I must have dozed off because I when I opened my eyes, she was gone. Worrying that my fears had been realised, I grabbed my jeans and slipped them on, not bothering with my underwear or shirt, and I ran down the stairs and through to the living room; but she wasn’t there either. With a pounding heart and twisted gut, I made my way through to the back of the house.

She had to be there.

“Hey,” I whispered as I arrived behind her where she stood looking out the kitchen window. The sun was beginning to set, and it cast an orange glow above the trees out back. I slipped my arms around her waist and kissed her neck.

“Dermott wants to marry me.”

I froze. The words stung like needles to my heart. Swallowing hard, I dropped my arms and stepped back. “What?”

She sniffed and lowered her head forward. “He’s been visiting and sending flowers. We’ve done a lot of talking, and I know he’s serious about me. He gave me a ring and says he wants to offer me a life with him… here on Skye.”

It was like a blow to my solar plexus, and I gripped my chest where the bullet had passed through me. I was losing her all over again. “Oh… I see… H-have you accepted?” The question tasted like bile as it fell from my lips, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to hear the answer.

She shook her head no. I should’ve been relieved but her general demeanour told me I had nothing to feel good about. I nodded silently even though she wasn’t looking at me, and I allowed the news to sink in. “Why are you telling me this now, Kelly?”

“Because I have a feeling he’s going to turn up any day now, and I don’t know what to do. He has a habit of turning up unannounced to surprise me.”

The next question almost choked me as a knot formed in my throat making it hard for me to speak. “Do you… do you love him?”

She dropped her head forward and her shoulders slumped. “Yes.”

I exhaled the contents of my lungs and slumped onto a chair beside the small wooden table just inside the room. “Fuck.” What the hell had I done?

She turned to face me. “But I’m not in love with him, and that’s the problem.”

I was unsure how the hell to deal with this new information. My head began to pound and I pinched the bridge of my nose. My world was falling away and my stomach dropped with it.

She came and sat opposite me at the table. “He and I are perfect for each other. We’re alike in so many ways. We understand each other, Cain.”

I gritted my teeth. “My name is Cameron,” I informed her, although what fucking difference it made I wasn’t sure. Whatever the hell my name was, I could sense I was getting my heart handed to me.

Her brow furrowed as if it was finally dawning on her that I’d changed my name. “Why are you suddenly Cameron?”

“It’s a long story.” I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at her.

“Why do you have a scar on your chest?”

“It’s part of the long story.”

She sighed in what sounded like frustration. “Are you going to tell me?”

I opened my eyes and she was staring at me. Part of me wanted to ask why she cared enough to ask, since it was Dermott she loved and not me. Another part of me, the part that never existed until I met her, understood that my pain at losing her didn’t justify lashing out at her. “I was shot.”

She gasped and covered her mouth. “When? Why?”

“Rival gang. They didn’t do a good enough job the first time.” I laughed darkly. “Seems they fucked up yet again.”

“Cain… Cameron… why are you here?”

Another humourless laugh left me. “I came back to be with you, Kelly. Rosa and I had to leave the US for our own safety. And all I’ve been able to think about since I left North Kessock is my Scottish girl. And so… stupidly I see now… I figured I’d come back to you.”

A look of incredulity washed over her features. “It’s been six months without a word. Did you expect me to just be waiting?”

I shook my head. She did have a point. With no contact, how the hell could she know what I was thinking? But then again, she had asked for me not to contact her. “No… but I suppose I hoped you would.”

She didn’t reply, but instead more tears began to leave her eyes, and all I wanted to do was hold her.

I stood, needing to create some space and needing time to gather my thoughts. The problem was, there was nowhere for me to go, and so I made my way back to the bedroom and got myself dressed. When I arrived back at the kitchen door, Kelly was still sitting at the kitchen table, looking dazed.

As I entered the room, she looked up at me with such sadness in her beautiful emerald eyes. “Cameron… before you left, you told me that you couldn’t be what I needed. You said that and you meant it. What’s changed?”

