Page 98 of Deception of a Highlander

Oh, to hear his sweet voice again, to see him alive. Emotion choked her. Two long years she had waited for this moment, and yet nothing could have prepared her for the rush of affection that ached within her chest.

She stepped toward him, her arms outstretched.

“Get away from me,” he hissed. Contempt glowed in the beautiful eyes that once looked to her with unquestioning love.

“What?” The air grew thin and breathing became difficult.

Hatred glinted in his eyes. “Aaron told me about you,” Jack said. “You could have come for me after I got better, but you never did. He tried to make excuses for you, but I saw through them.” His little hands balled into fists at his side. “I waited for you.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Mariel whispered. Her legs were no longer able to bear her weight, and she slowly sank to the floor. He thought she had left him.

Jack either did not hear her or did not care. “I know the truth. I begged Aaron, and he told me exactly where you had been. He didn’t want to, but I made him. You became a whore and spent your days shopping for fine dresses and jewels and your nights on your back. He said that you didn’t want…you didn’t want your good fortune interrupted. He said you…” His voice trembled. “He said you didn’t want me.”

“No,” Mariel cried and lunged toward him in desperation. If she could cradle him in her arms the way she used to and explain, perhaps he would listen. “No, that’s not true. I wanted to see you—I tried to see you, but he wouldn’t let me.”

Jack leapt off the bed, away from her grasp. “More lies!”

“Aaron is the one who lied. He kept you from me, sometimes moving you in the middle of the night so I wouldn’t find you. Everything I’ve done has been for you, to find you. Jack, please…” Her words shook, laced with a fear she’d never anticipated.

Hesitation crossed Jack’s thin face. Regret lodged in the pit of Mariel’s stomach for the little boy he had been and the years she had missed. She had failed in providing him with the happy childhood he deserved.

“Get away from me.” The small tendons stood out around his neck. “I hate you!”

Large words for a little boy and spoken with such finality, they shredded the remnants of her marred soul. There was so much he didn’t understand, so much he didn’t know, and too much to say. Her death was imminent upon their arrival back at Skye. There would not be time to explain it all to him, to erase the years of hatred fed to him.

The energy drained from Mariel’s body, and she sank back to the floor. A low keening cry rose from deep within her chest—the brutal sound of her heart breaking.

She had sacrificed more than she ever thought possible. Her pride, her morals, herself. Everything had been for Jack, and now the only thing she faced in her dark world was a traitor’s death—one justly earned.

“Jack.” A stern voice sounded from behind her.

Kieran filled the doorway, a firm gaze fixed on his face. “Come here, lad,” he commanded.

Jack moved back as though unsure of what to do.

“I dinna ask ye if ye wanted to come here, I told ye to. Come here, Jack.” The authority in Kieran’s voice was unmistakable, undeniable even to Jack, who skulked to the doorway.

While Kieran’s efforts were appreciated, they would be futile. She would be dead before Jack would ever understand. He was lost to her forever.

The lad was a wee bit of a thing, no taller than Kieran’s hip and doubtlessly weighed less than a child half his age. Dark blue eyes were set hauntingly wide in his narrow, peaked face as he stared up at Kieran.

Kieran crouched down next to Jack, so he was eye level with him. “Ye’ve been through a lot, and ye’ve done it alone.”

The lad stayed silent and kept an arm’s reach away from Kieran.

“That’s what men do, lad. It’s no easy. I’ll be the first to say that, but it’s what makes ye a man.”

Jack’s eyes slid to where Mariel lay and shifted back to Kieran. Still, he did not speak.

“A real man would do anything for his family. Steal, lie, even kill. Do ye agree?”

Jack nodded and shuffled closer.

“Yer sister did that and more for ye. Do ye know that since I met her, she has thought only of ye? Everything she’s done moved her in yer direction so she could be with ye, to save ye from this life and give ye yer freedom. No matter who she hurt or betrayed.”

Jack’s brows furrowed. “She did?”

“Aye, she did. She had an opportunity for a new life in a beautiful land, surrounded by people who loved her, and she dinna take it. No’ when ye couldna be with her.”