“I didn’t mind either.” Evie brushed his face with her fingertips. “This house will now have happy memories too.”
“McKnight, lass, you are a beautiful thing. And I love you so.”
Evie laughed, joy letting her do no less. “You won’t be able to call me that much longer, you know.”
Jamie’s slow smile spread across his face as her words sank in. His laughter was low, rumbling, sending dark currents through her.
In a few moments, their clothes were gone, and Jamie, bare, hard, and delicious, slid inside her, letting out a heartfelt groan as Evie welcomed him in.
Jamie brushed his hand through her hair as he began to thrust, rapid, deep thrusts that had her begging for more.
“That’s my lass.” Jamie’s whisper wound around her heart. “I love you … Mrs. Mackenzie.”
“I love you.” Evie found it easy to say the words, and knew she was complete. “My Jamie.”
Epilogue
Late June 1908
* * *
The crowd that gathered on the bank of the Thames near Richmond were mostly Mackenzies, along with Evie’s family, but also tourists and those who’d come to see if the ladies could indeed win this friendly match.
Friendly, Jamie thought, hiding a grin. The wagering in the pubs last night had been savage.
The ladies couldn’t compete in the Olympics, of course, so said the committee and the head of the men’s rowing team, no matter that Jamie had pointed out the unfairness of this. But the British team had agreed to an informal race with Evie and her lady rowers.
While Evie had sojourned in Bedfordshire, she’d written to the former members of her team to support Iris’s excited idea that they race the men. The other two young women had readily agreed, likely eager to return to an enjoyment of their youth.
When the two ladies had arrived at the house in Chelsea to meet Evie, the greetings had been deafening. Jamie had been introduced as the new fiancé.
Of course, Alice and Sarah had remembered him from the oar incident, and Jamie had taken his fair share of ribbing. He’d escaped, pursued by girlish laughter, to meet Alec in a tavern and down much whisky.
Evie and her team had taken lodgings in a house in Richmond for a few weeks to practice rowing and to relearn working together. Evie had decided that if they could not find their old magic, she would withdraw the challenge. She saw no reason to humiliate her friends for her pride.
But the team had fallen back into familiar patterns, and Evie had become happily confident.
The morning dawned, the banks filling with spectators. Jamie escorted Evie to the river, helping the team lower their boat and prepare it. He stayed well away from the oars.
“Wish us luck,” Evie said breathlessly as she prepared to board.
Jamie caught her around the waist and pressed a hard kiss to her mouth. “Ye won’t need luck.”
Evie sent him a smile that warmed him to his toes. He’d had to stay away from her too much since they’d celebrated their engagement in the cottage, but it wouldn’t be for much longer. Their wedding was planned for September, and every Mackenzie was throwing him- or herself into making it the grandest wedding in the history of Mackenzie weddings.
Jamie did not confess his worries about that. He had his own ideas but let his family fuss around them. He was the first of the younger cousins to wed, and his aunts and mother were ecstatic.
Evie scrambled nimbly into her place in the four-seat scull Jamie had procured for them. The other members were already aboard, itching to begin. Eight oars rose in perfect formation then dipped into the water, skimming the craft toward the starting line.
The race would be a straight mile, no turning. The men’s team had stipulated this, afraid, Evie had told Jamie wryly, that the fragile ladies might shatter if they had to navigate around a post. So kind of them to worry for them.
The men’s team rowed confidently into place. Jamie studied the lads as their scull passed, the four young men smugly believing they’d leave the ladies well behind. Silly things, Jamie imagined them thinking. They’ll learn not to play with the natural order of things.
The fools had no idea.
Jamie rejoined his family for the start. Belle, next to him, bounced with excitement.
“Show no mercy, ladies!” she shouted through her cupped hands.
Megan yelled beside her. “Trounce them good!”
“The pair of you would have been handy at Culloden,” Jamie observed.
“Of course we would have been,” Belle informed him. “Those redcoats would have run.”
“In terror, aye, I agree.” Jamie let out a whoop as the starter fired his pistol and dropped a flag into the water.
The men’s boat leapt forward, the four lads rowing strongly. The ladies started more slowly but smoothly. Not long later, the two boats were keeping pace with each other.
The crowd hurried along the footpath, moving toward the finish mark. The boats glided through the water, oars rising and falling in perfect rhythm. It looked effortless, but Jamie knew the knotting and tightening of arms, the ache of legs as each rower strove to keep the pace.
At least his muscles had ached the few times Evie had taken him rowing in the past weeks. She’d climbed out of the blasted scull without any stiffness at all.
Beth lifted her skirts and raced down the path with her daughters and Evie’s sisters, followed by many more Mackenzies. Ian came alongside Jamie and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.
Jamie halted, and Ian did as well, the others rushing past while Jamie and Ian stood like islands in the stream.
“If you intend to ask who I wagered on, Dad—the ladies, of course,” Jamie told Ian when the man said nothing. “Not only because I’m madly in love with one of them. I’ve watched them train. They’re good.”
“Jamie.” Ian interrupted Jamie’s rambling. “I love you, son.”
Jamie burned with gladness at the words from his father’s lips, the father who rarely spoke of his emotions. Not that Ian never said it—he had, and often, over the years—but Jamie always thrilled at his father’s affection.
“I love you too, Dad.” Jamie didn’t comment on Ian’s choice to tell him this in the middle of a scurrying crowd. Ian would see nothing wrong with it, or care if anyone else did. The love was more important than what other people thought of them.
“Evie loves you,” Ian went on. “I can see that.”
“Well.” Jamie shrugged. “She puts up with me. A good thing in a wife.”
“It was well done, Jamie. You gave her yourself.”
Jamie warmed with the praise. “You told me I ought to give her what she needed. I decided that what she needed was joy. And a big, loving, wonderful family that loves so intensely we drive each other spare. I didn’t want to erase her past love but show her she can have something like it again. Deep happiness.”
Jamie heard himself babbling again, but Ian’s smile broadened.
“You are a wise lad.” A pause. “You always have been. My pride.”
Jamie felt himself melting under his father’s touch, the small child he had been desperate to win the respect of the man he’d admired, loved, almost worshipped.