by Vonnie Davis
“Ye know I dinna give a bloody hell about what is and what isn’t proper, especially where yer concerned. Who was it who sat with ye in the hospital after ye lost the bairn? Who held yer hand throughout the night?”
The intense agony that clutched her heart and forced her lungs to wheeze in misery nearly robbed her of all strength. Och God, I canna take any more of this today.
She pivoted away from him and blotted the tears from her cheeks. Why was it always him who touched her soul? Why?
Bryce whispered her name and she gathered the courage to stand in front of him. His gaze dropped to the green plant in his hand and a slow, unsure smile creased the corners of his brown eyes. “When I stopped at the florist, I kent any flower for Effie would be fine, as long as it was pink. But I’d decided yer present had to be special. I was hoping for something ye could put in yer new room here at the estate house. I wanted ye to think of me every time ye looked at it, and making a choice took me a while.” He extended the lynx-shaped container, ivy growing in profusion from the top. “Although I was looking for something more romantic, this called out to me.”
Kenzie’s fingers prickled when they wrapped around the coarse ceramic planter. Vibrant blue glass eyes in its head stared at her, vigilant and protective. An emotion between shock and dread commanded her attention. Surely the lynx outside the window hadna implied that this macho blackheart standing in front of her would be the sire for her future bairns. Not after all that had happened in their past. Still, what were the chances of this man choosing a lynx flowerpot? “It…it called to ye?” What could he mean by that?
A blush mottled his thick neck as his fingers slipped into the back pockets of the worn jeans that hugged his muscular thighs like a pair of lover’s hands. “Actually, it called to me bear. Together they said it was perfect for ye. I was admiring a miniature yellow rose plant. Its pot set in an upturned broad-brimmed straw hat, decorated with ribbons and doodads.” He motioned to some of the decorations on his shirt.
Effie breezed into the parlor, her smile wide as she picked at the blooms and leaves in the crystal vase. “Don’t they look gorgeous? I think I’ll set them on my little writing desk, out of direct sunlight so they last longer. Sparrow, did I see a planter of ivy?”
“Aye, ye did.” She extended the container, turning it for Effie to see the face of the magical cat and its iridescent blue eyes.
Effie’s gaze shot from the planter to Kenzie’s face. “Oh my.”
“ʼTis sorry I am if yer not pleased with it. I should have gotten ye the yellow miniature roses, or maybe a vase of wildflowers.”
Before she realized what she was about, Kenzie kissed his neck. “Nay, this is more perfect fer me than I can say.”
His palm settled at the small of her back. “I shoulda had Colleen with me to help choose. She picked the shirt I’m wearing tonight.”
The warmth of his hand seeped into Kenzie’s skin through her blouse and both aroused and comforted her—emotions that bristled her nerves. Of all the men in Mathe Bay, he should be the last one to generate the zinging and pinging along her nerve endings. Too bad he was the only one who could, for he was the only man she’d ever wrapped her heart around, its clasp refusing to let him completely go.
Effie took the planter from Kenzie’s grasp. “Where would you like me to put this, Sparrow? In your sitting room or the bedroom?”
Bryce escorted Kenzie toward the front door. “Put it in her bedroom, Miz Effie. On her nightstand, so it’s the last thing she sees before she falls asleep.” He winked at the older woman, and she giggled.
“Yer a bossy man, ye are. And where are ye taking me to dinner?” Kenzie stepped outside and blinked at the sun slowly sinking over the Highlands.
“I was thinking we’d pack the things ye’ll need here at Effie’s first. Then when we go to the Crazy Horse, we can relax and talk. We had some good times there in the past. Do ye remember?”
“The past is long gone and best forgotten.” How was she going to keep him out of the small and sparse apartment she’d shared with Duncan? It was clean, of course; what Scottish woman didna take pride in keeping her quarters neat? But she had little furniture left after her husband’s beating rages, and the income from her job at the wool mill barely paid her rent and utilities. So she’d made do with what little furniture she had and a car that was almost as moody as Duncan had been. Too bad, as a witch, she couldna put a spell on it to run until its bald tires fell off.
