The Ghost Greyson, Maeve (reading an ebook .txt) 📖

Magnus crouched at Keigan’s level. “We are all leaving together. The villagers are angry and confused, and when folk get that way, they say and do things they shouldna do. But we mean to ride away before they return. I swear, Keigan, I will keep ye and yer auntie safe.”

Keigan dove forward and hit his chest, clutching him tight. “I am afeared,” he whispered. “Those mean men sounded like Mr. Wicklow when he called Auntie ugly names and hit her.”

At first, Magnus didn’t know how to react or what to say, but then instinct and a stirring warmth in his chest overtook him. He hugged the boy and picked him up as he stood. “I will keep Auntie just as safe and happy as I intend to keep ye safe and happy, ye ken? Ye can ride with Evander. Ye would like that, would ye not?”

The child sniffed and nodded but kept his face tucked in the crook of Magnus’s neck.

He patted the little lad’s back and held him. “But for now, we must gather our supplies. Ye dinna wish to leave behind what’s left of Granny Wick’s jam, now do ye?”

“We can take the jam with us?” Keigan lifted his head and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Magnus nodded as he lowered the lad to his feet. “Aye, son. The jam and all the other supplies she sent, but we need to hurry so we can get on our way as soon as possible.”

Keigan gave him a quivering smile. “I’ll gather my things quick as a blink.” Then he scampered off, grabbing up bits and bobs and stuffing them into a cloth sack.

“Where will we go?” Brenna asked quietly from behind him.

Magnus turned and risked taking her hand. She looked pale and suddenly very weary, but at least she didn’t pull away. “I intend to keep my word to Keigan,” he said. “For now, we will just go away from here to keep ye both safe. He still has the right to decide whether he wishes to be my son and return with me to Tor Ruadh.”

Brenna stared at him as though trees had just sprouted from both his ears. “Ye would still give him his choice? Even when this madness could work to yer advantage?”

“I gave the boy my word.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I gave that same word to ye.” Pausing, he wrestled with what he knew needed saying, but the words would only bring him sorrow. Against his will, he forced the pledge out. “And if the two of ye decide ye dinna wish me in yer lives, I shall see that yer settled safe somewhere, any place of yer choosing, and then I will leave ye be.” A sadness overcame him. “But I would ask if I might return and visit once in a while—just to see yerself and the boy. Make certain ye’re faring well?” The thought of them living without his protection pained him, troubled him more than he wished. But he would keep his word, even though it would rend his heart in two.

“My sister was right,” she whispered, easing her hand free of his and hugging it to her middle. “Ye must surely be the kindest man in all the world. And the most decent.”

The stirring in his chest warmed even more. It swelled through him, threatening to cut off his air. It took a forced swallow to enable him to speak. “I dinna think I am any of those things, lass. I am just a man trying to do what’s right.”

Chapter Five

Their mounts slowed to a halt as they reached the summit of a steep rise. In silence, they looked back. The billowing column of smoke in the distance twisted like a knife in Brenna’s heart. Her and Keigan’s cozy home was no more. It had been little, but it had been theirs, and they had enjoyed many a happy time there.

“Why did they burn it?” Keigan asked from his seat in front of Evander.

“Because they’re stupid bastards,” Evander supplied before anyone else offered a more mature reply.

Magnus turned to scold the boy, but Brenna stopped him with a quick pat on his back. “Leave him be,” she said, thankful for the unlikely saviors Divine Providence had sent just in time. If Magnus and Evander hadn’t shown up when they had, she wasn’t sure what she would have done. The man she had hated since her sister’s death wasn’t the man sitting in front of her. Nay, that foul imagining had been a heartless monster who cared for no one other than himself. Magnus was not that monster.

She tightened her hold on his belt and patted his back again. “Let us be gone now, aye? What’s done is done, and canna be changed. No sense staring at where we have been.”

“We’ll ride west for a while to gain some distance from them. Then cross back to the coastline for easier traveling south.” He urged his horse onward at a good clip. “Three days to Inverness. We’ll head that way ’til Master Keigan decides his future. Would that suit ye well enough, in case he decides the two of ye should go on without me?”

Her heart twitched at the way he said that. She felt and heard the melancholy in his tone. But it wasn’t just that. The thought of Keigan casting Magnus aside almost made her sad. She shook away the dangerous tenderness, refusing to give it a minute more of her time.

“What say ye, lass?” Magnus urged, turning his head for her answer.

“Aye. That’ll do just fine.” Whatever the man thought best. She couldn’t think straight. The past few days had been nothing but a wearying upheaval she hadn’t foreseen.

Evander thundered past, pushing his horse into the lead. As they cantered down the rolling hillside, Keigan’s laughter filled the air.

“No faster, Evander!” Magnus shouted after them. A disgruntled growl rumbled