Page 81 of Love with a Scottish Outlaw
“Ye’re disappointed in me,” Finn finally said in a low voice.
“Are ye disappointed in yourself?” Duncan asked.
The boy hesitated. “Do ye want me to be honest?”
“I do.”
“Then, though I disappointed ye, I would not do anythin’ different.”
“So ye’d still make it difficult for poor Mistress MacFarlane to earn her coin.”
Though Finn was in profile, Duncan could see his young brow furrow.
“Nay, I wanted to cause trouble, not harm an old woman,” he admitted in so soft a voice that Duncan barely heard him.
“Then what do ye want, Finn?”
“I don’t want to be foisted off on people who resent havin’ to do ye a favor.”
“Ye don’t think I know what I’m doing? That I’ve found good homes for orphaned children before? That there are families who could not have children, or perhaps only one, and have love to give to more?”
“Is it love, Laird Carlyle? Or is it the need for a laborer?”
“Everyone works in a family, Finn,” Duncan said patiently. “I certainly put ye to work here.”
“’Tis not the same,” Finn insisted. “I want to be here.”
“Ye could want to be in a family, too. Don’t ye want a mum again?”
“No one can take me mum’s place!”
The shout was sudden and cracked with emotion.
Softly, Duncan said, “Just like having another friend doesn’t make the first one any less to ye, ’tis the same with parents. Ye can love them in a different way than your own mum, but it can still be real and important to ye eventually.”
“Not to me. I’m different than other boys.”
“And how is that?”
Finn said nothing.
“Ye like Mistress Catherine, do ye not?”
Mutely, the boy nodded.
“And ye like Mistress Maeve, too. That’s two women ye like, not one at the expense of another.”
Instead of answering, Finn dashed an arm across his eyes and ran back toward the cave.
Duncan leaned back against the fence post and watched. He’d never had such a challenging lad before, and was beginning to fear he’d need to force the lad into a new home for his own good.
And that meant that Duncan had to find just the right home. There was one he’d considered, visited, but they already had four children, and he feared Finn’s assessment of needing another laborer would have been true with that family.
But there was something about Finn that made Duncan feel even more protective than he normally did. Perhaps it was simply because Catriona was so fond of the boy, and he didn’t want to disappoint her.
As Cat helped serve the midday meal, she noticed Finn’s dejection as the girl squatted near the burn, half hidden by the footbridge. It seemed to give her some feeling of safety, and Cat thought again of the bridges in Glasgow that might have once meant the same thing to Finn. Since the other children had gone, Finn had taken to building elaborate little villages out of the stones in the burn, stacking the flat ones as little houses, using sticks as people, and round stones as animals. Cat often saw her lips move, as if she gave voice to her little creations, ruler of their world when she could not rule her own.
When Cat approached, Finn jumped to her feet.
