“You don’t know,” he said quietly in a sense of self-discovery.
Lucy shook her head. “Know what?”
His shoulders sagged. Not with relief, but as if the weight of the world he carried upon his back finally crumpled his broad shoulders.
He scrubbed a scarred hand over his suddenly very tired face.
Lucy’s heart twisted.Tell me.She ached to remove his cross. Share your burden with…
Arran dropped his palm to reveal a stunned reaction.
“Ah said that aloud.” Her voice barely crested a whisper.
The muscle in his throat worked. “Aye,” he said gruffly.
His gaze dipped and she followed his stare.
At some point, Lucy crept her fingers into his, their hands joined so naturally, entwined like Twin Trees of Finzean. Together they conferred the same sheltering warmth as those mighty Scots pines.
“I nearly killed my younger cousin, Linnie,” he said thickly.
So quiet. So faint. Like a secret carried on the softest rustle in a forsaken forest. Lucy strained to place the shame-filled words.
Ones that did not fit with a man as clearly devoted, protective, and caring of his kin as Arran McQuoid.
She cursed her lapse of silence, one he took as a rejection, for he drew his palm back, shattering the fulfilling connection.
Arran flashed an empty smile. “Fortunately, Linnie survived.” He lifted his tankard and touched it to Lucy’s forgotten one in a single-sided cheer, then downed his cider. He grimaced. “But Campbell’s sister now carries the demons and nightmares of any war-scarred soldier.” Arran, speaking that last part as a hushed afterthought, refilled his just-emptied mug.
Lucy stared blankly at him. Campbell? Who…? “I don’t—?”
A ravaged Arran cut her off. “Know the details?”
“I don’t know anything about it, Arran,” she said quietly, adding yet another lie to the growing web of lies she’d spun around this family.
He barked out a cold, empty laugh. “Campbell is a good man.”
Unlike me.
Where she blurted out her every word, Arran didn’t need to say a single thing; the truth rang clear as a bell peeling over fresh-fallen snow.
Lucy’s heart twisted all the tighter.
The truth was: Campbell Smith was a good man. Arran McQuoid was the best of them.
As for Lucy? Lucy was going straight to hell.
While he searched her face, Lucy remained still, terrified he’d uncover lie upon lie she’d heaped upon this family at every exchange. Nor was it hanging she feared, but rather shattering this fragile but beautiful connection she’d forged with Arran McQuoid.
Whatever he saw, or whatever he didn’t see, pulled a rusty sigh from his chest. He stretched his long, athletic legs out. His mug cradled between his fingers, Arran kept a pensive gaze on the fire. “I’ve been an ogre to you, Lucy,” he murmured.
Her heart cinched.
Around them, the warm, spicy aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg took shape in the air. Even the familiar sweet smells of Yuletide, which ushered in a sense of calm and warmth, failed Lucy.
Lucy took a deep, deep swallow of cider. “Ye have not, Arran.” Guilt shredded her conscience. What had she done? Letting herself get close to this mon? She’d not intended to. It’d happened, as quick as a freshly drawn breath.
“I have,” he said in quiet command, flaying her with his grace. “And you are deserving of my most profound apologies.”
