Page 82 of Once upon a Summer Night

Ellie nodded and pressed her lips together without responding.

“I’m sorry you’re caught up in this. But I’m very glad you’re safe.”

Ellie turned her head slightly. Colin’s eyes were too dark to see properly, but his cheekbones were covered in a day’s worth of growth. His eyebrows were slashed together in worry—for her sanity? Her reaction to his words? She didn’t know.

But she wanted to. She wanted him to care about her—more than as a client, or as an obligation.

She wanted this complicated, amazing, beautiful man to trust her. Want her.

Love her.

An overwhelming sense of exhaustion flooded her, and she pushed that line of thinking to the back of her brain where it belonged. “Did you think I wouldn’t be safe? What did you think would happen?”

His eyes searched hers. “You could’ve been burned at the stake. Drowned for your strange clothing. Thrown in a dungeon.”

She made a silentowith her mouth.

“Dark times, Ellie.”

“How did I get sent here, though?”

He hesitated, the truth sticking in his throat. “I’m still trying to figure that one out. We’re not sure why the time shift caught you and Gwen.” He paused, and his voice lowered. “When we realized you were missing, I died a thousand deaths.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Ellie—”

She swallowed hard. “No, Colin. You said you didn’t want me. You didn’t want this.”

“No,” he said, his voice rough. “No, I said that I have other obligations that keep me from being anything other than this.”

“A time traveler?”

“An O’Rourke Protector. It’s my destiny, Ellie.”

She smiled sadly at him. “It sounds lonely.”

“It is now.”

She glanced down, unsure what to say to that, and caught sight of his léine—red with amber plaid. “Nice skirt.”

“Same to you.”

“I saw that, once.”

He frowned. “My léine? You’re mistaken.”

She shook her head. “No. I went snooping one day at your house. I found that piece of cloth, and the shirt you’re wearing, and the sword, in the safe in your closet.”

“I must’ve left it unlocked. Careless of me.”

“Very. My fingers ached for days after I sliced them.”

He grasped her hands and turned them upwards, though it was too dark and long healed. “I’m sorry my weapon caused you pain. So you were in my bedroom, huh? Like what you saw?”

She laughed a little at his attempt at levity, but sobered as a hollowness filled her chest. “Colin, what’s a Protector?”

He gently dropped her hands and looked into the darknight, his profile silhouetted as his face turned contemplative. “My purpose is to protect the time travelers in my family; I need to ensure the generations continue, to protect—” He halted, then shrugged. “Well, suffice it to say that my life is dedicated to the protection and safety of the line. That’s the gist of it, anyway.”

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