Unlike other ladies, Chris’s hands were not paragons of milky-white ease—soft and unblemished.
No. Hers were the hands of a woman at work—chafed knuckles, dirt beneath nails, the raised white scar on her thumb from a cut, courtesy of her absurdly sharp trowel.
Slipping her fingers through his, he could feel the calluses on her palm, the strength in her grip.
And like him, she gasped at the unexpected touch, her eyes flying to their joined hands.
Electricity hummed at the connection, licking heat up Alistair’s arm.
He ached to kiss her. To lift her chin with a finger and draw her lips to his. To crawl into the bed beside her and urge her head to nap on his chest.
He merely studied her instead.
“Please, Chris,” he whispered. “Can we try again? It’s beennine years. Could ye possibly forgive the hurt of my betrayal and learn to trust me once more?”
She stared at their hands, threaded together.
And then she shifted, her palm moving to rest atop his hand, her thumb tracing the blue vein from his middle knuckle to his wrist bone.
Alistair rather forgot to breathe.
Finally, she lifted her gaze. Something haunted and pained lingered there. Perhaps merely a reflection of his own beating heart.
“I am not sure forgiveness will be possible, Alis. I cannot say...given all that—”
“Please, lass. I ken that I am nine years too late with my groveling, but can we not give it another go?”
“Alis—” she began, tone so weary.
“Please.”
Her bottom lip trembled and she bit it, her top teeth sinking deep to stem her tears. Reaching for the napkin atop the breakfast tray, she dabbed at her eyes.
“It w-won’t end well,” she gasped.
“Perhaps not. But I think we owe it to the memory of our past selves, to those happy months in Fiesole, to at least try.”
Chris didn’t agree with him in words.
But she did nod before picking up herbapagain and reaching for the jam pot.
It wasn’t a resounding declaration, but Alistair’s heart took flight.
He would give her space. A chance to breathe freely again.
And in the meanwhile, he would do everything in his power to rebuild the trust he had once shattered.
“I COME BEARING gifts,” Alis announced the next day, shouldering his way into Chrissi’s bedchamber, a large wooden box in his arms.
Chrissi looked up from her position on the bed, ankle propped once more on an obliging cushion.
“Gifts?” she asked, alarm chasing her spine.
Normally, she adored presents.
But given the current state of matters between herself and Alis, gifts made her leery. She could not bear growing more indebted to him, losing more of herself in his happy smile.
“I ken ye might be a wee bitcrabbit, being forced to rest as ye are,” he grinned. “So I brought ye some cheer.”
