Torin Callaghan POV:

Rain had been falling since dawn, steady and cold, and the river beside the Mordrick settlement looked angry when I rode back from the tree line with a bundle of pelts and dried meat slung over my saddle. The colony was small, barely more than a stubborn scattering of cabins carved out of wilderness, but it had grown bigger in recent months as more ships came in from across the ocean.

More settlers, and more trouble, and more mouths to feed.

And apparently… wives.

I had known the shipment was coming because every man in the settlement knew. Word spreads fast in a place where half the men haven’t seen a woman in years, and the other half pretend they don’t care.

I tied my horse, Moose, near the trading post and rolled my shoulders as I climbed down, feeling the dull ache of long days in the woods settle into my bones.

The pelts would fetch a decent trade, enough flour and salt pork to last a month if I stretched it right, and that had been my plan.

A battered wooden cart sat near the docks where the ship had unloaded earlier that morning, and beside it stood the clerk from the settlement council with a stack of papers tucked beneath his arm. He spotted me almost immediately, and he lifted his hand to wave me over.

“Callaghan!” he called.

I swore under my breath, although I still walked toward him because ignoring council business usually created more problems than it solved. My boots thudded heavily against the packed dirt as I approached, and rain dripped from the ends of my long hair and ran down the back of my neck beneath the collar of my shirt.

“What d’ye want?” I muttered, wishing I were in my hunter's cottage right about now.

The man shuffled through his papers with the irritating calm of someone who spent his days indoors rather than chopping wood or breaking ice off traps.

“You received a bride request confirmation from London six months ago,” he said, adjusting his spectacles.

I stared at him slowly, and my pulse thumped once in my temple.

“I never asked for a wife, now did I?” I said flatly.

“Torin Callaghan. Hunter and trapper. cottage north of the east ridge.” The clerk said, frowning down at the page.

“Aye, that’d be me,” I reply, already feeling a headache forming behind my eyes because this was going to be a problem for me.

“Well then,” he replied with a small nod that carried far too much confidence, “there is no mistake, that is what the documents say."

Marriage had never been part of my plan because a wife meant responsibility, attachment, feelings, and expectations.

“I told ye, I never sent for one,” I repeated more firmly.

The clerk shrugged as if the matter was already settled and that my barking at him wouldn't change the outcome.

“The request was signed, and the transport fee was paid.” The clerk said with finality and then walked to the next sod that was married off.

You stood near the wagon with your travel bag at your feet while rain soaked into the hem of your skirts and the wind tugged stubbornly at your cloak.

Great. If there was anything worse than an English or Irish woman? It would be a Scottish one.

A Scottish wildstorm. And I was to be its husband.

My chest shifted with a strange weight that I didn’t like at all, because the council had probably promised you a husband who owned land, livestock, and maybe even a proper house.

What you actually got was me. And I was sure to hear of all my inadequacies from you.

A hunter with a cottage in the woods and more scars than polite society would care to count.

I stepped forward anyway.

The wet leather of my belt creaked when I moved, and the axe at my side bumped against my thigh with a dull knock while rain slid down the sleeves rolled to my forearms.

You looked up when my boots stopped in front of you, and for a second, neither of us spoke.

I exhaled slowly.

“Well now,” I said, my voice rough from cold air, “seems the damned colony’s decided we’re married, whether we like it or not.”