Page 10 of Seduction Under the Southern Stars

He exhales, a sigh that carries the weight of the world, then buries his face in my neck, tightening his arms around me. His hair is wet, and so’s his suit; he must have walked here and gotten caught in the recent shower.

I rub his back, murmuring things like, “It’s okay,” and, “everything’s going to be all right.” He doesn’t cry, but I can feel him giving sad little shudders as he wrangles his emotion under control.

Eventually, he shifts my weight so I’m sitting on his lap, then turns his head and rests his cheek on my shoulder, looking out to sea. I press my lips to his hair, afraid to move in case I break the spell. He smells of some expensive cologne, not the cheap body spray he and my brothers used to wear back in the day. My fingers touch the nape of his neck, where the hair is so short it’s almost shaved. I want to trace my finger along his tattoo and follow it below his collar, but I don’t. Where did he get it? Does he have any others?

He turns his head again, so his nose is pressed into my blouse, and inhales. “You smell good,” he mumbles. It sends a little shiver through me. I still can’t believe he’s here. Where has he been for ten years? What has he been doing? And who has he been with? It occurs to me then that he almost certainly has a girlfriend. He could even be married, although he’s not wearing a ring. Whatever the case, I’m sure he’s only here temporarily, for the funeral. He’s probably heading back to Europe in a few days.

Suddenly uncomfortable at being so close to him, I move off him and sit to the side. “Did you walk back in the rain?”

He nods and runs a hand through his hair, then gives a rueful smile to find it wet. God, he’s so handsome, even more so now his features have lost their boyish softness. Ten years ago, he was cute, cocky, and mischievous. Is there any of that lad left in the cautious, guarded man before me?

“Was it awful?” I murmur.

He huffs a sigh. “Fucking horrible. The vicar sang Dad’s praises and told us he was safe in the arms of God.”

I pull a face. “I guess that’s kinda what they have to say, right? Doesn’t mean it’s the truth.”

He gives a short laugh. “I knew you’d understand.”

“Of course I understand.” I can still remember the evening, about a month after he arrived at Greenfield, that he told me and my brothers about his father. About all the things he used to do to him. I’d cried, and both Fraser and Joel had cursed and sworn to avenge him. Linc had looked somewhat bemused at the notion of having someone fighting for him for once.

“I thought maybe your father might have convinced you by now that everyone deserves redemption,” he says.

I meet his eyes. “Definitely not.” I speak with enough vehemence to make him lift an eyebrow. I don’t elaborate, though, and I guess he feels he doesn’t know me well enough to query further.

He blows out a long breath and looks out to sea. “I saw my mother.”

“Was she okay?”

“She told me…” He looks back at me. “She said he wasn’t my father.”

I stare at him. “What?”

“She said she had an affair early in their marriage. Dad—Don—found out and beat the guy up, and she never saw him again.”

My jaw drops. The implications of that are enormous.

Finally, it explains why his father hated him and treated him so badly. Don must have seen the other guy every time he looked at Linc. He would have been a constant reminder of Nancy’s infidelity. For fourteen years, Linc had to deal with his father’s hostility and contempt without a clue as to why, and I know it had a profound effect on him.

He told me once that he could feel his father inside him like an evil spirit, as if he was possessed. I think he’d hoped my father could exorcize him. He was on the way to being healed, and then my father caught us kissing, and it all went to shit. When Linc left at eighteen, he must have had to cope with the knowledge that he was stuck with the malevolent aura that had latched onto him like a parasite. But if he’s not Don’s son, that means he doesn’t have Don’s blood or DNA. That vile, hateful man isn’t a part of him.

And suddenly, I realize why he was crying.

“You’re free,” I whisper.

He smiles then, his eyes lighting with such joy and relief that it brings tears to my own eyes. “Liber sum,” he says. It’s Latin for ‘I’m free.’ “I need to get that on a tattoo across my forehead,” he jokes.

His eyes meet mine, and a tingle runs down my spine. Ooh, I’ve dreamed for ten years about the way he used to look at me. I told myself repeatedly it wouldn’t be the same now, but here he is, staring into my eyes with the same intensity that’s haunted me all these years.

I swallow hard. “I saw the tattoo on your neck. Do you have others?”

His eyes crinkle at the edges as he smiles. “Yeah. Quite a few.” He pulls back the sleeve of his jacket and lifts the shirt sleeve as far as it will go with the cufflink in. It reveals black ink on his forearm.

I touch it lightly, fascinated. “Younger Futhark?” They’re runes from an old Germanic alphabet, used by the Vikings after about the ninth century. As kids, Linc, Joel, Fraser, and I wrote messages to each other using lots of different methods including invisible ink and secret codes, one of which utilized these Viking runes.

“Yep,” he says. “Just like we used to write.”

Surprised, I add, “Can I see the rest of it?”

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