Page 51 of Triple Threat

“Are you alright, Poppet?” he asked quietly, and I nodded.

“Just… just a lot to think about still, I guess,” I murmured.

He came through the kitchen and stopped across the stone countertop from me, hanging his cane off the edge and putting his hands flat upon it, looking down at me, searching my face.

“Why did you choose to stay?” he asked. “You could have gotten away from me out at the warehouse today, but you didn’t.”

I heaved an even bigger sigh and said, “You know what? It’s a good question. I wish I had an answer for you, but I really honestly don’t right now.” I did, in my heart of hearts… becauseKyle… and because… I glanced up into Roan’s stony green gaze, searching out every micro-expression on my face, his eyes roving my face almost lovingly, a gentle quality to his look.

“I had a bug-out bag packed for you in the boot of my car,” he confessed.

“You did?” I asked and couldn’t parse out the frisson of anxiety that swept up my spine, an almost fight-or-flight reflex making my gut clench. Visceral, a powerful reaction to his words, and oh, so, confusing because it landed firmly onfightand that reflexivefightreaction was tostay.

Interesting.

“Aye. Some warm clothes, a few grand in smaller bills… untraceable.”

I frowned.

“Why didn’t you give it to me, and more importantly, why are you telling me this?”

He smiled, and it held the ghost of sadness.

“I think you know, lass,” he murmured and reached a hand toward me, tracing a tendril of my errant long hair away from my face, behind my ear, his fingertip tracing the edge of the shell.

I fought not to shudder and lean slightly more into that touch, my chest growing tight, my throat closing up with emotion. I honestly wanted to hear him say it.

“Say it,” I whispered.

His smile grew and some of that wistful sadness fell away.

“I couldn’t after seeing where,” he cleared his throat, “howyou lived.”

“So, pity then?” I asked, deflating just a bit, the hope let out of my balloon.

He chuckled. “No. Hardly that,” he said.

“Kyle – I mean, Lach, then?” I asked.

His smile grew a little more, and he shook his head, stopped mid-motion and corrected himself verbally with a, “Well, not entirely.”

“Then what?” I asked him, fixing his eyes with mine.

“You are a treasure, Poppet… on that, Lach and I can and do agree. I didn’t give you the bag because like Lachlan, I have some controlling aspects to my personality. With you living so efficiently off the grid, I was afraid I would never know what became of you and I couldn’t do it. I could not fathom turning you loose out there to wind up in some different warehouse in a different place, cold… hungry… eventually ending somewhere worse.” He bowed his head and shook it violently as though to banish the image from his mind.

I reached out in sympathy and covered his hand where it rested on the countertop with mine.

“It’s alright,” I murmured. “I get it. Believe me, I do.”

He looked at me then, somber, and I forced a smile when, for whatever bizarre reason, all I wanted to do was cry for him. For worrying about me…

Or maybe I wanted to cry for myself for finally having someone standing in front of me who wanted to worry about me. I hadn’t had that in a very long time. So very long, in fact, I couldn’t quite pinpoint when it last was anyone would have missed me. Except maybe for Kyle, but even that was… wow… twenty years ago, maybe?

So long…

Roan reached up with the hand that wasn’t covered by my own and touched the side of my face, lightly stroking my cheek with his thumb before almost too swiftly withdrawing it.

“Bless,” he said and dragged in a deep breath. “I’d best get cooking; the duck will take its time in the oven.” His voice was rougher than it had been a moment before, the emotion hanging in the air between us, thick, almost visibly distorting the air.

---