Debt of
the Storm

A ruthless ex-soldier who carved his solitude out of a storm-lashed Hebridean island has been watching her for months through his cottage window, tracking her research trips along the cliffs. When the autumn tempest finally pins her at his door, he gives her his dead brother's clothes and a glass of whiskey, then waits in the firelight like a predator who already knows how the hunt ends. The claimed possession of his body against the stone wall is only the first payment of a debt she never knew she owed — but when he finds the hospital discharge papers tucked into her coat pocket, everything he took becomes something he might have to earn.