He didn’t wish to make her worries worse, but neither would he lie to her. “I dinna ken how many there will be, lass. But it will be more than just Mother and myself. Of that, I am sure.”
“Can we get outside without running into a lot of people?”
“Aye.” He offered his arm for her to take. “The tower steps are beyond that archway. But I warn ye, they are steep and winding. I can carry ye, if ye wish.” The memory of her warm softness in his arms, when the locket had freed her, made him hunger to hold her again.
“No, thank you. I’m pretty sure I can make it.” She took his arm, softening the sting of her refusal.
Ronan walked slowly, doubting her belief in her recovery but not wishing to upset her again. “Ye asked if there would be many people at supper. Are ye one who prefers to be alone?”
“I wasn’t that way in Kentucky, but I think I’m that way now. Here in this century. Especially the way I’m dressed.” She shifted with a deep intake of air, seemed to hold it for a few steps, then let it easeback out. “I don’t belong here,” she said in a voice so soft he almost missed it. “I’m afraid of what people might do.” She halted and gave him a panicked look. “If they think I’m a witch or something, they’ll try to burn me at the stake.”
He took hold of her shoulders and leaned down to level his gaze with hers. “Ye are safe here at Castle MacKay, lass. I swear it.”
“So, I’m trapped here inside this castle forever?”
The desolation and hopelessness in her voice squeezed his heart. He had to help her, make her believe that no harm would come to her—at least, not on his watch. “Do ye know how the sailor ate an entire whale all by himself?”
Her sleek, dark brows knotted over her leery eyes. She stared at him as if he’d gone barmy. “What?”
“The sailor that ate the largest whale in creation—all by himself. Do ye ken how he did it?”
“No,” she said, with an impatient roll of her eyes. “How did he eat the whale all by himself?”
“One bite at a time.” He waited for her to sink her teeth into the old tale and understand its meaning.
“I don’t get it, and I really don’t think this is the best time for telling jokes.” She scowled at him and flipped her hands in the air. “I’m kind of in the middle of a genuine crisis right now, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
He couldn’t resist reaching out and touching her cheek. “I have noticed, lass. That is why I asked ye about the sailor eating the whale. For ye see, if ye try to live yer life all at once, worrying about how ye will face everything from now until the time ye die, ye will drive yourself mad about things that might not even happen. But if ye refuse to let yer mind run away with ye, and live yer life one day at a time, one moment at a time, ye will find those smallbitesmuch easier to chew and swallow.”
Her knotted brows untangled, and she fixed him with a sheepish glare. “Oh.”
He offered his arm again while struggling notto appear smug. “For now, we are walking down the hallway to the tower where we shall climb the steps and look out across the sea.”
“And breathe.”
He nodded. “Aye, and breathe in the air’s freshness and listen to the terns keening out their woes.” He took her hand and ushered her through the stairwell’s archway first. The spiral staircase was far too narrow for them to walk abreast. “We shall enjoy that moment and not move on to the next until ye are ready.”
“In that case,” she said as she climbed in front of him, making her way up the winding stone steps, “I might be the first skeleton up in your tower.”
Momentarily distracted by the way her lovely, round arse swayed in front of him, Ronan blinked and silently scolded himself for not paying attention. “Nay, lass. Ye will be fine after a bit. Just ye wait and see.” She was finer than fine right now, but he couldn’t very well tell her that—not when her trust in him was still so tenuous.
She paused and bowed her head, leaning forward with her hands pressed to the walls as though to wedge herself in place. Even in the tower’s torchlight, Ronan could tell her knuckles had gone white from her tight hold on the stone blocks surrounding them.
He surged forward and scooped her up just as she went limp. “Lore a’mighty—ye stubborn lass.” He tucked her to his chest as if she were no more than a wee bairn and finished the climb to the circular room at the top of the tower. Rather than lower her to one of the benches along the walls, he sat and held her, cradling her head to his shoulder. “Dinna fash yourself, lass. I have ye,” he whispered into her hair as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. As soon as he had done it, he went still, wondering what had possessed him to do such a thing. But it had seemed so natural—as if he had done that for her a thousand times before.
She barely stirred, curling into herself and nuzzling closer as if needing his warmth to soothe her.
The worrisome ache in his chest, the one he had endured for weeks on end until the locket had appeared; surged hearty and strong once again, but this time, the ache had everything to do with thewoman in his arms, and he knew it. He swallowed hard, denying what it might mean. It could not be possible. He was not the firstborn MacKay son. The curse of finding and securing a predestined heartmate belonged to Faolan—not him.
Nay, Harley Trent was his responsibility because he knew best how to battle the games the Sea Goddess Clíodhna put forth for her own amusement. But he couldn’t resist bowing his head and breathing in Harley’s sweetness. She smelled of flowers. Not the blooms of Scotland, but the fragrant petals of the plumeria from the warm, exotic isles of the West Indies. And she smelled vulnerable—and in need of a guardian.
She shifted again and this time; she pushed against his chest, lifted her head, and stared at him. “Uhm…sorry.”
Mesmerized by the way her sooty lashes brought out the golden tawniness of her eyes, Ronan tightened his arms around her. “Ye have the eyes of a jungle cat I once came upon during my travels.”
She blinked. “Is that good or bad?”
He couldn’t resist a smile. “In yer case, lass, it is lovely as can be.”
