“You don’t have it anymore, I guess . . .”
“Actually, it’s sitting in the shed. Hasn’t run for years.”
“Oh.” So that’s what the big bulky item was in the chained-up shed.
He runs a hand through his hair, focus drifting back to the fire.
“Keep going,” I whisper.
Calloused fingers tangle with mine. “We got pregnant. That sealed the deal for the town. They hated me even more for stealing her future from her. Least that’s what Iris relayed to me. By the time Ava told me, I was away. God, I loved her, and all I wanted was to make sure they were nothing but taken care of. With nobody willing to give me a job locally, I’d enlisted.”
“Oh, Callum.” Breath lodges in my airway at the heartbreak lacing his words, and I know where this is leading.
“She wrote me every week. And I her. We missed each other something fierce. I asked her to marry me in the last letter I sent. Shipped the ring I’d bought to her. Things were going well with the pregnancy. The ba—” His hand slips away as he slams his palms into his eyes with a groan. “I never got to say goodbye. They both died. She was barely six months along.”
Tears course down my cheeks with his grief. I snuggle into his side, taking one of his hands back between my two. “You couldn’t have known. You sorted your life out for her, sacrificed to take care of her. If the town can’t or won’t see that, that’s on them.” Heat courses through my veins like the flames in front of us as my anger rises. How could they be so narrow-minded? So cold? He and Iris lost their parents.
So much for small towns taking care of their own.
“So you moved to an island?” I whisper.
“Ava’s parents had the funeral without me, then moved clean across the country. The second I landed back here, no one would look at me.” He sighs, shaking his head. “It’s easier this way. I still have Iris and Em, but I don’t have to deal with the town.”
If I could undo the years of hurt this man’s been put through, I would. In a heartbeat. Nobody should be punished for choices they made eons ago, let alone be judged for their past mistakes when they work so hard to better their life.
“You have me, too. For a little longer.”
He moves, eyes studying my face. I can’t help myself when my hands brush over his beard. The wounded young man in those eyes, I know now, is what I have mistaken for broody old guy all this time. The overwhelming urge to make Callum feel better catches me in its intoxicating grip.
His warm hands curl around my wrists. “Eve?—”
I shake my head. “Tell me something.”
He tilts his head, a mix of wonder and confusion dancing in those blues.
“Where would you go if you could be anywhere?”
His brows furrow, his gaze dropping to the spot between us that’s shrinking by the second as he hesitates. “This island. With you.”
God above, my heart’s completely melted. Its puddly remnants drip through my rib cage. I open my mouth. I should respond, but nothing forms. Callum rises to his knees, capturing my face, pulling my mouth to his. He devours me like I’m the last good thing left in his life. Like at any moment, I too could slip away.
I tear at his old work shirt, feral to touch him. Heat blazing through my core, I scramble to my knees before climbing into his lap. Rough hands slap onto my ass, gripping tight. The tender mewl that breathes through my lips detonates his hunger.
“Fuck, Evie. Fuck, nighean bhrèagha.”
I’m flipped onto my back on the pile of blankets a heartbeat later. I’m caged in by Callum hovering over me, propped up on all fours, before I recover the breath that huffed from my lungs. I trace a finger over his jaw, then his lips. He nudges my hand with his face, planting a kiss to my palm before closing his eyes.
“Where would you be, baby girl, if you could be anywhere in this world?”
His eyes open when the question lands.
Blue, the depths of the deep ocean, now searching for an answer.
Twenty
CALLUM
“Right here,” Evie breathes.
