Page 18

T he sun was beginning to set, and Evander had remained outside with Tommy most of the day as they both explored everything in the courtyard.

It was the only way to keep his mind off the damn lass and her new rule.

She couldn’t really mean what she said, could she?

If she did, Evander couldn’t deny she was right.

So, he did what he could to avoid thinking about it.

At first, he had taken his nephew to the stables to show him the various horses in the stalls.

“I want that one,” Tommy had declared when Evander asked him to choose a horse, while pointing to a fine brown stallion.

“A fine choice,” Evander had praised. “When ye’re old enough and properly fit, ye shall be able to ride it.”

“But I want to ride it now.”

Evander smirked. “The horse doesnae ken ye. Nae yet. It takes time to build trust between a horse and its rider. Unless the trust is there, the horse will throw ye off his back the second ye climb on it. Ye dinnae want that now, do ye?”

Tommy shook his head.

“Good. So, every day, ye’ll come to the stables and feed it. Dinnae let anyone else do it. Only ye. That way, it will ken yer face and slowly begin to trust ye.”

“Can I feed it now? Please, Uncle?”

“Aye, why nae?” Evander nodded.

Tommy hurried out of the stables to go fetch some carrots.

Evander remained with the horses, his mind drifting to the moment he’d had that morning with Keira.

She was holding back, he knew that much. But it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t his fault, either. The last thing he had expected when the messy war started was to grow attracted to someone. Especially someone as eccentric as her.

But he couldn’t help it. Each passing day, each snarky comment, each unspoken word, made him grow more attracted to her. If there was anything the day had proven, it was that he wanted her, and he was certain—to an extent—that she wanted him as well.

What they were going to do about it, he wasn’t certain. At least not yet. But the way her lips had moved against his, the way she had arched into him, practically begging him to claim her…

He might have shown quite a bit of restraint in the past few days, but there was only so much he could bear. If this happened again, he would break and would not be able to control himself or what would come next.

Were they ever going to get to that point?

Tommy returned with a batch of fresh carrots, that adventurous smile still fixed on his face, one that greatly reminded Evander of his own childhood.

“I found the carrots, Uncle,” he screeched.

Evander let him move toward the stall and hand the carrots to the horse, who snatched and munched through them with no hesitation.

“Dinnae let the horse see yer fear,” Evander advised when he noticed Tommy take a step back after the horse leaned it a little too close. “Ye’re its master, nae the other way round.”

Tommy nodded and continued to feed the horse until he was completely out of carrots. Evander grabbed his hand a while later, and they both walked out of the stables, the grass in the courtyard crunching beneath their boots.

“Ye want to see the baby goats now, I reckon?”

Tommy looked up at his uncle, a wide smile that seemed to say, I thought ye would never ask, creeping onto his face.

Evander laughed as they took off once again and walked around the castle, heading to the small house he had recently built. To Thistle.

The goat was no longer as weak and wobbly as it had once been when Keira used it to anger him.

Evander had managed to feed it and clothe it properly in the past few days, and now it was a healthy young goat.

It was growing quickly as well, and Evander wondered how long it would take before the house was no longer big enough for it.

He watched as his nephew played rather gently with the goat and noticed that the goat took a liking to the boy almost immediately, like it did him. It was satisfying to see.

“The goat likes ye,” he noted as he watched his nephew pick out some leaves and hand them to the creature.

A few days ago, Thistle could eat nothing but milk, berries, and honey. Now, he was rapidly growing, and soon, he would be able to eat proper, solid food.

“Aye. Ma says if an animal likes ye immediately, it means ye’re pure of heart.”

Evander scoffed. “Did she say that now?”

“Aye. The turkey in the village loves to follow me around, so Ma asked me to keep being a good lad so animals willnae run away from me.”

A slow chuckle escaped his lips.

Shona had always been like that. The kind of woman who always saw the good in the world. The kind who had always thought life would always favor the true and the worthy.

“And what did she say a good person is? Or did she nae tell ye that?”

Tommy handed another strand of leaves to the goat, who bit into it happily.

As he watched Thistle devour the leaves, Evander wondered for the briefest of moments if he needed to start taking the creature on walks.

“She said that a good person,” Tommy replied, pulling him out of his thoughts, “is a person who is kind, gentle, and loving. He doesnae lie to anyone or steal. He only tells the truth all the time and helps his fellow men.”

“Hmm.” Evander nodded, absorbing his nephew’s words.

Helps his fellow men…

He watched the boy continue to feed the goat, his sense of wonder and curiosity about life still intact.

Evander wanted to tell him that life did not always favor the good or the merciful.

He had grown with this notion as well when he was a wee lad.

Life favored the good and the good only.

Whatever came your way, you would always overcome it as long as you never lose your humanity.

But he knew better. He knew far, far better than that.

