by Dani Harper
Curious, she asked, “What do you mean by work?”
“They put each other first, always. And I couldn’t begin to list all the little stuff they’re always doing for each other.”
“Ah. I didn’t think of that as work. Surely that’s just what comes naturally?”
He snorted. “To a woman, maybe. To men, not so much. I know that’s one place I screwed up for sure. I put my music career first, above everything else, thinking I was doing it for Jade too. I wish I’d gotten smarter sooner, paid a little more attention to how my aunt and uncle stay close. They don’t take each other for granted. Me? I definitely took it for granted that Jade would always be there.”
“Gwr dieithr yw yfory,” said Caris. “It means, ‘Tomorrow is a stranger.’ ’Tis human nature to be thinking that tomorrow will be just like today.” She certainly hadn’t expected her own life to change so dramatically. What would I have said to Da if I’d known I wouldn’t see him again? What might I have done? The thought pricked her heart and tears stung her eyes again. She quickly changed the subject. “Did her family want her to marry you?”
Her question surprised him. “Yeah, actually, they seemed pretty enthused about me. I think they even pressured her a little, asking when I was going to propose. Friends and family on both sides did that, figuring marriage was a foregone conclusion, you know? I thought it was too, actually, although we didn’t really discuss it.”
“Truly, she wouldn’t be the first girl that didn’t know how she really felt until it seemed like it was too late to stop the wedding.”
“Wait a minute. I thought you’d be on my side,” he grumbled.
“Well, of course I am.” She used her free hand to cup his cheek for a moment. “I’m just trying to understand.”
Liam looked out over the devastated farm, but she didn’t think he was seeing it. “I’d like to think I’d have found a way to understand too, if she’d just told me she’d had second thoughts, had changed her mind. I wouldn’t have liked it of course—I know damn well I would have tried to talk her out of it. But I hope I would have seen sense eventually,” he said. “If only she hadn’t gone through with it . . .”
Liam rose and paced the porch slowly. She knew by his pallor that the exertion was making him dizzy, but she also knew she wouldn’t be able to talk him into sitting down. Not yet. His hurt and his anger were too close to the surface now, and Caris thought of the lurking pike with their needle teeth in the cold mountain lakes of her homeland. He wouldn’t bite her, but it was plain he was biting at himself, over and over.
“If she just hadn’t gone through with it,” he continued. “Hadn’t stood in front of me and spoke vows she’d already broken and wasn’t ever going to keep. But she did.” His voice rose. “She did, dammit. And it nuked everything, me included.”
His story reminded Caris of the yard. She could imagine how pretty it must have been before the storm, all fruiting trees and blossoming flowers, peace and tranquility. And now there was nothing left but a tragic and terrible mess. No hint remained of what was once picturesque, and all of the calm had been upended by chaos.
There was no peace within Liam, that much was certain. The heartbreak and betrayal had been as cataclysmic as the storm, leading to the collapse of the bridge between his music and his soul. True, Caris herself had been discouraged from expressing the music that lived within her during her human life. And she had been physically prevented from doing so as a grim. But what kind of pain does it take to dam up the songs inside when there’s no one and nothing to stop you? She’d learned that Liam Cole had once had a burning need to create music, just as she had. But while hers still blazed, his own fire had died out as surely as if a river’s worth of water had washed it away.
“You said you haven’t played since. Not even once?”
Liam sat down heavily beside her then, plainly exhausted. Caris guessed he’d been wrung out far more by rehearsing the past than by pacing.
“Not a damn note,” he said. “It’s like all the music that was in me just packed a bag and left town. And the thing of it is, I don’t even know if I want it to come back. Music just—I don’t know, it kind of opens you up to the bone. Takes you over. It’s not something that exists in you, it is you. It’s why I couldn’t bear to hear you sing, as talented as you are.”
She nodded. “Perhaps you’re just not ready to feel that much again.”
“Maybe.”
“Then I’m needing to say something. Your pain and your anger are like a festering wound. If you don’t find a way to let go of what happened to you, it’ll poison you.” That much she knew. The Fair Ones had stolen her life once. Instinct told her that if she allowed herself to dwell on her own anger, if she spent her energy on hating the fae, or simply permitted herself to wade too deeply into grief, then her new life would be lost as well, swallowed up in the pain of a past she couldn’t change.
“How would you know a thing like that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what you’re talking about. I can hear it in your voice.”
“It’s because of my da,” she said quietly. “My mother passed on when I was but two. He loved her desperately, and he grieved for her his whole life. He never let go of it, don’t you see? Instead of remembering the good, he hung on to his pain, and that’s why he drank so much. It wasn’t so bad when I was small—he’d only drink at night after the farm was looked after, and after I was in bed. But once I was grown, he started his drinking early in the day, and he drank more all the time. And then . . .” Her voice trailed away, and she bit her lip.
He brushed a finger over her cheek. “Shit, I’m sorry. I have no business acting like I’m the only person who’s ever had it rough.”
