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He’d fished it out of his belt pouch while she dozed, and now he lay turning it over in the candlelight, his wife warm and heavy against his side and the sheets twisted somewhere around their knees.

The gold was worn smooth. It had been his grandmother’s once, then his mother’s. He’d carried it out of this castle twelve years ago with nothing else to remember her by, and he had never once thought he’d put it on another woman’s finger.

Then a lass in an inn had dropped her guard for a single heartbeat, and he’d done it without thinking.

It was the best thing he’d ever done without thinking.

He could still see her as she’d been that night. She had sat in the corner of the taproom, with her cloak pulled tighter. She had been watching every man who came through the door, wary and proud.

Then those men had come after her. She had handled herself, but Evander had known when he had to step in. Something in him had answered before his head could catch up.

He had moved forward, giving the men a chance to step away, but they had been quite insistent that Freya have a drink with them, even if it was the last thing she wanted.

He had spent his whole life weighing every choice. A laird couldn’t afford to act on impulse. Every decision ripped through the clan, touching hundreds of lives. He had been taught to think three moves ahead, like a man playing chess with his enemies.

But with Freya, he hadn’t thought at all. He had only known that he couldn’t walk away. That he couldn’t leave her to handle those men by herself.

There would never be any regret. Even when the two had been fighting. He was grateful for the fact that he and Freya had met at that inn. If only Callum hadn’t soured some of the memories, but that was enough thinking about him.

Freya stirred. She tipped her head back to look at him, her hair a dark tangle across his shoulder, and saw what he was holding. Something moved across her face, uncertain and hopeful all at once.

“Ye kept it,” she said.

“Ye pressed it into me hand and walked out on me. What else was I supposed to do with it?” He found her left hand under the sheet and drew it up between them. “I’ve been carrying it about for six days like a lovesick fool. One of me men caught me staring at it in the stables.”

“Ye didnae.”

“I did.” He slid the ring onto her finger. It caught at the knuckle, the way it always had, and he eased it over with his thumb until it settled into place, the wolf’s head looking up at them both. “There. That’s where it belongs.”

She looked at it for a long moment, her throat working.

“It suits ye,” he said, more gently. “It always did. Ye told me so yerself, the night we wed. Ye said, ‘If I’m minding it anyway, we may as well make it proper.’”

“I was drunk.”

“Ye were magnificent.”

Freya’s cheeks reddened. So she remembered, then.

She laughed, soft and wet, and pressed her face into his chest. He felt her mouth curve against his skin.

“I’m nae taking it off again,” she mumbled. “So daenae give me cause.”

“I willnae.”

“Ye say that now.”

“I’ll say it every day, if ye need to hear it.” He tilted her chin up so she’d look at him. “I love ye, Freya. God help me. I didnae want to, and I fought it like a fool, but I lost.”

Her eyes shone in the candlelight. For once, she didn’t have a quick answer ready. She simply looked at him, as though she were reading the words twice to be sure of them.

“I love ye too,” she whispered. “Ye impossible man. I think I have since ye said good morning.”

“Ye threw a lantern at me for saying good morning.”

“Aye. That’s how I kent I meant it.”

Evander still had a faint scar from that incident. Freya seemed to notice it and ran her thumb over it. She muttered an apology, but there was no need. The last thing she had to do was apologize for something that made for a very interesting first meeting.