”My husband wasn’t the one you were swooning over or I was acquainting myself with. It was a big, gruff Scot like a great, wounded bear.”
Jess noted that even as her sister complained, her throat was hoarse with tears and her words held grudging affection. “So you’re still hopeful?”
Cece tipped her head back. “I shouldn’t be. Loving Malcolm Lockhart is exasperating.”
“So you really love him,” Vin mused.
“He made it impossible not to,” Cece grumbled. “He’s caring and protective beneath all his brooding, and he truly meant the words he wrote.”
“So this gulf isn’t entirely irreconcilable?” Asked Jess.
“No. I fully expect him to chase after me, even though I explicitly instructed him not to.”
“He’ll have a whole host of your family to contend with,” warned Vin. “Especially Thad and Mac. They won’t let him off easily.”
Cece dropped her head in her hands. “They’ll probably thrash him to within an inch of his life.”
“Wasn’t he a soldier? He can probably hold his own.”
“Yes, Vin, he was a soldier. But he also probably thinks he deserves a thrashing. Because he blames himself for everything- no matter how ridiculous it is. I’m angry at the way he deceived me, because I wasted so many years questioning what I was to Henry. Those letters were what made me doubt how well I truly knew my first husband, and the emotion poured into the pages was Mal’s, not his. That’s the deception I couldn’t countenance on my own. All that time wasted.”
“If you say he can hold his own, we’ll believe you. Perhaps he can appease them with whisky. They’re partial to it.”
“That’s something he wouldn’t know he needed to bring. They’ll have to share theirs.”
“Are you worried for him?” Jess asked.
Cece smiled, and her whole face was full of brilliant light that Jess was envious of and wanted for herself. “I think he’ll be able to hold his own, despite the fierce need of Thad and Mac to guard me against further hurt. He’s used to fighting for what he wants, even if he thinks he doesn’t deserve it, and I know he wants our marriage and what we’ve begun to build.”
Jess and Vin both stretched their hands across the table and Cece grasped them.
“We’re happy for you, Little Sister,” Vin said and Jess nodded in agreement even as she blinked away her sudden tears.
Jess was happy for her little sister, who’d borne so much and been trapped in her own sorrow and widow’s weeds for so long Jess had feared she’d be cloaked in them forever. The way Cece had embraced the change in her life, her courage and herresilience, stalled the breath in Jess’s lungs and made her chest hurt.
“Yes, we’re happy for you,” Jess echoed Vin’s sentiment.
Cece drew her hands away and swiped her cheeks free of tears. “I don’t know why I’m crying,” she laughed softly.
“I know why,” Jess said. “You finally feel as if your life is beginning again. As if the deepest wish you held inside you is finally real.”
Cece sighed as she sat straighter in the chair. “That’s precisely how I feel,” she acknowledged.
“Our lives are changing,” Vin commented as she sat straighter too. “The nest we’ve built here is growing, and although it’s frightening to see my sisters throwing themselves from it like fledglings, it’s beautiful too.”
“Yes, beautiful,” Jess agreed. And she couldn’t help remembering the way Cadoc had held her after their interlude last night, and the way she’d felt in his arms. Safe, and blossoming at the same time.
“I know you snuck out last night, sister,” Vin said as she turned an eagle-eyed gaze to Jess, as if she was trying to peer into her very soul. “And I think something happened between you and that roguish inventor during the game of hide and seek, yesterday.”
Jess reclined and rubbed her hands over her face. “Something did happen, and it’s why I snuck away last night. Because it wasn’t enough and he promised me another lens. I went to retrieve it.”
Cece scanned her face. “What happened when you went to claim it?”
“I came face to face with how foolish and oblivious I’ve been. With the fact that this wager has rearranged and cauterized everything I thought I knew about myself and what I wanted.”
“Which is?” Vin prompted.
“That the reason I’m so fascinated by dragonflies isn’t just about their singular beauty,” Jes paused to gather her thoughts and tapped a finger against her chin. “It’s also about the way their lives are so brief and their entire existence is about making every moment count.”
