Chapter 13 #2
Erica did not interrupt. They both found the chairs and sat opposite each other. The list of what she could say lined up in her head and stayed there. When she nodded, it was slow and careful.
“I see,” she said.
“I have Calum to thank,” he said, softer. “Still, it shouldnae have ended that way.”
She weighed the next question before letting it go. “What was she angry about that night?”
Alex froze. The color left his face, as if someone had opened a door to winter. His gaze flicked past her shoulder, then back. A beat held.
Before he could answer, a folded paper slipped from the waist of Erica’s dress and fell at his feet. It landed with a sigh too loud for the quiet.
He pointed at it. “What is that?”
Erica closed her eyes for a brief second. Escape ran through her mind and had nowhere to go. “Might as well tell ye,” she said.
She bent, picked the letter up, and held it out to him.
“From Laird MacGee,” she said. “He sent me a letter to update me on the search for me faither and braither. Nothing too serious, or else I would have brought it to ye the minute I finished reading it.”
Alex did not touch the page. He listened as she spoke, his jaw tight.
“They are still searching. Nay discovery. He will write when he has more. He hopes I am safe.” She let out a breath. “He sent it here.”
Alex’s mouth turned hard. “He is trying to cover himself,” he said. “He thinks if he writes to ye while ye’re under me roof, I will think he is being careful. He is making sure I daenae kill him.”
Erica nodded once. “That’s what I thought too.”
Alex looked at the seal, broken and neat, then looked at her face. He did not ask why she had hidden it. She did not offer the fear that had put it there.
The air between them thickened. The library listened the only way a room can, with stillness and corners that held what was said.
Silence returned, even heavier now than before. That brief moment of vulnerability had come and gone, and something told her she wouldn’t get it again even if she tried.
“How long do we have to keep doing this?” she asked a while later, voice low.
“Until the children are certain there is nay resentment between us,” Alex said.
He did not take time to think. He gave the line like he gave orders, plain and steady.
“There isnae,” she said.
He tilted his head. One brow lifted, as if he could weigh a word. “Are ye sure?”
She kept her chin level. “Aye.”
“What about the other night after dinner?” he said. “What happened in the passageway.”
She waved it off. “That was a mistake. I was angry.”
His mouth curved. “Do ye always kiss men when ye’re angry?”
She stood up so quickly that the chair leg thudded against the stone. “Ye just had to ruin it, did ye nae?”
Alex rose too, slow on purpose. “Ruin what?”
“The moment,” she said. Heat climbed her neck. She hated that he could see it. “Ye do it on purpose. Ye make a jest, so I willnae dwell on what ye said a breath ago.”
“What did I say a breath ago?” he asked, mild as milk.
“Do ye really want to play this game, Alex?” she snapped. “Right now? In this moment, when we are both in a locked room because yer twins thought this would be a fun game for us to play?”
“I ken I cannae speak for ye, but who says this isnae a fun game for me?”
Banter snapped, then sharpened. She heard her own words and knew she was pushing him. She could not stop.
“Do ye do this so I daenae feel sorry for ye?” she demanded.
He stepped closer. The table stayed between them, but the space was gone. “Lass,” he murmured, “the last thing I want is yer pity.”
His voice stayed even, but the evenness felt like hands on her shoulders.
Her breathing quickened, but he did not reach for her. He did not need to. Heat from him found her anyway. She could feel it on her forearms, thin as breath.
He had leaned close enough that she could see the small pale line at the corner of his mouth where a blade had caught him once. She had not noticed it before.
“Good,” she said, trying to make it sound dry. “Because ye willnae get it.”
“Ye are a cruel woman,” he said, but the words held no bite.
“Somehow, something tells me ye like cruel women,” she said.
He huffed. “I like honest women.”
“Honest,” she repeated. “Fine. Ye think I wanted that kiss in the passageway.”
“I didnae say wanted,” he said.
“Ye meant it,” she said.
He watched her mouth, then her eyes. “Aye,” he admitted.
The word sat between them like a hand pressed flat against a page. Her body answered before her senses did. A pull low in her stomach, a sweep up her chest. She tried to straighten her shoulders and found she already stood too straight.
“Again, it was a mistake,” she said. “And perhaps the wine I had at dinner.”
“Ye’re blaming the wine now?” he said.
“I wasnae thinking clearly,” she said, too quickly.
The corner of his mouth curled. “What about now?”
“What about now what?” she said, ignoring how slowly the words escaped her mouth.
