Page 21 of When the Sky Breaks

“I’m still bleeding,” I replied, shifting uncomfortably on the stool.

“I can go find a cushion?” Neal offered sheepishly.

I waved him off, then heard Ansel mutter something under his breath about marital incompetence.

“Drink this,” Neal said, putting a mug of tea in front of me.

I picked up the cup, took a sip, and suddenly any facade dropped. It was awful. Bitter and astringent and sour. I spat it out on the floor. So much for dignity. My head swam and I nearly fell off the stool. Neal caught my shoulders before I could slip.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, soft enough I doubted Ansel even heard.

“What is that?” I asked, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand as I shrugged off Neal’s grip. Ansel chuckled.

“Willow bark,” Neal said, putting the mug back into my grasp. “Drink it. Please. It’s for pain.”

“You’re as comforting as a brick wall, boy,” Ansel muttered. “Put sugar in it. Much as you want. Just get it down.”

He nudged the sugar bowl in my direction.

“I hate this,” I muttered, putting my head down on the table.

“And you know what I hate?” Ansel said conversationally. “Those new guards you brought on, Neal. Hiram might actually be an idiot. Let’s go see if they’re actually doing their job this morning and leave Sorcha to her cats.”

Ten

Neal

Istood outside Sorcha’s office, trying to convince myself that last night hadn’t irrevocably destroyed a marriage politically required to last several centuries.

I’d apologized.

She hadn’t forgiven me. Yet.

But she’d kissed me. That had to count for something.

I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

“It’s open,” Sorcha called.

She’d been settling into her father’s old study slowly. Now, nearly two months later, it was starting to look a bit more like her. She’d dragged in an armchair from the parlor and tucked it beside the woodburning stove. There were a few blankets she’d woven tossed over the hard, ladder-back seats facing her desk. And of course the cats. At least one of the ranch’s cats sprawled somewhere in the room any time she was there. Today, it was the scrappy orange tabby missing half one ear, sitting in one of the boxes I had put on the desk. It hissed at me as I came in. I couldn’t blame it.

“They got the stains out,” I said, setting the pile of clothes down on her desk, “and I didn’t tell anyone what happened. You don’t have to worry about that. They’ve already got clean sheets on the bed. Stains should come out of those just fine too.”

That affection? The softness in my tone that I had finally let bleed through last night when I curled up in bed with her? I let it stay. I fought back the urge to kiss her again, pull her into my arms and try to make it right.

I understood just how wrong I’d been. How badly I’d failed. Last night, and long before. When I’d made her close her eyes and keep her dress on to consummate our marriage. But also every time I’d brushed her off and fought back affection in the name of maintaining some pathetic excuse for professional propriety.

And I knew that little gestures? A change in tone? Would take eons to accumulate enough to make up for it.

“I thought you might be worried about it,” I said. “So I . . .” I gestured vaguely and trailed off.

Sorcha kept her eyes fixed on the ledger in front of her.

“So I guess I’ll leave you to it. I can bring more of the willow bark if you need it?”

“Three spoons of sugar,” Sorcha said without looking up. “You can bring it in when you’re done briefing the guards this afternoon.”

I turned to leave.