She sipped her whisky. “Aye, finally. Yourself?”
“Tolerable.”
“I imagine the owners of this cottage will return sooner rather than later,” she said. “They haven’t prepared the house for a long absence.”
“Agreed.”
The fire popped.
Tristan said nothing more.
Isolde stifled a sigh.
It appeared he had reverted to single-word answers. Whatever had occurred on the ocean had not loosened his tongue.
Isolde sipped her whisky, enjoying how the liquid suffused her veins with a languid heat.
They had both sailed a wee bit too close to death today. And as the tension of their near miss ebbed, her eyes drooped in sleep, her body bobbing away on a dark current.
She came to with a start at the weight of something settling on her lap.
Tristan’s hands . . . quietly draping a tartan blanket over her legs.
“Thank ye,” she whispered, astonishment in her voice, head lifting to meet his gaze.
He merely studied her with those earnest eyes, so open and un-Kendall-like.
“Would you like more whisky?” He motioned to her cup, now sitting on a side table.
Isolde blinked up at him.
“What happened?” The question tumbled from her lips.
“Pardon?”
She pulled the blanket closer. “Why are ye being so kind tae myself?”
“Do you not like my demeanor?”
“Nae. I ken that . . . or rather, it is . . .”Lovely. Unexpected. Unnerving.“. . . different,” she finished lamely.
“Different?” His brows drew down.
“Nice. Genial,” she quickly amended. “Attentive.”
Silence.
They stared at one another for a long moment.
He has the loveliest eyes, she thought. Chocolate brown with flecks of caramel gold that glimmered in the firelight.
“Nice. Genial,” he repeated slowly. “Two descriptors you do not typically associate with myself.”
A statement. Not a question.
She floundered, unsure how to reply without offending him.
He held out a staying hand. “You needn’t answer.”
