Page 147 of Highland Spy

He’d done it all wrong.

His heart slid heavy in his chest.

“Connor.” Kenneth’s hand settled on his shoulder, the same as he’d done when they were boys. A motion Connor had inadvertently adopted over the years.

The burden he had carried for so long was suddenly too heavy to bear. Everything in him buckled under the weight and his head bowed in defeat.

Kenneth didn’t say his name again, but Connor knew he was awaiting a response.

“I was so angry.” Connor’s voice was strained with the admission. It wasn’t the true confession he knew he needed to make, but it was the most he could stand to offer in the moment.

“Ye dinna know. I’d have been angry too.” Kenneth squeezed his shoulder and let his hand drop away. “Connor, where have ye been these last three years?”

Connor’s mouth was dry as straw and swallowing did nothing to assuage the discomfort. “I thought everyone was dead.” He turned to his friend and looked him in the eye.

“I’ve been living in an abandoned castle, acting as the king’s personal assassin.”

The skin around Kenneth’s eyes tightened and showed the lines there once more.

Connor’s head swam, blurring warning with the need for honesty. There’d been too many lies through the years, too many barriers between their friendship. “I went to the king for help and asked to be allowed to kill yer da.”

Kenneth’s brows flinched and his body tightened. “He fell down the stairs.”

Connor dropped his gaze to his hands once more. His stained, murderous hands. “With a broken neck, aye?”

Kenneth pulled in a breath beside him.

“He’d killed my da!” The shout exploded from Connor’s throat and echoed back to them, peppered with the pattering of rain. He shot Kenneth a hard look and found his friend staring back at him in horror.

“He killed yer da,” Kenneth said quietly. “And I did everything I could to make it right, because the sins of the father are no’ the sins of the son. Ye made the decision on yer own. It was yer sin which led to murder.”

His words slipped into Connor’s heart like the cold, unforgiving blade of a dagger.

Kenneth stood and backed away. “I dinna know the man ye’ve become, but I will always mourn the loss of Connor Grant. For truly he did die that day.”

Then he turned on his heel and left Connor sitting on the bench, staring after him with a hollow gap where his heart had once been lodged.

As soon as Kenneth disappeared from sight, another thought wormed its way into Connor’s mind and slithered into his thoughts.

Cora.

If Kenneth was willing to commit treason for her, what else would he be willing to do?

Did he even know where Cora was?

It wasn’t a risk Connor was willing to take.

He shot off the bench and ran out into the rain toward the small rented room. He and Ariana would need to leave immediately to reclaim Cora.

Before Kenneth got to her first.

• • •

Packing their travel items gave Ariana a different feeling of relief than what she’d anticipated the day prior.

This one was warmer, ensconced in all the humming joy of love.

Ariana had just finished with the last bag when Connor came through the door.