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Light-headed, I sat on the stone fence that seemed to be here for exactly this purpose. Another cat jumped on a rock further up the hill, different from the one in the cottage. This one was all black and slinky and small. She was coming to investigate me.
“Poppy?” I heard Ronan call from a distance and I waved at him to keep going. I just needed a second. And a sandwich.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just a little—”
Like we were in a Brontë novel, Ronan swept me up in his arms and curled me close to his chest. “You don’t have to—”
“Shut up, Poppy,” he said, the muscles in his jaw all tense. The tendon in his neck stood out against his pale skin and I could smell him. He was warm and real. His arms were around me. His breath was in my hair. The beat of his heart was right there in the tender skin of his throat. The cold of the wind was gone and left just heat in his arms.
“Were you scared?” I asked. “For me?”
His silence wouldn’t be broken, so I took one more look at the blue of his eyes. How, from this angle, they glowed like the sky above us. Then I put my head down on his shoulder, reminding myself this was nothing to him.
I was nothing.
He kicked open the door to the cottage and ducked inside the low doorway. I slowly put my feet on the ground. His arm against my back stayed there until he knew I was steady.
“All right?”
“Yes. Thank—”
“What the fuck did you tell him?” He grabbed my arms hard enough that I winced and tried to step away, but he pulled me up on his toes.
“Nothing.”
“Poppy!” He yelled loud enough my hair blew back and I saw in his eyes how scared he was. For me. Oh, how easy it would be to melt into this. Into his concern and ferocious worry. How easy it would be to believe it meant something when it was only instinct for him. Possession and control.
“I told him we were married. On our honeymoon.”
His face relaxed. “What else?”
I kept my mouth shut about my sister. “Nothing. We talked about the church. How it used to be a school.”
“You’re lying to me, Poppy.”
“Well, Ronan, you’re lying to me.” I sounded good and strong. Righteous. But my head was swimming.
“Sit down before you fall down.”
Gladly. I collapsed carefully into one of the comfortable chairs in front of the fireplace. Where there was no fire.
“Do you know how to make a fire?” I asked, cold all the way through. “I’d do it, but I don’t know how.”
Of course he knew how to build a fire.
Silent, he set small kindling and a lit match. He added larger pieces of wood, crouched, and blew on the embers, and it was so sexy and intimate I had to look away. The wood popped and Ronan got back on his feet.
“Where’s your sling?” He asked.
“I took it off.”
“The bandages?”
“I left one on. I’m a terrible prisoner and patient. What can I say?”
“How is your arm?”
“It hurts.”
He looked at me like That is what you get, and I couldn’t argue.
In front of me was a tufted ottoman and he sat on it, grabbing the big heavy chair I sat in by the arms and pulling it close until my knees hit the insides of his thighs. I tried to pull back, but there was nowhere to go.
“What did you really tell him?”
“That we were married and on our honeymoon,” I repeated.
“You’re not as good at lying as you think, Poppy. Did you use a phone? Call your sister?”
I bit my lip, wondering what was smart. Trusting him seemed stupid. He looked up and blew out a long slow breath. God, he looked tired. “I can’t keep you safe if you don’t tell me what happened.”
“I’m trying to keep my sister safe,” I whispered.
He reached forward and touched my cheek. I was crying. “I know,” he said. “Me too. And if she knows where we are, she’s not safe.”
I sucked in a breath. The thought hadn’t occurred to me. “I gave the priest her phone number and asked him to call her the next time he was in town. Tell her where we are.”
“Damnit, Poppy,” he said, dropping his head so it very nearly rested on my chest. How amazing would it be if he were to lean against me? Just take a second to catch his breath and get his bearings?
But Ronan didn’t lean against anyone. Not for any reason. And the few inches between us might as well have been miles.
“I’ll just go back up there and tell Father Patrick to forget it. I’ll erase her number,” I offered.
“You’re not going anywhere near that place. I’ll handle it.”
He shoved the chair back and I winced as my shoulder hit the top of the armrest. Not that he noticed.
