Page 27 of Fierce Highland Longing

I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t.

“The Websters have water in the back room.”

“They’ll have had that before.”

There were gaps in our conversations now, wide enough for the sea to roll right through. I watched him across the low fire, the way his gaze drifted toward the window, his mind somewhere halfway down the cliffs. He used to fill those silences, not with talk—he was never one for talking—but with the hum of being present, the steady pressure of his self.

Now there was only the wind, the sagging tick of the clock above the mantel, the occasional flare from the peat. Even when he answered, the words seemed to come from a greater and greater distance.

I tried to bridge the silence. “Maybe tomorrow it’ll lift.”

He nodded once, neutrally, neither for nor against the possibility. I wondered if he’d heard me.

Then he set his glass down.

“Can I ask you a thing, and you’ll not take it badly?”

“Yes.”

“Are you keeping it to save me, or to keep me?”

The rain went along the window. A gust came down the chimney and pushed the smoke into the room and pulled it out again.

I did not say anything.

I looked at the fire and the fire did what fires do, and I heard the sea going at the harbor wall two streets down, and I counted eleven of those before I understood that the counting was the answer.

He did not ask it again. He did not soften it or take it away or fill it up for me, which any other man alive would have done.

“Aye.” He was a long time about it. “Well.”

He got up and put his glass on the counter and went along the back hall to his room, and I heard the door.

I sat there until the fire was down to nothing.

Tomorrow morning. I will put it in his hands tomorrow morning.

But I knew, even as I thought it, that tomorrow might already be too late.

Chapter Twelve

What He Knew — Tavish

“Shewentdowntheroad before eight.” Isla had the bucket up on the counter. “Never took a jacket.”

I sat in the chair by the window and waited two hours for her, and the rain came at the glass the whole time.

She came in at ten with her hair flat to her head and stood on the flags by the door.

I had it off her face before she said a word.

“I met Callum Brodie at the harbor.”

“Aye.”

“He said you came ashore for the skin. He said you’ve known I had it since the first night I dragged you out of the water.” Her hand was still on the door. “He said to ask you. That you’ll not lie to me. That’s the trouble with your sort, he said.”

My eyes held hers.