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Claire paces her bedroom in nothing but her shift, threadbare and falling off her shoulder. Her hands, pale and trembling, grasp her belly, round with child.
Her uncle is outside in the small courtyard. She can see him from her window, pacing the same anxious step as she, leaving a trail of smoke from his pipe in his wake.
There's an unexpected knock at her door. It makes her jump and her belly stretch with a fierce kick. She bites her bottom lip red as she groans from the sharp pain.
Who could that be? She wonders angrily, breathing through her nose.
They ordered the servants away. No one can bear witness to this birth.
Another round of knocking. Louder. Urgent.
Claire leans one hand against the stone frame of the fireplace, the other on the arch of her aching lower back. The heat of the fire makes her skin slick with sweat.
"Go away, Suzette. You were told to go home."
She hates the harshness in her voice.
Suzette has been nothing but wonderful since coming into their employ. And the one woman who may just be the one to finally capture her dear uncle Lamb's heart.
"It's not Suzette. It's me . . ."
That voice!
She can feel the memory of it brush against her lips. That brokenhearted sound when they parted, before the crushing blaze of his kiss.
The door then creaks open and there he stands. A feral beast of a man in size and manner, his appearance rough and sunburnt, hair wild as ever, clothed in a patched up coat and muddy breeks, shirt opened wide at the throat to where his chest heaves.
She's mildly pleased he looks like hell.
"Claire . . ." Jamie's near breathless when he speaks her name as his eyes drop to her belly in awed disbelief. "Oh, God. Claire."
He reaches for her, blue eyes bright as the moonlight shining through the window, blinking away tears of unbridled joy.
"No!" Claire swings her hand between them before he can touch her. " I haven't heard from you for months. Months! You had me thinking you were dead, you bastard! Fucking dead -" Her voice cracks, seething with anger that claws at her throat.
But it's the tears falling down her cheeks, the agonizing pain of love bursting within her chest that breaks her resolve to punish him. And she sways on her feet, feeling her knees give way.
Jamie wraps his arms around her best he can, holding her tightly as if she were to slip away.
She's too exhausted to fight back. Too scared of what's to come next to hate him and grabs fistfuls of his shirt. Buries her face in his chest, sobbing. Feels the warmth of him sink and smolder into her bones.
"I'm here now, Sorcha" he rasps into her curls, breath shaky. "And nothing will ever keep me from you again . I promise, I promise . . ."
They cling to each other before Claire pulls away, lovingly tracing his features she memorized long ago with her fingertips, brushing his red curls away.
"Oh, my love. What happened to you?"
A shuddering sound leaves his lips as he grasps her wrists that cradle his face.
"I'm sorry, I'm sae sorry. I meant to come back to ye right away but it wasn't to be. And then I couldn't find ye, went into a rage thinking someone had taken ye, was hurting ye. But it was only that ye left and changed yer name, ye wicked wee thing."
It breaks her heart to see the pain on his face as he gives her shoulders a little shake.
"Lamb thought it best. Especially when I found out I was with child."
Jamie's throat bobs, overwhelmed, feeling the breathless thrill of impending fatherhood fill his heart.
"It's soon, aye? The birth."
She nods, feeling terribly giddy.
He sees this and rubs circles into her back, his voice gentle against her freckled cheek.
"There's nothing for ye to be afraid of now, I'm here wi ye."
" I'm more than afraid. I've had nightmares where I give birth to a litter of your feral children."
" If you were a she-wolf, aye. We'd have six if we we're lucky," he says , with a gold twinkle of mirth in his eyes.
Claire slaps his chest and he laughs then takes this moment to finally kiss her, tenderly, with all the earth shattering love that swells from his heart to hers.
Both breathless, Jamie leads her to the chair by the window and kneels in front of her to nuzzle her belly while she strokes his head, twining his hair around her fingertips.
But then he suddenly lifts his face.
"There's two ye carry."
Claire smiles, but with a line between her brows.
" I thought so too but how the hell can you know that?"
"I can scent it," he says simply, voice full of wonder and presses his ear against her, rubbing her sides. "And I can hear their heartbeats. Braw wee things. Just like their mam."
He beams with pride then asks with a questioning cock of his head -
"Why are ye alone, a nighean?"
" Poor Lamb only smokes his pipe when he's nervous but the reek of it makes me sick so I sent him outside until I knew for sure these two were coming. And ," she pauses, dropping her hands to grip to his shoulders, "and I was afraid to call a midwife. "
He can see on her face the fear she won't speak. He raises himself and cups his hand to the side of her neck, the other splayed protectively over their children she carries.
"They'll be like you and me as I am now."
" Are you sure?"
He arches a brow.
"I was a man when we made love, Sorcha."
"Were you? Because no man has ever done what you did to me."
A hot blush suffuses both their faces, remembering that startling moment beneath the summer sun and swaying trees when he was knotted deep inside her, heart and soul forever linked.
"Weel," he begins, unsure of what to say and scratches his nose, straight as a knife. "I dinna remember ye complaining at the time," he shrugs.
Just as Claire hits him again, and Jamie peppers her with kisses, assuring her over and over that nothing will be amiss, she's struck with a wave of pain.
When she can breathe again, Jamie dips his hand beneath her shift and cups the swollen flesh between her legs.
"Too late to call for a midwife."
He presses his brow to hers, a crooked smile on his face.
"Between us we'll manage. We always have."
//
There's two of them, nestled against their mother's breasts.
One with dark hair like the water in a burn kissed by sunlight, the same as their mother. The other the rich red mane of their father, shimmering with strands of gold.
Jamie kisses the chubby curve of their peach soft cheeks as they suckle hungrily from their mother, tired but glowing. They both grunt, hating their father's attention, his suffocating affection when they're just trying to eat and take it out on their poor mother who winces in pain.
But then all is calm again and both Jamie and Claire each cradle a child in their arms as they sleep, sitting close together in bed.
"Are you happy?"
Claire has her head on Jamie's shoulder, her eyes growing heavy, but the need to know every detail of her daughter's faces keeps her awake.
Jamie carefully maneuvers his arm to gather his loves even closer and presses his mouth to the top of her crown.
"Aye. Three lasses I have. And all three of ye breathe, thank the god above. No man could ask for more. I could howl at the moon, I'm so damn happy," he grins wolfishly.
She laughs into his chest so as not to wake their girls, sleeping sweet as angels. And she wants to keep it that way.
But then a frown darkens her face with a thought she can hardly utter.
"Will you stay with us then?"
Her voice is a small, hollow whisper.
"Look at me, mo ghràdh."
She does, hesitantly, and it tears at his chest that she does so.
"I told you I would never leave ye again and I meant it. And it's not just because ye gave me the gift of our bairns - though for that alone I owe ye my soul. I love ye, Claire, with all that I am, and I will live as a man with ye. Be yer husband, yer mate, serve ye for the rest of my days . . . if ye'll have me . . ."
The sun itself could shine no brighter than the love that beams from Claire's heart as she gives her answer in the loving press of her lips to his.