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The concern, the worry, and the anger in his eyes were genuine, and it warmed Amy’s heart. She took a sip of wine from the bottle, for bravery. She wanted to tell him. She’d never told anyone but her sister, and then only in general terms. She never really talked about it; although, she’d thought several times she should go to a shrink or something.

But Craig had witnessed something similar that had happened to his sister—the entrapment, the desperation of being locked up and never found.

And Amy needed to tell him. She wanted him to know she was on his side. And then maybe, once he knew what had happened to her, maybe she’d tell him the whole truth. That she wasn’t the Amy he thought she was.

And hopefully, he’d forgive her.

Her chest ached as she reached out to the corners of her memory she’d deliberately been turning away from for twenty years. Her skin crawled and her eyes burned.

And she let go.

“I wasn’t raped. I was ten when I started having nightmares. I’d imagined ghosts and monsters under the bed and couldn’t fall asleep.”

The truth was, it had started happening after Amy’s mom had died earlier that year. Lost and sad, scared of the future, Amy had gone to the one person she’d had left besides Jenny—her father.

“I went to my dad with this problem, asking him to chase them away. But most of the time I found him half unconscious from booze.”

“Booze?”

“Uisge. And then one night, he’d had enough of me. He was still drunk, but sober enough to find a creative solution. ‘You’re a coward, Amy MacDougall!’ he yelled. ‘There are no ghosts. There are no monsters. Go back to your room and sleep.’ But when I insisted I couldn’t, he said, ‘It’s time for you to face your fears. You know how my father taught me to swim? He threw me in the lake. I almost drowned, but I learned to swim. That’s how you’ll learn to not be afraid of the dark.’”

Amy swiped a tear from her cheek. Craig listened silently, openly, simply taking it in. And it helped. She felt accepted. She felt he understood.

And she was so grateful.

“He was strong, even when totally drunk. A tall man, a farmer, with arms like tree trunks and his breath reeking of alcohol. He hauled me out of the house and drove—I mean, took—me somewhere in the middle of the night. I was terrified. I thought he was going to kill me because I was afraid of the monsters under the bed. But he took me to an abandoned barn on our farm—I mean, estate. And he locked me in there.”

Amy remembered the blinding lights of the truck against the cornfields as Father drove, the roar of the old engine, the smell of whiskey and gas in the cabin. His terrifyingly strong hands that dragged her, kicking and screaming, into the dark building. The unforgiving clack of the lock from the other side of the door.

And the darkness that pressed against her from all sides like a coffin.

“I don’t know how long I was there. Must have been two nights and one day. I don’t remember. I locked up that memory. If I could, I’d have cut it out of my brain as though it never happened. I was so hungry I chewed on old hay. There was no real food and no water. Do you know how long a person can survive without water? Three days. Without food? Twenty-one days.”

Craig’s eyebrows snapped together, his eyes dark and full of empathy. “Did no one ask after ye? Nae even yer mother?”

There was only Jenny, who was six, and her father on the farm. Father forgot about the episode completely the next day, especially since he continued to drink himself into oblivion. Jenny had been asking him where Amy was, but he always told her she must be at school.

It was on day three that the school called home, and Jenny said she hadn’t seen her for three days. They called the police. A cop found Amy, dehydrated, shivering, desperate.

“Yes. She did,” Amy lied. “But they couldn’t find me. They only found me three days later. I might have died there had it been a couple of hours longer.”

“Yer father didna have a right to do that to a wee lass.”

“No. He didn’t. That’s what I learned there. I mean, I learned a couple of things. That I’m terrified of dark, closed spaces. And that as long as I can help it, I won’t let another soul be lost and abandoned like I was. Do you know the desperation that you feel? Calling for help for hours, and no one comes? That’s why I can’t stand to be locked up in that castle—and especially in one room.”

Craig covered her hand with his, and his warmth calmed her. “I am sorry, Amy. I didna ken. And I was the one who tied ye up and locked ye… Had I kent—”

“You couldn’t have known. It’s my thing. I should be over it by now, but I’m still terrified of being lost and locked up. And that’s why I don’t have a direction in life, I suppose.”

“But ye save all these people.”

“Yes, but—what then? What’s next for Amy MacDougall? Most women want marriage. Children. I don’t.”

“Ye don’t? What about the Earl of Ross?”

She brushed it off. “Do you know I’ve already been married before?”

“Ye were?”