Chapter 34
Bruce tugged once on the strip of cloth in Ava’s hand and then stopped.
He sat back on his hind legs and looked up at her with his head cocked, as if he were waiting to see whether she wished to keep playing.
Usually, he would have thrown his whole little body into it, teeth set, paws braced, tail lashing hard enough to knock into chair legs. This morning, he only held the cloth gently and then let it fall from his mouth.
Ava stared at him. “Why are ye being so nice to me, Beasty?” Her voice came out thin from too many days of crying and too little food.
Bruce gave a small whuff and stepped closer, pressing his shoulder against her dress.
Laird MacKenna’s voice came right after. “Because he kens ye already have a broken heart and doesnae wish to break yer hand as well.”
Ava closed her eyes for a moment.
When she opened them, her father was watching her from his chair by the fire, one arm stretched along the carved armrest, his face gentler than he let most men see. The burns had begun healing well, though they still pulled at one side of his jaw when he smiled.
He had been trying for days to bring warmth back into the rooms around her. He had even managed to coax laughter from her now and then.
Ava bent and scratched Bruce behind the ears because it was easier than answering. The dog leaned into her hand with grave seriousness.
Her father said nothing more. He had reached the point where comfort needed less talking and more presence, and for that, Ava loved him fiercely.
The knock at the door broke the room open.
A maid stepped in and bobbed a hurried curtsy. “Me Lady, the Silent Death is here.”
Ava went still. Before she could speak, a voice sounded from the corridor, “Just Ciaran is enough.”
That, for some reason, hit harder than the maid’s words had.
Ava rose too fast, and the room tilted, then steadied. She turned toward the open door and saw him standing there.
He looked thinner. That was the first thing she saw, even before the black of his coat or the scar at his throat or the broad stillness of his body filling the doorway.
His face had grown leaner in the week she had been gone.
His eyes looked dark and hollow in a way that made him seem half-starved.
Not starved for food, but starved in the deeper, more dangerous sense.
Ava hated that she noticed at once.
“What are ye doing here?”
He took one step inside and stopped. “I came to speak to ye.”
“Nay.” The word was out before she could soften it. She had no wish to soften anything. “Ye have said enough to me for a lifetime.”
His gaze fixed on her face with an intensity that made her skin tingle. “Ava.”
“Daenae come closer.” She lifted one hand. “I mean it. I will have me father call ye out.”
Her father gave a short chuckle from the fireplace. “Lass, I wouldnae stand a chance.”
That brief warmth in the room nearly broke her.
Bruce barked once as if in agreement and trotted toward her father’s chair. Her father bent, scooped him up with a small grunt, and rose.
“Ye ken what I think?” he said dryly, groaning a little as he pulled the dog into a tighter embrace. “I think I had better spare meself the humiliation.” He paused beside Ava and laid a hand briefly on her shoulder. “Shout if ye need me.”
“I shall.”
He left with Bruce under one arm and the maid scurrying after him.
The door clicked shut, and the room felt smaller at once.
Ava folded her arms across her chest. “Ye look well.”
Ciaran cocked his head. “Ye and I both ken that’s nae true.”
Ava exhaled. “Say what ye came to say and then go.”
Ciaran did not move. “I am nae here to confuse ye again.”
She laughed once. It sounded sharp and tired. “That would be a pleasant change.”
“I am nae here to make any decision for ye either.” He reached inside his coat and took out something flat and wrapped in cloth.
Ava’s stomach tightened.
“I came to tell ye the truth,” he rasped. “Then ye may choose what ye like.” He held the object out.
She did not take it. “What is that?”
“Take it and see.”
“Have ye lost yer mind? Do ye think some trinket will fix this?”
His arm did not lower. “Take it, Ava.”
She hated that his voice still worked on her. She hated it even more that she crossed the room and snatched the thing from his hand.
The cloth came away under her fingers. Beneath it lay a star map, carefully made, marked in fine detail, the paper good and the edges protected for travel.
She stared at it.
For one second, she could not speak. Then the hurt came back twice as hard because the thing was beautiful and because she wanted it and because wanting anything from him felt like walking straight into another wound.
