Bran broke away and pulled me to my feet. His voice low, urgent, he said, “I know I can’t talk you into staying, but please, please be careful. Promise me?”
“You too.” As he let go of my hand and backed away, my chest constricted. And it felt as though some giant vacuum had suddenly appeared in the sky to suck away all the oxygen in the open field around me.
Bran called to Mac. “Thank you for listening to me, sir.”
Mac waved in acknowledgment, then got into the driver’s seat. He and Moira pulled away, back tires spinning up gravel.
“Well,” I said, “I’d better go.”
Bran nodded, wordless. We began to walk away in opposite directions. We did that a lot, it seemed.
Suddenly I heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel behind me. “Wait!” Bran called. “Wait . . . just wait one second.”
He towed me quickly back toward the long, stout table that had been in place since Moira’s grandmother was a girl. Reaching down, he withdrew his sgian dhub, the tiny but lethal knife all proper Highlanders wore, stuffed into the top of their right sock.
“Nearly forgot,” he said. “Can’t have that, now can we?”
His long neck bent to the task. Muscles in his lean shoulders flexed. Sun flashed on polished steel. It took only a moment. He straightened and drew me to his side as he brushed away the pale shavings that littered the top of the ancient table.
There we were. Our initials looked so new, so fragile, amid all the others that had weathered the years and decades together. But staring down at them, I also realized how bright we glowed against the aged wood.
BC + HW.
Instead of enclosed in a heart like all the others, Bran had wrapped us up together inside the shape of a small and perfect apple.
“You heard what Moira said.” His hand smoothed over my hair as he smiled down at me. “Now it’s forever.”
Chapter 9
“BRANDON!”
Bran jolted back, his body going as stiff and still as if he’d just been struck in the head by one of the flying cabers.
A girl stood next to the table, head cocked as she watched us. Amusement played over her features as Bran’s eyebrows lowered and his mouth went tight. I realized I’d seen her, though only briefly, in the group of people watching the preschool dancers.
“Gabi,” Bran said through clenched teeth. “What are you doing here? You promised you would wait in the car.”
She shrugged. “Me aburrí, mi primo.”
“Bored?” Bran huffed in agitation. “We had an agreement.”
Did that . . . Did she . . . just call him cousin?
The girl dimpled when she smiled, and I suddenly understood the expression “murderous impulse” much better.
“I am sorry, Brandon.” R’s rolling, her tongue slipped over the English with exotic flair. “When you were so long away, I became worried.”
Bran seemed to deflate. His head bowed for a few seconds before he straightened his shoulders and turned to me.
“Hope,” he said, “this is—”
“Gabi.” I stood. When I felt my bottom lip split a little, I realized my mouth had stretched into something approximating a smile. “Yes, I heard.”
It wasn’t that she was beautiful. Well, she was. She was also tall, tan, and fashionable in a way I could never be. Lissome. That word slunk up from my mental thesaurus. Sunglasses that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe pushed back the girl’s honey-colored hair. Her ensemble of linen and raw silk had undoubtedly been created for her by people with singular names like Gucci and Prada.
Long-limbed and graceful, or so I thought until she moved toward me and I saw the pronounced limp. And then she was grabbing my hands, squeezing them and smiling down at me with such fervency I could only blink up at her.
“I am Gabriella de Roca,” she said. “And I know who you are, of course.”
“Do you?”
“Oh, yes, and I am so very happy to meet you at last, Hope Walton.”
“Gab-ri-ella.” Bran stumbled over the name, obviously more accustomed to his little nickname for her. “Is—?in a manner of speaking—?a relative of mine. Her grandfather, the Duke of Martelle?a, was married to Celia’s grandmother, Do?a Maria.” He moved close to me. I edged away until his arm was no longer pressed against mine. “We, uh . . . we’ve known each other since we were children, though she spends most of the year away at school. Until recently, that is.”
So. An aristocrat. Well, of course she is. If that isn’t the product of generations of wealth and beauty intermarrying, I don’t know what is.
“Brandon is much too courteous,” Gabriella said. “What he does not say is that when dear Abuelo passed, my mamá took his money and some of her pretty boys and left me all alone. Do?a Maria was kind enough to take me in. Though I was not much in attendance, at least I had a place to go during the holidays. Now . . .”
She let go of my hands and spread hers in a uniquely European manner that I thought was supposed to convey something like, “You get it.”
But I most certainly did not get it. Not at all.
“Gabriella is a dancer,” Bran hurried to explain. “Studying at the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona.”
Well, naturally. What else could she possibly be?
“Ah, mi primo.” Gabriella wagged a finger. An ironic and sad smile tugged at the dimples. “Gabriella era una bailarina. Ahora, ella no es nada.”
“This again,” Bran muttered. He half turned to me. “Gabriella tore the ligaments in her knee and has had several surgeries to repair them. The doctors are not yet certain if she will be able to dance on a professional level.” He clucked at her. “But, you will dance again. You’ll see. In any regard,” he told her, “you are not nothing.”
No, I thought. No, you most certainly aren’t.
The rational part of my brain was telling me to stop being ridiculous. The girl was his cousin, for God’s sake. But some primitive instinct had begun to creep up the DNA chain. Some predisposition left from cavewomen ancestors who—?when faced with a rival—?simply knocked her brains in with a rock.
“Hope,” Bran said. “I—”
“Oi!” I swiveled at a shout from behind us. Collum was strolling over, loaded up with gear. Phoebe was right behind him, hoisting a box of Moira’s jam.
My friend’s eyes narrowed as she took in the three of us. When her gaze landed on Gabriella, her nostrils flared. She set the box on the table, then sauntered over, taking a position at my left flank.
“And just who might you be, then?”
Gabriella started to answer but Bran stopped her, waiting until Collum had joined our happy little entourage.
Collum, I noted, had not stopped staring at Gabriella since he’d spotted us.
Bran pinched the skin between his brows and quickly made the intros. “But before you haul off and punch me, mate,” he said to Collum, “you need to know that Gabi . . . Gabriella is no friend to Celia.”
Gabriella snorted as if that was the understatement of the year. For a second I hated her a tiny . . . tiny bit less.