“There’s no need for you to be sorry. Not for me.” Caris forced herself to meet his blue gaze. “Be sorry that you’re well on your way to an empty life yourself, Liam Cole. Don’t you see that I can’t be in it if you can’t lay the past to rest? How can you divide your heart from your soul? Your life from your music? It would be like a wall between us.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll abide by your rules for singing and music making because I care about you and don’t want to cause you pain—but I’ll not do it forever.”
“You don’t pull any punches, do you?”
She didn’t know what that meant, but she couldn’t say anything more over the lump in her throat. Instead, she simply squeezed Liam’s hand. Caris herself had never borne the heartbreak of losing a lover—although as new as her relationship with this man was, she already felt something of that raw, deep ache at the very thought of walking away from him. But walk I will if I have to.
She had already endured the loss of her father, her entire life as she knew it, all that was dear to her, her own human body, and her music. It had been crushing and cruel—yet she had refused to relinquish her sense of self. Was that what the soul really was? She didn’t know, only that she would not give it up to the fae or to anyone else. She had waited more than a lifetime to be able to play her music again. The memory of sobbing over the instrument she’d found only this morning was still a dull ache in her heart, as two centuries of grief had finally broken loose. But when the floodwaters had ceased, pure exultation had burst from her like a star as she played that fiddle. It had been liberating beyond all bounds.
Of course, through the course of their conversation, Caris realized that it must be Liam’s own fiddle she’d found and borrowed. And she had no right to it. Best to be setting that straight. At least she’d gotten a chance to play the marvelous instrument once, and while it would be hard to relinquish it, she would return to her original plan and work until she could buy one of her own—though she would be unlikely to afford something of such amazing quality. “’Tis my turn to tell you something now,” she managed.
Her voice must have sounded far too grave because Liam looked almost alarmed. “
You’re not married, are you?”
“Dear heavens, no!”
“Why the hell not?” he shot back.
“What sort of a question is that?”
“Because you’re too damn pretty to be running around single. Are all the men in your country blind?”
“What a perfectly silly thing to say,” she said, giving him an exasperated look—though she was privately delighted that he thought her pretty. Had anyone ever said such a thing to her in her life? “’Twas my da that raised me, remember? There was just the two of us, and he was a straightforward man. I learned to act the same, and even more so when I was running the farm on my own. I think perhaps I was too bold, too outspoken, because no boys brought flowers to me when my friends or my cousins were being courted. I likely scared them all off because I knew my own mind.”
“But you must have met someone, some time?”
“Are you hearing yourself? And how many strange women are there dropping by your farm to visit?”
“You’re the first. And I’m busy anyway.”
“Aye, and I was a bit busy too, you know. There was none but my da and me to run the sheep. No hired man, no herder, no cook. Only us. Not only that, but we lived halfway up the side of the mountain. If I went down to the village at all, it was to church with my da or to buy and sell at the market.” She didn’t mention all the hours she’d spent with her music. “Or do you suppose I must have simply forgotten to find myself a man?”
“Well, I just thought for sure you’d at least have a boyfriend.”
“Ah, well—when I was ten, perhaps,” she chuckled. “Collen Edwards and I agreed to try kissing, behind a tent at the market. His big sister had a sweetheart, and he wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and I was curious too. We kept bumping noses until I couldn’t stop laughing, and that was the end of that.”
Liam grinned. “A little hard on his tender ego.”
“I guess it was, since he didn’t ask again. And when I was twelve, I was fair to swoon o’er Bran Tommer each Sunday when I was supposed to be listening to the sermon. His family had their own pew, third from the front. I didn’t get to see much but the back of his cochyn head—he had the most splendid red hair! But I never said a word to him, and then he took up with Mary Shippey after that.”
“So no husband, no boyfriends, no one at all, then?”
“Not a one,” she said, amused at the now hopeful note in his voice.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but good. I’m damn glad for my own selfish reasons.” He picked up her hand with both of his and held it to his lips like it was a holy relic. “You were right that there’s something between us. It’s new but it’s real, and I want to build on it. Look, I know I’m no prize—I’ve been festering in my own frickin’ juices for way too long.” Scrambling for words to explain himself, he stumbled on new revelations: “The breakup made me question everything I thought I knew. Like I thought I knew Jade, thought that she loved me. And I was dead wrong. I guess I just stopped trusting myself to be right about anything anymore.”
Caris nodded. “Perhaps she thought she loved you too. How could either of you know for certain if you hadn’t felt it before?” She put a gentle hand on his chest and leaned in until their faces were close. “Tell me how would I know, Liam Cole? Because I’ve not been in love before.”
“You listen to your gut,” he said without hesitation.
She wrinkled her nose and pulled back. “What does that mean?”
“It’s not something I understood back then, but I’ve had three years to think on it.” He summed up Uncle Conall’s famous rule of thumb for her. “Your gut is your instinct, it’s what tells you the things you can’t see or feel. It’s a lot more reliable than your heart or your head. That’s why people say, ‘trust your gut.’”
