Page 4 of The Defiance of a Scottish Heart
“There is no me and Sheona.” The words came out too sharp, too fast. “There never was. There never will be.”
“Why not?”
Because I’m my father’s son. Because I saw what he was, what men really are beneath the vows and smiles. Because I have his blood, his weakness, and I’ll be damned before I inflict that on her.
But he couldn’t say any of that. Couldn’t explain without revealing the truth he’d buried two years ago, along with his father’s body and his lies.
“I have my reasons.”
“Reasons you won’t share?”
“Reasons that are mine alone.” Taskill stepped back, breaking his brother’s hold. “Dermot won’t push this again. He’s not that far gone. It’s over.”
He walked away before Lennox could argue, heading for the stables. He needed to ride. To think. To breathe without the weight of everyone’s expectations crushing his chest.
His brother mounted up and waved at him. “This isn’t over!”
The stableboy had his horse ready by the time he arrived—a gray stallion with a steady temperament and enough speed to outrun his thoughts. Or at least tire them out.
Taskill mounted and rode hard toward the coast, the wind stinging his eyes as the castle disappeared behind him. He didn’t slow until he reached the cliffs overlooking the sea, where gray water churned beneath a grayer sky.
This was where he came when the memories got too loud. When the fear that he was becoming his father overwhelmed the walls he’d built to contain it.
He dismounted and stood at the cliff’s edge, letting the salt spray wash over him.
You’ll marry her now, Taskill.
What would happen if he did? If he ignored every instinct screaming at him to stay away? If he let himself have what he’d wanted since he was old enough to understand wanting?
He’d already seen that story. Knew exactly how it ended.
“This changes nothing, boy. You’ll tell no one.”
His father’s voice, cold and commanding, in that moment when Taskill’s world had shattered. When he’d understood that the man he’d admired was a lie.
Taskill had been twenty. The same age he’d started noticing Sheona differently. The same summer he’d walked away from her rather than risk becoming what his father was.
Five years of distance. Five years of careful control. Five years of fighting the pull toward her like a drowning man fighting the tide.
And now Dermot wanted to force them together.
Nay.
He wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it. Even if some traitorous part of him whispered that maybe, possibly, he could be different.
But what if he couldn’t? What if the weakness was in his blood, waiting?
Better to be alone than to become the man who destroyed Sheona Rankin’s spirit.
Better to break her heart once than to watch it wither slowly over years of marriage to a man who couldn’t keep his promises.
Movement in the distance caught his eye. A rider, heading along the coastal path. Even from here, he recognized the copper braid, the straight-backed posture, the way she sat her horse like she was born to it.
Sheona.
His heart contracted painfully.
She was riding alone, one guard as her protector.Heshould have been her protector.
