Chapter 26
The comet remained visible in the sky when Ava turned her head toward him.
Her hand remained in his on the coat. The air had gone colder, but she did not seem to feel it much. Wonder still sat on her face, and Ciaran could see the dampness on her lashes where tears had gathered and dried. He could see the quiet relief in her mouth.
When she spoke, her voice was low enough that the loch and the night completely blended in around it. “I am sorry I have been distant.”
Ciaran looked at her. She had every reason to hold herself apart from him. He knew that better than she did. Yet here she was, opening the door he had kept trying to close.
“The fire. Me father. Everything with us.” Her fingers tightened once around his. “I have been angry, and afraid, and tired, and some of it I didnae carry well.”
“It happens to the best of us,” he responded.
He should have let it rest there. He should have taken the grace she offered and kept his mouth shut. Instead, he listened to the part of himself that had been niggling at him for days.
Ava turned her face toward the sky again for a second, then back to him. “Ye have been very kind to me family.”
The line struck him with the same force as the others.
“I ken things are still difficult,” she continued. “I ken I havenae made them easier. But I do see that. It is important to me that ye ken that I see that.”
Ciaran kept his eyes on her face because looking away felt like cowardice. “Aye. I will always care for Laird MacKenna.” He heard the roughness in his own voice but did not stop. “And ye. Ye’re me wife, even for a little while.”
The silence that followed was charged.
Ava went still beside him, and he felt the change in her hand before he saw it in her face.
“What does that mean?”
There it was. The opening he had been waiting for all this time. He could lie and say it had meant nothing more than the uncertainty of life after fire and danger. He could delay again and push the truth a few days further down the road.
But he had done enough of that.
“I have been thinking,” he began. “And I think we should seek an annulment.”
The words left his mouth and broke the night cleanly.
Ava let go of his hand.
He lay where he was and stared up at the sky for one beat because he could not yet make himself face what he had done.
Then he turned toward her. She had pushed herself up on one elbow.
The wonder from earlier had vanished from her face so quickly it looked as if someone had taken a lamp from a room.
“Ye have been what?”
“Thinking on it.”
She sat up fully. “Here? Now? This is when ye choose to say that to me?”
Ciaran pushed himself upright, too. The coat shifted beneath them, and the cold night rustled the grass at the edges. He felt none of it.
“I shouldnae have forced ye into this when ye were so plainly opposed to it.”
Ava stared at him in disbelief, and he knew at once he had chosen the wrong words.
“Is that still what ye think? That ye forced me?” she asked.
Ciaran exhaled. “Ava—”
“All these days together, and ye still think I could be forced to make a decision this grand? Ye think this was all forced on me?
He said nothing.
“What happened was simple. Ye gave me a choice, and I made it.”
“Ava.”
“Nay.” Her voice sharpened. “Daenae do that. Daenae turn me into some helpless girl now because it suits what ye want to say.”
He could not answer. This would have been rough, no matter how he had presented it. Her reaction was expected.
“Ye asked me,” she continued. “I answered. I stayed. I kept staying. Daenae sit under this sky and pretend I stumbled blind into me own marriage.”
His jaw tightened. The comet still burned above them, pale and distant and suddenly hateful for having remained so beautiful while the ground under them split open.
“I am trying to set something right.”
“Nay. Ye are doing what ye always do—trying to run.”
The words hit close enough to ignite his anger, sharp and immediate. “Ye think I daenae ken what I am doing?”
“Worse, Ciaran. I believe ye ken very well what ye are doing. And frankly, I am growing tired of it. How much grace do ye think I have left in me?”
He rose to his feet almost immediately. Sitting there while she said it had made him feel trapped in a softness he could no longer bear. Ava remained where she was on the coat, looking up at him with fire and hurt in her eyes.
“This cannae continue,” he insisted.
“And why do ye think so?” The question came without hesitation.
He should have spoken with more care. He should have kept hold of the language of duty and fit and practical correction. He should have done anything except tell her the truth in the shape it lived in him.
Instead, he exhaled and forced the words out before they killed him alive. “Because I daenae want ye here anymore.”
Ava flinched as if he had struck her, and the sight of it made the next second worse than the one before. He had meant to drive the conversation to a stop, but as usual, he had landed on where he usually did—cruelty.
