Page 71 of The Chief's Wild Promise
Bran’s heart kicked hard. This woman. “Thank ye,” he answered gruffly.
Dust devils scattered across Dounarwyse’s barmkin, ignored by the small crowd that had gathered there.
Rae, Kylie, and the chieftain’s two sons stood on the steps before the broch, looking on from a discreet distance while Tara faced her brother. Her husband, Jack, waited a couple of feet behind his wife. A wee lassie clung to her father’s leg, while he held a younger bairn in his arms.
However, Jack Maclean’s attention wasn’t focused on his daughters, but on his brother-by-marriage. His fern-green eyes sliced like ax blades into Bran.
Makenna had halted a few feet back, allowing her husband to face his sister without feeling crowded. And like everyone else, she waited for either Bran or Tara to speak.
The pair studied each other for a long while, each taking the other’s measure.
Tara looked well. Her long bright-red hair was unbound and whipped around her. Her face, the same shape as his, with the same stubborn chin, wore a guarded expression.
It struck Bran that she was bracing herself. She expected the first words out of his mouth to be harsh ones. He couldn’t blame her, for the last time they’d been face-to-face, he’d raged at her, had called her a ‘traitor’.
He cleared his throat then, unclenching his hands at his sides. It would help if he didn’t look as if he were about to throw himself into a fight. “I’m sorry, Tara.”
The words fell heavily in the silence.
Her eyes widened. A moment later, a nerve flickered on her cheek. She didn’t believe him. Of course, an apology wasn’t enough.
Huffing a sigh, Bran reached up and dragged a hand through his hair. “I didn’t understand what drove ye to run away … but I do now. I shouldn’t have cursed ye as I did. And I should have been there when ye needed me.” He swallowed then, wishing his throat didn’t sound so tight. “It’s because of ye that Loch Maclean didn’t have me strung up by the neck from the walls … I’ve never forgotten that.”
He recalled then, the way his sister had sunk to her knees before the Maclean clan-chief, how she alone had begged for his life. At first, Maclean had been unmoved, but then, when Jack had stepped up next to his wife and asked him to heed her, he’d relented.
He owed his life to them both, yet he’d been heinously ungrateful at the time. Aye, he was alive but humiliated. He’d left Dounarwyse without speaking to his sister again and vowing never to do so. But ‘never’ was a long time.
“I’m cursed with our father’s stubborn pride, it seems,” he admitted after a few moments.
Tara’s throat worked. “I’m sorry too,” she replied huskily. “For leaving without telling ye. I was desperate and wasn’t sure I could trust ye not to betray me.”
The admission made him flinch, yet she was likely right. He didn’t know how he’d have reacted had she come to him in the hours before she escaped from Dùn Ara and bribed a fisherman to take her away in the dead of night.
“Life with our father wasn’t easy for me either,” he admitted after a brittle pause. “When ye fled, ye left me alone with the bastard.”
A muscle ticked in her jaw. “I know,” she whispered.
The pain in her eyes cut him to the quick. “Ye did what ye had to … I understand now.” Bran took a tentative step forward, his throat burning. “I’ve missed ye.”
With a strangled sob, Tara threw herself at him.
The force of their collision nearly knocked him off his feet. Righting himself, Bran hugged his sister tightly. His eyes stung dangerously as she sobbed against his chest.
Christ’s blood, he shouldn’t have left this for so long. Tara hadn’t deserved to be punished. And he’d spoken the truth. Hehadmissed her. Losing her had left a chasm inside him that even Makenna couldn’t quite fill. He and his sister had a shared history.
“Fear not, we will be strangers no longer,” he assured Tara, stroking her back as she hiccoughed and attempted to knuckle away her tears. “Makenna plans to make regular trips here … and, if ye wish it, I shall join her.”
“Of course, I wish it!” Tara grabbed his hand, squeezing it so tightly that his bones creaked. “Ye are mybrother… and I have missed ye too.”
29: DEEPLY, MADLY
SEATED IN DOUNARWYSE’S hall, at Bran’s side, Makenna watched him talk to his sister.
They were so alike, with many of the same mannerisms. The jut of the chin when they disagreed. The narrowing of the eyes. And the same bright, playful smile when they were amused.
Tara had become a friend during her stay here the year before, and she’d marked the sadness in the woman’s eyes when she’d spoken of her brother all those months ago.
Earlier in the day, it had surprised Makenna to see Craignure looming on the horizon. She’d known something was amiss though; Bran hadn’t been himself ever since their arrival in Oban. She’d sensed something was gnawing at him, and had thought it had more to do with his imminent return to Dùn Ara.