Bryce kept the conversation going as he drove them to the apartment complex where she lived. He was full of stories of little Colleen. While she enjoyed the tales of his delightful child, she felt a bittersweetness in hearing them as well. If only he’d acted the man he’d pretended to be, with the feelings he claimed to have, Colleen would no doubt have a brother or sister by now.
Before Kenzie could point out her apartment, he eased his truck into the empty parking space in front of it. “How did ye ken which place is mine?”
“On the many nights I’d be drinking too much tipple, I’d drive over here and sit, wishing to God I’d been a smarter man and kept our relationship going. If it’s okay with ye, I’ll come over tomorrow to take a look at yer car and get it running.”
This was her chance. “Why not take a peek now?” She slipped her car key off the key ring and handed it to him. “I’ll go on inside and pack what few things I’m taking while ye look under the hood. If it’s nothing major, I can drive it to Effie’s tonight, which would be a huge worry off me mind.”
“The sun’s setting—’tis turning dusk. Besides, Colleen would cry something fierce if I got grease on this shirt she made me.” He pocketed the key. “Tomorrow ’twill be soon enough. With me help, we’ll pack what things ye want to take.” His dark eyes narrowed and his eyebrows lowered. “Is there something in there ye dinna want me to see, Kenzie?”
She shrugged and glanced at her clasped hands. “There’s not much to look at after Duncan’s tempers—he broke up most of our furniture. ʼTis embarrassed I would be fer ye to see how I’ve had to live. And ye will never know how much it costs me to admit that. Please honor me wishes.” She gazed at him out of the corner of her eye.
The muscle in his jaw bunched. “How much stuff do ye have?” He jerked his head toward the back of his truck. “Can we pack it all in one load? I want ye away from the memories of living here with him and his furies and the fear and sadness that put into yer soul. And I want ye gone tonight.”
Great, his stubborn streak was showing. “There’s no need. I’ll only be a few minutes. All I’m taking is me clothes and a few personal things he didna destroy. The furniture can stay or be put out with a ‘Free’ sign on it. I dinna need yer help. Truly.” She opened the door and jumped down from his vehicle.
Shortly, Bryce’s door slamming echoed hers.
I might as well talk to the blowing winds fer all the more attention he pays me. Typical man.
She unlocked the door to her apartment and turned on the ceiling light. Her lamps and end tables had long ago been smashed to kingdom come. Shadows from the light bounced off a used sofa she’d been given by neighbors when they moved out of the upstairs apartment. Although it had only three legs, its upholstery hadna been slashed by Duncan’s knife-wielding hand, so its presence improved matters, and three hardback books were a suitable substitution for a leg. A rocking chair, given to her by Aunt Una to rock her bairn in, sat in a corner with its back broken off.
Even so, shame prickled at her pride when Bryce’s attention zeroed in on the makeshift leg of the sofa. Maybe if the earth just opened up and swallowed her, she’d escape some of the humiliation of his reaction. His gaze quickly found three of her paintings. He pointed to their odd positioning around the room. “Are ye still working on your art?”
“Yes.” She clasped and unclasped her hands.
“I’m glad. Ye were always so good. What do ye want to wrap them in? Towels, maybe?” Before she could stop him, he removed the first one from th
e wall, and stilled. His hand slowly rose to cover the fist-sized hole. His voice lowered and a string of profanity competed with the growling of a bear. In quick succession, he removed the other two pictures, which also hid holes Duncan had made the times she’d ducked fast enough to avoid his fist.
“If the bloody bastard werena already dead I’d kill him again!” Bryce stormed over to a large painting she’d done of the Highlands in the mist. No doubt the height and placement of it caught his eye and aroused his suspicions. He reached to remove it.
“Dinna.” She hoped he’d honor her plea.
The determined scowl he shot her made her retreat a step. When he set aside the painting, a large hole was revealed, rimmed with strands of her hair. He pounded his forehead against the wall above it a couple of times. “Fer Fook’s sake, Kenzie. Why?” He swung in her direction, his eyebrows dipped into a V and his eyes narrowed. “Why did ye stay with him? Why didna ye come to me? Ye ken I would have protected ye.”
