The Handfasting (6 page)

Emma breathed a
sigh of relief.  Gavin had to be safe.  When she closed her eyes, and focused
really hard on her own heartbeat, it was almost as if she could hear his,
thundering in unison with her own.  Emma had never been more certain of
anything in her life.

Gavin Mackinnon
was alive.

Chapter Five

Emma carried the earthenware
basin down the stairs, her mind churning over the tasks that she would need to
accomplish that day.  Keeping busy was the only way that she could keep her
mind from dwelling on Gavin.  Her fears intensified with each passing day that
yielded no news about the Mackinnon warriors.  It had been three months since
Archie’s return to the keep, and there had been no further information about
Gavin’s welfare.

She reached the flagstone
floor of the great hall and as she looked up at the weather-beaten men gathered
around the hearth fire, her fingers failed and the basin shattered against the
stone floor.

“Gavin!” she
screamed as her heart thundered in her chest.  She smiled from ear to ear as
she ran towards her love.

He looked at her
blankly, almost as if he was surprised when she ran towards him.  Closing the
distance between them in a matter of seconds, Emma threw her arms around
Gavin’s neck and wrapped her legs around his waist in a most unlady-like
fashion. 

She had almost not
recognized him at first.  His usually shoulder length blonde hair had been
cropped shortly against his skull.  His clothes were in tatters and he looked
weary well beyond his twenty-four years.

Gavin looked at
her blankly. His arms came awkwardly around her waist and he held her so that
she would not fall.  His eyes scanned her face and then darted to Jaime, who
stood quietly next to him.  The chattering of the men around the fire had
stopped completely and they all stood enraptured, watching the scene that
transpired before their eyes.

Emma’s hand found
Gavin’s cheek and she looked deep into his green eyes.  Her own light blue eyes
were misty with emotion.  Her heart raced in her chest as she looked at the man
who stood before her, her husband. 

“I’m so happy to
see you!  I thought you’d…” she trailed off as tears spilled from her eyes.

Gavin gently pried
her legs from around his waist and settled the lass’s feet firmly on the
ground.

This was awkward.

“I…I’m…” he spoke
haltingly, unsure of what to say to the beautiful lass that so clearly was
happy that he had returned.  Gavin’s eyes flashed to Jaime, and he raised his
eyebrow in question.  He needed help.

“And ye would be?”
he asked gingerly, afraid to hurt the lass’s feelings.  She still clung to him,
but when the words fell from his lips, she jerked away from him as if his skin
had burnt her.

Emma’s blood went
cold in her veins.  She fought to remain standing under the weight of the blow
that Gavin had just dealt her.  Her lungs struggled to breathe and she worried
that she might be faint.

Her hand shook
involuntarily, and she brought it shakily to her mouth as she took a step away
from Gavin.

“You…you don’t
know who I am?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Nay, lass,” Gavin
said, smiling slightly as was his nervous habit when uncomfortable.

His smile almost
killed her.  She had missed that smile so much.

He doesn’t know
me!  What happened to you Gavin MacKinnon?

Emma gasped and
turned on her heel, running up the stairs to their chamber as stinging tears
burned her eyes and streamed uncontrollably down her face.  This was the day
that she had been waiting for.  She had been praying for this very day.  How
could it be that the very day that she had yearned for would be the very same
day when her heart was shattered into a million, irreparable pieces?

“Who is she?”
Gavin asked uneasily as he watched the beautiful woman retreat from him and run
crying up the stairs.  His lack of recognition had clearly hurt her.

“She’s yer wife,”
Jaime said silently.

..ooOoo..

Gavin sat in his
father’s study, his elbows resting on his knees as he leaned forward and held
his head with the palms of his hands.  He gritted his teeth and tried to jog
his memory.  He tried to force his brain to remember.

Nothing.

He raked his hands
through his closely shorn blonde hair and shook his head from side to side. 
This was so frustrating.  He remembered nothing except for the tiny pieces of
information that Jaime had fed him.

“Dammit!” he
cursed as he straightened his spine and looked at the woman who sat across the
room from him.

