“Not yet, actually.” Owen set his tankard down with a tinny clink. “My Emma never married the baron.”
Tom’s dark eyebrows lifted. He pushed himself up, sitting taller in his chair. “Is she single?”
“Yes.”
“Still in Briarstead?”
Owen reached for his cup, then recalled it was empty. “Yes.”
Tom hit his knee. “That is why you’ve come, isn’t it? You want me to be at the wedding. I’m sure I can travel to watch you marry. Might scare half the country on my journey, but it would be worth it.”
Ah. So his insecurities were keeping him inside. “You could if you wanted to.”
“You sound like my wife.”
“She’s a wise woman.”
Tom grunted. “Tell me, was your lady glad to have you home?”
Owen scrubbed a hand over his face. “Emma is impossible to read. I’ll admit my pride came in the way of properly greeting her at first, but now…now I do not know if she is willfully maintaining distance out of a mistaken sense of the disparity between our stations or because she is not interested in renewing the sentiments we shared in our youth.”
“Have you asked her?”
“No.” He couldn’t bear living through such a rejection again. He’d entered into the last proposal so confident in both Emma’s affection and her answer that the rejection had been a blow from which he’d never fully recovered. Not truly. It had broken him in an irreparable way, and reconnecting with her brought light to the old cracks, opening them again.
If he was to mistake the situation a second time, would those cracks break entirely?
Tom chuckled. “Is that not the easiest way to learn the status of her heart? Simply ask her how she feels.”
“It might be the simplest, but it is by no means the easiest. Asking the woman if she might care for me could very well be the most frightening thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.”
“You’ve faced down armies. Atiger.”
“My statement stands.”
Tom chuckled, shaking his head. “We’ve overcome much together in our years, and each challenge made us stronger, not only as men but as a unit. Facing the fear of the jungles, disease, some of the food we were forced to endure…it strengthened us. We became better for having faced them.”
Owen considered the challenges in the army, both in war and the culture, living so far from home for so long.
Tom’s fingers drifted over the jagged scar on his cheek. “I did not intend to stand in the way of the gunfire the day I saved you and Kentworth, but I had to make a decision in the moment, and it was the right one. If I had not pushed you out of the way of the blast, you would probably not be here today, and Kentworth would not have had another year of life.” He swallowed hard, tapping his knee where the amputation had taken place. “I lost some things that day, but I don’t regret taking that leap. I learned much about myself and the ones I love through the challenges I’ve faced over the last two years, Captain, and I am a better man because of them.”
“I didn’t think you’d want me to mention that day.” He hadn’t been sure he’d be invited over the threshold, in all honesty. But to know Tom hadn’t held a grudge these last few years for the losses he’d endured provided Owen an inexplicable relief.
“Well, I’m certainly allowed to talk about it.”
Owen laughed. “Very well.” But he quickly sobered. Was Tom correct? Was the challenge worth the possibility of growth? Was talking to Emma worth the risk of another denial?
“So, you did not suffer in my company for half a decade and nearly die only to wither away an old man here.” Tom peered at him closely. “Or maybe what you need is your men behind you. Am I to back you up, then?”
“No. If I’m to do this, I can certainly do so on my own.”
Tom gave one small nod, as though to conveygood soldier. His questioning glance was ripe with curiosity. They’d reached a point where Owen could no longer postpone the inevitable reason for his journey. He pulled the watch from his pocket and dangled it from his hand.
Tom sucked in a breath. “That belongs to Kentworth.”
“He would have wanted you to have it.”
“You were our commanding officer. He left it with you for a reason, Buckley.”
