Chapter 15
Evan had faced down armed men in dark alleys, talked his way out of gallows-tight situations, and lived one step ahead of trouble for all his adult life.
None of that prepared him for the sight of Ruby sitting in his brother’s drawing room.
For a heartbeat, he simply stopped. The firelight caught in her hair, turning it into chestnut and gold, and she looked beautiful in a way that punched the air from his lungs.
Her shoulders were tense, but her eyes..
. her eyes widened when she saw him, relief breaking across her face. The sight of her made his chest ache.
He became acutely aware of everything at once: the crackle of the fire, the faint scent of chamomile and fresh bread, the familiar stone walls of a house he hadn’t stepped foot in for years.
He was standing in his brother’s house. On his family’s old estate.
He was home.
The thought was like a punch to his temple, disorientating and painful all at once.
How could he be here? How could he have come full circle like this?
It had never been part of the plan. To come here.
To see Niall today—or ever, if he was honest. He’d told himself he was done with this place, with the weight of expectation and blood and history.
And yet here he stood, heart racing, because the woman opposite had walked into his life and knocked everything sideways. Since the moment he met her, she had turned his life upside down and inside out.
Ruby shifted. Relief still lingered in her expression—but it was edged now with something sharper. He knew that look. He’d seen it on her face many times, usually just before she did something reckless or brave, or both.
He wanted—absurdly, irrationally—to cross the space between them, cup her face in his hands, and kiss her. To feel her fingers clutch at his coat, to feel her melt against him as her lips found his. He wanted to...
“So,” Ruby said, lifting her chin and glaring at him. “How long were you planning on lying to me about your brother?”
The words landed like a slap. Evan stiffened. “What?” he said, though he’d heard her perfectly well.
She folded her arms, lips pressing into a flat line. “You told me you didn’t know Niall Campbell when I asked you in that inn on the island. And every time I’ve mentioned him since you denied knowing him.”
Something hot and defensive rose up inside him. “I don’t know him,” Evan shot back. “Not anymore.”
“Oh, don’t do that,” Ruby said. “You knew exactly what I meant.”
Shame curled low in his gut, hot and unwelcome.
He hadn’t wanted her to find out like this.
Hadn’t wanted her to find out at all if he could help it.
He’d thought he could deliver her to her cousin and disappear again before the past caught up to him.
That plan, like so many others since Ruby burst into his life, had gone spectacularly wrong.
His jaw clenched. Shame made anger bubble in his gut like acid. “Ye are a fine one to talk,” he snapped. “Ye accuse me of lying? That’s rich!”
Her eyes flashed. “Excuse me?”
“Ye have told me nothing,” he said, the words tumbling out sharper than he intended. “Not about where ye are from. Not about how ye ended up on that island. Not about why ye were so desperate to find yer cousin that ye’d trust a smuggler to get ye there.”
Her shoulders drew back. “That’s not the same—”
“Of course it is! Ye dinna get to stand there accusing me when ye’ve been spinning half a story since the day I met ye.”
Silence fell, thick and brittle. The fire popped, sending a spray of sparks up the chimney. Evan dragged a hand through his hair. Ruby stared at him, her face pale, lips pressed together. For a moment, he thought she might walk past him and leave. Then she exhaled.
“All right,” she said quietly. “You want the truth?”
He nodded once. “I do.”
She swallowed. “I’m not from here.”
“I know that. Ye are from Cardiff,” he said slowly. “Although ye now live in Edinburgh.”
She nodded. “That’s true. But not the Cardiff you know. And not the Edinburgh you know either.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ruby took a step closer. She looked away, staring at the fire as though gathering her courage. Then she looked up, met his gaze. “It means I told you a half truth. I do live in Edinburgh. But one in the future. The Edinburgh of the twenty-first century.”
Evan stared at her. She didn’t laugh. She didn’t tease that she was pulling his leg. Evan could spot a liar a hundred paces away and everything about Ruby’s expression spoke of utter sincerity.
“I’m a time traveler,” she whispered. “I come from the future.”
Evan blinked, wondering if he’d misheard. His first instinct was to laugh it off—to tell her this wasn’t funny, that whatever game she was playing had gone too far. But the words wouldn’t come. There was something in her expression. Something raw and vulnerable that didn’t fit a lie.
He shook his head. “But...but that makes no sense. Time travel is impossible.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” she said with a wry smile. “I thought I wanted to escape my life, but I didn’t understand what that meant until I was standing on that island with nothing.”
