The breath stuttered in her chest. She couldn’t look away. In that gaze she thought she saw something more than steel, something that unsettled her even more than his anger ever had. It couldn’t be compassion—not from him, not from this hard, guarded man. But the longer his eyes held hers, the harder it was to name what she saw, only that it quieted the storm inside her better than any words could have.
Of course, the very idea of it, compassion from him, brought even more tears, but the fight bled out of her under the force of that gaze and the beautiful heat of his calloused hand wrapped around her trembling fingers. Softly, he tugged, encouraging her to sit down again. Drained, unable to resist, Claire flopped gracelessly beside him.
He shifted, lifting his arm in a quiet offer. She stared at him, bewildered and then stunned as she understood, and let herself lean sideways until her head rested against his shoulder. He saidnothing, only dropped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close.
Claire closed her eyes, pressing her face into the crook of his arm, and wept—exhausted, humiliated, yet too desperate for comfort to question the kindness of it, even from him.
“I hate it here,” she admitted in a small, broken voice.
“Aye, nae doubt,” he said mildly, his rough palm moving up and down her arm in steady strokes.
“Why was this done to me?” she whispered, not caring how pitiful she sounded. “I wasn’t happy in my life at the moment, but I was looking forward tobeinghappy,” she rambled. “I was going to get divorced, make my own life away from Jason, finally be my own person. I found a nice little house I was going to rent, close to my parents. I thought about going back to school for my nurse practitioner’s license.” Her voice broke, muffled against his shoulder. “I just don’t understand. Any of it.” She added, after a moment, more pathetically, “I want my mother.”
An entire minute of silence followed, Claire slowly calming down.
And then Ciaran tilted his head down a bit; she felt his chin scrape against her hair.
“Are ye nae yer own person here, Claire?”
The question caught her off guard. She lifted her head just enough to look at him, blinking through watery eyes. His green eyes, dark within the gloom of the chapel, held hers steadily.
Her own person. The words struck her hard. She had wanted that so badly back home, had told herself over and over that once she left Jason she would finally be free, finally belong to herself. And yet, she hadn’t even noticed—right here, right under her nose—that she already was.
Claire was staggered by the realization, but then not quite willing to concede his point—she wasn’t quite ready to abandonthis long-overdue breakdown—she ducked her face again and murmured petulantly, “I still want my mother.”
His hand moved again on her arm, rubbing swiftly again, and Claire interpreted that as anothernae doubt.
Chapter Seventeen
Reckonings
––––––––
Claire lay on her back in the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling beams above, thinking that time-travel involved way too many twists and turns, and now, apparently, great humiliations.
Of all the people to find her bawling in a chapel, of course it had been Ciaran Kerr.
If she’d been asked in advance what she might have expected from him in that moment, honest to God, neither sympathy nor kindness would have sprung to mind. She might have guessed he’d have barked at her to get a grip, or maybe that he’d have turned himself right around, pretending he hadn’t witnessed the spectacle.
But no, he’d boldly sat right down next to her—for a split second she was sure he’d done so to heighten her anguish—and had taken her hand and calmed her, not so different from when she’d held his hand during his fever and delirium.
The memory still left her throat tight. Cold, impossible Ciaran Kerr, so quick to temper, had been kind to her. Gentle even. She would never have guessed he had it in him.
She should have been mortified all over again, but instead she felt wrung out in a strange, almost good way. A little like she’d needed that storm to blow through. Still, the images wouldn’t leave her: the green of his eyes locking on hers, the solid warmth of his shoulder under her cheek. She’d needed it badly enough that she hadn’t questioned it in the moment. And no lie, part of her wished she could go back and stay there longer.
Sleep eluded her for hours, and her thoughts wandered, covering a lot of territory.
Are ye nae yer own person here, Claire?
Yes, she certainly was, but more by necessity than by anything else.
And now, what? With the fever broken, Caeravorn had returned to its usual rhythm, and only four men remained in the sick house. She didn’t so much believe she’d been needed, that Caeravorn and its wounded and fevered people wouldn’t have survived without her, but it had given her purpose, or basically, a reason for being here.
She hadn’t gone to Braalach with Ivy because she’d had some wild, half-formed idea that she was meant to be here—right here at Caeravorn, not only in this century.
Here with Ciaran.
But she was beginning to believe that wasn’t true. She might never know what—if any—purpose was attached to her being moved through time—certainly Ivy hadn’t seemed to want or need one. Despite that insistent notion of déjà vu regarding Ciaran, one of the things that had kept her here when Alaric and Ivy had left, Claire wasn’t sure there was anything to it after all.
