Before she could reply, several of the children filed outside.
“Do ye love her?” Jenna waddled over to him and tugged on his tartan, her dark, innocent eyes staring up at him.
“Are ye going to marry Lady Kali?” Silas braved Adam’s frown. “If not…”
“If not,” Evan finished for his friend, “I’ll marry her meself.”
The love and protectiveness the bairns felt for Kali was nearly Adam’s undoing, for he agreed with everything they said. Aye, he loved her. Aye, he wanted to marry her. But Kali had made it abundantly clear she could never stay here and marry him.
He needed to at least answer the wee one’s question.“Aye, Jenna. I love Lady Kali.”
Kali shuddered in his arms, so he held on tighter, wishing he could give her more of himself, wishing she’d accept him.
Finally, Raini hobbled out of the cave again. “If ye have a meeting with yer father, Master Adam, ye must go now, a storm is brewing.”
Adam lifted his attention to the skies above, only to find sunshine and no clouds. Perhaps the old woman was finally losing her powers, but he’d not contradict her. “Aye,” he agreed. “Grab yer things, Kali.”
Later, as they rode slowly together toward the keep, Kali seated in front of him, she turned sideways in his arms so she could face him. “Did ye mean what ye said to Jenna?”
“Aye.”
“Ye love me?”
“Aye, woman. Those were me words.”
“It changes nothing,” she said, teary-eyed.
“It changes everything,” he countered, sounding more intense than he wished to.
“What has happened?” she asked. “Is there something ye are no’ telling me?”
Could she sense his misery so easily? That made him only more upset, for Adam wanted nothing more than to be unreadable, untouchable. Kali made him weak. Emotional. Jealous. Lovestruck. Foolish. He didn’t answer her, only growled in discontent.
He halted the horse and dismounted, helping her down quickly.
“Why have ye stopped?” she asked.
“I canna deliver ye to me sire feeling the way I do.”
“Ye mean loving me?”
He gave her a dark look. “Knowing my feelings mean little to ye so nothing changes in the future we are doomed never to share.”
“I never promised ye anything,” she said softly. “Because I have always known I canna stay here.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Me sisters…”
“Am I not enough to sustain ye?” He spun about, raising his arms to indicate the whole of his life. “These lands? Me heart?”
“Ye are being unfair, Adam?”
He shook his head. “No. I am being a man.”
Her mouth opened, but no words came out, yet she stared at him like she didn’t know him.
“We’re not far from the tower, lass. Go on. Walk back and hide away until me father calls for ye.”
