Page 22 of Return to Clan Sinclair
“You’re breathing and you’re moving, but are you really living?”
She stopped again.
“Who are you to judge me?”
“The man who kissed you.”
She stared at him wide eyed.
“Has no other man kissed you but Peter?”
Surely she wasn’t supposed to answer that?
He moved closer to her. Even though they were standing in the middle of a paved road, it seemed too intimate. She wanted to put her hand on his chest and push him away. No, she mustn’t touch him.
“It took years for me to realize that short of doing myself in, I was going to live. I would spare you some of that wasted time.”
“Did you never think of doing yourself in?” The idea had never occurred to her because of her daughters. But for him, the situation was different. He had lost his children in addition to his wife.
“No,” he said. “There was a time when I tried to kill myself with whiskey, but I began to loathe the taste of it, not to mention what it made me feel like in the morning.”
She turned and began to walk again, but slower now.
“If I take a case of someone who needs protection,” Bruce said, “I’ll do everything in my power to ensure they’re safe.”
“There’s no need for kisses, though,” she said, not looking at him.
“Oh, no, that was just for me.”
He showed no signs of dropping back. Would he walk all the way to Kinloch with her, sit outside the church while she spoke to the minister? What on earth would she say?
There’s this man who troubles me, Reverend. He’s too handsome for my peace of mind. When he grins at me I lose my train of thought. When he kissed me, I almost fainted with desire.
That wouldn’t do, would it?
She stole a glance at him. He was smiling at her.
Against such an implacable will, what choice did she have?
She shook her head, turned on her heel and began walking back to the house.
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll go back to Drumvagen and be a hermit there. But I have to return to Ireland soon. You can’t think of stopping me.”
“I only ask that you not leave until we find Henderson. I can’t guarantee your safety otherwise.”
“Then do hurry up and find the idiotic man,” she said.
Did he realize that he was one of the reasons why she was thinking of leaving so soon?
They walked together. To her surprise, he didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with words.
“Tell me about your home,” she said a few minutes later.
“I have a house near Boston,” he said. “It’s close enough to the city that I don’t feel isolated, but it sits on a bluff overlooking the ocean.”
“Have you always lived there?”
Did he realize what she was asking? From his smile, it seemed as if he did.