“Because women who are abused live not only a life of fear and pain, but of shame too. We’re ashamed to admit the men we’ve tied ourselves to think so little of us. Often, they’ve played mental games with us until we think we’ve earned the beatings.” She shrugged. “Which only increases our shame. That’s why, when some of us are lucky enough to get out of the marriage, we stay alone. Alone and safe.”
He reached to grab her arm and she jerked away. “But things are different between us, Kenzie. We’ve known each other forever. We’ve been friends since kindergarten. I’ve always been here for ye.”
Och yeah, until ye met Miranda. She couldna have this conversation with him. Not now. Not ever. With a crying spell two heartbeats away, she stormed into her bedroom and yanked her suitcase off the shelf of her closet. Pushing back the little curtains she’d made to hide the drawer fronts Duncan had smashed, she removed her clothes and tossed them into the luggage. Tears burned the back of her throat. Bryce had his damn nerve, asking her why she didna run to him at the first sign of danger.
A curse slipped from his lips when he stepped into her bedroom to find her mattress on the floor, the headboard and frame long since damaged and thrown away. More holes punctuated the walls, like periods at the end of sentences.
“Kenzie.” He enveloped her in his arms and held her close, his hand cradling the back of her head. “What in God’s name have ye endured?” Pained astonishment now replaced the typical cocky humor one found in his dark eyes.
She shoved him away. “The last thing I want from ye is yer pity.”
He backed her to the wall and placed his arms over her head. “Och, luv, ʼtis not pity.” He leaned in until their foreheads touched. “ ’Tis me shame for pushing ye away. A deep remorse I canna begin to measure.” His fingers forked into her curls, and he kissed her forehead. “By the time I started coming to me senses about how much love I carried in me heart fer ye, ye were already married to Duncan. Then anger took over. Me male ego was hellish bruised. I was bloody pissed ye could move onto another man so fukin’ fast.”
The change of expression in his eyes from pity to regret to anger was too much to bear. Her anger rose to meet his, tit fer tat. “Just what was I to do, Bryce Matheson, when I found out I was pregnant with yer child?”
His eyes widened and his jaw gaped.
“Aye, pregnant. A week after ye’d cast me aside, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. So when Duncan started flirting with me, I told him I was carrying another man’s child. He claimed he wanted me so bad, he promised to marry me and raise the bairn as his.”
“Why didna ye tell me?”
She fisted her hands on her hips. “Why? When ye’d already told me ye loved the memory of yer dead wife more than ye could ever love me? What kind of life would we have had if I’d trapped ye with both a bairn and a woman ye didna want?”
He swung away, interlocking his fingers behind his head. “Bloody hell, what have I done?” On a pivot, he pinned her with a hard glare. “Me bairn. What happened to it?”
She turned, pressing her face against the wall. God, hadna she revealed enough?
“Kenzie? I asked ye a question—I damn well expect an honest answer. What happened to me bairn?”
“A couple weeks after I married Duncan, he went out fer a night of drinking with his buddies. He came home drunk, in a foul mood, and beat me until I miscarried. Then he threatened me life if I told what he’d done to me. Some days I wanted to die. Other days, I went through my routine…numb, empty, hopeless. Hell, I was too depressed to talk to ye or anyone. Yer bairn was all I had left of ye. And, aye, even after ye turned yer back on me, I still loved ye, simple fool that I was.” She laced her fingers over her abdomen. “Och, how I loved the bairn we’d created. To lose it cut me heart in two, and it seemed as if both halves shriveled and died.”
Bryce’s expression was an unholy blend of rage, astonishment, and vengeance. He opened his mouth once to speak, and nothing, but a pain-filled groan emerged.
She couldna bear to see him like this, and stepped toward the bed to close her suitcase. “A few months later, when I turned up pregnant once more, Duncan swore up and down it was yer child too and beat me again. By then, the cocaine he and a few of the other shifters used had control of his mind, making him incapable of comprehending reason.” Tears scalded her eyes, coming as fast as she wiped them away. She pivoted and raised her chin to face Bryce head-on. “So tell me, Romeo who canna commit to a live woman, which…which time was I to come running to ye?” Her tear-filled vision was too flooded to distinguish his features. “After the first miscarriage or…or the second? Because both times I was too damn numb to think or feel.”