“Are ye thinking clearly?” he said. “Please tell me ye arenae.”
She laughed, but it came out thin. “We cannae do this again, Alex. That would make us fools.”
“We already are,” he said. “We let two wee generals lock us in a room.”
She fought a smile and lost it. “We didnae let them. We were outflanked. Yer words.”
He leaned his palms on the table. His forearms flexed. She knew if she put her hand on the board between his, she would find warmth there. The thought came uninvited. It sat and would not move.
“Ye ken I have found that yer words never match yer actions,” he said. “It is a strange way to live.”
“Ye keep pushing me to the edge and pretending ye are only standing near,” she said. “It is a strange way to be a laird.”
His lips flattened. “If ye were mine, I would tell ye it is a healthy way to live,” he said. He stopped on the word and seemed to test it, like a blade against a whetstone. “If ye were mine.”
“But I am nae,” she said. She meant to make it iron. It came out soft. “Nae truly now, am I?”
He breathed. Not deeper, but closer. She felt it. Her skin tightened from wrist to shoulder.
He did not touch her. He did not need to. He was close enough that a lean would do it. If she swayed forward the width of a breath, she would find his mouth.
The thought made her hand curl around empty air.
“Nay,” he said quietly. “Nay, ye arenae.”
“‘Tis part of the arrangement,” she said, though she knew her heart was completely elsewhere.
“Aye. The arrangement,” he said, almost smiling.
She swallowed. “Aye, that one.”
“Do ye believe it?” he asked.
“Aye, I do,” she said.
“‘Tis why ye’re here in the first place,” he said.
He held her eyes. Heat and stubbornness sat there with patience he did not always wear. She hated that it steadied her. She loved it, too.
“Do ye want to kiss me?” he asked.
He did not make it a dare. He made it a plain question.
She let out a breath. “Do ye want to kiss me?” she asked back.
If he said no, she would laugh. If he said yes, she would have to live with it.
“More than anything in the world,” he rasped.
They did not close the distance between them. They stood there, strung tight across a table, both of them breathing like folks who had run and stopped at the same time.
Erica felt foolish and brave and alive in a way that made her knees want to buckle. She did not let them.
She could lean in right now and take his mouth in a kiss. She would only need to close the gap between them, which was nothing but a few inches.
Something told her he wanted her to do it as well. Hell, he wanted to do it himself. The way his gaze had darkened in just a few seconds was enough of a hint.
She opened her mouth to speak, ready to say something.
To stop him, perhaps, or ask what he was waiting for.
She did not get to speak when the lock clicked.
The door swung wide like a trick hat, and laughter drifted in before the air moved.
Bettie and Katie burst across the threshold with triumph on their faces.
“Did we get ye?” Bettie asked, breathless.
“That was our plan,” Katie said, hopping once like she could not hold the joy in her legs.
Erica’s head snapped toward them, then back to Alex, then to the girls again. She found her smile without searching.
“Masterminds,” she said, hand to her chest. “The pair of ye.”
Alex’s face went tight at the mouth and soft at the eyes. He stepped around the table, past Erica, and through the doorway. He did not say a word. He touched Bettie’s hair as he went, light as a blessing, and kept walking down the passageway.
The girls turned back to Erica, pleased with themselves. “We counted to a hundred,” Katie said, as if this had been the hard part.
“Twice,” Bettie added.
“Ye did fine,” Erica said. She meant it.
Her voice shook a bit. She hoped they did not hear it.
Footsteps sounded behind the girls, and Grandmamma came to the threshold with her cane and a smile that always held more than it showed.
“All right, ye wee soldiers,” she said. “Time for yer rest. Say goodnight to the books.”
“Goodnight, books,” both girls sang, obedient in mischief.
Grandmamma’s gaze slid to Erica and stayed there for a moment. “Everything all right, dear?” she asked mildly.
“Aye,” Erica said softly. “Thank ye.”
Grandmamma nodded, satisfied or polite, and shepherded the girls away with a touch to each shoulder. Their laughter trailed down the hall and thinned, then bounced back once from a far wall.
Erica stood alone in the doorway. The library looked no different. The table stood where it had. The late light had dropped another inch. Her chest hurt the way it hurts when a tight band is loosened too fast.
She told herself the game had been harmless. She told herself the moment had been just something trivial. Something that didn’t need to be expanded or thought about over and over again.
A sliver of doubt slid under both thoughts and found a place to rest.
Is this still a charade?
She had no answer that fit inside her mouth.