The Ranger (Highland Guard #3)(76)

No! She hadn’t. Something else was at work here. “Why not?”

“We’re completely wrong for each other. Family is everything to you. But for me? My parents died when I was young. My brothers have been fighting on opposite sides of the war for years. I know nothing about family.”

“I can show you—”

He cut her off angrily. “I don’t want you to show me. I like to be alone. And you ...” He waved his hand. “I’d wager you’ve never been alone a day in your life. You deserve to be surrounded by family and friends, with a husband who adores you and a handful of children tugging at your skirts. Don’t tell me that you don’t want that, because I know you do.”

She did want that—with him. “Don’t you want children?”

His mouth turned white, as if the question—the thought—caused him pain. “You’re missing the point.”

“Am I? Have you ever thought that maybe it’s not that you like to be alone, but that you have not been around the right people?” She paused, letting her words sink in. She understood why he kept himself apart, but Anna suspected that he would feel differently with a family who loved him—who accepted him. “If you care for me, none of the rest matters.” His face was about as yielding as granite, but she pressed on. “Do you care for me, Arthur?”

She held his gaze, daring him to lie to her. He looked as if he wanted to. Eventually he admitted, “Aye. But it doesn’t matter.”

He did care for her. She hadn’t been wrong. She shook her head. “It’s all that matters.”

“It’s no use, Anna. Trust me when I say it won’t work. I could never give you what you want. I can never make you happy.”

Frustration and anger rose inside her. “How dare you presume to know my mind better than I do! I know exactly what I want. After what happened, how can you not know that you are the only man who can make me happy? Don’t you realize that I love you?”

Her declaration was as unexpected to her as apparently it was to him. She snapped her mouth shut, but it was too late. Her words seemed to echo in the sudden blast of silence.

He went utterly still, his expression not unlike that of someone who’d taken an arrow to the chest. Hardly the reaction she’d hoped for. She hadn’t expected a return declaration. Really, she hadn’t. Not yet at least. But neither had she expected the silence. Silence that slowly—cruelly—broke her heart.

I love you. The words reverberated in his ears. Pounding. Ringing. Tempting, damn it, tempting.

Arthur stood stone still, not daring to allow himself to believe her. He couldn’t believe her. Because if he did, it might make him happy. Happier than he’d ever been in his life.

She didn’t mean it. She was confused. Anna MacDougall gave her heart to everyone. It was part of what made her so damned irresistible.

He shook his head, as if trying to convince himself. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You can’t love me. You don’t even know me.”

“How can you say that? Of course I know you.”

“There are things about me, if you knew ...” He couldn’t say any more. He’d said too much already. She was too damned perceptive.

Her mouth pursed, and he recognized the stubborn glint in her eye. “I thought we’d been over that. Your abilities are a gift—one that has proved extraordinarily useful more than once.”

He hadn’t been talking about his skills, but about the fact that he was with Bruce and a spy. About the fact that there was no one he hated more in the world than her father, and that he’d been waiting fourteen years to destroy him. But he could hardly tell her the truth.

“I know all about you that matters,” she continued. “I know you like to watch and listen rather than speak. I know that you don’t like drawing attention to yourself and try to blend into the background. I know you have valuable skills that you try to hide because you think they make you different. I know you’ve convinced yourself that you are different and that therefore you don’t need anyone, and so you try to push people away before they get too close because of it. I know that you’ve spent most of your life on the battlefield, but that you can wield a quill as effectively as you can a blade.”

She stopped long enough to take a breath. He should have cut her off, but he was too unsettled to speak.

“I know that you are smart, and as strong of character as you are of body. I know that when I’m with you I feel safe. I know that you pretend not to care about anything but would protect me to your dying breath. I know that a man who can hold a child in his arms with gentleness, and show patience to a puppy who’s given him nothing but trouble, has a kind heart.” Her voice lowered to almost a whisper, the anger drained out of her. “I know that since the first time you kissed me there would never be another man for me. I know that when I look up into your face, it’s the one I want to see for the rest of my life.” Her eyes, bright with unshed tears, met his. “I know you are loyal and honorable and care for me but something is holding you back.”

Jesus. He felt as if he’d been poleaxed. No one had ever said anything like that to him before.

It humbled him.

It moved him.

It scared the hell out of him.

She’d seen too much. She wasn’t just a threat to his mission but to him in ways he’d never imagined.