“You cannot come home after five years’ absence and think to take back control of everything.”
Jamie raised a brow. It was not like Cat to interrupt. Why was she so upset? He’d hardly threatened to end her project. In fact, now that he’d reflected on it, he thought her rather clever. She was wise to offer these families a means of work. And she’d inspired him with her improvements. He would see all the estate cottages refurbished for safety, especially the chimneys. It didn’t take much to start a fire raging through the village.
A part of him felt proud of her. And a tad guilty. The Cat he had known was more interested in the latest fashions than charity work. He could only assume it was loneliness that had prompted her to do so much for others.
He simply wished she had told him first.
“I’ve not come to argue, Cat. I have no quarrel with your project. I think allowing these families a new start is a wonderful idea.”
Relief crossed her face.
“In fact, I finally conjured an apology for you.” He smiled, hoping to set her at ease.
She held his gaze, taking time to consider her reply. “I suppose I could hear you out.”
Jamie cleared his throat. Much depended on this conversation, and he found himself oddly anxious. “Let’s ride first.”
CAT FOLLOWED HER HUSBAND out of the village and onto the small lane. Regardless of the gray clouds overhead and mist clinging to the trees, the day felt warm and bright. She had worked hard, had made something beautiful in the village. She had brought a future to those who would not otherwise have one.
To top it off, her husband was going to apologize. Finally.
Her contentment abated step by step as she realized where Jamie was taking her. She knew this path through the flooded western field. It led to the hidden glen where they once used to meet. Flushed with excitement, giddy with first love, they had sneaked away to the glen to touch, to gossip, to dream. Those days seemed so long ago, the idyll of youth, the glory of ignorance.
How innocent they had been. How foolishly hopeful.
Jamie led the way onto the narrow path through the trees, then pulled his mount to a stop in the small meadow. Memories whipped at her like the gusts of wind trapped in the narrow valley. Cat briefly glanced around before studying her hands. She did not want to be here. She looked up to tell Jamie she wanted to talk somewhere else. Anywhere else. But he was there at her side, and his hands were on her waist, lifting her down.
She was suspended in the air for a breathless moment. His blue gaze caught hers. Something took flight in her chest, beating its impossible wings. Something that held the soaring, reaching quality of hope.
Disoriented, she placed her hands on Jamie’s shoulders. He lowered her slowly, a kind of embrace. Her feet touched the earth, but he did not remove his hands from her waist.
She did not step away, as she had that startling moment at the ladder. Was that only yesterday? Time bounced in dizzying circles. Age seventeen felt closer than the week prior.
She should maintain distance from the man who had dashed her soul against the rocks of heartbreak. She knew she should. Her heart thumped with insistence about this.
But she didn’t want to. Hope was a ridiculous thing.
“Do you remember our spot?” Light shone in Jamie’s blue eyes.
Cat bit back a smile and shook her head at him. “Of course I do. I am surprised you remember.”
“I am not so forgetful as that.” He did not take his gaze from hers as he trailed his hands up her sides. He explored the shape of her waist, her ribs, nearly touched the sides of her breasts.
She shivered everywhere, a leaf on a tree trembling in the wind.
No. She stepped back. No, she was not some small thing to be blown this way or that by the whims of her husband. She was solid. She was the tree itself. She was not dangling in the air, ready to fall with the change of the weather. She had sent her roots deep into the earth.
“You said something about an apology?” she asked.
He did not react to the harshness in her tone. His lips spread into a smile. “Patience, dear Catherine.”
A twig snapped beneath his boot as he closed the space she had taken. She could feel the heat of him. Five years was an ache to a body that knew what it was missing.
He leaned forward, but paused, his lips inches from hers. “Might I kiss you?”
He was going to make her answer.
She opened her mouth to say no, but he placed one finger over her lips.
“I want to kiss you, Cat.” His voice rumbled from deep in his chest, unguarded and unhurried. “More than anything. Please.”
She would make her own fate. She lifted her heels, arched onto her toes. The edge of his mouth was soft and warm beneath her lips. He smelled of earth, and spice, and the musk of man. Desire burned through her, left her raw and full of want.