Chapter Nineteen
He didn’t speak. Didn’t say a word, his face unreadable.
Emer wrung her hands until she couldn’t take it anymore. “Broccan, please tell me what you’re thinking.”
He shot her a sidelong glance. “Is that an order?”
“Do I have to make it one?” She didn’t sense the same reluctance in him, the one that signaled irritation with her orders. It was different, quieter. Emer allowed herself to hope that was a good thing.
“I’m thinking that I don’t deserve either of you.” His voice broke, the cinnamon twirling between his fingers. He looked at it like it held the answers to all his questions.
“Why did you want that?” she asked. “That day in the market. Why were you so set on it?”
A storm crashed through his cloudy eyes. By the time it passed, determination lit his face. “I used to bring them back gifts,” he told her. “When I traveled, I’d get them things so they knew I’d been thinking of them while I was gone.”
A crack ripped through Emer, shaking her to her core. “Them?” Not once had he said it like that before.
“The fire took my daughter, Mella, too.” His eyes dulled again. “I lost them both and didn’t even know until they’d been buried.”
Emer’s hand went to her chest, as though that could somehow stop her heart from breaking on his behalf. Losing his wife was horrible enough, but a child, too—she shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”
“I still get them gifts,” he continued. “I bring them back to Caiseal whenever I return from a trip and lay them at their stones.”
“So they know you were thinking of them while you were gone.”
He nodded. “I usually bring beads for Teamair, but there weren’t any. But she loved cooking with cinnamon.” A sad smile, the ghost of a memory, crept across his lips. “So I thought I’d bring that instead.”
That entire encounter crashed over Emer with utter clarity. His anger. His inability to explain his reasoning or his behavior. Of course he wouldn’t want to say any of this to a total stranger who’d just grabbed the closest thing he had to hope and refused to give it back.
“Would you like to learn to cook with it, too? I have an extra one, so you can still take that to her.”
“I think she sent this one to me.” He turned to fully face her, holding out the cinnamon. “I think she sent you to me, too.”
A tear slipped down Emer’s cheek as she stared at Broccan in disbelief. Of all the things she’d imagined he might say, she’d never dared dream it would be that.
The rough skin of his thumb wiped it away. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “You shouldn’t have to shoulder my burden.”
She covered his hand with her own. “Some burdens are too heavy to carry alone.”
His head bent toward her, his hand tilting her chin up until their lips met.
But this kiss was not about lust. It was as sweet as the honey cakes Emer baked, as soft and gentle as the caress of a summer breeze.
It held a different kind of promise—of a life yet to be lived.
Broccan’s teeth scraped playfully over her bottom lip as he pulled back.
He picked up both sticks of cinnamon. The corners of his mouth lifted. A brightness filled his stony eyes. And for the first time since she’d met him, Broccan smiled. “Show me how to cook.”
A smile shot across her lips, stretching them until they felt they might break. “With pleasure.”
Whatever storm had blown through Broccan had come and gone.
Emer didn’t press him, though she suspected the cinnamon had, magically, done exactly what she’d hoped it would.
He helped her bake three pies and see to the guests through dinner.
He did more than even Alannah normally would, carrying plates and refilling cups, taking payment and stoking the fire.
As they danced around one another through the busy room, Emer’s nerves threatened to overwhelm her. Her blood raced through her as she raced about the dining tables. What would happen next?
He’d said that he thought they were meant to meet and then he’d kissed her, only this time he’d not been upset over it. Did that mean he wished to court her?
Emer hadn’t wanted to push him too far while they cooked.
In truth, she loved seeing him so happy.
He smiled more this afternoon than he had in the past fortnight, and Emer didn’t want to ruin that moment by speaking of weighty things.
She wanted to let Broccan have some respite from all his cares, not add to them.
But now the room was empty, save for those sleeping in the compartments.
The chores were finished. And normally Emer and Broccan would go to their own rooms. But after today, that felt wholly inadequate.
They walked together out the front of the Hart’s Rest, but instead of parting ways to their separate cottages, Emer grabbed Broccan’s hand, tugging him toward her quarters.
He followed her without protest all the way inside.
“Let me light the brazier.” She moved to retrieve the flint and steel, but Broccan stopped her.
“I don’t know if I can—” His voice broke.
“I don’t expect anything from you,” she assured him.
