She didn’tcare.
“The dog is a ghost,” she said, holding his gaze. “A mere trace against the air, but I see him. He runs after the stick when I throw it. The attention might be all the happiness heknows.”
“I see.” Something flickered in his eyes … understanding?Sympathy?
Ophelia wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t smiling so she figured he thought she wascrazed.
“You do not believe me.” She looked past him to where the stick could still be seen on the sand. The little dog was gone, perhaps frightened away by his arrival. “You didn’t at St. Nicholas, about the Samhain lovers, and you don’t again. You think I amaddled.”
He smiled again. “No’ at all, sweetness. If you possess so muchwhimsy-”
“Ghosts are real.” She drew her cloak tighter against the wind. “They are notwhimsies.”
“You misunderstood,” he said, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips, kissing her fingertips. “I am hopeful that, with your kind heart, you will accept my apologies forWiggle.”
“Stop now!” Ophelia snatched her hand from his grasp. “There is no excuse for that. I know why it happened and it proved that, charming as you are, and handsome, you remain a rogue who cannot contain his baserurges.”
He laughed. “Wiggle is my pet squirrel. I carry him in my sporran. It was his scrambling that you felt – no’ what youthink.”
“Your pet squirrel?” Ophelia blinked. “Squirrels are wild. People do not keep them aspets.”
“True enough,” he agreed. “But I have one all the same. I found Wiggle when he was smaller than my hand. He’d fallen from his nest and wasorphaned.”
“I do not believeyou.”
“Ask Kirsty Muir.” He glanced back toward her cottage. “She will tellyou.”
“I will.” She would do no such thing. She knew a tall tale when she heard one. “If you hadn’t said you keep him in your sporran, I might consider such a story. But who would do that? Walk about with a squirrel in asporran.”
She glanced to where his sporran would have been – had he been wearing one. “You are squirrel-and-sporranlessnow.”
“So I am,” he said, his smile fading. “He stayed at my home today. Local children are visiting him there. He is quite popular with the weeones.”
His words clutched at her heart, sending a hurtful cold through her. “I amsure.”
“You do no’ like children, MissRaines?”
“I love them.” She told the truth, vaguely aware she was trembling. “I just do not like to speak of them, you see. I lost one when he was born tooearly.”
She held his gaze, not really seeing him for the sting of sudden tears. She’d never spoken of her sorrow to anyone. Only her aunt and uncle knew. But the words had flown out of her, ripped from their deep, dark ‘safe place’ hidden in hersoul.
“I am sorry.” He stepped toward her again, reaching a hand to her. “I had no idea you’d beenmarried.”
“I wasn’t.” That truth she said as well. “I wasbetrayed.”
In that moment, she spotted the Kettle House carriage rattling down the road, coming for her. Relief swept her and she hitched her skirts, ready to run from the beach, the danger that was GreysonMerrick.
“It won’t happen again. I am no longer a fool.” She nodded once, then hurried away before he couldspeak.
She needn’t have exertedherself.
He didn’tfollow.
