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“Dumb luck.”
Now it was his turn to scoff. “So you don’t hate us, then, if you call this lucky?”
“Okay. Dumb omen, then.” Semantics. “I’ll admit, the Merry Men are growing on me.”
“Good. Because I don’t plan on letting you go.”
I inhaled sharply. Cleared my throat, and it still cracked. “You would . . . hold me prisoner forever?”
“No. You misunderstand. Your father will not part with his coin for your safe return, Robin. I’m sorry. But I won’t sell you to the highest bidder, either. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have sold you back to your own father, after meeting him.” He reached down and put his big hand on my knee. “You are free to leave anytime you wish. The moment you feel endangered around us, I’m begging you to leave. I hope you won’t feel that, however, because the Merry Men and I will protect you.” He chuckled, rubbing his forehead with his palm. “Except I doubt you need our protection, either.”
I had been looking down at his hand the entire time, lightly settled on my knee as he spoke circles around himself. Now I craned my neck to look up into his face. “So . . . what are you saying, Little John?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted with a bark of a laugh. “You have me twisted and tongue-tied. Have since I first met you. I haven’t felt this way in . . . a long time.”
“Since the last girl you lost.”
His face hardened. “Who told you about that?”
“No one. It was a guess. Everyone here has lost something precious, it seems. Your guarded efforts around me tipped me off.”
He shook his head, squeezing my knee tighter. It did something unholy to my insides, and I resisted squirming. “You’re infuriatingly wise and perceptive for your age, girl. You know that?”
I smiled. When it faltered, I glanced away, back to the pond. “Apologies. I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it, so we don’t have to. We can just sit here in silence, enjoying the pond as we watch Peter Fisher’s blood trickle off your fingertips into the water.”
He eyed the hand opposite my knee. “Shit . . .” he grumbled, then hid it by placing it behind him.
Another breathless pause passed between us. I wondered how long he was going to leave his hand on me. Did he even realize he was doing it?
“Answer my question,” he said abruptly, “and I’ll answer yours. Something your father said stuck with me, and I have to know.”
“Oh, fantastic,” I drawled.
“He said, ‘When we lost Robert, we lost her, too.’ It was the only sincere moment from him during our entire short conversation. That was your brother, I take it?”
“Yes.” My voice came out short and clipped. I’d never spoken about Robert to anyone. Not even my father or mother to any great degree—likely one of the reasons I had such a distant relationship with them.
“And that skull in the woods you seemed to be praying to when we first crossed paths . . .”
“Don’t tell him!” Robert yelled in my mind. “Keep your secrets, sister, or you’ll have no leverage against these bloodthirsty men. You’ll regret it.”
I swallowed hard and bit my lip. Then I chuckled grimly, ignoring my brother’s warning, and realized what John was asking. “You think I would have any trouble gutting Peter Fisher if I was walking around with my dead brother’s skull in my backyard, Little John?”
His eyes widened.
“It was a symbol,” I explained, and then grew quieter and more withdrawn. “I, erm . . . talk to him sometimes. Robert has kept me feeling safe, even when I’m at my worst. He protected me in my direst time, too, during Peter’s attack. That skull is the reason the squire was missing an eye.”
“Good lad,” John muttered.
“You don’t have to placate me, Little John. I know I’m mad.”
His hand shot out, grabbed my chin so quickly I didn’t have time to breathe, and tilted my face to look up at him. “You aren’t crazed, Robin. Believe me. I’ve held onto keepsakes much longer than I should have, simply so I could clutch to the memories of someone I loved for a bit longer.”
I wanted to kiss him, gazing into those dark pools. He could be so peaceful, yet so forceful at the same time. The way his finger delicately held my chin was a heady mixture that made me confused and aroused.
“Hell,” he continued, “we all have. Will Scarlet and his red sash? Alan and his lute? Tuck and his orphans? We do the things necessary to keep ourselves sane—to make sure our hearts don’t shatter completely—even if those things make us look insane in the process. Trust me,” he finished with a nod, “I understand.”
Alan was considered the poet, the wordsmith, yet Little John was giving him a run for his money.
