Page 45 of A Healer for the Wicked Highlander
He turned away. “It’s better this way.”
He didn’t believe it, but he had to say it.
Monster.
The word churned inside his mind, torturing him. He would never be able to forget it, never be able to put it aside.
Freya didn’t move. “Better?” she echoed, but her voice was laced with something dangerous. “Better for who?”
Michael clenched his fists. “For ye.”
A beat of silence. But he knew that she would remain silent for much longer. She had obviously come to him with something on her mind, and she would not leave before sharing it with him, one way or another.
“Saints preserve me,” she muttered, sounding exasperated. “Just tell me why. Please. Tell me why ye’ve acted colder to me than a damned Highland winter. Do I deserve it?”
He exhaled sharply, his control slipping. “Because I dinnae think that ye wanted to be near a monster.”
The words fell between them like a blade.
She stilled, almost as if she didn’t immediately know what he was referring to, although he doubted that was possible.
“A monster,” she echoed, saying the word in a slow and steady manner. For a moment, it seemed as if she had misheard him.
“Aye,” he nodded in clarification. “A brute. A man who’s seen too much war, shed too much blood. Isnae that how yer sister described me in her book?”
“Marissa?” Freya echoed once again. “Are ye talkin’ about her?”
“Of course,” he scoffed. “What else would I be talkin’ about? It is obvious how she sees me, and I am certain that ye and Abigail share her opinion. And honestly, I cannae blame ye. What kind of fool would want?—”
“Ye great daft man,” she frowned, but it was obvious that she wasn’t truly upset with him. “Do ye think so little of me? Of me sisters?”
He didn’t say anything to that, but the word still burned at the edges of his frayed mind.
“The book, Freya, is a story that Marissa has described in great detail and I cannae turn a blind eye to how much I resemble the protagonist.”
She inhaled deeply, shaking her head. “It is a story about our parents. Do ye always think that the world revolves around ye?”
It was his turn to frown. “Nay. But I can read between the lines, ye ken.”
“This is nae about readin’ between the lines,” she corrected him. “It is about truly understandin’ someone. In Marissa’s case and the case of her book, there are things ye forgot to take into account.”
“Is that so?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“Oh, nay,” she refused in a slightly playful, slightly serious manner. “It is nae me book, so it is nae me place to elaborate on it. If ye wish to clarify anythin’, then ye should speak to Marissa, instead of goin’ around accusin’ people of thoughts they never had. Because, I must say, I take offense at ye thinkin’ that I would shrink away because someone lived a life that was never their own to choose.”
“I chose me own life,” he reminded her slightly gruffly. “I make me own decisions.”
“In that case, let me tell ye, Laird McEwan, if ye’d been raised in a warm English manor, recitin’ poetry instead of swingin’ a sword, I’d still think ye were the most infuriatin’, stubborn, impossible man I’ve ever met.”
Michael stared at her for a moment, with his mind reeling.
She huffed again. “And just so we’re clear, I dinnae wish ye to stop.”
His breath caught. Before he could speak, before he could process the rush of relief and want and something much deeper than he ever thought he could feel for a woman, she turned on her heel and aimed for the door.
She paused just long enough to throw the following words over her shoulder. “Ye’re a fool if ye think that me and me sisters would spend a single hour in the company of a monster.”
And then, she was gone.
