“Och,” he said in that righteously indignant way of his.
Cilla pedaled around the final bend, and the Atlantic came in view, gray and forbidding and deadly. Her breath shook in her lungs. “Gerda—she so desperately wanted—but she wasn’t a strong enough swimmer, and—”
“That’s enough, lass.” His voice gentled, roughened.
She blinked and swiped at her eyes. “Hilde couldn’t—her guilt overwhelmed her. She went wild. All the anger she felt at herself—she directed it at everyone who loved her.”
“Including you?”
“Yes.”
Lachlan’s bicycle tires squeaked to a stop, about a hundred yards from the gate in the stone wall. “You—you said we had a lot in common.”
Cilla circled back to him and hopped off her bicycle. “You have a wayward brother, and I have a wayward sister.”
“But you’ve forgiven.”
The wind swung her hair across her cheek, and she held it back. “I didn’t say it was easy, but I remember why she’s hurting,the guilt she’s carrying—carrying with good reason. That helps me forgive her—not excuse her behavior, but forgive her.”
“Not excuse ...” Lachlan spoke softly, slowly, staring between his handlebars. “Not excuse, but forgive.”
Her chest ached, feeling his struggle, the tearing between love and repulsion and hurt. “Why is Neil so defiant? Did something happen to him too?”
Lachlan’s gaze drifted up to her, and his chin drew back. “Happen to him?”
“Was he always rebellious? Or did something happen to change him?”
“I ... dinnae know. He was never rebellious ...” Shock flashed in his dark eyes. “I never ... never even thought about it.”
Something warm curled around her heart at the sight of a man of resolute justice taking a step closer to forgiveness.
22
Dunnet Head
Saturday, December 6, 1941
Lachlan’s legs wobbled as he ascended the fifty-one steps to the top of the lighthouse. He’d fought a stiff southwesterly wind as he’d bicycled from Creag na Mara. Thank goodness he’d studied the weather report and sailed from Scapa on Friday afternoon instead of Saturday morning. A gale was brewing, and he prayed he could return to service Monday morning.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have come. But in the winter, gales would cancel many trips.
At the top of the stairs, Cilla greeted him by taking his arm, grinning and singing in Dutch.
Commander Yardley sat at the table and smiled over his shoulder at Lachlan. “Apparently today is St. Nicholas’s Day, and Cilla is celebrating.”
She hauled Lachlan to the table. “You two have been good boys, and Sinterklaas put something in your little shoes yesterday evening.”
“Shoes?” At Lachlan’s place at the table rested an ink drawing of a wooden clog, decorated with his name and a flock of seabirds. A shortbread biscuit filled the circular opening of the shoe.
“Cheers.” Yardley raised his biscuit then took a bite.
Such a gift had cost her precious ration coupons—as well as time, creativity, and thought. “Thank you.”
“You wouldn’t think I’d been a good girl this year, would you? Yet look what Sinterklaas brought me.” With a sparkling smile, Cilla stood by the table, set down a black shoe, and pulled out two bits of string.
Lachlan lifted an eyebrow. Eventually she would explain.
She swung the strings back and forth. “It’s a gift for all of us.”