“So this is yer grand plan?” she asked, lifting her eyes to him. “Ye think a map of stars will make me forgive how badly ye wanted me gone?”
Pain crossed his face. He took it without flinching. “I bought it before.”
“Before what?”
“Before the cliff. Before ye left.”
The room went very quiet.
Ava looked back down at the map, trying desperately to ignore the way her fingers tightened around its edges. He had bought it before everything.
For some reason, that truth moved under her anger and made it less stable.
She hated that too.
“When?” she asked.
“The day I went to the market.”
The answer landed with awful force.
He had listened then. He had remembered. He had gone and bought this for her while she still lived in his castle and his silence.
She set the map on the table because her hands had begun to shake. “Ye are making a poor impression so far, me Laird.”
A small breath left him. It might have been close to laughter if there had been any ease between them to carry it.
“I ken.”
He took one step closer. Slow enough that she could have told him to stop. She did not. She should have, but she did not.
“I have always loved ye,” he admitted.
The words hit her harder than any apology had.
“I wanted ye from the start. I cared for ye from the start. I listened when ye spoke and bought a foolish map and watched ye fill rooms and thought of ye when I should have been thinking of anything else. Ye are so…” He paused for a moment, his jaw tight.
“Ye are so perfect that I couldnae help but fall in love with ye.”
Ava’s eyes burned.
He was speaking plainly, at last. Too late, perhaps, but plainly.
“Me whole life,” he continued, “I thought love ruined everything it touched. I thought it made men weak and foolish and blind. I thought if I kept away from it, I would keep everyone safe.”
“And look how well that went,” Ava scoffed.
“Aye.”
She turned away from him. If she stayed facing him, she might forgive him too soon, and she had earned her anger better than that.
“Daenae stand there and say beautiful things now as though the rest vanished.”
“It didnae vanish.”
“Nay.”
She took one step toward the door, but his hand closed around her wrist before she could reach it. His grip was firm, careful, and desperate enough that she felt it through her whole body.
“Listen to me.”
She did not turn back.
“What ruined me,” he said, his voice rough now, “wasnae loving ye. It was trying to live without ye. It was hearing that our marriage ended and finding I couldnae breathe around it. It was a week in me castle with every room empty of ye and every hour worse than the one before.”
Ava closed her eyes.
“I am done running,” he murmured. “I am done hiding behind caution and letting fear make me choices and then pretending I made them for yer own good. I love ye.”
The words settled into the room with a weight that made her knees feel weak.
“I love ye,” he said again, quieter now. “And I will never let me love hurt ye again.”
Ava turned to him then.
He stood before her without title, distance, command, or any shield she had learned to hate in him. For the first time since she had known him, he looked like a man who had come to lose if she chose it and would take that loss without hiding from it.
Her heart gave one painful thud after another.
She was furious with him. She wanted him. She believed him. She did not know yet what to do with that. For several seconds, she could only stand there and look at him.
His words had gone into her cleanly. They had done more damage by being true than many of his lies had done by being false.
She had wanted this for too long, and she had paid for wanting it.
Now, he stood before her with the fear stripped out of his mouth at last, and she did not know where to put any of it.
“I daenae ken what to think.” The admission came out quieter than she had intended. It felt too bare between them.
Ciaran did not step closer. He seemed to understand that even now, one careless movement might drive her back into herself.
“Then think this,” he said. “If I could have spared ye the pain of loving me, I would have.”
Ava let out a short breath and rolled her eyes, though they burned. “Such sweet words.”
His mouth twitched, almost a smile, though there was no ease in it. “I am trying.”
“That is plain enough.”
She should have felt victorious for making him work. She did not. She felt tired and raw and acutely aware of every breath he took.
He had come all this way. He had brought her the map. He had said the thing she had begged the world to let be true, and still her hurt sat between them, alive and watchful.
Ciaran lowered himself to his knees.
The movement took her by surprise so completely that she forgot to breathe for one beat.
He looked up at her, big and scarred and proud everywhere else in his life, and gave her the one thing she had never had from him without strain—humility.
“I am yers to do with as ye please,” he murmured. “Just please, believe me.”
Ava’s throat tightened so hard it hurt.