Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
“Owen? What’s the matter?”
“Just need a minute.”
Yet several minutes had passed since he’d saved her from falling into the water.
Now they were a safe distance from the stream, and he was sitting with his knees up, his head buried in his arms. He was shaking.
Finn scooted closer, laying a hand on his shoulder.
His muscles were bunched steel, and he flinched at her touch.
“Are you hurt?” she asked worriedly. “Did you strain yourself when you caught me?”
“I’m fine.”
It was obvious that he was anything but.
“Look at me,” she said.
When he didn’t comply, she drew his head up. Even in the deepening dusk, she saw his moist cheeks and reddened eyes. And his expression—her heart clenched in agonizing empathy.
“What is going on?” she asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s too bad because you are going to.”
“Are you always this dictatorial?” he asked wearily.
“When I have to be.” She gentled her tone. “Tell me what is going on.”
He planted his elbows on his knees, raking his hands through his hair. “Talking about it will not help. It might make things worse. I might become a raving lunatic.”
“I’m willing to take that chance.”
“You are like a dog with a bone, do you know that?”
“Then you might as well stop delaying and give me what I want.”
Feeling his radiating tension, she prepared to do battle.
“I watched a man die.”
“In Afghanistan?” she asked carefully.
“Yes. God. But also, here.” He let out a ragged breath. “In this very spot.”
She listened as he described his mad chase after a villain who’d been blackmailing his family. Her disquiet grew as he shared the struggle on the crumbling bank, which resulted in his foe falling into the stream. He had tried to save the man—and failed.
“I saw his eyes the instant before he went under,” Owen said dully. “I’ve seen it in my dreams countless times since. He was terrified, didn’t want to die. He begged me to help him. But I…I couldn’t.”
“It is not your fault.”
“I let his hand slip from mine. Watched the current claim his life.”
“Even so.” She sat shoulder to shoulder with him. “You did your best; you could not have done more. Given his malicious actions, the fact that you risked your life to save his is probably more than he deserved.”
Owen frowned. “I couldn’t leave a man to die.”
“Plenty would have. The world is not a kind place.”
“I know.” His voice roughened. “The truth is…it is not just him I see. In my dreams, I mean—and sometimes, I’m not even dreaming but wide awake. I get these…these flashes.”
“Memories,” she said quietly.
She had them too. Of the attendant’s sausage-like fingers holding the cheroot.
The nauseating smell of her own burning flesh.
There were smaller horrors too. Sleeping in cold, rat-infested alleys after she and Iris escaped the orphanage.
Starving so badly that they’d nearly given up and said yes to the bawd with the painted eyebrows, who’d offered them bread in exchange for their bodies—
She jerked when Owen laid an arm over her shoulders.
“Memories,” he agreed.
They sat, leaning into each other’s warmth.
“I saw my entire company fall,” he said.
“They picked us off like partridges in the bowl of the mountain, gunfire raining on us from above. There was no escape. The soldiers who managed to evade the bullets and climb the slope were greeted by the enemies’ tulwars.
” At her questioning glance, he clarified, “Curved swords, lethally sharp. I’ll never forget the sound of them cutting through air… and flesh.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
“I hear it sometimes, that whistling out of nowhere, and I dodge—even though nothing is there.” He slanted her a glance. “I sound like a madman, don’t I?”
“It is not mad to react to a memory. It is instinct.” She hesitated before sharing, “I feel ill when I smell a cheroot.”
He held her tighter. “During the fighting, I managed to find cover under the rocky outcropping. That is when I saw him.”
“Who?”
“Johnson.” His chest surged. “He was the same age as me, the son of a Norfolk farmer. We used to tease him—Carrots, we called him, on account of his hair. He was a mild lad, never complained or got into fights. But that day, he’d taken a bullet to the leg, and he was lying there, screaming as blood poured out of him.
He was shaking and white; he couldn’t walk, could barely move, and… and he begged me to end the pain.”
“Blooming hell.” She swallowed. “Did you…?”
“I couldn’t.” Owen stared out over the water. “Even though I had a bullet left in my pistol and knew he was in agony, I couldn’t make myself do it. Instead, I lied. I told him I would get him to safety and tried to drag him out of that hellhole. We didn’t make it far.”
Feeling him tremble, she wrapped her arms around him.
“There were three of them,” he whispered.
