She fought the urge to close her eyes and savor his light touch. How could a man so large be so gentle?
“It was nice of you to come after me.”
He grunted and lowered his hand away from her cheek. “What kept you?”
“I was picking flowers.” She showed him her collection.
He curled his lip. “And you think that handful of weeds was worth risking your life?”
She pouted as she ran her hand over the wildflowers that released their sweet scent into the air. She inhaled them and let the smell remind her of her childhood days when she and her mother had spent hours alone gathering them and tending her mother’s garden.
She cradled them to her breast. “My mother has oft told me that men have sacrificed their lives and kingdoms for a woman’s smile, so why not risk the ire of a bear for a bouquet?”
“Most men are fools.”
She paused at his words and the pain she heard in his voice. Remembering what Sorcha had said about his betrayal, she felt for the man who had foresworn beauty in his life. “You don’t think beauty is worth sacrificing for?”
“Nay. I do not.” His sincere blue eyes scorched her.
He meant that.
“But surely you didn’t always feel that way?”
“I learn from my mistakes.”
Her stomach tightened at what he said. She couldn’t imagine such a life.
“And you’ve been without beauty ever since,” she said wistfully. “I’m sorry for that, Ewan. Everyone needs some beauty in their life.”
Ewan wondered for a moment if she were mocking him, but one look into her guileless amber eyes and he knew she wasn’t.
She could never relate to the kind of pain he lived with.
“I can’t imagine living a life where nothing gives me pleasure,” she said softly. “It would take a strong man to live as you have. To get up every morning and carry on when all you can see is the gloom and misery of the world.”
“I’m not strong,” Ewan confessed. He wondered why he said that. It wasn’t like him to be open with anyone. But there was something about Nora that comforted him. Something about her that made him want to share things with her. “I was a weak-minded fool who believed a lying termagant. There’s no strength in what I do now or what I did in the past.”
He took her back through the woods, toward the gypsies’ camp.
“I disagree,” she said as she walked beside him. “A weak man wouldn’t still be alive.”
“A strong man would be able to look his mother in the face.” Ewan couldn’t believe those words had left his lips. Never before had he confided that secret to anyone.
Nora paused and took his hand into hers.
Ewan stared at her tiny hand, at the long, graceful fingers that were laced with his own. His hand was almost twice the size of hers. Her skin was pale, soft while his was tanned and callused.
There was no softness in his life.
No grace or beauty.
In truth, there was nothing in his life at all.
“This is not the hand of a weak man,” she said as she gave a light squeeze to his fingers. “You could have left me to my own ends and yet you didn’t. Even though my situation caused you pain, you came with me rather than see me hurt. What is weak in that?”
Ewan didn’t know what to say. No woman had ever said such a thing to him. No one had ever before defended him.
She made him feel almost heroic.
