Patrik tossed the arrow into the coals. “We need more wood.” Unable to shake the unsettled feeling, he turned and walked away.
Emma noted his stiff gate. As he rounded the corner, she took a stick and freed the half-burned shaft. She cradled the warm wood within her palm. From his reaction, this fragment belonged to someone he knew. It would belong to another rebel, so why would that leave him upset? At least the arrow didn’t indicate a woman.
Wood clattered nearby.
She started, glanced to where he stacked the wood. “I did not hear you return.”
Patrik remained silent as he knelt before the warm coals, his face taut. With care, he inserted moss, twigs, and other dry tinder. Then, he leaned close and gently blew upon the embers. Red flickered, dimmed to black. He blew another steady breath at the center. Embers glowed beneath the gray ash. Moments later, a wisp of smoke sifted through the moss. A flame ignited.
With care, Patrik fed the fire, small bits at first, then angled limbs that would easily catch, and finally, larger pieces that would burn the entire night. On a sigh, he sat back.
She settled beside him, his tension palatable. “You recognized the arrow shaft?”
A muscle tightened in his jaw.
Emma hesitated to push him, but something important had just occurred. She set the charred length before him. “This person means something to you, do they not?”
For a long moment, he remained silent. Then, fingers trembling, he picked up the carved wood and set it within his palm.
A part of her regretted the pain the memories invoked. God in heaven, look at her, allowing emotions to affect her mission? Shaken, she fought to deal with the realization that somewhere in their time together, Patrik had become too important to her, even more than her mission.
“Who does the arrow belong to?” she asked, her voice shaking.
Hard eyes, eyes like a wounded animal, met hers. He tossed the charred wood into the ash. “My brother.”
A brother?Irritation flared. No one had disclosed that Patrik had a brother. Sir Cressingham, as well as another man in his employ, had explained how English knights had murderedDubh Duer’s family. A resultant hatred guided his hand within battle, a savageness that had led to the legends of the merciless Scot,Dubh Duer.But nothing about another sibling who’d lived.
Why?
Had Sir Cressingham set her up? That made no sense. The treasurer of Scotland hated Patrik, salivated at the idea of watching the Scot gutted, then making the rebel’s death an example to all who dared defy him.
So why had neither his man nor he told her about Patrik’s brother? Mayhap his sibling had played little or no role in the Scottish uprising? Or, his fealty lay with King Edward. What if neither man knew Patrik had a brother who had lived?
From the raw grief on Patrik’s face, he struggled at the thoughts his brother inspired. If his brother was indeed loyal to the English king, that would explain Patrik’s strife.
His strife, but not her increasing distaste for her mission.
“I am sorry. I have upset you.” More so than he would ever know. He’d lowered his defense, a trust she now would shamefully exploit.
Scarred fingers picked up a stick to shove an ember free. Then he buried the heated wood within the dirt. Angst-stricken hazel eyes lifted to hers.
“The arrow belongs to your brother?”
“Aye.” A muscle worked in his jaw as he lifted the stick. Against the cheerful pop of the fire, he nudged aside the mound of ash, exposing the remnants of the arrow. He again lifted the shaft, rolled it slowly within his fingers. A charred line of soot remained. He stared at it, closed his eyes, then opened them. “At times a man is a fool and cannot see the precious gift he holds until it is lost.”
The intensity of his words unnerved her. Well she understood the pain of losing someone you loved, the emptiness and the loss. Except life cared naught for your pain, or hurt, but moved on. ’Twas you who chose to step forward or to remain buried within your grief.
“Was your brother killed?”
Patrik laid the charred shaft at his side. “Nay. But to them I am dead.”
Them? He had more than one brother alive?
Cristina’s eyes widened with questions, but Patrik remained silent. A fool he was for telling the lass anything of the MacGruders. He barely knew her. But as he’d held the arrow, emotions had stormed him, the pain immense. And he’d found admitting the truth to her had brought a wisp of relief.
Blast it, he wanted his brothers back, he wanted to use the surname MacGruder, desperately so. With their love and support during the years when he’d struggled to find stability after his family’s death, how could he not?
Grief washed through him as he studied Cristina. A stranger? Mayhap, considering the amount of time he’d known her, but something about her drew him, had from the start. Her beauty he couldn’t deny, nor the desires she inspired, but what lured him was more than the intrigue of the flesh. From the bits of her life she’d shared, he sensed she carried enormous hurt, pain carved by years of suffering, emotions only those who had survived similar ordeals understood.