“Two held me back, and the third pulled out a dagger—I remember the way it glinted in the sun. Johnson was whimpering, begging. The man cut him open, this gentle farmer’s son from Norfolk, and there was nothing I could do but watch.
I thought I would be next, and I wanted to be.
I wanted oblivion. Instead, they took me hostage…
dragging me away and leaving Johnson there to rot. ”
Finn felt moisture trickle down her cheeks as he sobbed. She held him, saying nothing because there was nothing to say. Night settled over the woods, and they sat beneath the glowing moon and spread of stars.
“It won’t leave me.” Owen’s voice was quiet. “The war, those years in captivity. When I first came home, I thought I could put it behind me. When that didn’t happen, I tried to distract myself. Alcohol, gambling…debauchery. Nothing worked. In fact, my carousing only made things worse.”
She thought about it. “You seem better now.”
“How can you say that?” His expression was grim. “After my episode tonight, I wouldn’t blame you if you ran for the hills.”
“Your episode, as you call it, consisted of a few tears and shared confidences. That is hardly cause for concern.”
“You don’t understand. My past lives in me like…like a monster ready to pounce. I have hurt people in my life, and I don’t want to—I won’t—hurt you.”
“I wouldn’t let you.” She said it with the bittersweet knowledge of who was likely to hurt whom. “More to the point, the past makes us who we are, and we must learn to live with it. And I think you are healing and making the best of things.”
“Am I? That is news to me.”
She thought the return of his wry humor was a good sign.
“Isn’t this your philosophy when it comes to landscape design?
You heal neglected gardens and bring out the best in them.
And you do this without changing their essential character,” she said earnestly.
“I think that is why people respond to your work. You see beauty in imperfection and rarity in the mundane. You don’t fight against nature but work with it.
Can you not apply these same principles to yourself? ”
He stared at her with eyes the color of moonlight.
When he said nothing, she prodded, “What are you thinking?”
“I am thinking,” he said slowly, “that I lied to you.”
“About what?”
“Falling in love with you isn’t a possibility for me—it’s a fact.”
Her breath jammed; her heart stumbled against her ribs with panicked delight.
“You’re right—about everything, and the gardening especially. Working has helped to heal me. But you missed something important.”
“What did I miss?” she whispered.
“You,” he said solemnly. “Since you came into my life and turned things topsy-turvy, I’ve felt right. For the first time in a long time, I don’t mind being me because I get to be here with you.”
She felt a wrenching in her chest. A pain that was also an impossible joy.
“Owen, I’m not good—”
“You are everything I want, Finn. And I want you to know: I am falling in love with you.”
The emotion in his eyes was a gift. The finest she’d ever been given.
One I don’t deserve.
“You shouldn’t,” she said wretchedly. “I am not worth—”
“You are worth anything. Everything.”
His earnestness widened the crack in her heart.
“You don’t have to say anything back,” he said. “But I wanted to tell you how I feel.”
Emotions rioted inside her. The promises she couldn’t give burned on her tongue. Before she lost her mind and gave them, she pulled him close and pressed her lips to his.
Owen had never wanted the way he wanted Finn.
Even during the years of captivity, which came with forced celibacy relieved on occasion by his own hand, he had never experienced this degree of pure need. Because this wasn’t just lust or even desire: this was love.
He had convinced himself that his family’s tradition was no longer possible for him.
He’d believed that he was too damaged, too dangerous to engage in matters of the heart.
Yet Finn had changed everything. She wasn’t afraid of the darkness that lived in him—she understood it.
Understood him as no one else did. Her acceptance made his flaws seem more tolerable, and her insights about his work and relationship with nature humbled him.
She dazzled him with her acuity. She also made him randy as hell.
As he claimed her mouth, he didn’t mind that she hadn’t returned his profession of love.
When she gave him the words, he wanted them to come from the heart—not out of obligation or reciprocity.
He admired her honesty…and truthfully, her kiss revealed her feelings.
A woman didn’t kiss a man with such sweet ferocity if she didn’t care for him at least a little.
He tumbled her onto the bank.
“I’ve waited so long for you,” he said huskily.
“It hasn’t been a day since we made love.”
At her quick wit, he hid a grin and nipped her ear.
“You know what I mean.”
“We shouldn’t get too…too entangled.” Her eyes were wide and a bit desperate. “We said this would just be about pleasure and enjoying one another’s company. There can be no strings between us, Owen. You deserve someone better than me. A woman who can give you everything you desire—ohh.”