Callum shook his head. “It’s no’ like that—”
“It’sexactlylike that!” She paced down the narrow aisle of the atrium, the straining leaves of the plants brushing her skirts. “You’re not wealthy enough, apparently, even though a fraction of your fortune could solve all my family’s money troubles—”
“Violet,” he grumbled, but she ignored him.
“But you want more, always more. Money is more important than how anyone one feels—”
“Violet, stop!” He grabbed her arm and pulled her close, but she turned away as her throat burned. “This isnaeabout money.” She glared and he growled. “Fine, it is about money, but not in the way ye think.”
“You’d better be creative, because thus far, the men in my life have all prioritized their bank accounts over my happiness.” Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs as he searched her face.
“It’s more than money, I swear. It’s about James, taking care of him.”
“He’s an adult,” she spat. “He can care for himself.”
“I ken, but—” He pressed his palms to his forehead and cursed before dropping his hands to his sides. “James is a brother to me in every way that matters, and it’s my responsibility to care for him.”
She stilled at the panic in his eyes, the tension in his jaw. “Why, Callum? Why is it your responsibility?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he speared his hand through his dark locks, leaving him more disheveled than she’d imagined him capable of looking. “It’s no’ a simple story.”
She stepped back from him and sat on the bench tucked between two towering potted alocasias. “I have time.”
He didn’t sit, but paced in front of her. “My father left my mam and me when I was a baby, and my uncle Rory is—was—her brother. When she died, he took me in, and they raised me alongside their two boys.”
Her head tilted. “James has a brother?”
Callum stilled, like something burning bright inside his eyes had been snuffed out. “Had a brother. And I’m the one who killed him.”
Callum could count on one hand—hell, onefinger—the number of people he’d told about Ewan’s death. Whenever he thought of that horrible day, the grief would collide into him like a wave, sometimes strong enough to make him stumble, other times bone-crushing, leaving him breathless and tumbling and gasping for air.
But Violet was there, her patient expression, even in her anger, like a break in the tide. He’d done so well pushing everyone away from this part of him he wasn’t accustomed to someone wanting to push back, to discover why he was trying to hide in plain sight.
“Ewan was older than James by two years, four years my senior.” Callum hummed as memories, shrouded in darkness, returned to him. “The lad had no peace with the two of us shadowing his ev’ry move. I was always eager to impress him, doing foolish things to show how tough I was.” He shrugged. “Ye willnae believe it, but I was a scrawny child, no meat on my bones, quiet as a church mouse.”
The words flowed like a current, his mouth numbed by blunted pain. He’d just turned ten on that cursed day, the morning air shimmering as ice crystals hung from wispy, feathered clouds high over the firth. Despite being from one of the wealthiest families in Edinburgh, the Taggart boys still roamed the streets in all weather, an effort from their mother to work the energy out of them, takinghealthy risks, as their grandda had called it. Throwing rocks in thefirth, climbing rigs at the shipyards, all while knowing the hard limits set by the family patriarch that they could never cross.
Ye’ll nae be cruel to those weaker than ye, nor will ye set foot on the ice.
Rumors had spread through the frosty streets like wildfire—the firth had frozen over for the first time in a generation. The Taggart boys, with their omnipresent cousin in tow, joined the spectators, mostly lads and young men looking for a thrill, lining up along the narrowest part of the estuary, staring at the sight in awe.
“I’d never seen anything so still,” Callum said, his visioned blinded by the force of the memory. “For a moment I thought it was silent, but then I heard it.” He swallowed against the lump in his throat. “The ice was alive, creaking and shifting over the water, like something was pushing up beneath it, groaning and calling for help.” He shuddered, his entire body abruptly cold, the words freezing on his tongue.
When had he sat down on the bench, with Violet beside him? The warmth of her hand on his forearm pushed through the pervasive chill, fortifying him.
“Lads being glaikit as we are—”
“Glaikit?”
The word sounded silly on her tongue, and a smile pulled at his mouth. “Foolish. We were numpties—idiots. It didnae take long before the dares started. Who would walk on the ice, go farther out than the last?”
Her lips parted, as though she’d already raced ahead in the story and knew the tragic ending.
“I was always the wee one, and when I was dared, I was too proud to look like a coward, not with Ewan and James watching, so—”
“You walked on the ice.” Her hand was holding his now, her slim fingers laced between his broad ones.
“Aye,” he managed. “I weighed nothing, so I was far out, too far, when the ice gave way.”
