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“It does me, too. It’s no easy.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Not that I was jumping for joy at his own unhappiness. Just that I wasn’t alone with it made my unease… easier.
“It’s difficult for me,” he continued, “and that’s no anything you’ve done. I’m still processing what he did. What he was. How ashamed of him I am.”
I heard the dreadful devastation in his tone of voice. He’d not said a thing up to now about how he’d struggled with it. I held my breath waiting for more.
“Harold tries to get me to talk about it. I find myself always changing the subject.”
“We’re both guilty of that.” I sucked in breath, shuddering in spite of the heat.
“I swear he never displayed those… qualities around me.” I rolled back onto my side and observed as he lay there staring up at the ceiling, his fingers fidgeting on his chest. “Maybe I remember some stuff through rose-tinted spectacles, but I never—”
“You were a kid,” I started to say, because I heard the pain in his voice, couldn’t bear it—wanted to smother it, even.
“I was a young fella when he died who still had a child’s perception of his uncle as a hero. With the benefit of all my life experience now, I’ve had to reset how I perceive him, knowing what I know now.”
“Again, you were a kid, it’s okay—” I couldn’t bear to hear him speak this way, would do anything to hear him not sound so broken.
“I dinna wish for ma son to grow up thinking he has to be me, Flora. I wouldna want that for him at all.” Caelan took a deep breath and I held in my tears. “I want him to know it’s okay to be emotional, because I was ne’er allowed to be and a lot… festered.” He swallowed hard and I reached out, stroking his chest. He smiled at that and it warmed me.
“I can understand how it could do that,” I said softly.
“Logan doesna have to live up to me,” said Caelan forthrightly. “What I am should ne’er be repeated. The things that shaped me would ordinarily kill most other people.”
I stroked his hair behind his ear. “I know.”
My heart pounded with a need to comfort him, be there for him. I’d longed for him to be this open with me. Pleaded with God to make it happen. I held my breath.
“Carrying things, this is what I do, Flora. What I’ll always do.” He glanced at me and I saw the full force of his devastation, the look in his eyes nearly reducing me to a wreck. I quickly swiped away a tear after he returned to staring at the ceiling. “For you and the bairn.”
“I know,” I whispered, swiping at another tear.
“When ma mother wanted you deid, I didna rush to agree with her. My training taught me to research… find out for maself. And I didna believe for one second you were a stone-cold killer, not as I watched ye, found out about yer life. And you’re no murderer, sweet Flora. You’re still the woman I married.” I reached for his hand and squeezed it, taking in deep breaths. “I did want to punish Blake. I believed he was the real culprit. For a time, I might’a let him believe I was trailing ye to have ma wicked way.”
“Hmm, that bit sounds true,” I chuckled, and Caelan smiled, too.
“I ne’er, not even for a second, ever considered hurting you, Flora. On my life. On Logan’s. I swear it.” I believed him as he spoke passionately. “But did I want to find out the truth? Aye, more than anything. I wanted to understand if it was my mother wanting you deid for vengeance, or for money—”
“Did you ever find out? Why she did the things she did…?”
He yawned loudly. “Can we talk about this some more later, Flora?”
“Yes, sure.”
“Give me your hand.”
I reached over and he took my hand, placing it over his heart. “This beats for you and you alone, woman. When I’ve told you everything, you’ll know that for a certainty. Okay?”
Rubbing my hand over his heart, I thought I did know that already.
That had never been the issue.
It was the difficulty of this shared history.
And the fact I loved Eric now, too.
I looked up at his face and saw he lay peacefully asleep. Yet for a few hours more, I lay staring at my husband, the man who’d made me a mother.
