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I hadn’t taken a single step before a hand shot out and wrapped around mine.
“S-s,” he stuttered, squeezing my hand harder as he struggled to find the words.
I closed my eyes and waited, trying to block out the sympathy pain I felt every time he tried to speak.
“Sorry.”
That single word, deep and raspy and laced with regret, landed on my soul like that woolen jacket, snuffing out my anger, soothing my grief.
I stood with my back to him, paralyzed by indecision as a battle broke out between my heart and my pride. My pride demanded that I storm off, that I continue to hate him and punish him for what he’d done. But my heart … my heart was fixated on the slow, rough drag of his thumb over my knuckles. The warmth of his skin on mine. The sincerity of his apology and the way it felt to be seen as a human being for once, rather than a sex object or a servant girl or the silly little laughingstock of Howth Head peninsula. My heart needed what he was offering far more than my pride needed to deny me of it.
So, without another word, I sat back down, my shoulder grazing his, and together, we finished our lunch.
CHAPTER 14
DAMIEN
Idreaded nightfall. It was torture—the way she’d hide from me, the crying, or worse, the silence—but something had changed between us.
Everything had changed.
Instead of cowering behind a boulder as far away from me as she could get, the girl was out where I could see her, reclined against the wall and reading by the light of a burning ammo box.
And the silence wasn’t agonizing anymore. It was almost … content. The crackle of the fire and hiss of melting plastic. The turning of her pages and scratching of my rock against the sheet of metal I’d pulled out of the inlet. The sun had already set, but there was enough twilight left for me to finish my etching. Once it was done, I planned on giving it to her. Not that it was enough.
The girl had saved my life, dressed my wounds, given me shelter, water, food, and all I had to offer in return was the bloodstained shirt off my back and a few primitive drawings. I felt like a fucking animal. But there were words forming on the tip of my tongue—I was thinking clearly again and was pretty sure I’d be able to speak if I tried. With food in my belly and water in my veins, I’d managed to stay conscious the entire day, and the pain was now more of a dull throb than a stabbing agony.
Setting the sketch down next to me, I watched the sky darken over the sea. Now that I remembered where I was and how I’d gotten there, I couldn’t stop staring at the aftermath. I was home, but I was homeless. I was alive, but I had nothing to live for. I was healing, but I was so fucking broken.
“Done with your drawing?”
I glanced over at the girl and watched the firelight dance across her innocent features, her eyes never lifting from the book on her lap. I stared at those nearly closed lids so hard I could almost see the emerald-green irises hidden underneath. I remembered their exact size and shape, and if I let my vision blur and my imagination take over, it felt like she was looking at me again.
The way she did every night in my dreams.
“I could read to ya, if you’re bored,” she said without looking up.
Yet another kindness that I didn’t deserve, but was too fucking selfish to refuse.
Leaning back against the wall, I stretched my legs out in front of me, wincing slightly from the pain.
“This story’s called The Ghost of Glenshire.” She closed the book and gazed at the cover with a wistful smile. “My ma used to read it to me. It’s from a series of fairy tales about this little village in County Kerry called Glenshire. The author’s note says that all of her books are based on folklore from the area, and the way she describes it …” She shook her head. “I want to go there so bad.”
Her smile faded. “It’s sad though. The author died before the series was published. She and her husband were murdered, right there in Glenshire, and they never found out who did it. Can you believe that? She was only twenty-two.”
Jesus Christ.
“Darby Donovan,” she said, gently touching the letters on the cover.
“Darby.” I spoke the word not from my mind or my mouth, but from the depths of my fucking soul. It tasted familiar, like dark berries and sweet vanilla.
The girl’s eyes shot up in surprise but didn’t make it any higher than my chest before she jerked her head away, like a hand that had almost touched a hot stove. “You spoke again.” She smiled weakly, her voice still laced with sadness. “See? You’re gonna be singin’ in the choir by Sunday.”
“Darby?” I tasted the sounds again, clung to them, but they floated away from me like ripples on the surface of a lake, the accent changing from Irish to American as they faded into the darkness.
“Me? No, I’m Clover. Clover Doyle.” Her face fell as she glanced down at the book in her lap. “I wish I were Darby Donovan—I would love to write like her one day—but … she died before I was born.”
I slumped back against the wall, my head suddenly pounding.
