Renna Rose Lancaster never searched for love.
She stumbled into it long before she was old enough to know what to call it.
It lived inside flower crowns that barely survived a minute on his head. Pebbles he slipped into her pockets because every tre...
"Forever might be a long time but I wouldn't mind spending it with you."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The engine died, and the sudden quiet was heavy, punctured only by the faint, metallic ticking of the cooling bonnet. Through the fogged-up glass, the cottage looked ancient—just a chaotic heap of stones that had spent the last century losing an argument with gravity. Rotted wooden frames were choked out by thick ivy, and the roof line sagged under the weight of a sprawling layer of moss.
On my lap, the bane of my existence didn't even stir.
Renna was out cold, her nose buried so deep into the crook of my neck that her rhythmic breathing was hitting my collarbone in steady puffs. My left thigh had crossed the threshold from pins-and-needles into white-hot paralysis somewhere past Crianlarich.
But shifting her weight wasn't even an option. If I moved her, I'd probably trigger a natural disaster. A sleep-deprived Renna was a fucking hurricane, and I didn't have the energy to play storm chaser before we'd even had brunch.
"Right, you useless lot," Cameron said, cracking his knuckles hard enough to echo against the roof liner. "Out. Every single one of you. There is zero chance I'm walking up to that door without human shields. If the old woman catches me solo, she's going to fucking castrate me."
Isla laughed, doubling over to drag a glossy gift bag out from the footwell. "You literally promised her you'd visit in July, Cam. We are deep into November."
"Time is an illusion," Cameron muttered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
"Morag isn't just going to chew you out," Freya chipped in from the back row, her seatbelt clicking open. "She's going to chop your worthless balls off, stuff them into a sheep's stomach, and toss the scraps to the collies. You're a dead man walking."
Cameron visibly flinched, his fingers quickly darting across his chest in a panicked, half-serious sign of the cross. "Christ, protect your humblest servant from the wrath of a Highland matriarch."
I stayed locked in place against the flattened seat. Renna's tiny frame was still bundled securely beneath my jacket, her knuckles pressed against her chin as a makeshift shield against the freezing draft filtering through the vents.
Slowly, carefully, I tried to slide my palm out from beneath the edge of her cropped knit. The temperature difference was staggering. The car was rapidly turning to ice, but her skin was a fever. It felt as if my skin had fused to hers, a stubborn reluctance to break the contact.
As my hand started to retreat, she let out an irritated whine. Her fingers, which had been loosely hooked into the St. Christopher chain around my neck, clamped down hard, digging the metal links right into my windpipe.