“That is true, Uncle, is it nae?” Tommy asked, looking back at him, his eyes searching his uncle’s for some sort of confirmation.

Evander did not know what else to do, so he nodded and gave a slight smirk. “Yer maither is right, lad. ‘Tis quite beneficial to be a good person.”

He couldn’t bring himself to mention what he truly believed, which was the complete opposite. He couldn’t tell the boy that his father was the best man in the world. He was the epitome of kindness and bravery in the face of a gritty and gloomy world with only cruelty to offer on all fronts.

He could vividly remember the day he had received news of his brother’s death. Tommy had been quite young to understand the gravity of the situation, but Shona had been distraught. She had cried and cried for weeks on end and grew thin from refusing to eat—so lost had she been in her grief.

His brother’s death wasn’t caused by anything except his selfless act of laying himself down the line for the safety of his family—and his clan.

Evander was a warrior, like his brother, and he knew better than to let himself get carried away with thoughts of having a perfect family life at the end of the day.

He still remembered what Shona had gone through, and Tommy, who should have remained utterly clueless, had known that something had happened.

Something that had caused his mother to grow distant, to speak no more than five words a day.

Something that had made her eyes sunken like a desolate part of the sea.

Evander, who had been his brother’s man-at-arms back then, had decided that he was never going to put a woman through what his brother had put Shona through.

His brother’s mistake, as a warrior, was deciding to settle down and have a family. And Evander had vowed to never repeat that same mistake.

He shuffled his feet, continuing to watch his nephew.

Chances were that he would suffer the same fate as his brother.

He would one day go to war and never return.

If there was one thing he had learned from his brother, it was that it paid greatly to be a rake.

He would never put a woman through the same agony by asking her to marry him.

His thoughts drifted like a crackling fire in the middle of a blizzard to Keira. He could not imagine her losing all her spirit and fierce determination in case of his death. He just could not picture it, no matter how hard he tried.

“Do ye want to see the flour mill?” he asked, when Tommy had finished feeding the last of the leaves to the goat.

Tommy rose to his feet, still curious as ever, and shook his head slowly. “Aye, Uncle.”

They turned away from the goat and walked back around the castle, Tommy skipping merrily beside Evander, who took calm, firm steps.

Thoughts of Keira filled his mind again, like a fire he couldn’t douse despite his efforts. She did mention that the former Laird had never claimed her before he died. Had she been married before? Was that her first time getting married? If it was, wouldn’t that mean she was still a virgin?

A woman like that still untouched felt like sacrilege, for some reason. He couldn’t imagine it, no matter how hard he tried.

“What is yer maither doing anyway? I havenae seen her since breakfast,” he asked, deciding to shove that thought out of his mind.

He would mull it over properly, but only later, and most definitely not now.

“She said that she wanted to see the work in the kitchen and that she had some people to talk to in the market. The blacksmith, for example.”

“The blacksmith? What does she want with the blacksmith?”

“To get her knife.”

“Her knife? What does yer maither need a knife for? Did something happen?”

“She didnae tell me. She only said we needed it.”

Evander let the thought of his sister-in-law buying a knife linger in his head for a moment longer than usual.

“Did ye see anything happen when ye were living in the village? Maybe ye saw anyone try to hurt yer maither?”

“Nay.”

Evander nodded.

They walked in silence, their air thick with unanswered questions and the subtle smell of the evening air.

Soon, they got to the flour mill, and it was louder than Evander remembered. However, they both stood outside and watched the maids troop in with empty trays and out with heavy loaves of bread.

“The mill heats the bread,” Evander explained.

The large scraping sound and the heat that drifted out and hit their faces teased the edges of his mind, and before he could stop it, he was transported back to that day. The day his castle burned to the ground.

He remembered the man he had chased. The one he had found wearing the tartan of Clan Blythe.

He had thought he would have more answers now as to why the clan decided to burn down his castle, but he had only been left with more questions and an attraction to a woman he still struggled to understand with each passing day.

He was not quick to notice it, but the maids had their eyes on him and Tommy as they walked in and out of the mill. His eyes narrowed. While some maids only cast furtive glances at them as they hurried past, some took their time and lingered long enough for Evander to start questioning it.

Something was happening. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. And it seemed to involve either him or Tommy, or both of them.

He turned to his nephew to study his face and see if there was something on it—something that shouldn’t be there. He found nothing of the sort. So why were they laughing? What was funny?

Then he slowly heard the word.

“ Tapestries ,” the maids whispered as they walked past him, their eyes wide with curiosity.

“Ye.” He signaled to one of the maids and gestured for her to come closer.

The nervousness on her face grew as she nodded and did as she had been ordered.

“What has happened?”

“I apologize, M’Laird, I dinnae ken what?—”

“I willnae repeat meself,” Evander grunted.

The maid swallowed, worry flickering in her bright green eyes.