Page 31 of A Courage of the Chosen

“What happened then?” Reyne interrupts.

“He was pissing me off, so I told him to move,” I shrug innocently.

“Tell them where you made him sit, Els,” Brodie chirps.

My eyes roll playfully. “As far away from me as I could move him.”

“Slay,” Rach adds.

“I . . . um . . . had to tell them what happened,” I add after a long minute.

Callahan’s hand finds my knee under the table, his fingers digging in gently while his encouragement seeps down the bond.

The mood amongst my friends turns somber as they patiently wait for me to tell them. Reyne and Rach were there when Tavish snapped my leg and took my family’s pendant, but I guess they haven’t heard my version of events.

“In the fight with Tavish, the Craobh Beatha snapped free. I didn’t move to grab it because I figured no one else could wear it besides me.”

I poke at the last bits of food on my plate before risking a glance at them. Their faces are open, understanding. “Tavish took it before I could stop him. It didn’t kill him, so who knows what he’s going to do with it now,” I sigh. Although the magnitude of it isn’t lost on them, they don’t flinch with the new information.

“You fought him and lived to tell the tale. Not many could’ve done that Elsie,” Eòghann says.

“You fucking kicked his ass, and if he didn’t have the Craobh, it would’ve been game over for him there and then,” Rach says fiercely as she leans into me. I’m not sure I believe her, but I lean back into her warmth and comfort.

Brodie nods his agreement, not saying anything beyond the you did good look he bears.

When I face Reyne, my chest constricts as her big blue eyes pass across my features. “Lass, there was nothing more you could’ve done. I was there, I saw how hard you fought. I heard your bones break.”

I shiver with the reminder of the pain that whipped through my body when Tavish’s boot came down on my leg.

Reyne reaches across the table. “There was nothing more you could’ve done,” she repeats with a lowered chin, willing me to believe her words, and I really wish I could.

Callahan casts his eyes down as he sees the way he should’ve reacted when I told him. And I let that truth sit with him. While I know I let Tavish get the better of me, and him having the Craobh could lead to our end, last night, Cal failed me as well.

We tell them everything else that happened after Hume left, and when they’re caught up, the next hour is the perfect balm after the intensity of the last few days. Good friends, good food, and we hardly talk about the war, or what’s going on outside these four walls.

Callahan eventually comes out of his pensiveness, and even makes a joke. I marvel at the ease with which he trades banter with Brodie and Eòghann. I’ve never seen him so relaxed, and I’m not the only one who’s spotted it.

Eòghann gawps at him like he’s not quite sure it’s the same man, and Brodie looks at him a fraction longer than normal when Callahan speaks.

I can’t keep my eyes off him, as much as I try to, relishing in the way his arm is draped over the back of my chair, and the way he winds his fingers through my ponytail to play with the strands. The gesture is casual and intimate, and my belly flutters every time he does it

“You’d better stop looking at me like that or I’m going to traumatize my sister and our friends.” He fists my hair and gives it a gentle tug.

I snap my gaze away from his and take a sip of my water to hide the way cheeks heat and my toes curl at his candor.

The sun dips behind the mountains, and the light from the fire bathes the room in a flickering glow.

“Okay, bed time,” Brodie takes Rach’s hand as they stand.

“Sure thing, Colonel,” she quips.

A heated glint shimmers in Brodie’s dark eyes, and in the next breath, he’s got her flung over his shoulder and is practically sprinting away as she laughs breathlessly.

“Goodnight then!” I call out after them.

Eòghann and Reyne follow, his arm threaded over her shoulder as they bid us goodnight. I trail them to the door and shut it. The large space is suddenly quiet, but it doesn’t feel as lonely as it has the last few nights, when Reyne and Rach left for the evening. It feels more like a home, having been filled with laughter that eased some of the tightness in my chest.

Strong arms cage me in from behind, and Callahan’s breath fans across the side of my neck.