Chapter 13
Water lapped at Neil’s hips, cold and steady. Ripples spread out in thin rings and broke against the low plants by the lake. At this point, the sun had hidden behind a white cloud.
Kristen hesitated at the edge, then sat on the grass with her skirts pulled up just enough to spare the hem. A sliver of her leg caught the light as she pretended to watch the willow tree. Her eyes drifted back to his chest, then away, then back again.
The small betrayal pleased him more than it should.
She is trying nae to look at me, and she is failing.
He told himself that he stayed in the lake because of her talk about the truth.
Because sadness had lodged under her voice, stubborn as a thorn.
Not because he wanted her nearer. Not because she looked soft and heartbreakingly alone on the shore.
Not because the memory of their kiss made his body tighten even in cold water.
“So,” he said roughly, “are ye planning to wait out the hour or nae?”
“I daenae have a choice, do I? ’Tis the arrangement I came up with.” She tucked a curl behind her ear and folded her hands in her lap as if that would keep them from reaching for anything foolish.
Neil forced his gaze back to the water to avoid peeking at her pale calves and cleared his throat. “I heard that yer father was killed while I was away.”
Kristen traced a line in the damp sand with one finger. “He wasnae a good man, so me sister’s husband killed him. It was messy.”
Her voice was steady, too steady to be anything but old pain worn thin.
The tension from the stormy night coiled under Neil’s ribs. He waded closer without meaning to, the water rippling around him.
“Ye speak of it as if it were nothing,” he noted.
“It is the past,” she said. “I daenae care about it enough to let it linger on me mind.”
“That isnae how the past behaves.”
She lifted one shoulder. “It is how I ask it to behave. Ye still carry yers on yer shoulders, so I daenae expect ye to understand.”
A reed tapped the surface of the water and drifted past him. He focused on it to keep from watching her fingers pinch the hem of her dress.
“Ye said ye learned orders and silence. Was that from him? Yer father?”
“Aye,” she replied. “He gave orders for his will. He kept silent for our shame. He was worse to me sister. But I tried to help her where I could. There. That is enough.”
It was not, but he took what she gave.
“Did anyone stitch what he tore?” he asked.
She let out a small breath and smiled without warmth. “I learned how to stitch me torn pieces on me own.”
Neil took one step closer, the water dipping to his knees. “Is that why ye want a family so bad? To prove to yer faither that ye can be more?”
The words were blunt, rough with the edge he used in the training yard. He saw her wince before she masked it. Her gaze flicked to the castle, then down. The line she had drawn in the sand had already filled with water.
“I daenae want it anymore,” she murmured. “I already got it.”
She meant the children, he knew it. The little world she had built with a dog and two small bairns pressed to her side.
He should have left it there. But he did not.
“Ye want more than that.”
Her head rose a fraction. “Do I?”
He heard the warning and let it pass. “Aye. Ye want a door that opens when ye touch it. Ye want a hand that reaches back every time.”
A flush crept up her throat. “Then I am greedy,” she said. “Because the door opens for two wee hands already, and a paw, and that is enough.”
“Ye arenae greedy.” The truth surprised him. “Ye are just honest.”
She looked up at him for a moment before lowering her head. “Well, most times, honest folks pay for more than they deserve.”
“So do liars,” he pointed out.
She opened her mouth to respond, but for some reason, the words refused to come out.
The wind drifted across the water and sent goosebumps all over his skin. Neil had asked for the truth, and he had gotten it. At least in part. It sat raw between them.
He couldn’t imagine the strength she must have had to display not just to survive in his absence, but also to maintain her position after five years. Her quiet courage pulled at him for some reason.
“Ye did well, by the way,” he found himself saying. “If I hadnae said that before, ye must ken that I mean it now.”
“Daenae praise me for surviving,” she scoffed. “It makes everything look like a blessing.”
His jaw worked. “I’m praising ye for nae breaking.”
“Folks break and live,” she argued. “Folks bend and live. I have been living like every day was a test—and to be honest, I would love to stop that. Do ye think ye can help in that regard?”
He had no answer to that. He let the water do the talking. A fish darted near his knee and vanished.
“Sometimes I think ye could have come home earlier,” Kristen added, her voice low. “Considering just how well ye fought out there today, I believe ye should have come home earlier.”
Neil’s throat tightened. “I was held in a cabin, bound with ropes,” he said. “I couldnae escape as easily as I would have liked.”
“I’m…sorry. It must have been hard, and I’m nae makin’ any easier on ye, I ken.” The words were gentle and yet not. “But since ye have returned, ye have been acting like it is the castle’s fault ye went missing in the first place. Ye snap at the guards and change things around.”
