Chapter 21 #2
She stared at him. “Ye cannae be serious.”
“I am entirely serious.”
“I am trying to tell ye why I am angry.”
“And I am telling ye that ye can speak yer mind with food in yer belly instead of nothing.”
Ava gave an incredulous laugh. “That is yer answer?”
“It is the first thing I meant to do.”
“Ye still think ye can decide the order of everything, do ye nae?”
“Aye,” he said, and the plainness of it almost made her throw the nearest object at his head. “This once, I do.”
He took the bowl and held it out. Ava did not move. He remained there with infuriating patience, his broad hand steady beneath the dish, his face calm in a way that only made her want to strike him harder with words.
He was doing it again. He was offering care in the shape of control.
She should throw the food back at him. Yet the smell of warm bread and broth reached her, and beneath her anger and pride, there was the dull weakness she had been refusing to describe.
“Sit,” he urged.
Her chin lifted. “That sounds very much like another order.”
“Then take it as one and spare us both the argument.”
“There is already an argument.”
“Aye, and ye will have more strength for it after.”
Ava hated that a part of her knew he was right. She hated still more that her body chose that moment to remind her how little she had eaten. Her stomach cramped, and her head felt light.
With a stiff movement, she sat.
He handed her the bowl. She took it because continuing to refuse had begun to feel childish even to her. He passed her the spoon next and stood there waiting like a jailer determined to see a sentence carried out.
“Ye could at least pretend nae to watch me,” she muttered.
“I could,” he agreed. “But I willnae.”
Ava ate two spoonfuls out of sheer resentment. Then three more because hunger had already outrun her pride. The warmth of the broth hit her empty stomach and made the room feel less sharp around the edges. She hated that, too.
Ciaran remained where he was, one hand braced against the bedpost, the other hanging loose at his side. He looked tired. His shoulder must still ache, though he held himself as if it were nothing.
She saw that and looked down at the bowl again because she did not want any softness cooling her anger yet. When she had eaten enough that the tremors in her hands stopped, he took the bowl from her without comment and set it aside.
The silence afterward was different. She felt it at once.
Ciaran looked at her for a long moment, then swallowed. “I am sorry.”
Ava had prepared herself for an excuse, for an explanation, for some cold, practical answer that would force her back into fury, but his apology hit a place she had not armored quickly enough.
She looked up. “For speaking to me like that?”
“For hurting ye.”
The room went still.
Ava swallowed once. Some of the anger left her then. “I just daenae understand ye.”
He said nothing.
“That is the worst of it,” she went on, quieter now. “I daenae ken how to put ye together. One hour, ye care what I eat, whether I sleep, whether I am frightened; the next, ye speak to me as if I am one of yer men. I daenae ken which one is true.”
His jaw shifted. “Both,” he said.
The answer should have infuriated her. Instead, it only made her tired.
“That is nay answer at all.”
“It is the only honest one I have.”
Ava looked at him and saw the strain in his face then, held tight, familiar now, though no less painful for being familiar. She had begun to trust him in places she had never meant to.
That was the truth she could no longer step around. The trust had been there. So had the hurt when he turned hard on her.
“If ye cared,” she scoffed, “ye had a strange way of showing it.”
His mouth opened, but before he could finish, a sharp bark came from the corridor, and Ava froze.
Nay. Is that—
Another bark followed, high and frantic and wildly familiar. Then came the scratch of small claws against wood and a whine she would have recognized from the grave.
Ciaran turned to the door and then back to her. He noticed how wide her eyes had grown.
“Bruce.” The name tore out of her.
She was across the room before Ciaran could move. Her hands fumbled with the handle for one desperate second before she got it and flung the door open. Bruce hurled himself through the gap in a burst of fur, crooked legs, and joy.
Ava dropped to her knees just in time to catch him before he slammed into her chest. He licked her chin, her mouth, her nose, his whole small body wriggling with such force that she nearly laughed and cried at once.
“Bruce! Bruce, oh me darling boy.”
She buried her face in his neck and held him tightly. He smelled of road dust and smoke and home. Her father’s home. The home that was gone. The home that had sent this little dog racing back to her alive.
Relief hit her so hard it hurt.
Ava laughed against his fur and felt tears come with the sound.
Her hands shook over his back as he wiggled and whined and pushed his small, blunt head under her chin as if he meant to climb into her skin.
She lifted her wet face from his fur and looked up, still kneeling on the floor with him clutched against her.
Behind her, Ciaran had gone very still.