“Ye initially adopted your brother’s name in order to be safe among men.” His words lashed her from behind. “But over time, it became a new identity for ye. Ye becameJamie—a brilliant fierce light who cast off past grief to embrace a new and uncertain future. That same lass is still within ye. Ye can find her.”
“Yes, but I don’twantto find her. My current self is appalled by the decisions that girl made.” Eilidh pivoted to face him, the carpentry tools between them. “Moreover, you’re assuming that there is anything of that girl left within me.”
Blindly, she picked up the plane and a bit of wood off the table, as if determined to show him that, like embroidery, she would fumble at this, too.
Instead, almost unbidden, her hand set to smoothing the rough piece of wood with the plane. As if she had done this very thing a thousand times.
The movement felt natural.
Worse, it felt . . . compelling.
Her mind instantly began assessing the wood on the table, seeing the scattered bits as a puzzle, how this piece could be formed to slot into that, which would create a—
No!
She dropped both items, her hands shaking as if scalded.
She scrubbed her palms against the worn fabric of her dress. The threads caught on her palms. She lifted her hands, studying them. She hated the callouses there. Evidence that she had known hard labor.
Hers were not the hands of a lady.
The shape of the plane had fit right against the callouses, reddening the skin.
No.
She didn’t want this knowledge, this tangible proof of everything she had forgotten.
Bands of anxiety squeezed her chest.
Where was her numbing calm? Where was the white void?
She reached for it in her mind, but it was no use.
She bit her lip and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.
Memories pounded at the door, forcing their way in.
A dark-haired man, his hair in a long queue down his back.Mr. Chen, her mind labeled him.
The scenes skipped and stuttered.
Mr. Chen laughing, holding her hand to show her how to smooth a piece of wood.
Mr. Chen placing a kind palm on her shoulder, pointing to something on the ship deck.
Mr. Chen, his head bent, guiding her hand to pack a firework tube—
She recoiled from the last image.
It was simply too much.
She was no longer the woman aboard that ship. That creature overflowing with pluck and verve as Master MacTavish described.
She was afraid and anxious and weary.
So very weary.
Her thoughts winged to Simon.