The pieces shifted in his mind, rearranging themselves into a picture that made a terrible kind of sense. The way she carried herself like no woman he’d ever met. The way she spoke, her turns of phrase just a little off. The fear she’d carried beneath her bravado.
Shite.
“And ye didnae tell me,” he said slowly.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Why?” The question slipped out before he could stop it.
“Because I didn’t trust you.”
The words struck deep. He felt them land in his chest, sharp and clean. “Ye trusted me with yer life,” he said quietly. “Ye trusted me to get ye here.”
“I trusted you to do a job I paid you for,” Ruby shot back, though her voice wavered. “That’s not the same as trusting you with something like this.”
Anger flared—hot, hurt, and immediate.
“So ye thought I’d sell ye out?” he demanded. “Is that it?”
“Can you blame me? You ran off and left me on that island! And again when we were with the caravan, and again just now when we got here! You’re very good at running, Evan Campbell!”
He flinched at that, her words pelting against him like freezing hailstones. They stood there, facing each other across a chasm dug by secrets and half-truths, both breathing hard.
“I protected ye,” Evan said fiercely. “Put myself in danger more times than I can count.”
“I know,” Ruby said, her voice softening a little. “And I’m grateful. But that doesn’t mean I owed you everything about myself.”
Maybe she was right. That didn’t stop it from hurting. He turned away, jaw clenched, pacing again as the familiar urge to flee coiled in his chest. This vulnerability was exactly what he’d spent years avoiding.
“I shouldnae have let Niall talk me into coming back,” he muttered.
“So, what? You’re going to run again?”
“No,” he said sharply, stopping near the door. “I promised my brother I’d stay. At least for the night.”
She stood by the fire, hands clenched at her sides, eyes bright with stubborn resolve. Beautiful and infuriating. Ah, hell. This was not how this reunion was supposed to go. He’d wanted to kiss her, not argue with her. But after everything he’d learned, did he know her at all?
“I didn’t lie to you to hurt you,” she said quietly.
Neither did I, he thought. But the words stayed lodged in his throat.
Instead, he just nodded once, yanked the door open and left before he could say anything either of them would regret.
RUBY STOOD STARING at the closed door long after Evan’s footsteps had faded down the corridor.
The room felt emptier than it had a moment before. She wanted to go after him. She wanted to...she didn’t know what she wanted to do. She only knew that was not how she’d pictured her conversation with Evan going.
When he’d appeared with Niall, she’d been so relieved to see him that she’d felt a little giddy. But hot on the heels of that relief had come anger. For the lies. For all the things he’d kept from her.
It had reminded her too much of Daniel.
Her throat constricted. She sank back into the chair by the fire, pressing her palms against her eyes. What a mess.
A soft knock sounded at the door. Ruby dropped her hands just as Charlie stepped inside, closing the door gently behind her. Her expression was carefully neutral.
“I take it that didn’t go entirely smoothly.”
Ruby let out a brittle laugh. “How much did you hear?”
Charlie winced. “Enough.”
Ruby groaned and slumped further into the chair. “Wonderful.”
Charlie crossed the room and perched on the arm of Ruby’s chair. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Ruby stared into the fire. The flames blurred as her eyes stung. “Not really.” But a second later, she turned to her cousin and threw up her hands. “He said I lied to him. Me lie to him! That’s rich! I don’t think he told me a single truth the whole way here!”
“And did you?” Charlie asked softly. “Lie to him?”
Ruby hesitated. “No. I kept things from him but that’s not lying. That’s just being careful.”
Charlie waited, saying nothing, letting Ruby work out her words in her own time.
Ruby dragged a hand through her hair. “He knew who Niall was all along. He knew this was his family’s estate. He knew he was bringing me to his own brother’s house and never told me.”
Charlie shook her head. “Yeah, that is not on.”
“And okay, I didn’t tell him I’m from the future,” Ruby went on, all the words pouring out of her now in a torrent she couldn’t stop. “But how could I? It’s not exactly the thing you can drop into a conversation is it? So I told him just now. Told him everything.”
Charlie’s eyebrows lifted. “And?”
“He believed me.” Ruby swallowed. “Or at least... he didn’t laugh.”
Silence settled between them. Charlie studied her before asking quietly, “How do you feel about him?”
Ruby’s head snapped up. “That’s hardly the point.”