I smiled sadly. “Everything has changed, Kelly.” I sat opposite her again, desperate to take her hand, but I fought the urge. I looked down at my fingers in the hope that I would be able to continue to fight it. “I guess I realised that although Utah has been where I live, I don’t belong there anymore. It’s not my home. Things went to shit. After I was shot, I was in hospital for a while, and I had a lot of time to think. I’d wanted out of the club for a while before all the fucking rival gang shit. But almost dying… again… just cemented that. Colt and the rest of the guys had a meeting while I was out of commission, and they decided it was best for me to leave Utah. But the only place I want to be is… wherever you are.

“So… I made contact with the hospital in North Kessock, and they said you’d left. I couldn’t get anything else out of them, and I thought it was all over then. But we got on a plane and went to Inverness anyway. I had to just be there again. Where I’d known you.” I dared to glance up at her and my heart cracked. Tears were streaming down her face and her eyes were closed. The urge to hold her rose up again and I clenched my fists. “Somehow… maybe it was fate, I don’t know… I happened to bump into your friend Esme last week.”

Her eyes sprang open and widened. “What? You saw Esme? But she didn’t tell me she—”

It was clear that she was getting angry at her friend’s apparent betrayal, and so I rushed to explain. “I took her for coffee and explained everything. But I made her swear not to say anything to you about seeing me. She reluctantly gave me your address even though she said we were wasting our time. She also said I broke your heart and that you still loved me. That filled me with hope, and we came here.”

She closed her eyes again and covered her face with her hands.

I noticed a new addition to her finger. A white gold ring with diamonds. Fuck… Dermott is pretty serious, huh? I should’ve been happy that it wasn’t on her wedding ring finger, but she was still wearing the damn thing. I pushed the hurt down… deep down, and tried to swallow past the lump that had begun to tighten my throat. “We have new names… new passports… new identities. Cameron and Rayna Iss.” My voice broke as I explained, and my eyes remained locked on the stones glinting in the light. I laughed and lowered my gaze to my hands once more. “I think I got attached to that name because it reminds me of how you and I had met.” I fell silent for a few moments, and when I lifted my head again, she was watching me intently and her eyes were still glistening with tears. Keeping my gaze locked on hers, I carried on. “I had my tats worked over. You would never know that I’d had any connection to Cosmic. Where my back piece used to say Company of Sinners, there’s a whole new scene of ink. Roses to remind me of you. A broken heart to show what I felt when I left you.”

She remained silent, just listening and watching me, and so I decided to keep going. “It was weird, you know… They held a funeral for Cain and Rosa. They spread the word that the gunshot had killed me and that Rosa had taken her own life through grief. And so from that point, we both ceased to exist. It was for the best. Well, that’s what they kept telling us. I’m not so sure, to be honest with you. But anyways, when they heard about the funeral, I think the Legion realised that there had been too much death between the two clubs, and they called a kind of truce. This—coming here—was supposed to be a fresh start for us both.” I sighed and the weight of my situation pushed me down. Kelly was marrying Dermott. I had no place in Utah, and now no place in Scotland either. “I guess I’ll have to rethink things now.”

She stared at me, still not speaking but with a trembling chin.

I stood again and walked around to stand before her. “Look, Kelly… I know I said some dumb shit, and I know that I’m not the best fit for you.” My voice broke as I tried to get the rest of my words out, and the loss I was feeling twisted at my heart. “Fuck, you can do so much better, and no doubt Dermott is all the fucking man you’ll ever really need. But the thing is… you fit me, Kelly. And regardless of what I said before about not wanting the marriage and commitment thing after Melody… I was stupid. And I would have made an exception for you. I want you to know that. You would be the only woman I could ever consider making that kind of commitment to. The only exception, Kelly.” I bent and kissed her forehead and then with one last long look into her beautiful green eyes, I left.

As I closed the door behind me, I paused in the hope that she would come running after me.

She didn’t.

I scraped my hair back and tied it up as I walked away from the woman I loved with all my heart, and as I did, a car pulled up and a guy with dirty-blonde hair climbed out. He was holding a huge bouquet of flowers in one hand, a small blue gift bag with white ribbon in the other, and he was grinning like an idiot.

It dawned on me who he was.

“Dermott,” I growled to myself.

He heard me and stopped.

“Yeah?” The look of confusion told me that he was rifling through his mind trying to place who I was. But I knew we’d never actually met. Suddenly his eyes widened. “Oh… you’re… it’s…”

I nodded. “Cameron. I’m Cameron,” I told him, and then I walked away without looking back.