They did? After all her years as a grim, and all the languages she’d learned, the phrase was altogether new to her. “Trust your gut.” She tried out the words. “It’s not very pretty, but it makes sense.”
“I didn’t know how to listen to it before—I probably didn’t want to listen because I was young and headstrong and determined to have what I thought I wanted. But I know enough to listen now. And my gut’s telling me that I want a chance with you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. It’s not—well, it’s not flowers and candy, but like I said, it’s real.”
She was quiet for a long moment, long enough for him to berate himself. Nice going, Cole. Could you possibly have been any more romantic? What woman in her right mind wants to hear about your damn gut? He realized then that he was still holding her hand with both of his, and that she hadn’t tried to take it back. The seconds dragged on in an agony of hope . . .
Finally she nodded, and relief washed over him like a cool waterfall.
“I like to speak plainly, but ’tis difficult when it comes to feelings,” she said. “Never have I laid eyes on a man whom I wanted more than I want you. But I’m thinking it’s not going to be easy for us because you’ve been sore wounded, heart and soul. You’ve some healing to do yet, Liam Cole.”
“I know it,” he said. “Can you wait?”
She laughed then. “I seem to have a bit of time on my hands as they say, since I have a whole new life ahead of me. So I think I can spare you a little patience.”
“That’s all I can ask,” he said. It would have been a great time, a perfect time, to seal that agreement with a kiss, but before he could act on that notion, Caris jumped up and straightened her clothes.
“I’d best be getting back to the barn.”
Hard to be disappointed when this appealing woman had just agreed to give him a chance—but he managed to feel let down anyway. He’d wanted that kiss. As if she knew, she turned and cupped his face with her small hands, then kissed his bruised forehead so tenderly that he could swear it really did make it feel better.
“I nearly forgot,” she said as she pulled back. “I meant to tell you that I found a fiddle in the closet of the room I stayed in. It was too early to wake you, and I was far too excited to wait—I must confess to you that I borrowed it.”
A fiddle? He was damn glad to be sitting down. “You play the fiddle? You do?” His voice was incredulous as his dreams came back to him in a rush, the wild woman creating primeval music in the forest . . .
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You’ve gone pale.”
Small wonder, he thought. “Yeah. Fine.”
“Anyway, it’s not so odd that I play the fiddle, surely. The Kale—the Gypsies—taught me. They camped on the mountainside above our farm each year when they came to shear sheep in our village. I had to keep it a secret though—I could only play in the woods, far away from the farm.”
“Why a secret?” he asked.
“Because when I was growing up, any music outside the church was frowned upon, you see. Between the preacher and my da, I was certain to lose my fiddle if anyone found me—” Her voice abruptly failed her then, and her eyes filled. She wouldn’t let the tears fall, however.
Somebody did find you out, didn’t they? “That must have been pretty rough,” he said, grasping her hand and tugging her down beside him again. It wasn’t enough to simply put an arm around her. He wanted to draw her in close and shelter her from her hurts with his body. He didn’t expect the exquisite sensation of wholeness it brought to him. She fit exactly in the hollow beneath his shoulder, as if it was meant just for her . . .
Had Caris noticed that too, or was she too busy trying to recover her composure? She cleared her throat, yet remained pressed to his side. “Anyway, I’m truly sorry that I took the fiddle. It’s in my room—I’ll put it back in the closet where it was, or I can give it to you now so you can put it in a better place.”
“Like hell you will. I want you to have it.”
Big brown eyes looked up at him in shock. “I . . . I can’t take it fro
m you! It may not mean much to you now, but it did once.”
“It did,” he agreed. “Maybe someday it will again. But it’s just plain wrong for a fiddle, for any musical instrument, to be locked up in a case and never used. And it’s not good for it, either.” He saw that she wasn’t convinced. “Look, if you feel uncomfortable accepting it, would you just keep it for me? Tune it up and play it until I need it again. It would be good for the instrument, and it would make me feel better that it’s being used. Can you do that?”
In answer, she threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Liam. It means more to me than I can begin to tell you. And I’ll take very good care of your fiddle for you.”
Liam pulled her the rest of the way into his lap so he could wrap his arms around her too. She felt so good there, so right. His bruised head didn’t spoil the moment by complaining, either. Holding her, Liam heartily wished he had a dozen fiddles to bestow upon her. The downer was that he had to request one condition. Just one, but damn, he did not want to do it.
Yet if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure if his heart, head, or gut would be able to handle the situation.
NINETEEN
Liam wished he didn’t have to spoil the moment. “Caris, honey, I have to ask you a favor.”
“Of course.” She pulled back so she could look at him, and those big brown eyes just made it harder for him to spit out the words.
“It’s about the fiddle,” he said. “I feel like a jerk asking this, especially when you told me how you always had to hide when you wanted to play your music. But—I need you to take it where I can’t hear it, okay? Just for a little while. I’m just not ready to hear it, not yet.” She frowned, and he braced himself, certain he’d blown away whatever ground he’d gained with this beautiful woman.
