Claiming Her (Renegades & Outlaws) (51 page)

“Well we’re off now,” Aodh said, turning.

“I’m not coming.”

Aodh stopped short. Beside him, Katarina froze. On the boat, Cormac spun, making the boat rock. Only Bran continued his tasks of loading bags onboard, his face partially averted, his eyes… Were they red?

Aodh looked away from his small crew and turned to Ré. Bare-headed in the spring sun, Aodh could see everything about his friend clearly, most especially the resolve in his eye.
 

“What do you mean?” Aodh asked quietly, but he already knew.

Ré took a deep breath. “You found what you went looking for, Aodh. You found what you want. Home, and…” He glanced at Katarina, who looked stricken as she came back on land. “Cormac too. Everyone found what they needed in Ireland. Except me. I did not yet.”

Aodh nodded slowly. He should be used to this by now, the endings of things that mattered. But this one, losing Ré, his sea star, his boon companion, his captain and friend, cut to the quick. And yet, it was perfectly right. And perfectly necessary. Ré had hitched his wagon to Aodh’s ambitions many years ago, and now they were all met. It was time for Ré to go seek—and claim—his own.
 

And it was fitting that it should happen here, where their friendship had begun.

“You saved my life, right here,” Aodh reminded him quietly.
 

Ré glanced back at the sandy opening to the cave. “And a furious ride it has been.” They both smiled. “I could never have dreamed you would take me the places I’ve been, my friend. I would never have done them without you. I was fated to be a farmer, and a poor one at that, until you came along. In truth, you saved my life.”

“Then we are even.” Aodh kept his voice pitched low. “But I will miss you with a hurt I cannot express.”

“Aw, Jesus,” muttered Cormac. His voice sounded thick.

Ré looked away, then swiftly, head still down, he stepped forward and embraced Aodh in a silent, hard hug. He stepped back as abruptly as he’d gone in. Aodh smiled as he backed up.
 

“A fitting end,” Aodh said, “for the last time you threw your arms around me was when you dragged me out of the sea.”

“Aye,” Cormac chimed in, a little hoarsely, from the boat. “And we’ve been chastising him ever since.”

 
Ré laughed and reached for Cormac’s wrist, took hold and pumped it, but Cormac made a disbelieving sound and lurched to his feet. He came over the side of the boat and pulled Ré into a huge hug, then released him almost violently, blew out an unsteady breath and climbed back on board, then settled onto a seat, looking out to sea, his back to the group.

Ré turned to Bran. “Take care of him,” he said with a nod toward Aodh.

Bran lifted his head and yes, indeed, his eyes were red. “Always, sir,” he said gruffly.

“And you, lady.” Ré turned to Katarina. “You showed me what a woman might be. I will have some ways to go to find someone who can approach your heights.”

“Stop.” She put her arms around his shoulders and as she was hugging him, murmured in his ear. “You were right to mistrust me, and you have always been Aodh’s closest, dearest friend. I am sorry you must leave him, and while I understand, you must know, you are ripping his heart out.”

“Then you must mend it, lady,” he murmured, and backed away.

She took the step with him, unable to let go. Aodh put a hand on her arm. “Where will you go?”
 

Ré shrugged. “I have not seen my mother for many years. I will visit. They live not far from here. And the queen, she remains enamored of adventurers, does she not?” A smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Mayhap I will be the one to make it to the New World after all, Aodh, aye?”

Aodh began to grin. “You will be.”

Katarina squeezed his arm. “We shall invest.”

Ré smiled. “Then how can I lose?”
 

“If you’re going, go already,” Cormac muttered, still looking out to sea. Ré grinned and turned away.

“You will come visit?” she called.

He swung up on his horse. “If you will have me.”

“Come tomorrow.”

He reined around, leading Bran’s horse behind. Then lifting his hand into the air, without looking back, much as the queen had done, he cantered up the curving path, away through the high, salty green grasses.
 

Aodh watched until he was out of sight, and the grasses were once again disturbed only by sea breezes, as if no one had ever been there at all.
 

He heard a little sound beside him and looked down to find Katarina staring after Ré, a hand at her mouth. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

“Do you think he will be happy?” she asked uncertainly. “Find a home? A wife?”
 

“He will find whatever he seeks, and he will make a home, aye, as we will do.”

She tipped her face up. “And you? Will you be happy? After all you have done and seen, to leave everything behind and settle down to a remote Irish castle?”

He pulled her to stand in front of him.
 

“You still don’t understand. Everything I ever did was for Rardove, and you. You fear I am leaving things behind. I say I am going to the things that matter most. Home. And you. Stop being afraid. Our life is just beginning.”

She went up on her toes. Her warm, curving body pressed to his and wisps of her russet brown hair blew around them as she kissed him. “I fear only that I cannot love you enough.”

He kissed her back, a slightly deeper kiss, one that made her body curve a little more. Then he lifted his head. “Seeing as that’s a fear of yours, we’ll have to allay it. You can prove it to me every night. And some afternoons. And mornings,” he added, kissing her nose as he released her. “Mornings are an exceptionally good time to prove your love.”
 

Her cheeks were pink as he tossed her into the boat. Bran handed her an extra cloak and Aodh climbed onboard.
 

“Are we ready then?” Cormac said, heaving to his feet.

Aodh nodded, already looking across the sea to Ireland. “Let’s go home.”

