, then turned to walk from the garden, content for the moment to know that Grania at least had finally found her way home.
"If he's decidedto go, then I say good riddance." Marjory stabbed the piece of linen she was trying to embroider.
"Now child, ye know ye dinna mean that." Grania's voice was patient, but somehow still managed to set Marjory's teeth on edge.
"I do mean it. Ever since he arrived here, there's been nothing but trouble. First, he brought Torcall Cameron down on our heads."
"I think ye'll have to admit that was far more yer doing then Cameron's," Grania said.
"Well, I'd no' have had to call for Torcall if Cameron hadn't gone and gotten himself killed."
"Now, Marjory, if ye'll recall he wasn't precisely dead, and if yer going to lay the blame fer that at anyone's feet, I'm afraid it will have to be mine. It was, after all, me who caused the landslide." Aimil looked up placidly from her needlework.
Marjory was still reeling from that revelation. Aimil had admitted it all to her that morning. She hadn't known whether to laugh or cry.
"Well, he did lure me out on the curach."
"Aye, but it was me, again, that caused the mishap." Aimil offered banally.
"True enough, and if ye hadn't been capsized, ye might ne'er have fallen in love with the man," Grania added cheerfully.
"I am no' in love with him." She jabbed her thumb with the needle and sucked at it angrily. "What about the banquet?" She knew she was being perverse, but she couldn't seem to help herself.
"What about the banquet?" Grania asked.
"Well, if Cameron hadn't come here, there'd have been no need for a banquet and nothing would have happened to Fingal." She pulled the thread through the linen with a sharp tug, only to realize she'd come up in the wrong place.
"Ah, but the truth is that we did have the banquet, and had Cameron no' been there, my brother would most likely have died."
Marjory looked up, glaring. "Since when are you taking his side in things, Aimil. I thought you couldna stand the man."
