Page 23 of I Loved You Then (Far From Home #12)

He hid the smile that threatened to come, for how relieved she sounded, and straightened more fully into an upright position. “Aye and help me free the breacan. The belt holds it fast, and I’ve but the one arm. ?Tis all we have for cover.”

Claire hesitated only a breath before kneeling to the task.

Her fingers found the buckle, worked the thick leather free, releasing the plaid.

Ciaran shifted on his bottom to allow her to yank the garment free.

Claire stooped and then sat beside him on his right with her knees drawn up to her chest, draping the heavy wool round them.

She then moved, arching around him to pull the plaid round his left side, tucking the end of it into his right hand at his front before she settled again at his side, her shoulder bumped against his.

The contact was innocent, purpose-driven, and yet he felt the heat of it, as if there was actually an intimacy to it and not only a practicality.

Gingerly he flexed his foot, his left ankle, clamping his teeth against the acute pain, and remarked, “I should take my boot off.”

“Oh, you can’t,” Claire was quick to argue. “Don’t take the boot off yet. Your ankle will swell—possibly balloon to twice its size—and you won’t get your boot back on. You’ll need the support of the boot when we do get out and walk. We’ll deal with it when we’re...out of here.”

He settled back against the damp wall, the breacan wrapped tight about their shoulders, and released a sigh. For all his frustration he knew, he somehow managed to let himself be still.

***

Claire drew her knees tighter beneath the scratchy folds of the plaid, her chin resting on top of them.

The wool smelled faintly of peat smoke and rain, but there was a steady warmth to it, more comforting than she expected.

She could feel the hard line of Ciaran’s shoulder pressed against her own, and though the contact was small, the warmth radiating off him was not inconsequential.

Aside from all the obvious reasons regarding their situation, she felt horrible.

This was all her fault, entirely her fault.

If she hadn’t wandered off the path, hadn’t strayed too far or for so long, hadn’t gotten lost in the first place, they wouldn’t be sitting now at the bottom of a forgotten death trap.

He wouldn’t be injured. His arm wouldn’t be throbbing, his ankle wouldn’t be swelling inside that boot.

All of it—every hiss of pain he tried to stifle—was because of her.

She gnawed her lip, fighting the sharp sting of guilt. “I’m so sorry about this,” she said. “All of it. Everything. I feel terrible.”

Ciaran shifted, the movement making the plaid pull across her shoulders.

“Sorry dinna change it,” he muttered. Then, a second later, softer, “We’re nae dead, only inconvenienced.”

Claire’s stomach sank at the bluntness of his response. She hadn’t expected complete absolution, but yeah, she’d been looking for something close to it to make her feel better.

And then another thought tugged, a bit more tantalizing—why had he even been here at all? The forest was vast and wild; there was no reason for him to be trudging through it unless ...unless he’d been looking for her.

Her stomach gave a giddy twist at the possibility. She forced herself to sound casual, though her pulse jumped. “How did you find me? I mean—were you...were you out here for some other reason, or...?”

He turned his head just enough that she could feel the weight of his gaze, even in the darkness. “I was looking for ye ,” he said sharply.

In spite of the sharp reprimand clearly stated, a rush of warmth spread through her chest before she could stop it.

He’d come for her, hadn’t only stumbled upon her by chance.

He’d cared enough to come after her. She bit down on a smile, feeling like a schoolgirl again, absurdly thrilled by so few words.

Until he spoke next. “Ivy said ye were missing, gone too long,” he added, as flatly as if he were reporting the weather. “Said Alaric was nae returned to the keep, or she’d have tasked him with the chore.”

The warmth drained as quickly as it had come, leaving a void in its place. Of course, this made more sense, that he hadn’t noticed her absence, had only obeyed Ivy’s request. She was a chore .

The sigh that followed was laced with dissatisfaction, until she reminded herself that it shouldn’t matter.

It was foolish, really, silly and senseless to crave his attention, to seek even the smallest flicker of approval in his eyes.

What good would it do her? She didn’t belong here, not in his world, not in this century.

Oh, and she was married, lest she forget.

The band might not be on her finger anymore, hadn’t been since she found out about the mistress, but vows didn’t vanish simply because time had shifted around her.

What kind of woman longed for the notice of another man while her husband lived, even if her marriage had been little more than a long, slow unraveling?

Just now, she felt shame for how seldom she had even thought of Jason since stumbling into this world.

