He did not want to go back there. He did not want to face what awaited him. And yet he was being pulled back all the same.
Sometimes, we have to turn around completely and return to the starting point before we can see the true road ahead.
When Irene MacAskill had spoken those words to him he hadn’t known what she meant. Now, he suspected he did. He could feel his path curling around, coming full circle, taking him right back to where he’d started.
He had spent years trying to break free of his past, free from the shadow of his legacy. But it seemed that all his paths were leading him back to the same place. To the one place he’d hoped never to see again.
Home.
Chapter 9
Molly stared out thesmall window in her room, watching the moonlight dance across the dark waters of the cove below. Guilt and fear gnawed at her insides, despite her efforts to quell them.
“Stop it,” she told herself. “You have to do this. There’s no choice.”
The last few days had been terrifying. Utterly terrifying. They had been so unlike anything she was used to that she may as well have landed on another planet. And yet...and yet... She had to admit, that sometimes it had been exhilarating too. Meeting Conall. Being attacked by raiders. Sheltering in the cove. Working with Conall to sail theMermaidthrough the inlet.
She’d been frightened half to death much of the time but she had also felt strangely free, unburdened for the first time in a long time. She had been living for the moment rather than worrying about the future and had felt truly, wholly, alive. And Conall was responsible for that. She shut her eyes against the memory of his smile, his laugh.
No. This was the only choice left to her. Shehadto get back home.
Silence blanketed the inn, broken only by the occasional snore or creak of old wood. As best as she could guess, it was nearly midnight. Time to go.
She took a deep breath and slipped out from under the scratchy wool blanket. She moved as quietly as the old floorboards allowed, wincing when one let out a groan of protest under her booted feet. Outside her door, she paused, listening. Only the sounds of sleep drifted through the Trading House.
She padded quietly down the hallway, heart thumping, ears straining. Despite her resolve not to, she paused outside the room at the end. Conall’s room. Her hand hovered over the worn wooden handle.
Didn’t she at least owe him an explanation? No. He would only try to stop her. With a shaky breath, Molly tore herself away, footsteps soft on the creaking floorboards as she tiptoed down the stairs.
The Trading House was eerily still, the murmur of deals being done and the off-key singing of the regulars that had filled the place earlier, had been replaced by the groans of old timber as the building settled. Molly’s pulse quickened as she crept toward the front door. Freedom awaited on the other side, if she could only reach it.
The door was barred on the inside. The bar was thick and heavy and Molly grunted with effort as she heaved it out of its metal brackets and set it gently on the floor. Carefully, she pulled the door open, wincing as it whined on its hinges. She froze, ears straining for any stirrings from the rooms above. After an agonizing moment of silence, she let out the breath she’d been holding and slipped out into the night.
The moon hung heavy and full, its pale light spilling across the silent village. Molly kept to the shadows as she hurried towards the harbor, her footsteps muffled on the worn dirt streets. A light breeze ruffled her hair, carrying the briny scent of the sea—a reminder of the journey ahead.
She reached the docks without incident and without seeing anyone. The ropes of theMermaidcreaked lightly as it bobbed on the tide. Looking right and left to check she was alone, Molly knelt by the post and with deft fingers, worked at the mooring ropes.
