Page 17 of Savage Blooms
“Oh, he was born blind. We’ve all got our quirks, don’t we?”
With a slight tremor in her fingers, Nicola reached her hand over the fence and let it hover a few inches away from Snug’s snout. He snuffled at her palm curiously, but then he lapped at her fingers, as tender as could be.
Nicola let out a relieved, if nervous, laugh.
“Good boy, Snug,” Finley cooed. “Very nice and proper.”
Nicola was brave enough to let Snug lick her fingertips for a few more seconds before she withdrew her hand behind the safety of the fence.
“Very good,” Finley said, and this time it was directed at Nicola.
It was a trained instinct, to follow up adrenaline with praise, and it slipped out before he could catch himself. Finley heard the command in it, the tone like he owned her, like she was his to teach and reward, and that made him want to shut himself inside the house in embarrassment until she left. He absolutely should not be bossing around a guest, especially not when it made her blush as red as a strawberry.
“Want me to leave them here while we explore?” he said, bright and quick like a normal, sane, human person.
“Yes please,” Nicola said. “But thank you for introducing me to them. And for showing me your home.”
Finley patted Snug’s head, gave Smoo a scratch behind the ears, then slipped out through the gate and back onto Nicola’s side of the fence.
“It’s a house, for sure,” he said. “But Craigmar is my home. The woods, the beach, all of it.”
“You must know every inch of it, then.”
“I do. Better than the back of my hand.” He noted the position of the sun in the sky. They had been out here a while, and there was still the walk back to the house to contend with. They should really get going soon, before Eileen or Adam started asking any questions. But time moved so fluidly out here, in the birch forest with Nicola smiling up at him, and Finley wanted to steal just a few moments more with her, if only for his own selfish pleasure. “Can I show you one more thing?”
“I’d love that,” she said, beaming bright.
It would be all too easy to lose his footing and fall right into the warmth of that smile, losing himself in her brightness.
Finley could already feel himself slipping.
Finley led Nicola up a rocky incline at the very furthest end of the lawn, climbing up and up until they reached his favorite outcropping, the one that jutted straight out over the sea. Below, ocean waves crashed against shining black stones, an endless churn of foam and water. Salt mist sprayed onto their faces. Nicola’s cheeks were brightpink with exertion and joy by the time they reached the top, and her hair was somehow even curlier than before from the damp air.
Outsiders never lasted long at Craigmar. The atmosphere was hostile to them, and they withered like foreign plants thrust deep into rocky Highland soil. But somehow, the further Nicola walked out into the wild with him, the more she bloomed.
“God,” she breathed, eyes eating up the horizon, “you can see for ever.”
“It’s where I like to come to think,” he said. “There’s no one out here to bother you. It’s just you and the sky and the ocean, alone together.”
“And what do you think about out here?” Nicola asked, half-teasing.
Finley’s heart snapped shut like a clamshell. He had said too much already. He needed to be more careful.
“Bit of everything,” he replied, carefully nonchalant as he refused to meet her eyes. There was too much at stake for him to run his mouth and ruin everything. He had his orders, and he knew his role. It was safest to stick to the script.
But then again, this hadn’t been exactly what he and Eileen had discussed, and Finley certainly hadn’t been counting on Nicola, on a total innocent with stars in her eyes.
Well, Finley thought as he caught Nicola giving him a hungry sidelong glance,maybe not a total innocent.But she didn’t sign up to be an actor in Eileen’s passion play.
“I appreciate you bringing me out here and showing me all these beautiful things,” she said, edging closer to him so their shoulders were nearly touching. Finley hunched forward, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and tried not to notice how near she was. “Especially since Adam and I just invited ourselves over. That’s not exactly polite.”
A slender needle of guilt slipped between the armor-plating around Finley’s heart. It pierced the flesh beneath, drawing blood.
“Don’t apologize,” he said. “Sometimes the best things in life are unexpected.”
He expected it to come out breezy, friendly, proverbial, but his damned earnest nature betrayed him. He heard the way he said it: too honest, too rough.
Finley turned to look at Nicola, and they were suddenly close, so very close.
