𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐖𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐁𝐞 | 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 ✅

2 - At Last He Has Come Home

Three Weeks Later,July 1738

It was not unusual to hear a horse whinnying in the yard or to hear the clip-clop of its hooves as it crossed the yard from the gate, coming to a stop in front of the house. It was also not unusual to hear the call of a traveller who had just arrived.

But, in the two years that he had been gone, it had become unusual to hear the voice of James Fraser outside.

As soon as I heard Brian outside talking to somebody and then their reply, I knew who it was. I dropped my needlework on the floor in front of the fire and stood up, running from the room and through Lallybroch, down the front steps and into the yard before I had even thought about it. He was stroking his horse as he spoke to his father, but as soon as I saw him, I called out, "Jamie!"

Brian and Jamie looked up. Jamie took a step away from the horse and Brian turned away, going back into the house and leaving Jamie and me alone. He held his arms open and I ran into them, eliciting a quick "oomph!" as the full weight of my body collided with his. Jamie tightened his arms around me and then picked me up effortlessly as if I weighed no more than a sack of grain. He swung me round and round, my long hair waving in the breeze behind me. I squealed in delight the way that I had done when he had held me like this when I was a child.

At last, he put me back on the ground and then held me at arm's length, the way that he had done when we had last been together, just a few minutes before he had left to foster with his Uncle Dougal MacKenzie.

"You've grown, Eira." He looked me up and down with a smile on his face.

"So have you." I told him honestly, unable to keep the wide smile from my face. Jamie had, surprisingly, grown taller than he had been before, now over six feet.

"You look a proper lady in that dress!" His eyes rested on the hem, "though I'm not sure a lady would be quite so covered in mud." I looked down at my feet and cursed silently. Jamie laughed aloud, and I felt my heart soar at the sound. It had been so loud since I had heard it. The two pieces of my broken heart very quickly stitched themselves back together. I had intended to be wearing the gorgeous new dress that Brian Fraser had had made for me, but in my haste to get outside to Jamie when I had heard his voice, I had not changed into it. I made a mental note to change into it for dinner. "I dinna ken a lady could talk like that!"

"Perhaps I'm not quite the lady you thought, then." I grinned at him. "Perhaps I'm just plain Eira."

"Not plain." He was still looking me over. I loved being in his gaze.

"Am I the same girl that you left?"

Jamie was silent for several moments before he replied, "no, you're much more -"

"Jamie!" Jenny ran out of the house and threw herself at her brother. I could do nothing but take a step back and wish that he had had a chance to finish his sentence. "You're home, brother!"

"Aye." He agreed, "I'm home."

Jenny stood close beside me and said, "how long since you arrived?"

"A couple of minutes," Jamie replied, taking a brief look at his horse to see that it was eating its oats and hay properly. He then turned back to us, "reckon I should escort the two lassies inside?"

Jenny looked at me quickly. I was looking at the dirty floor, which I was standing barefoot on. I wished that I had put shoes on because my toes were cold, but I didn't say anything.

"I've got to milk the cows," Jenny said, taking a step away from her brother and me, "but Eira looks like she could do with an escort - I should say she's freezing with no shoes on."

Jenny excused herself and then hurried off in the opposite direction of the cows - she had wanted to just give Jamie and I some more time alone, I knew. She was kind like that, and she knew how I felt about her brother, even if I had never openly said it to her.

Jamie and I stood in silence for a few seconds, the two of us still beaming before he took a deep breath and said, "aye, well I reckon we should head inside, then?" I nodded and took his arm, letting him lead me into the house.

My needlework was still on the floor in front of the fire when we went into the large living room. Jamie walked over to it immediately and ducked, scooping it up in one smooth move. He held it in his large hands and looked down at it. I watched him from behind for a few seconds, marvelling at how he seemed to have grown up some more in the time that we had been apart. His shoulders were broader, and he had filled out some more. His hair had grown to his shoulders - the new length suited him greatly. He was gorgeous, a Greek Adonis, but I would never tell him so, quite probably. I had spent far too long daydreaming about Jamie Fraser for it to be healthy, and I would never have the opportunity to express my love for him. No, I would leave it to him to tell me how he felt first.

I hoped that one day my feelings would be reciprocated.

"I'm much more what?" I asked him.

Jamie turned slowly, looking away from my needlework in his hand and instead at me.

We stood in silence, the only sound between us was the crackling and popping of the flames.

"This is bonnie," he held up my embroidery. "Did you make this?"

"You ken I did, Jamie." I frowned, crossing the room and snatching it from him. I threw it onto the longue behind me and pushed him on it again. "Before Jenny came, you said that I was much more something. Much more what?"

He took several deep breaths and then sighed. He sat in the armchair by the fire, and I took note of how it once again looked well furnished in the living room at Lallybroch. That particular armchair had always been Jamie's favourite before, and when there wasn't work to be doing out in the yard or in the fields, Jamie could more often than not be found sitting in it, the flames in the fireplace keeping him warm.

The room looked complete now that he was back in his seat.

"It doesna matter -"
"But it does." I went over to him and sat on the floor at his feet, daringly putting both of my hands on his knees. Jamie looked down at me and I saw a glint of something that I didn't recognise in his eyes. I wondered what it was, for I had never seen it in the eyes of any man before that moment. "Jamie," I took a breath, "you don't know what it's been like here without you... it's been lonely -"
"You've had Jenny and Ian." Jamie looked away from me, directly into the flames.

"I have," I agreed, "but they're not..." I took a deep breath, "they're not you. You were my best friend, Jamie, and for two years, I haven't been able to confide in you - nor even talk to you. I've gone through the darkest time in my life, and you haven't been there -"
"Do you think that I did not want to return to you?" He looked back at me. "Eira, all I wanted from the moment I rode away - nay, from the moment that I knew I had to leave - was to come home. I wanted to come home to you." One of his large, calloused hands came to rest against my face. His skin was warm, and I delighted in the touch of his flesh against my own. We sat in silence for minutes. I wasn't sure how many. "You're more bonnie than ever..." he had spoken so quietly that I wasn't even sure he had spoken at all.

But the way that he was looking into my blue eyes implied that he had and that he had not intended me to hear his words.

"Jamie, I -"

"Dinner's set!" Jenny called from the dining room opposite the open doors of the living room.

Jamie and I locked gazes and we both sighed.