Page 109 of Outlaw Ever After

“What’s sent ye running, songbird?” rumbled the voice of the man she’d once despaired had forsaken her.

She looked into Alex’s narrowed eyes. Even a step down, he was still a head taller.

Her confusion bubbled to the surface. The one thing she’d ever asked of this man was that he be honest with her, and yet, she now realized, it was the one thing he could never compel his tongue to do unless he knew he was safe to do it.

With her, in his missive, he’d begun to feel as if he could.

She shook her head. Hopelessness swirling with desperation to save him once more from her brother’s anger, she palmed his cheek. Then looked to the tapestry beside them. Caressed a finger over the babe as that draft, that spark—as if she stood on a cliff facing the sea, ready to jump and yet unsure—sent a tingling up her arm and straight to her heart.

Her gaze flitted back to him, eyes watering, to see that he’d followed her touch, his eyes riveted on her finger. That silence that always overtook him when mention of his family was made settled on him now, caging him like a restless animal.

Indeed, this castle and lands meant more to him than the other contestants. Her brother was right. He had far more at stake. Arriving at Freuchie had been a repatriation. She saw how he oft gazed at the trees, at the buildings, as if the past were running through his blood.

“That is ye,” she breathed, nodding when he said nothing, his face becoming so impassive it was anything but.

His gaze remained fixed on her finger, touching the image of the babe.

“The orchard…the Burning Sticks…how ye kenned the way to the village, how they all want ye to win… Are ye the lad, Caleb C —”

“Nay ask me that,” he gruffed. “Unless ye truly hope to see yer brother take me head.”

But his jest, harkening to their song, fell flat.

“That lad died long ago,” he bit.

“Nay…” She shook her head. Which meant he was…Aulay’s cousin . As was he Francine’s! And Peigi had thought he flirted that first night when in sooth those smiles of his had been a secret homecoming “Ye lie. Ye survived—”

“He died ,” he gnashed out angrily. “Just like his sire, whose head stood here on a pike for all to see, hunted like a fox for years, denied what his sire worked so hard to bequeath to him, whipped—”

Oh God. His back. Her stomach knotted with sickening twists and she gripped his cheek. “Mayhap he died. But ye survived.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

He let her touch him. He shouldn’t. He didn’t know which way this was going to go, but Christ it felt so good.

He stood like a curtain wall, rigid beneath her uninhibited touch.

“Do ye remember me?” she asked. His attention flicked to her eyes as her whisper played over his senses. “Do ye remember a lassie?” Those eyes glistened, full of hope.

Stiffly, he reached into his tunic, to the pouch at his chest, and pulled out a small fabric bag. A dangerous game this was, playing with fire, yet he opened it. Took her hand from his cheek. Dumped out a crushed, dried posy of desiccated leaves. A blessing given to him by the wee sister of the enemy who’d been bent on seeing him hung.

“I remember an angel …” The words scratched up his throat as she stared dumbstruck at the posy, tears vaulting over her lids. That draft intensified, those fates braiding back together. “When I thought I had no one.”

She fingered the brittle leaves, crumbling in her touch as the torches around them flickered.

“Ye kept it.” Her whisper tremored. “Ye never forgot me.”

“How could I ever?”

“I prayed, I hoped.” Her tears bubbled unchecked. “I-I was terrified someone would realize what I’d done and—”

“What ye’d done?” That wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. She was worried about being in trouble? What her brother and sire, what MacGregor , had done was what had been wrong.

A stranglehold he hadn’t realized had been choking him all these years eased. Someone finally knew. She knew. She’d always been meant to know.

“My God, Alex… Caleb !” Her eyes widened. “I fear Seamus on his way to Edinburgh for reinforcements. I nay think he’s going on business to settle yer summons, and he wouldna listen to me. I told him he was wrong, again and again, that ye didna do it, and still he…”

“Wrong about what?”