By rights, he should have been foremost in her mind—his face, his voice, his worry for her, what he must be thinking back in their time.

Instead, days had passed where he hadn’t entered her thoughts at all, swept aside by survival, confusion, and the sheer, immovable presence of Ciaran Kerr.

Ciaran Kerr, of all men. A man who treated warmth as though it were a currency and he was a penny pincher. He barely tolerated her presence, answered her questions with gruff dismissals, met her efforts at civility with silence or scorn.

So what did she care what he thought, or whether or not he’d come willingly or not? And yet the sting lingered, sharp and undeniable, like pressing on a bruise and finding it still hurt.

And then it had her wondering. Did he even like anyone?

It was hard to imagine him softening to anyone’s company.

Had he ever softened his voice or his manner for a woman?

She couldn’t picture it. He seemed carved out of something older and harder than stone, as though tenderness had been chiseled away even before he’d been born.

Because the silence stretched, heavy and not altogether comfortable—though she was sure he preferred it that way—Claire thought to kill two birds with one stone: erase the silence and get some answers.

She cleared her throat lightly. “Do you have family?” she asked, trying for casual, though the words felt anything but.

His head shifted slightly, a faint silhouette against the dark earth wall beyond him. He hesitated just long enough that she was left with little doubt that he definitely preferred the silence.

“Brothers once. A sister. Parents. All gone now.” The flatness of his tone allowed for no opening, no invitation to linger there.

But Claire had too many questions about that business to let it go.

“Gone? All of them? They all died?” Christ, this century was mean.

He drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“My sister abides down near the border, wed with bairns. I have nae seen her in years. But aye, my father and mam succumbed to age—like as nae, my da’ went by way of past injuries, ones that haunted and enfeebled him.

My brother, Artur, fell at Falkirk, and Colla was killed near Haddington. ”

Claire hesitated, chewing the inside of her lip. “I’m so sorry,” she said finally, unable to comprehend the magnitude of that, nearly his entire family gone from this earth. “Were your brothers older or younger?”

“Younger, both of them.”

She would have been surprised if he’d said otherwise.

Everything about him carried the air of an eldest son—the set of his jaw, the way authority seemed to cling to him like another garment.

He had the bearing of a man reared to lead, to take responsibility before he was ready, to shoulder burdens that might have bent a gentler spirit.

Perhaps he might once have been softer, kinder, if he’d not been born the heir.

But the role likely had demanded severity, and the man beside her was the result.

She ought to let the quiet return, but curiosity needled at her. “And...were you ever married?”

He gave a sharp shake of his head. “Nae. Nae time for it, with war chewing at my heels since I could lift a blade.”

He paused and Claire considered what more she wanted to know about him—aside from everything.

To her surprise, he added after a moment, “I’ll have to wed eventually. Caeravorn must have an heir. A laird canna leave his folk with naught but uncertainty.”

Her head turned, eyes flicking to his face, searching. “I guess I thought in this century, people married young, like maybe you would have been married before the war started.”

“Like as nae, I should have been,” he admitted. “But my father passed when I’d just turned seventeen, and my mam followed him within six months. I had my hands full trying to outwit an uncle with ideas of his own about Caeravorn.”

“What? Like he was trying to take over, even though you were the heir?”

“Waged a bit of war,” Ciaran informed her, shrugging a bit. “He had nae the support or the coin to launch a proper takeover, but aye, he tried.”

“Did you...where is he now?”

“Dead.”

“Oh.” And a full ten seconds later, “Did you kill him?”

“Nae. But then I dinna have to. He went crying to the mormaer on Skye, to whom we owe allegiance, was killed by a northerner for being mouthy.”

“Just like that?”

“Aye, just like that.”

A mean century, indeed.

Claire pondered all this, and then froze inwardly, hoping Ciaran wouldn’t turn the question back on her, wouldn’t ask about her family, or if she were married.

She wouldn’t lie, but God help her, she would want to.

The thought itself was shameful, a treachery against vows spoken in another world, another life, and with another man.

The guilt of it sat heavy in her chest. Even as she knew she and Jason were likely heading for divorce, that she certainly believed there was no hope for them, how could she even think such a thing?

Her guilt waned, abetted by the fact that Ciaran Kerr did not inquire about her or her family. Apparently, he was not rife with the same curiosity about her as she was about him. A good reminder, she decided: she was nothing to him, nothing but a burden he’d been ordered to track down.

She sighed, quiet and resigned, and let the silence fold in around them.