Modean Moon - Forgotten Vows

“I’m sorry I startled you—”

Jennie’s frown turned into a smile of such dazzling joy it hurt him to watch. “You came back,” she said breathlessly. He saw the tension drain from her as she sank back onto the bench and stroked the kitten. “I—I knew you would.”

But she hadn’t known. That much was as painfully clear to him as her happiness had been only moments before. And suddenly he felt this overpowering need to comfort her as she comforted the kitten. “It was late last night when we returned to Avalon—too late to disturb you.”

“You went somewhere?” she asked. “You and the sheriff? Is everything all right?”

No, it wasn’t, hadn’t been for a long time, might never be. But that wasn’t what she meant. She meant between him and the local law. “Yes,” he said gently. “Everything is fine.”

She extricated a hand from the cat and held it out to him. “Please,” she said, her smile an invitation he had never been able to resist, “join us.” She nodded toward the girl at her feet. “This is Jamie. Jamie, this is—” She stopped abruptly and looked toward him as her smile faltered. “I’m sorry. I don’t know your name.”

They hadn’t told her. Not one thing. And in spite of the fact that she would have to know, have to confront who she was and what she had done, he couldn’t tell her, either. Not now. Not without more support for her than a half-grown cat, an adolescent girl and an embittered and cynical man she had no memory of.

“I’m Edward,” he said, stepping to her side and, because he couldn’t help himself, taking her small hand in his.

“Edward.” Her voice caressed his name as she tested the sound of it. “Edward.”

Her fingers flexed in his and he felt their gentle pressure. Because he couldn’t stop himself from this, either, he ran his thumb over her fingers, across the one where his rings had once dwelled, and found a ridge of tortured bone beneath delicate, pale skin.

Startled, he looked down. With a sense of relief, he found something else on which to focus, a small trail of blood oozing from a tiny wound in the fleshy pad of her thumb. “Your cat has drawn blood,” he said.

“Let me see,” Jamie said.

The girl pushed her way between them and grabbed Jennie’s hand. “Oh, darn,” she said. “I’m sorry. Heathcliff’s had his shots so that—”

“It’s all right,” Jennie told her.

“But-”

“It’s all right, Jamie,” she repeated again. “He was just playing.”

“Something to clean it with would be in order,” Edward told the girl.

“And I’m supposed to believe it’s all right to leave you alone with her?”

“Yes,” Jennie insisted softly. “It is. And no, I don’t need any first aid.”

Jamie studied him with Lambert’s wary, suspicious eyes. And then, because Edward couldn’t stop this, either, another, darker thought intruded. Meggie. Was this how his sister would have been at Jamie’s age? Tall, yes. That had always been a given. But would she have been poised and comfortable with herself beneath the mantle of security Jamie wore so casually? Or would she have been awkward and at war with a body growing too fast for her heart and mind to keep pace with?

This was something else that Jennie had done to him. She had drawn him out of the shell he had so painstakingly erected and laid open wounds he had thought long healed.

Forcing himself away from those thoughts, he smiled at the girl. “You might as well tell Reverend Winthrop I’m here, even though I’m pretty sure the innkeeper has already called your father and told him that he brought me into town.”

Jamie grinned at him. “It’s a small town. It’s either great or a really big pain depending on your attitude and what you want to keep secret.”

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