“I just want you with me, if that’s alright.
” She couldn’t imagine losing the person you loved most in the world, the one you thought you’d spend your life with.
Even with their new closeness, Emer knew Broccan would have battles to fight every step of the way.
“I can sleep in Alannah’s bed,” she offered.
He pulled her against him. “No,” he whispered against her forehead. “I want to be near you.”
Emer’s heart did a little flip. Instead of lighting the room, they both stripped down and Emer was glad for the darkness.
She didn’t want to rush Broccan, but she knew seeing him naked again wouldn’t make falling asleep any easier.
He set her body on edge every time he came close to her, lighting a fire she knew she couldn’t ask him to quench.
And, as everyone slept naked, tonight would be a special kind of torture.
She climbed into the bed first. Alannah had insisted on frames for their two cots, a luxury Emer appreciated every night she didn’t have to sleep on the floor. She pulled the linen sheets over her, holding her breath when she felt Broccan climb in behind her.
*
He could do this. He could lay beside her and leave her be.
As much as his body might crave Emer, he didn’t want to rush his heart.
He needed to take small steps. One stone at a time, as Cormac had said.
He felt he’d let go of more than one stone already today, and he had no interest in testing his luck.
The bed barely fit them both. Broccan lay on his side behind her, wrapping one arm across her slim waist and pulling her back against him.
She fit perfectly, her head tucked neatly beneath his chin, her backside pressing all too temptingly against his cock.
His heart slammed against his chest so hard he was certain she could feel it, too.
Brian had remarried not once, but twice after his wives had died. And he was a terrible romantic. Broccan had watched his foster father swoon like a lad every time he fell in love. If Brian could love his wives that hard and still move on, couldn’t Broccan do the same?
And it wasn’t only Brian. Everyone he knew who was still young enough to bear children had remarried after losing their spouse. Some men took multiple wives, even, to ensure their lineage.
“Are you alright?” Emer’s whisper interrupted his thoughts. She turned in his arms just enough to look at him without facing him fully. “Is it too much?”
Broccan brought his hand to her cheek. He didn’t deserve her. “I was just thinking about how everyone else I know has managed to remarry and move on with their lives. I know that there’s nothing wrong with that, yet I can’t help but feel guilty for wanting it.”
Her fingers found his, wrapping them in warmth. “Knowing it and feeling it are different. You can know a thing to be true even if it makes you feel otherwise.”
“I feel so many things,” Broccan admitted quietly. “I feel like I’m starving every time I look at you. I feel like I’m flying every time I touch you. And I feel so damned guilty for all of it.”
“What do you want right now?”
He could barely remember the man he’d been before the fire. He used to laugh more, that much he knew. He worried a good deal less. And he felt more than anger. Clarity descended as the words left his mouth. “I just want to feel normal again.”
Decision made, his lips found hers in the dim moonlight. His hand left her cheek, caressing the soft skin of her shoulder. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, but he knew he was going to do something.
Emer was more reactive to his touch than he expected, sucking in a sharp breath as his fingers wandered toward her breast. She kissed him with an urgency to match his own.
In a matter of moments, Broccan felt nothing but an all-consuming hunger. He wanted only one thing: Emer.
The taste of her lips only intensified his need. His mouth traveled down her neck until he reached one perfect breast, sucking her nipple into his mouth.
Emer moaned, writhing beneath him, her fingers digging into his back.
The throbbing in his cock told Broccan that he liked that as much as she did. He moved his hand over her stomach, reaching between her legs as he continued sucking on her.
“Broccan,” she gasped.
She was so wet that he didn’t tease her long before slipping first one finger inside her, then a second. Her hips moved against his fingers, her hand reaching for his cock.
The throbbing ache drove him to distraction as her hand worked over him.
“Just you, tonight,” he groaned. It felt like he lost a part of himself when she pulled her hand away, but Broccan knew his limits—or at least that he had them.
He was putting himself back together one piece at a time, and that particular piece would need to wait, even if it killed him.
He hooked his fingers as he thrust them into her, his thumb rubbing the spot he knew worked best. Her body rocked beneath him, her heavy breaths guiding his efforts.
As Broccan watched her come apart in his arms, he felt the guilt that he had expected.
But he felt something he hadn’t felt in so long he almost forgot what it was—joy.
It was one more stone out of the bag he carried. And for now, it was enough.