Her hair had been
blonde when she was younger, but was now streaked with silver.  She had been
beautiful in her time, she still was in fact.  Age had been kind to Lady
MacKinnon.

“Ye will remember,
Gavin.  Ye have tae.  Yer all we have left, and I ken that yer father…”

“Will ye no stop
talking about my father?” Gavin snapped, glaring at his mother with green eyes
that matched her own.  “I’ve told ye that I remember nothing.  I think that ye
need tae find someone else.”

“There is no one
else.  With yer brothers gone now,” she said challengingly, though Gavin
noticed that she worked hard to repress her emotions.  Lady Mackinnon had lost
her to eldest sons as well as her husband in the rising against the English.
“It is ye that needs tae lead the clan.  Ye are Laird Mackinnon now.  It is
what yer father would have wanted.”

“But I canna do
this.  I doona even remember my own mother, my own wife!” he exclaimed in
frustration.  “How in the hell am I supposed to lead the clan?” he asked in desperation,
his eyes searching his mother’s face.

“Ye can and ye
will, son.  Ye are yer father’s son, and mine too.  Ye’ve made us proud and I
ken that ye can do this.  It will take some work, but with time…”

“Christ!” Gavin
swore, shaking his head in disbelief.  “I willna do this!  I canna!”

“Aye, ye can.  And
doona talk like that in my house.  I raised ye better than that,” Katroina
scolded as she walked over and knelt before her only remaining son.  Her heart
swelled with happiness that he had returned alive, but her mother’s worry
consumed her.  Was he so broken that he would not be able to take his rightful
place as Laird of Clan Mackinnon?  Katroina shook her head, pushing the
negative thought from her mind.  “Ye will do this, Gavin.  Ye were born tae do
this,” she encouraged as she patted her son on the shoulder and looked into his
eyes.

Katroina’s belief
in him bolstered his spirits.  Gavin’s eyes held steadily with hers.

“I will try,
mother,” he whispered.  It felt strange to call a woman that he had no
recollection of his mother.  This was the woman who had nursed him at her
breast, who had nurtured him and cared for him while he was small.  How her
heart must be breaking to know that her only living son did not remember her.

“I will help ye. 
I believe in ye, Gavin.  Ye are a born leader, and I ken that yer memory will
come back tae ye,” she vowed.  Unable to help herself, she pulled Gavin against
her chest and hugged him to her.  Tears welled in her eyes as she clung to her
boy.  He was home, and that was that.  She was happy to have her little boy
back, broken pieces and all.  She silently vowed to work tirelessly to help him
take on the challenges that he would be forced to face.

..ooOoo..

Gavin stood
uneasily outside of the chamber that Jaime had told him was his.  He knew that
he needed to make things right with the lass that was locked inside.

Emma.

He turned her name
over and over in his mind.

Nothing. 

“Damn,” he said as
he shook his head from side-to-side.

He forced himself
to muster the courage to knock on the large wooden door.  His knock was
countered with the sound of sniffling behind the door, and in what seemed like
an eternity later, Emma cracked the door and peered out into the hallway at
him.

Her hair was
unbound and her eyes were puffy from crying.  She had tried to pull herself
together, but nothing could hide the fact that she had been crying. 

Gavin’s heart
sputtered in his chest.  She had been crying because of him.

“I’m sorry,” he
said softly.  “Can I come in and talk tae ye?  Or we could go somewhere else if
that would be more proper?” he asked uneasily. 

Emma opened the
door without responding.  She walked back inside the chamber and sat in one of
the overstuffed chairs before the fireplace.

Lord help me,
she said silently.  She wasn’t sure how much more hardship her heart could
bear.

Gavin strode into
the chamber and settled himself into the chair that sat opposite to her in
front of the fireplace.  His eyes scanned the room.  He looked for something,
anything that might spark his memory.  This had been his home.  This had been
the chamber that he had shared with his wife.  His eyes darted back to Emma,
who sat watching him intently.  Had he loved her?  Had they been happy
together?

“What did you want
to say to me?” she asked, her voice trembling as she spoke.

