Page 35 of The Heather Wife
And yet, the clan healed.
Laughter returned slowly, like spring grass after fire. Children chased one another through the yard again, their shrieks mingling with the ring of hammers on fresh wood. Smoke curled from repaired chimneys. Women sang low overthe looms. Life crept back into Strathloch, steadier each day. And everywhere, Calum saw her.
Sorcha.
Her plaid drawn close, braid swinging down her back, hands never idle. She moved from firepit to forge, from healer’s hut to storehouse—tireless as the tide. The folk no longer turned away when she passed. They spoke her name with respect, even pride—Lady Strathloch.
He had tried to speak with her. Twice at dawn in the kitchens, once as she crossed the yard. Each time she slipped from him, as though she had no breath to spare. Perhaps she meant it so. Perhaps she wanted him to feel the weight of silence—to learn patience where he had never practiced it.
But still, he watched. And he remembered.
His mind drifted back to the morning Niall and his wife departed. Banished, their heads bowed, belongings few. Yet before he stepped beyond the gates, Niall had turned back. His voice had cracked when he spoke—not to the clan, not to Calum, but to Sorcha. An apology. A plea for forgiveness she had no reason to grant.
And Sorcha, instead of spitting scorn, had pressed a bundle into Mairi’s hands—dried meat, herbs to ease her belly, a strip of cloth for the bairn soon to come. Then, in a voice quiet but steady, she told them she would not see them cast adrift. She had already written to Glenbrae, asking mercy on their behalf. There was a small cottage outside the walls, long empty, where she and her brothers had played as bairns. The bones of it were sound. Her request for them to be allowed to stay there had been granted; it was made ready for them.
Mercy, even for those who had betrayed her.
The memory burned. Elspeth would never have shown such kindness. Elspeth would have mocked. And Calum—blind, proud fool that he was—had thought her better than Sorcha. Warmer. More suited to him.
But he knew now what he had refused to see. Elspeth had not truly been his heart. She had been rebellion—a way to spit at duty, to pretend he could choose for himself when all his life had been chosen for him. She was freedom only in the way fire feels free before it devours the thatch. She was never love.
And Sorcha… Sorcha was the one who bore the weight he cast aside. Cool in her manner, aye, but only because he had given her cause to shield herself. She was never the enemy. She was the strength he should have stood beside from the start.
That evening, Calum lingered near the courtyard fire, watching her speak with the children as they drifted off toward the hall. Their laughter softened something deep inside him—a place he hadn’t realized had grown so hollow.
When the last of them had gone, Sorcha turned, startled to find him there. The flames caught the gold in her hair, the faint weariness beneath her eyes. For a heartbeat, neither spoke.
Calum took a breath, stepping forward. “Ye’ve done more for this clan than I ever did,” he said quietly. “Ye’ve led them where I should’ve stood beside ye. I can’t undo what’s been done—but if you’ll allow it, I’ll spend what’s left of me tryin’ to be the man ye deserved from the start.”
Her gaze flickered, unreadable. “Ye’ve already begun,” she said at last. “Whether ye see it or no.”
Hope stirred, sharp and uncertain, in his chest. “Then mayhap there’s still a path forward.”
“Mayhap,” she said, her voice gentler now. “But walk it slow, Calum MacRae. Some wounds need time to mend.”
He nodded once, the firelight glinting in his eyes. “Aye. I can do that.”
And though no forgiveness was spoken that night, something quieter passed between them—something that felt like a beginning.
Chapter 30
Sorcha
It was no accident anymore, she concluded. She had begun to notice the pattern—how Calum was there when she came out of the kitchens, wiping meal from her hands; when she entered the dining hall to break her fast; or when she returned from the healer’s hut, where she stopped daily to ask if they had need of her help for the day. He had learned her rhythm, studied it, and now placed himself in her path.
So when he came upon her that afternoon near the stables, she was not surprised. Still, her back stiffened, her hands knotting in her skirts as he spoke her name.
“Sorcha.”
She turned, wary, and found his eyes steady on hers. For once, there was no bluster in him, no heat—only a question held tight in his chest.
“Why?” he asked. “Why would you write to your father, beg for Niall and Mairi to be given a place outside Glenbrae’s walls—after all he did? After he nearly saw you slain?”
The words were not an accusation, not quite. More the bewilderment of a man who could not fit her mercy into his measure of justice.
For a long moment she held his gaze, weighing her answer. Then she spoke, voice quiet but firm.
“I did not write to my father. I wrote to Mairead, my brother’s wife. It was she who laid my request before him.”
