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I looked up from my attempts at knitting (still more knots and lumps than anything that someone might actually choose to wear) for what must have been the hundredth time in the last half hour. I shook my head and told myself for the thousandth time to stop it.
I knew, however, that every sigh of the wind or creak of the settling cabin or small night sound would have me looking up again, thinking it was Jamie. It was not the first night that I had spent alone in the cabin, but it was the first night since Lord John and his son Willie had so upset our lives.
Ian had finally returned to his preferred sleeping space in the shed now that he was feeling better, and Jamie was up in the new stable he’d been building in a cave on the ridge, having finally installed the blasted sow and her piglets up there. He was there tonight with our cow, who should be calving very soon.
I didn’t mind the solitude, I told myself, bending over my work again. Without Jamie and Ian to laugh at my woeful knitting skills, perhaps I could get enough practice in to begin to feel comfortable with the task. Yes, I insisted in my own mind, I was happy to be here, alone in the warmth and comfort of my cabin.
A noise at the window brought my head whipping up again, hoping to see Jamie passing it on his way to the door, but it was only a fat, golden beetle landing on the hide that was normally tacked down.
I sighed. There was no one around to fool, so I stopped trying to fool myself. I wanted Jamie near me. John and Willie had left a week past and things had returned to normal on the Ridge and in our lives, but I still couldn’t feel quite comfortable with him out of my sight, and I was sure I would not sleep.
With decision I tossed my knitting into it’s basket, giving it up as a bad job, smoored the fire, tacked the hide back in place over the window, swung my cloak over my shoulders and, with nary a backward glance at the empty cabin, began to climb the hill to the stable where Jamie would be spending his night.
The cool air felt wonderful after the heat of the cabin and I felt as giddy as a schoolgirl sneaking out to meet a lover. No one would care that I wasn’t in my cabin- it was far too late for callers- but the wildness of the night and the fact that, in this moment, not a soul in the world knew where I was felt illicit and fizzed through my blood like champagne.
At the door of the stable, I halted, wondering if I could surprise him with my presence, or if his sharp ears had heard me coming practically from the cabin. There was no remedy for it either way, and I stepped into the warm golden glow that spilled out the door.
He was asleep in the hay, curled up like a shrimp under his plaid. The cow seemed peaceful enough, munching comfortably on hay and ignoring the quiet snores of the man in the corner.
I crossed the space on quiet feet and looked down at him. I remembered another time, looking at him as he slept all-unknowing in a tiny croft in the Scottish Highlands. He’d been younger then, and his face had been streaked with tears. There had been lines bracketing his mouth- lines of pain then. There still were, I noted, but these had been much harder-won than those. Years of experience- smiles and frowns and the grim clench of teeth to bear whatever was to come. There were no tears, however, and no pain in this face now.
I knelt beside him and, catlike, he opened his eyes, fully awake in an instant. His eyes found my face and softened from their defensive sharpness into pleased somnolence instead.
“C’mere, my Sassenach,” he murmured, taking my hand and tugging me toward him.
I came and curled my body into his like a spoon, his warmth engulfing me.
“I was dreaming of you,” he murmured into my hair.
“Oh?” I asked, keeping my voice soft and low.
“Aye. I’d thought I wouldn’t sleep without you, but then I started to think what I might do to you if you came and fell asleep wanting you. Seems my dreams called to you.” He kissed the back of my neck, and I shivered. I could feel him smile against my skin.
“And what was it you were thinking of doing?” I asked, always interested in his fantasies.
“Well,” he began, moving his lips from my neck to my shoulder. “I’d thought it had been far too long since you and I had slept in a haystack. It might do us well to remember how it was done.”
I smiled, remembering the early days of our marriage, and making love in the heather and (on occasion) in haystacks.
“We may be too old for it now,” I said, though the feelings he was eliciting with his mouth were much more in line with the schoolgirl I’d felt in the wind than the old biddy I’d felt failing to knit by the fire.
“You’re older than I am,” he murmured, beginning to ruck up my skirt as he continued to assault me with his mouth. “Perhaps you’re too old, but I dinna think I’ll ever be. I’ll do the work though, if you’re feeling decrepit, Sassenach.”
“Decrepit?” I cried, my voice rising to a yell.
“Moo,” came a voice from the stall, and Jamie and I both sat up. Farmer and doctor that we were, we both recognized the sounds of impending birth, be they human or bovine.
“Pregnant women,” Jamie muttered, shoving himself up off the floor. “Can never be convenient, can they?” He grinned as he offered me a hand up off the floor as well. “Ready to be a midwife, Sassenach?”