Looking at Gavin
was painful.  Her eyes scanned his familiar face and she looked at him closely
now.  His handsome angular jaw was the same, along with his straight-set nose
and his intriguing green eyes.  The man before her looked like her husband,
apart from his closely cut hair.  It was so strange to have Gavin sitting right
in front of her, and yet she felt that somehow, he had not yet returned to
her. 

She wanted nothing
more than to throw herself into his arms, to feel the welcome safety that his
strong arms would bring her.  She wanted to kiss him, to touch his warm skin
and to make sure that he was really here, alive and sitting right in front of
her.  She wanted to make love to him.  Despite her best efforts to push these
thoughts aside, her body betrayed her.  She felt the dull aching building
between her thighs as she looked at her beautiful husband.  Her breasts ached
for his kiss as her eyes traced over his familiar lips.

Her beautiful
husband that did not remember her.

Emma’s eyes looked
down and settled on the tattered red string band that was tied around the ring
finger on Gavin’s left hand.  Her heart nearly stopped beating when she
realized that he still wore it.  He still wore the ring that she had made for
him out of braided red twine.  She had tied that very ring to his finger the
morning that he left her.  To see her ring still tied to his finger gave her
hope.  It was a symbol of their love, a symbol of their past.  That tattered
ring gave her hope for the future.

“I wanted tae tell
ye that I’m sorry,” Gavin started, his pulse hammering in his veins as he began
to speak the difficult words.  “I think that I owe ye an explanation, something
so that ye night ken what happened,” he began.

Emma’s eyebrow raised
in question as she looked at him.

“You broke my
heart today,” she said, regretting the words as soon as they fell from her
lips.

“Aye?  I’m sorry
for that,” Gavin said sincerely.  He wanted to touch her, to bring her some
form of comfort, but he did not know how.  He sat stock still and watched her,
unable to ease her pain.  She was breath taking.  The firelight danced over her
radiant skin.  She was slight of bone, and blue eyes sparkled as they held back
tears. Her long blonde hair was unbound and fell in loose tendrils down to her
thin waist. She watched him, and she chewed absentmindedly on her full lower
lip.

Gavin’s eyes
blazed over her lovely features.  He racked his brain, trying to remember.

“Holden found me
at St. Martin’s Monastery, just outside of Inverness.  He knew me at once and
he stayed by my side until I recovered from this,” Gavin said as he turned his
head and showed Emma the scar.  The wound had nearly killed him, having split
open the side of his skull.

Emma gasped and
held her hand to her mouth as she looked at the scar that nearly spanned six
inches over the side of Gavin’s skull.  His shorn hair had hid the scar well
and now she understood.  This injury is what had stolen his memory.

And yet, here he
was.  The same beautiful man that she had loved so much that she had agreed to
handfast him less than a year ago.  She fought the urge to touch him, to run
her fingers over the scar and to tell him that everything would be alright. 

Her heart
fluttered when she realized that she loved him still.  She loved him whether he
remembered her or not.  

Emma stood up now,
trembling as she bridged the distance between them.  She took Gavin’s handsome
face gently between her hands and he closed his eyes.

Her touch felt so
good, so right against his skin.

Leaning down
slowly, she pressed her lips to the raised scar that was hidden beneath Gavin’s
hair.

“I love you so
much, Gavin Mackinnon,” she whispered as tears spilled down her cheeks. 
“You’re here, alive before me and I couldn’t be more thankful.”  Together,
we’ll get through this,” she vowed as she settled herself onto his lap and
buried her face into his clean linen shirt.  She clung to him as she wept for
what they had lost, and her heart burst with joy from the simple fact that she
could touch him again.

He’s alive!

Gavin fitted his
arms around the beautiful lass.  He cradled her against his chest and rested
his chin atop her head.  Closing his eyes, he drank in her sweet scent.  She
smelled of heather and sunshine.  It felt so right to hold her like this.  For
now, this was a step in the right direction.  This was enough.

He held the brave
lass against his chest while she wept into his shirt.  What a braw lass that
would accept him as he was, broken and battered and love him enough to have him
anyway.