Chapter 4
Bryce stormed into Creighton’s office at Matheson Lodge, slammed the door, and poured four fingers of Whyte & Mackay single malt whisky his brother kept in his private stock. After Kenzie’s confession, he was too damn angry to talk and too fukin’ hurt to eat. His chest constricted with a spiky steel band of agony so keen he could barely inhale his next breath. He’d lost a bairn. A bairn he’d known naught about. And there was nothing he loved more than being a da. Although he’d been barely nineteen when little Colleen was born, he’d taken to fatherhood like a bee to pollen.
Kenzie musta read his mood, for when he’d asked her if she was still hungry, she shook her head. Claimed she couldna eat a bite. Even so, he swung his truck through the Big Buns Drive-in and ordered them each a hamburger—his loaded, hers with cheese and pickles, the way he recalled she liked it. Neither was up for conversation but, to judge by her paleness, her confession had no doubt depleted her energies. He wanted her to have some nourishment. She nibbled at the edges of the sandwich while staring out of the passenger window.
When he’d braked for a traffic light, she whispered a question so faint he could barely discern her words. “Do ye hate me?”
“I could never hate ye.”
“Ye canna bear to look at me. Besides, I hate meself enough fer both of us.”
He glanced at her then, before easing through the crossroads. “Why?”
“I believed Duncan’s lies when he said he loved me. And I didna take good enough care of yer child.”
He eased the truck to the curb and shifted it into park. “If a man bigger than ye is beating on ye, how can ye possibly protect the bairn within? Duncan put on a lot of weight after he got out of the service. Neither ye nor the bairn stood a chance. So, believe me when I say I hold no ill feelings toward ye. I’m working through it all, trying to come to grips with what that monster did to ye and our child. And, indirectly, to me and Colleen. Ye know me daughter. Think how she would have spoiled our bairn, how she’d have worried over every cough and delighted over every first achievement.
“Nay, I do not hate ye, but I am beyond mad as bloody hell. ʼTis ye who should hate me. I shouldna have turned ye away, and I was a spineless bastard for what I said to ye that night.”
She nodded and swiped away tears. He unhooked her seat belt a
nd lifted her onto his lap, where she sobbed against his chest. When her tears were spent, she pulled out of his embrace and silently slid to her side of the seat. He drove away from the curb and, in a show of comfort, reached to hold her hand, her cold fingers stiff in his.
Their ride to Effie’s was quiet and tense. Kenzie probably longed to be alone too. So, after he carried her meager belongings to her upstairs quarters at Iverson Hall, he promised her he’d see to her car in the morning. Then he drove like a madman for the lodge and marched straight for the liquor cabinet, where he coiled his trembling fingers around the decanter of whisky.
Bloody hell—his bear wanted out of the confines of its human body to run the hills, rampage through the forests to tear things apart. Kill! Destroy!
Damn if Bryce wasna of a mind to let him do it. Sorrow, regret, and guilt warred with hate for Duncan.
Bryce tossed back the single-malt and hissed at the bite of whisky burning through his system. Tonight wasna a night for sipping. Nay, ʼtwas a night for getting shite-faced drunk.
That was our bairn! Ours! I shoulda killed him instead of breaking his fukin’ legs.
Months ago, when Kenzie had been beaten so badly to cause what he now kent was her second miscarriage, their cousin and policeman, Kendric, had called to tell Creighton, laird of their clan. Since Creighton held zero tolerance for domestic violence, the three brothers had shifted, and searched for Duncan in the Highlands. He’d gone to ground like the coward he was.
Aye, and we found the feckin’ weakling doin’ his drugs, didn’t we? Too late, though—he’d killed what was ours. Ours, dammit!
Bryce struggled to keep his bear under control. Anger and agony arced from his human soul to his bear’s. His duality was ripping him apart. Staying in human form was the shifter’s usual existence until the bear within grew angry or won the battle to come forth and take control. He reached back with his hand and yanked off Colleen’s masterpiece before he shifted and tore it to bits in the process. He kicked off his boots and jeans. Then he poured another glass of whisky.
