Read Chapter 35: Choosing Us

The rain came without warning, hammering against the library windows like a fist demanding entry. Eilidh barely heard it. Her hands were shaking as she held the covenant letter, the parchment warm from the fire she had just stoked—not for warmth, but for courage.

Hamish stood across from her, his back to the hearth, the flames casting long shadows across his face. He had been quiet since the council meeting, carrying the weight of their proposal like a physical burden. She had watched him pace the corridors of Castle Kintail for three hours, his footsteps echoing through the stone like a heartbeat.

“We should file the covenant tomorrow,” he said, breaking the silence. “Get it into the legal record before Iain can—” He stopped, rubbing his temples. “Before he finds another way to tear this apart.”

Eilidh set the letter down on the desk between them. The fire crackled, hungry. She could feel its heat on her face, warming the cold that had settled in her chest ever since she had read Finella's words about love and blood.

“Iain doesn’t matter,” she said quietly.

Hamish’s head snapped up. “He does. He’s already questioning the deed’s provenance. If he finds out about the covenant before the hearing—”

“I don’t care about Iain.” She took a step toward him. The fire threw her shadow long across the floor, stretching toward him like a bridge. “I care about you. About us.”

His jaw tightened. The muscle beneath his cheek flickered. “Eilidh, we’ve been through this. Once the trust is formed, we’ll have time to figure out what we are to each other. But right now, the castle has to come first. Your claim, the debt, the covenant—they’re the foundation of everything we’ve built.”

She laughed, a short, broken sound that surprised even her. “The castle.” She looked around the room—at the books lining the walls, the old portraits, the stone that had stood for centuries. “Do you know what I thought when I first came here? I thought this place was my destiny. Finella’s blood in my veins, the Grant claim, the chance to prove myself as a restorer. I thought the castle was the prize.”

“It can be,” Hamish said carefully. “It can be yours. Yours and the trust’s. I told you I’d sign it over. I meant it.”

Eilidh shook her head slowly, and then she moved. She crossed the room to the iron safe where the original debt documents were kept, her fingers trembling as she worked the combination. The metal clicked open. Inside, the rolled parchment sat in its linen sleeve, old and yellowed, carrying the weight of two hundred years of grudges and lies.

She lifted it out and carried it to the fireplace.

Hamish straightened. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t answer. Not yet. She looked at the document in her hands—the paper that had shaped her entire identity, the thread connecting her to Finella, to her own lost history. For weeks, she had clung to it as proof of belonging. As a claim to a place where she fit.

“I don’t want the castle without you,” she said, and her voice cracked on the last word. She turned to face him fully. “That’s what I’ve been too afraid to say. Every time I told myself I was fighting for my heritage, for Finella’s memory, for the restoration—it was a lie. I was fighting for a reason to stay. A justification.”

“Eilidh—”

“Let me finish.” She held up a hand, and the parchment rustled in the firelight. “I’ve spent my whole life looking for where I belong. My family was scattered, my history erased. Then I found Finella, and I thought, *there*. There’s my anchor. There’s my proof I matter. But Finella herself wrote that love, not blood, makes a family. And you—” Her voice broke again. “You are the first person who ever made me feel like I belonged not because of who my ancestors were, but because of who I am.”

Hamish’s breath caught. He took a step toward her, then stopped, as if afraid to break the moment.

“I love you, Hamish MacKinnon,” she said. “Not because your family built this castle. Not because our bloodlines are tangled in secrets two centuries old. I love you because you argue with me about lime mortar and drainpipes, because you make tea exactly the way I like it without asking, because you believed in Finella’s story when everyone else wanted it buried.”

She looked down at the parchment in her hands, then up at the fire. “This debt. This claim. It meant something once. But it means nothing if I lose you.”

She tossed the document into the flames.

Hamish lunged forward—not to stop her, but toward her, his eyes wide. The parchment curled, blackened at the edges, then caught. Flame licked up its length, consuming the signatures, the seals, the words that had bound two families in sorrow and suspicion. Within seconds, it was nothing but ash, floating upward on the hot air, disappearing into the chimney.

Eilidh watched it go. She felt lighter than she had in weeks. Months. Years.

“There is no claim now,” she said softly. “No debt between our families. No legal foundation for me to take anything from you. The trust proposal will be built on the covenant alone—joint stewardship, mutual intention. Nothing I can use to force your hand.”

“I never thought you would.”

“I know.” She turned back to him. The fire danced in his eyes. “But I needed you to see it. To know that my fight was never for land or legacy. It was for you. And if you’ll still have me, we build this together. Not as Grant and MacKinnon, heirs to an old wound. Just us.”

He crossed the room in three strides. His hands found her face, cupping her cheeks, his thumbs brushing the tears she hadn’t realized she’d shed. For a long moment, he just looked at her—as if memorizing her features, as if seeing her for the first time.

“I was going to ask you,” he said, his voice rough, “after the legal battle was over. When we knew the castle was safe. I had it all planned—a proper question, on one knee, with the storm outside and the fire inside, like something from one of those books you read.”

“And now?”

“Now I realize I was a fool to wait.” He pulled her close, his forehead resting against hers. “I don’t care about the covenant or the trust or the council’s six-week delay. I care about this. About you. About building a future where we wake up together in this castle and argue about wallpaper for the west wing.”

She laughed, wet and happy. “The west wing needs re-pointing before wallpaper.”

“See?” He smiled, and the sight of it made her heart ache. “I want to argue with you forever.”

And then he kissed her.

It was not gentle. It was not careful. It was the kiss of a man who had been holding back his whole life, who had finally found someone worth releasing every wall for. His hands tangled in her hair, and she pressed against him, and the fire crackled and sparked as the last of the debt documents turned to ash behind them.

The castle stood silent around them, old and watching. But for the first time in centuries, it felt like a home.