Perhaps it had only been me who felt it, and our few days together seemed nothing unusual for him.
A sob bubbled up. While I tried to get away, I knew he heard me start to cry as I crawled back inside the main building. He did nothing to try to stop or comfort me. It seemed I was the wrong one. He told the truth before. He was incapable of feeling anything.
*
Why did he feel like crying? He never cried. Not once, since the death of his wife had he done so. He stared into the black sky in front of him, trying not to blink so that tears would dry in his eyes rather than fall.
Only the sound of Blaire’s angry voice behind him pulled him from his trance.
“Baodan McMillan, if ye doona get yer arse off that wall and go after that lass, I shall kick ye off the edge and watch ye fall to the bottom.”
“What are ye talking about, Blaire?” He spun and dropped himself back onto the walkway where Blaire stood.
“Doona do that. Ye know what I’m talking about. Ye are a fool. Ye care about her, doona ye?”
He couldn’t lie to Blaire, not about this. She would never believe him even if he tried. “Aye, I do, but I doona know how to love someone anymore. I told ye that when I asked ye to marry me. I doona want it, and she deserves to spend her life with someone who can love her. That isna me.”
“Are ye saying that I dinna deserve more than that?”
Ach, he didn’t know how to speak to women. He only knew how to upset them. “No, o’course ye did. ’Tis only that I believed ye dinna want love either. Mitsy does, and she should have it.”
Blaire shocked him by moving toward him and slapping him hard across the face. “Ye do want love, ye silly fool! I am going to say something to ye that I heard Adelle say once. It isna verra nice, and ye willna have heard it before, but I expect ye will understand the meaning well enough. Besides, I doona think kindness is what ye need right now.”
His head spun from the impact of her hit. He had a hard head, but she had a strong hand. “Aye, say it. It canna be worse than ye knocking me upside me head.”
“Doona be such a chicken shit! Ye say that ye doona know how to love so that ye doona ever have to hurt. ’Tis true that ye may be out of practice, but ye can learn, and she’d give ye the chance to do so.”
He reached up to run his hands over his face. “I’m frightened that I willna be enough for her.”
Blaire softened and reach out a hand to him. “Do ye remember what I told ye the day I ended our engagement?”
He shook his head. “Perhaps. Remind me.”
“I told ye that one day ye’d find the person ye were meant to be with. Although ye told me ye dinna think it would happen, ’twas what ye said last that was important. Ye said that if such a love came, ye would welcome it.”
Surely not; he couldn’t imagine himself saying such a thing, but then again, Blaire always had a way of making him tell the truth. “And ye think that Mitsy is that love?”
“Aye, I do. I know that ye havena known her long, but she was meant to come to ye. I saw it.”
He glanced suspiciously down at her. “What do ye mean by that? Have ye joined the lady Morna and taken up witchcraft?”
She elbowed him playfully in the side. “No, o’course I dinna, but I do believe that Morna showed me something. Do ye remember when Arran and I came to stay at McMillan Castle after leaving the castle formerly known as Kinnaird?”
He nodded. “Aye, I do. What of it?”
“As we left and rode by yer pond, I saw a red-head swimming in the water. I knew the lass looked just like Mitsy, but I thought at the time that I’d imagined it. I dinna make sense of the vision until ye both arrived here this afternoon. She was meant for ye, Baodan. Now, go and get her before she does something foolish.”
*
He found her on the beach, staring into the ocean with enough sadness in her eyes to break his heart. Her hair blew around her face so wildly he knew she couldn’t see him. He paused to watch her before approaching.
He watched as she glanced down at a small object she held in the palm of her hand. He couldn’t make out what it was, but as she lifted her head and reared her arm back, he knew what she meant to do. His heart stopped.
He ran as fast as he could, diving into the water after the small rock she sent sailing into the air.
Chapter 21
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was doing. He floundered around in the water like a crazy man, and the shock of watching him do so made me stop crying.