Epilogue

Six years later

KATARINA SAW AODH coming from almost a mile away. His grey horse crested the rise of the valley at a comfortable pace. Around him rode twenty men and squires, the contingent that had gone to Dublin and Waterford on matters of government.

Katarina would have gone as well, but the baby had been ill, and Katarina had not wanted to leave her.

Her heart stirred as it always did when she saw her husband, even, apparently, from a distance of a mile. Cries went up all along the walls, “
The Lord of Rardove is returned!”
 

Katarina shifted the baby in her arms—little Lizzie made a tiny sound of irritation, then curled back to sleep. Katarina swung her arm back and forth, waving.

From across the valley, Aodh’s arm lifted in reply.

“He is home, Lizzie,” she whispered to the baby, tucking the blanket around the tiny chin.

Lizzie opened her eyes at the sound of her mother’s voice. Piercing blue, they stared up at her. Whether they would remain blue, no one yet knew—Lizzie was barely half a year old—but her brother’s had. Five years old and wrestling with the older boys in the training yards, while the men took their afternoon break, Finn’s eyes seemed determined to remain as blue as his father’s. Finn also had Aodh’s temperament: easygoing with everyone but his sister, self-assured, intent on getting his way. In everything.

Their middle child, Aine, had Katarina’s eyes. Dark brown, they would peer up at you with great, soulful depths, as the four year old explained the motivations for her most recent exploits, such as why she’d
had
to punch her older brother in the face after he’d stolen her princess doll.
 

Princesses, she informed them earnestly, could not be stolen. They must be wooed.

Katarina and Aodh exchanged a silent glance over the tops of the children’s heads. Then he’d grinned.

Young Finn had rushed at his sister then, and a brief but energetic tussle had ensued, until Aodh had dragged them apart, dangling them from his powerful hands like kittens.

Yes, indeed, these were the children of Rardove.

Katarina was so abidingly happy, some days it almost took her breath away.

Not that every moment was blissful; far from it. Crops sometimes failed, the sheep sometimes took ill, and cattle raids still occurred. She and Aodh still stood toe to toe at times, opposed on matters of rule or home. Sometimes she backed down, occasionally he did, but they always settled their differences in bed afterward. Or against a wall. Once, on a table in the hall when everyone was at a picnic, and more than a few times, up against the battlement walls on the western side of the castle as the sun was going down, all the guardsmen ordered away, for few military dangers pressed upon Rardove anymore, not since Aodh had come home.

Lizzie began kicking her legs irritably. Cormac showed up on the wall beside her and looked down at the fretful bundle swaddled in soft wool in Katarina’s arms.

 
“I could take her for you, my lady,” he offered, longing in his voice.
 

“Oh, I…” She glanced over the wall at the men riding across the valley. “Aodh will want to see her. It has been a month.”

“Susanna would dearly love to have her awhile.” Cormac and she had yet to bear a child.
 

Katarina promptly handed Lizzie over. The baby was a charmer—another of Aodh’s gifts—for her face expanded into a smile when she saw Cormac’s red-bearded face. She gurgled happily at him.

He was already speaking in low, nonsense words as he took her in his burly arms. He seemed to forget about Katarina entirely as he strode off, head bent, cooing to the clearly delighted Lizzie.

Her charge so well tended, Katarina went to meet Aodh.

He rode in as he had done all those years ago, on his grey horse, at the head of a small army, and she felt precisely as she had then, too.
 
As if he was the only man present.

The troop entered the inner bailey to warm cries of welcome. Aodh swung off his horse and tossed his reins to Dickon, now sixteen years old and still utterly devoted to his master. Aodh clapped him on the back with a brief word, then strode to Katarina.
 

Just as he had done, all those years ago.

She felt as if she were floating, just as she had then. Surely the feeling would pass soon.

She’d been telling herself that for six years.

He stripped off his gloves as he drew up in front of her and, without a pause, bent his head to drop a swift kiss on her lips.
 

It was a properly decorous kiss, no tongue or teeth or all the other things Aodh so liked to put into a kiss, which was as it should be, considering they were in a crowded bailey filled with dismounting men and women and servants hurrying to greet them.
 

No one could see his hands under the cloak, sliding boldly up her ribs, his thumbs skimming over her breasts.

“I missed you,” she said, returning his decorous kiss, while her body arched to his touch.

“I can see.” He brushed his thumbs over her hardened nipples.

“I am glad you are back.”

“As am I.” He gathered her to him, hands circling her at the small of her spine.
 

“Yes, I can see,” she teased back, feeling the hard thrust of manhood push against her.

Aodh smiled then glanced away, looking around the bailey. “Where are the children?”

“Where are they not? Finn is in the yard; I cannot believe he has not yet accosted you. Aine is in the hall, doubtless dismantling tables or upending kettles or some such, and Lizzie is in Cormac’s arms—”

“Da!”

Their son came hurtling around the corner of the castle, full tilt for his father. Aodh crouched and took the hit, then scooped the boy into his arms.

Finn began hugging and talking all at once, his chubby little boy arms around Aodh’s neck, regaling him with tales of recent triumphs with a pony, and woes with his sister, all in a single sentence, without needing a reply.
 
“…and I fell right off him, and he was
trotting
, but Mamma picked me up before he stepped on my head, so that was good...”