“What’s wrong? And dinnae tell me nothing. I ken ye’re hidin’ something. Does me breath stink?”
“Nay,” Lavina said as he shifted to the edge of the bed.
The longing and desire in his eyes fizzled out like water to a furnace.
“Then what?” he asked.
“I just realized I’ve spent the better part of me life being wrong. I wonder what else I could be wrong about,” she muttered.
Lavina tilted her head and watched his shoulders slump. The mood in the room shifted.
“Why bother worryin’ about such things? ‘Tis nae like worryin’ about anything will add any time to yer life.”
“I think of ye, though,” Lavina said, pity rising in her chest. “For so long, I thought ye killed me family… and ye didnae. And I dinnae need proof. Yer actions have shown yer character. But I fear I’ll never ken who did it, or why.”
Her chest tightened. She had never expected to pour her heart out to Theo, especially when the night had started on a completely different note.
He stared at her with compassion and understanding before dropping his gaze.
The air crackled. Lavina felt it like a bolt of lightning striking a tree.
“Why do I get the impression that ye’re nae tellin’ me something?” she asked.
Theo slid off the bed and fastened the belt to his kilt, resigned to a sexless night. Guilt jabbed at her as he started to pace the room.
“Theo…”
“Why dig up the past? Are ye nae happy here with me?”
“I am. But what does that have to do with anythin’? What about findin’ out who killed them? Is that nae what’s important here? Justice?”
“Justice? Justice or vengeance? Say the culprit was someone in the village who sold me a necklace that happened to belong to yer maither. What would ye do? How would ye react? And who would ye blame? Would ye blame me for buyin’ the necklace unknowingly? Or would it be the shopkeeper who sold it to me?”
Lavina pursed her lips. As much as she hated to admit it, Theo was right. She felt like she could go in every direction.Everything she was so sure of before seemed like a rickety old bridge she was tempted to cross.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Theo wasn’t being forthcoming with her. He knew something. She just needed to figure out what.
Overwhelmed with frustration, she let her tears spill over. She hated feeling like a barrel tumbling down a river with nothing to catch it.
Suddenly, two strong arms wrapped around her. The warmth radiated from Theo and seeped into her. She closed her eyes and melted into his embrace.
“Hush now,” Theo whispered, cradling her head to his chest.
She wound her arms around him as he shifted slightly.
For a moment, Lavina couldn’t figure out what he was doing. After all, he had just coaxed her to him, and now he wanted her to move?
Warm, soft fur cocooned them as Theo drew it around her bare shoulders. He had sealed them in a private, safe world.
“I remember when I was a lad,” he began. “It was right after me parents were taken. I was holed up in the infirmary, wonderin’ why I was spared. It took me a while to sift through the anger and hatred… and then it hit me.”
Lavina reached up to touch the scars on his face. Theo’s hand caught hers and pulled it down.
“Why are ye tellin’ me this?” she asked, her heart pounding violently in her chest.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as every fiber in her being screamed that something was amiss.
“Because ye need to ken that I’ve been where ye are. And ye dinnae have to go down the road I did. Ye think closure will give ye peace, but it willnae. It will only feed the monster ye’ve created by nae forgivin’.”
