She should return it to the library. It was the best choice.
But then she had two more nights. Soon enough, this would cease to be a dilemma. She would have made her choice, and something in the pit of her stomach told her that she already knew what that choice was.
Dropping the book on the bedsheets, she drew a long breath and stepped out again. Solitude was not helping matters in the slightest.
Freedom, she told herself. That was all she wanted. Yet, as she walked down the hall, the word felt smaller than before and far less certain.
Later that evening, steam curled up from the bath as Emma splashed water on her face. She had tried to slow her thoughts all day, but the words at breakfast still niggled at her.
Doubt.
Her mother’s caution.
Her own sharp reply.
She breathed out and cupped more water to her cheeks, feeling the heat help even if just a little. Then, she lifted her head and looked in the small mirror. Her cheeks were flushed, and dampstrands of hair clung to her temples. She barely knew the girl who was staring back at her.
She stepped out, reached for a towel, and stilled. A shadow moved in the glass, sending waves of terror down her spine. Without thinking too fast or too hard, she whipped around, ready to attack with whatever she could find.
Jack stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest. His expression was calm, but the sheer anger beneath it was obvious.
“Jack?” she called almost involuntarily, watching him step further into the room.
The look on his face didn’t exactly inspire confidence. He looked very angry at her, and she spent the next few seconds wondering what he could be angry about. Was it the book? Was it the way she had told him to forget what had happened between them the previous night?
Was it something else?
“Lovely speech during lunch,” he said, interrupting her thoughts, almost like he intended to help her find the cause. “I didnae ken that was how ye felt about me.”
“How I felt?—”
“Daenae play coy with me, Emma. I heard ye talking to yer maither and yer sister this afternoon. I heard everything.”
Her heart lurched. “Ye were eavesdropping?”
“I fought in the wilderness for a year, Emma. I learned to listen even to the softest of noises. Plus, it is hard nae to listen when me name is tossed around a table,” he said, his voice clear. “I thought we had begun to trust each other, lassie.”
Emma felt a knot loosen in her stomach. “Trust?”
“I thought after last night we?—”
“Last night was a mistake.”
“So ye keep saying.”
She wrapped the towel tighter around herself, trying to look fierce despite the cold biting into her skin. “How can I trust ye when all ye do is show me how good life could be with ye and tell me nothing about yer past?”
“I told ye?—”
“Nay!” she snapped, raising an index finger.
A brief silence settled between them before he broke it, his voice sharpening. “What is it ye want to hear?”
“What happened to yer first wife, for example,” she began, her voice rising again. “Were ye good to her at first, like ye’re being to me, before ye?—”
“Before Ikilledher?” he cut in. “We are back to that?”
“Of course, we are. Ye think I wouldnae ask?”
