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CHAPTER FIVE

Niall steered her outthe front door and away from interested ears.

She’d done it again, slipped past his barriers with a simple show of courage. He’d easily understood the kind of bravery holding her spine stiff at Cam’s funeral. The valour of necessity and pride, both personal and to show respect to the person you’ve lost. Anger had turbocharged the fearlessness propelling her to his door when she’d decided he’d cheated her granda. This was different. She’d held her ground against a hazy yet real fear, making it more terrifying.

Tomas Bechet carried the scent of a man who’d known her mum. Whatever the feck that meant, it wasn’t a good memory.

Niall pieced together the bits of information he’d picked up. No father. Mother an addict, dead by the time Lucy was ten. She’d needed a bed and food. She was a fighter and a survivor. And hell, a scent could shut down the urge to fight or flee and make her freeze as the only way to protect herself.

“Cam liked to talk about the loves in his life, about establishing the business, about meeting his Liùsaidh, about you.” Love had been the thread linking all the old man’s stories, and another part of why Niall had been so comfortable in his company.

“Grandpa always called Gran by her full name.” Lucy’s mouth softened, and her gaze turned wistful at an old man’s reverence for his wife’s name.

Niall had used the name because he liked the way it rolled around his tongue, liked the light in Lucy’s eyes when he called her Liùsaidh.What kind of man would Lucy choose as a lover?“I reckon he told you most of those stories.”

A tender smile curved her mouth, and Niall was hooked.

“We can compare,” she said.

“In his version, it was the perfect love story.” Niall was beginning to think he might enjoy having Lucy around a bit more.I’m turning into a masochist!Her demands and her presence would make a tight timetable even tighter, before he added the hours needed to choose the first scholarship holder.

“A fairy tale?” She giggled.

Niall hadn’t believed she could. Joy made her radiant, carefree for the first time since he’d met her. His chest puffed out knowing he’d wrought the miracle. “You think he made it up?”

“Maybe Grandpa embellished.”

Looking at her, snatches of conversations with Cam came back to him.

“She’ll need a distraction.” Cam had offered that morsel as part of a general conversation about loss and death.

“It might take longer than you hope before you get the recognition you deserve.” Cam had stared at the photo of the Huon table and sighed before throwing out his “wait for glory” line. Niall had thought the old man was giving him his regular pep talk on the patience needed for his craft.

“I’m sorry.” He’d been purely baffled by Cam’s apology offered during Niall’s last visit. At the time, he couldn’t see any reason for regrets between them.

Cam was a strategic thinker, three moves ahead in any chess game. Niall had always matched Cam’s offers, a matter of his pride and honour to ensure each trade was fair. Cam had changed his will for a reason. He’d never asked Niall directly to keep an eye on Lucy, but increasingly, Niall was convinced those fragments of conversation were connected.

Did Cam propose the foundation so I’m on hand to fill some of the empty void in Lucy’s life?

Niall didn’t fancy the position of guard or lap dog. He tuned back in to Lucy’s words.

“The first time I asked him how they met was for a family project for school. He gave me the short version, but he pumped me every day on what the other kids were saying. And he added and added, tracing all the way back to meeting her when they were both six and stuck their tongues out at each other.”