Yeah, the person outside was a dead man.
He tugged his shirt on and glanced at Isla. “You both stay there,” he ordered, just in case. The woman messed with his equilibrium. He wasn’t thinking straight.
Another knock echoed through the cottage. Loki barked, and Isla shushed the dog. Muttering a curse, Sinjin yanked open the door.
“Dad?”
An older image of himself stared back at him. “Hello, son.”
Unwanted, familiar emotions, strong and fierce, seized his chest. But just as quickly as they surfaced, he pushed them back behind the brick wall in his mind and cemented the sucker.
He heard Isla’s intake of breath a second before he felt her presence behind him.
“Your dad’s here?” she asked. “Invite him in.”
“No.” He stiffened and narrowed his gaze on the man. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to talk.”
He shook his head. “Don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Sinjin!” Isla moved to his side and pushed at his shoulder until he looked at her. “That’s your father. Why are you being rude?”
Shock had rounded her eyes, and his stomach clenched at the mixture of confusion and disappointment clouding her gaze. A gaze that usually regarded with warmth, adoration, heat, respect, and acceptance.
She didn’t understand, but that was his fault because he’d never opened up and told her about his childhood. No one outside a few of his military brothers knew about it.
His father sighed. “He’s never forgiven me for not killing the man who murdered his mother.”
Chapter Twelve
Air funneled into Isla’s lungs and her stomach rippled as if punched. She couldn’t have heard him correctly. God, that was so eerily similar…it just couldn’t have been what she’d heard.
Forcing herself to exhale and breathe, she glanced between both men, noting how they were practically the spitting image of each other, except one was older with short, salt and pepper hair and years of sun and worry weathering his face.
“That’s right.” Sinjin’s gaze was back on his father, animosity stiffening his body and tightening his features. “You wasted a trip. Go back to El Paso.”
Before the man could reply, Sinjin shut the door.
Isla gasped.
“Jesus, Sinjin.” She rushed to follow him as he strode through the room. “Hang on,” she said, scurrying to stand in front of him and set a hand on his chest. “What’s going on? What was that about?”
“I think he articulated it well.”
Her stomach pitched, and she swallowed back her emotions. “Your mother was murdered too?”
The knowing look in his eyes sent another ripple through her stomach.
He knew…
He blew out a breath and nodded. “Yes.”
“You know about my mother,” she stated rather than asked.
“Yes,” he replied again.
She stiffened, unsure how she felt. “And you never said anything?”
