Highlander of My Heart (Mcardle Sisters of Courage 1)

James nodded. “I look forward to talking more with you.”

Ruddock understood that James had more questions and concerns and he would address what he could while other issues would not be discussed. He already knew that would not be a problem with James since he now had what he had been so desperately trying to accomplish, protection and well-being for his sisters and clan.

Once the door closed behind James, Ruddock turned to Tarass.

“I heard the Lord of Fire was looking for me,” Ruddock said. “What is it you want?”

“So you are the Ruddock I search for. After I learned that Finn Northwick disowned his son and wanted him dead, I thought you might be the Ruddock I searched for. If you knew I searched for you, why avoid me?” Tarass asked.

“I didn’t know what you wanted from me and wasn’t about to easily present myself to you in case you should want me dead. So again I ask, what do you want from me?”

“To speak with you,” Tarass said, placing his goblet down on the small table.

“Speak with me?” Ruddock asked and took a step toward him. “Is that all you wanted to do?”

“That depends… were you with the barbaric tribe that killed my father and mother?”

Chapter 14

Sorrell felt like she was spinning, her thoughts going round and round, going nowhere.

“There are no easy answers,” Snow said, a contented Thaw curled in a ball asleep in her lap. “You won’t know until Ruddock confides the truth to you.”

“The truth… will he ever speak it to me?” Sorrell asked and felt as if she had repeated it for the umpteenth time since she had entered the room.

“It isn’t the truth that disturbs you so much as it is the trust,” Willow said. “You trusted him and he didn’t return that trust, and so you question endlessly. You’ll get no easy answer as Snow said, not even when Ruddock confides it in you. It will only come when you finally believe it yourself.”

“You offer me wise words, but not easy ones to digest,” Sorrell said, wishing differently.

“John is a good man,” Snow said, “He protected you and defended you without pause or doubt, which means there must have been some trust there.”

Sorrell reached out to Snow, in the chair beside her, and gave her hand a squeeze. “For a blind person you see more clearly than those who have sight.”

“That’s because she isn’t as stubborn as you,” Willow said. “You are wed and there is no undoing it. And the most important thing you need to remember is that you love John, and if I’m not mistaken that hasn’t changed.”

“Another reason you hurt so badly,” Snow said. “You fear you have lost John when he is still very much with you. Though I don’t blame you for feeling as you do, since John’s true identity has been a shock to all of us. Still, what’s most important is that Ruddock had ordered all others to wait while he went after you. You came first to him.”

“Snow is right, his first concern was you,” Willow said. “I told him not to go to you. That he should let you calm and talk with you later, but he told me he needed to go to you.”

Snow chuckled. “Whether the man knows it or not, he is as much in love with you as you are with him.”

“He has not voiced it,” Sorrell said, wishing he had.

“But he has showed it every day to you, since the day he first protected you from Peter’s mud balls,” Willow said with a chuckle of her own.

Snow kept her voice low. “You consummated your vows. How did that go?”

“Snow, that’s private, between Sorrell and Ruddock alone,” Willow scolded, though she was just as curious.

A soft smile lit Sorrell’s face. “It was astonishingly magnificent.”

Willow and Snow giggled.

“So it felt right?” Willow asked.

Sorrell sighed. “More than right. It was as if—”

“Fate had fashioned you for each other?” Willow asked.

“Are you telling me that you think Ruddock and I are meant to be?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Willow asked.

“I’d like to believe it,” Sorrell said, wishing all doubt would simply vanish.

“Then believe it,” Snow said. “Or at least give yourself a chance to believe it.”

“But no matter what comes of this, there is one thing that will always remain the same,” Willow said and the three of them smiled and reached out to join hands. “We always—”

“Always,” Sorrell and Snow echoed.

“Have one another,” Willow finished.

“Even though you’ll be a distance from us, we’ll plan long visits,” Snow said, “though I do not look forward to bidding you farewell.”

Sorrell scrunched her brow wondering what Snow was talking about until it finally struck her. “I must go live with my husband at his home. I hadn’t given that thought.” She shook her head, looking from one sister to the other. “How do I live without the two of you?”