Her voice came lower. “Say that again?”
He could not.
“Say it to me face, Ciaran,” she demanded.
Ciaran dragged a hand through his hair and turned away a step before turning back. The night had narrowed, and everything around them seemed to press in out of nowhere.
“Why?” she pressed.
He exhaled heavily.
“What? Ye have nay reason?”
“That isnae—”
“Am I that undesirable to ye that ye would tell me ye nay longer wanted me while me father was still here?”
Ciaran exhaled again. “Ye have it all wrong.”
“Oh, do I? Ye must forgive me if I cannae think straight while ye throw this news at me.”
“Ye want to ken why I want ye away? Because ye drive me mad. If ye remain in this castle, close to me, under me roof, I am going to lose me mind.”
The words came out raw and suddenly grew too loud for the softness that had seemed to be the major accomplice of the loch a minute ago. He did not care. The truth had ripped out of him, and there was no way he could soften it.
Ava went still. He could hear his own breathing. He could hear hers, too. The ugly weight of his confession sat between them. She got too far inside him. She made him want too much. She made the life he had built feel unstable in his own hands.
“I was never supposed to…” He stopped, his jaw set, and began again.
“I cannae think with ye near me. I cannae keep any sense. I dance with ye once in front of yer father and spend the rest of the night half mad from wanting to do it again. Ye lie beside me for a comet, and I am thinking how to keep hold of yer hand. Ye walk into a room, and everything in me turns toward ye before I can stop it.” He looked straight at her. “Is that reason enough?”
Ava’s lips parted. The hurt had not vanished from her face. Something else had entered it and made it harder to bear.
They were close enough now that one step would close the distance between them. Close enough that he could see the flutter at the base of her throat. So close that he knew exactly how she would feel in his hands if either of them moved.
“There. Are ye satisfied?”
Ava stayed where she was on the coat, looking up at him with the comet still overhead. He stood over her with his own confession still raw in his mouth, and both of them breathed inside the wreck of the moment, too close to pretend they could go back to what they had been before.
Then she looked away from him and lay back down. The movement was small, but for some reason, it landed harder than if she had struck him.
“Ava, did ye hear me?”
“Aye,” she responded, her voice clear. “I did.”
“Are ye certain?”
“Go inside if ye want,” she muttered. “I am staying here.”
Ciaran did not move.
The loch lay dark at their side as the cold touched his face and hands. The coat beneath Ava had shifted when she turned, one edge dragging over damp grass. She looked up at the sky as if she meant to pull the whole night back to herself by force.
“I am nae leaving ye here alone.”
That drew her eyes back to him.
“Ye daenae get to decide every part of this,” she scoffed. “Ye have already done enough of that for one night.”
He felt the hit of it and swallowed. “Ava.”
“Nay.” She pushed herself up on her elbows. “If I wish to lie here and watch the comet, I shall do it. If ye wish to go, go.”
He stayed where he was.
She released a short, angry breath. “Ye hear one thing and turn it into a command. Ye feel one thing and decide to run away from it instead of confronting it. To hell with what I think. Ye daenae ask. Ye daenae wait. Ye simply choose.”
Ciaran went down on one knee beside her. For some reason, towering over her in the dark made the whole exchange worse. “I said I am nae leaving ye alone by the loch at night.”
“And I said ye arenae the master of every choice I make.”
He had no answer that would not turn the fight the same way again. He could feel that with full clarity. The old instinct to press harder sat ready in him. So did the newer, far more dangerous instinct to give in wherever she pushed simply because it was she who pushed.
Before either of them spoke again, Ava’s gaze lifted to the sky. The change in her expression stopped everything. Her lips parted, and her eyes widened, her anger forgotten.
Ciaran looked.
The comet was clearer than anything. It was magical the way it burned clean across the sky, pale and bright and steady enough that even he, who had waited for no such thing all his life, felt the force of it.
The tail stretched long behind it, and the stars around it remained sharp.
Even the loch caught a broken reflection of its light in the dark.
He saw the smile that settled on Ava’s face before the whisper escaped her lips. “I did it.”
The words reverberated through him.
She did not say anything else for a few seconds. He could hear her breathing. He could see the tears gathering again, not from the fight this time, though the fight still sat between them.