Page 173 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
“And ye kept it,” Ciaran noted.
Ava looked up at him. “What?”
“Her enthusiasm,” he clarified, not breaking a beat. “It is clear from the way ye speak most times that ye share this feature with yer ma as well.”
Ava swallowed thickly and turned her eyes to the distant cluster of trees that stood just a hair away from the loch. “I have never really thought about it like that.”
“Daenae worry. I daenae think it will be easy for ye to let her go. Ye’re doing all of this for her, are ye nae?”
“For her,” she agreed. Then, after a beat, she exhaled. “And perhaps for meself as well.”
Ciaran did not respond, but the silence that followed was not the strained one from earlier. It felt different now and even more attentive. Ava felt it without needing to look at him again.
They continued walking side by side, the path stretching ahead, the grounds open and quiet around them. Ava became aware with growing certainty that the air had shifted without her noticing.
This was no longer merely about honoring her terms. She had come expecting controlled politeness and perhaps a little discomfort. Instead, she had told him something she had carried for years and found that he could listen to her without making fun of her.
Why had she even expected him to make fun of her in the first place? Was she that inexperienced when it came to companionship with a man? Or was she just treading the path based on Ciaran’s reputation? Was him being attentive worse or even better?
She could not yet decide which, and for a little while after, neither of them spoke.
Eventually, Ciaran turned to her, almost as if the thought had escaped him before he had fully decided whether to keep it.
“I have a telescope in me tower.”
Ava blinked.What?
She turned her head to him, wondering if her mind was playing tricks on her. He did not just say?—
“What did ye just say?”
Ciaran narrowed his eyes. “Did ye nae hear me?”
“Nay, I didnae.”
He brought his forearm to his chest, and Ava saw the faint outline of the bandage around his shoulder. “Something tells me ye did.”
“Maybe I did. Maybe I didnae. I want ye to repeat it.”
Ciaran shrugged, exhaling as loudly as he could. “I said… I have a telescope in me tower.”
So her mind had not been playing tricks on her. That was exactly what he had said, and it was what she had heard.
The words were so unexpected that for a moment, she only looked at him. “A telescope?”
He kept looking ahead. “Aye.”
That was all. He didn’t offer any explanation or attempt to make the fact less strange than it sounded.
A part of her was beginning to understand now that it was his way of talking. He didn’t use twenty words when only two would do. Yet, for some reason, the admission landed with surprising force.
It was not the object itself that surprised her, though she had not expected such a thing from him. It was the picture that formed in her head. A solitary man in a tower, watching the night sky, keeping a private habit no one had thought fit to tell her about because no one likely imagined there was such a thing to tell.
For a man known for being severe, the picture felt almost intimate.
Ava found herself smiling before she meant to.“I would never have guessed.”
The corner of his mouth twitched slightly. “Most people wouldnae.”
