“We’ve been through this before. I amno’hiding.”
“You’ve been hurt by everyone who ever loved you. Your mother died while giving birth to you. Your father couldn’t live without her, so he killed himself. Your grandfathers turned you away. Your husband and child died.”
She stood quickly, her heart hammering so hard that it was making her sick. “Enough!”
“No.”
“I want ye to leave now.”
“No.”
“What do ye mean, no?”
“You’re not forcing me out again, and you’re not hiding anymore.”
“Ye keep saying that. Just because I like it here does no’ mean I’m hiding. I have a steady stream of people needing my healing and shelter. Some weeks not a day goes by that I’m alone. So ye don’t know what ye speak of, Iain Campbell, and I’ll thank ye to keep yer gob shut.” She drew in a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She so badly wanted to run away, but she knew that was the panic beating at her insides.
“I will admit that you do a lot of good out here with your healing and your…nocturnal activities. You’re strategically placed for many clans. I’ve never had a problem sharing my healer with anyone.”
“Yourhealer?” Her mouth opened and closed like a damn fish. “Ye don’t own me. Ye don’tshareme.”
“You’re a Campbell, are you not?”
“Nay. Aye.” Oh, he was infuriating. “But ye don’t own me.”
“Are you or are you not a Campbell?”
“I am. But that doesn’t mean anything.”
He leaned forward. “It means everything.Everything. You are a Campbell. You belong with the Campbells, andeveryone accepts you as a Campbell.”
“I see what ye’re doing, and it’s no’ going to work.” He was telling her that she was accepted and there were people who would love her just because she was a member of the clan.
“What am I doing?”
“Ye don’t understand that some people just want to live their life alone. Ye stick yer nose in everything. Ye even stick yer nose in ScotlandandEngland’s affairs. Like ye’re some…some…greatkingwho has the answers for everyone. Well, ye’re not a great king. Ye’re just a busybody.”
She crossed her arms to punctuate her point, but his words had cut deep and she wondered if he was right. Did she hide out here? Of course not. She sometimes ventured closer to the big house. She spoke to the people she purchased meat and cheese from. She enjoyed talking to the merchants she dealt with, and she conversed at length with her patients. And what about Sutherland? She talked to Sutherland all the time.
Then she remembered Ina on the night of the fire and how difficult and awkward it had been to hold a conversation with the woman who once was her best friend. Was she such a recluse that she’d forgotten how to converse?
Certainly not.
She simply had nothing in common with Ina, who still had a husband and several children, while Cait had—
“I had an affair with Cormac,” she spat out.
Chapter 21
Horrified, Cait covered her mouth and stared at Iain with wide, shocked eyes. He tried to tamp down the burst of jealousy that whipped through him, but it was damned difficult to think of Cait with another man.
Iain had known Cormac well. He’d been a gentle giant, and if Iain had wanted Cait to sleep with anyone, Cormac would have been his choice. And then the implications of her announcement hit him. Hell, even Cormac had left her through death.
She lowered her hand and straightened her shoulders, her expression adorably defiant, as if she were a little girl found with a pocketful of scones. “This is a ridiculous conversation. I don’t have to prove anything to ye. If ye don’t want me living on yer land, I’ll live on Sutherland land. He’ll have me.”
Tears were shimmering in her deep green eyes, and he despised himself for forcing her to face the truth, but he knew better than anyone that she couldn’t move forward if she didn’t face her past.
And by moving forward, he meant accepting him as her lover and maybe more.