Neil threw his head back. “Is this about the tapestries again?”
“I will always talk about the tapestries.”
Neil exhaled as regret came fast, sharp as a hook under his skin. He wanted to step out of the water and cup her face in his hands and say what he had left unsaid, but none of it would make up for the past five years. It would only sound like an excuse.
He fisted his hands in the water as if it were a tangible thing. It slipped between his fingers.
“I should have asked ye something else,” he muttered.
“Such as?” she prompted.
“What ye like besides dragons, I suppose.”
“The bairns like the dragons, nae me.”
Neil laughed. “Ye really daenae intend to make this easy, do ye?”
“Why?” she taunted. “Is the Wolf of the North afraid of a little challenge?”
“Me point,” he said, “is that I should have asked ye questions that would help me get to ken ye better. Like what makes ye laugh. Which bread ye choose when there are two. Who taught ye to sing.”
“Nay one taught me to sing.” A small smile touched her lips, but it quickly vanished. “And I sing poorly.”
“I doubt it.”
“Believe it,” she insisted.
His mouth curved.
“Ye can ask me one thing,” she added after a beat. “A fair question. Then we are done.”
He wanted to ask a dozen, but he settled on one. “When ye said ye already had a family, did ye mean there is nay room left?”
She looked at the willow trees and then at his footprints in the sand. “I meant I stopped asking men for what they refuse to give.”
The knot behind his ribs tightened. It felt like anger, like a wound that had been festering for too long.
“Some men learn,” he said evenly.
“Some men do,” she agreed. “I hope one day ye meet one.”
The blow landed clean, and he took it with a slow nod. “Fair enough.”
The water cooled around his knees as the light dimmed. The wind lifted the fine hairs on her shins, and the sight sent a shiver up his back. A small flock of birds arrowed across the lake and vanished into the trees.
Neil wanted to wade to shore and sit beside her. He wanted to say the right words. He wanted to earn the hour he had demanded. And yet he stood where he was, watching as she folded her hands neatly in her lap and lifted her chin in a bid to show strength.
“I should have asked ye anything else,” he murmured with a sigh.
He looked down at his palm and saw the water slide off it as if it had never been there.
Kristen sat taller and brushed sand from her palms, as he swam deeper again.
“Neil.” Her voice was tight, controlled. “I am changing me rule.”
He raised a dark eyebrow.
“Ye will still stay in me room at night, for appearances’ sake. The clan must believe we’re sharing a bed.”
His face did not give anything away.
“But ye are never to touch me,” she continued. “Or kiss me. Ever again.”
He went still.
“And ye must manage the spells ye get during storms. I willnae have ye terrifying the bairns.”
Heat bloomed in her cheeks. Still, she kept her head up. She would not show an ounce of vulnerability.
For a breath, she looked at him and wished she had not. Water hid him from the waist down, yet it clung to the shape of him. The planes of his chest, the scars across his ribs, the ridges of his abdomen as he shifted.
Her gaze dropped, betraying her, then darted away. Her breath stuttered.
Neil moved. He waded out of the lake, slow as if every step were a choice. Water slid off him in rivulets. It traced muscle. It found old scars and made them stark.
He stopped in front of her, and the scent of clean water and skin mingled with the heat of his presence.
“What did ye say?” he asked.
She forced her chin higher. “Ye heard me. I cannae let a man who doesnae want me—”
“Is that what ye think, wife?” he interrupted, his voice low and dangerous. “That I daenae want ye?”
His bold gaze dropped to her mouth. Tension crackled between them, quick and sharp.
She held her ground. “Want isnae the same as care,” she said. “Ye have made that very clear.”
“Care doesnae keep blades from doors,” he argued.
“Neither does kissing a woman ye mean to leave cold,” she shot back.
His jaw tightened, and a muscle jumped in her throat. The air thinned. Her name hovered on the tip of his tongue. She could feel it.
Suddenly, a crack of thunder split the bright sky, heralding rain.
Neil’s body tensed as if a hook had hit him. His hand jerked toward his hip instinctively, even though no weapon hung there. His breath hitched.
“Neil?” Kristen called, her voice edged with warning and concern.
His eyes grew distant, pulled back to a cabin with a bolted door.
Kristen’s heart lurched. She stood up and smoothed her skirts with quick hands. “I will see ye later, me Laird.”
Neil did not answer. The storm seized him for a moment and held hard.
Kristen stepped back, then turned around and left, the willow leaves brushing her shoulder like a curtain she had chosen to close. She kept her back straight and her steps even, so he would not see the tremors racking her body.