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Her attention on his hand gripping hers, she murmured softly, “Broden, there are a dozen or more reasons for our impulsiveness, and neither of us needs to make more of the situation than what it was.”
“What are ye afraid of, lass?” Broden needed to know. To understand.
The connection had been real. Vibrant. Powerful. He was experienced enough to know what had passed between them wasn’t commonplace.
However, she wasn’t.
This phenomenon wasn’t something he’d readily relinquish, either.
She opened her mouth, her gaze softening for the briefest moment before her lashes dipped, blocking her eyes—her secrets—from his view.
“Trust me, Kendra.”
Her eyelids flew open, and she shook her head. “I canna.”
“Why no’?”
It was his turn to be blunt.
Her chest rose and fell again as if she struggled to remain calm. At last, she looked at Broden squarely.
“Ye once said I was a splotchy-faced dumplin’ with perpetually knotted hair and grubby smudges on my chubby cheeks. Yer dislike and disdain for me extends back many years. I canna believe one passionate kiss erases years of yer contempt.”
Jerking his head up, Broden narrowed his eyes, not recalling ever having said anything so harsh. “I never did. That would’ve been cruel. I’d never have been deliberately unkind to ye.”
Even in their verbal sparring, he’d never crossed the line into insulting. He’d been stern, though. Mocking. Sarcastic. Disdainful.
Hell.Weren’t they all part of the same verbal, mean-spirited arsenal?
Had he truly been belittling and disparaging her, inflicting wound after wound, and not even realized his culpability? That made him the worst sort of sod. An insensitive clodpoll.
An eyebrow winged upward, and a pained expression pinched Kendra’s pale face. A hint of embarrassment shone in her eyes until she averted her gaze. “Ye also said…,” She sucked in a wobbly breath, two bright spots appearing on her cheeks. “Ye said, ye’d never kent a lass who ate more sweets, and ye felt sorry for my horse.”
“I…”
Shite.
What could he say to that?
He raked a hand through his hair. “God,” he groaned, despising his younger, self-absorbed self. Had he ever said something so callous? Aye, she wouldn’t lie about something so humiliating. “That’s beyond contemptible. I have nae memory of sayin’ such things, but I beg yer pardon, nonetheless.”
“Ye were in yer cups.” She shot a gaze over the hedgegrow to the house. “In the library with Liam and a bottle of whisky. Ye drank a lot back then.”
Och, hell.
As a stupid, callow youth, angry about his father’s death the year he’d turned one and twenty, he’d indulged in strong spirits way too often to obliterate the gruesome memory of finding him beaten nearly to death during a robbery in Edinburgh. He’d died in Broden’s arms, and he’d exacted brutal revenge on the men responsible.
A large man, even then, Broden had attacked the thieves. They were no match for his superior size and strength. Or his grief-borne rage. He’d broken their necks. Snapped them like twigs from a tree.
An act he wasn’t proud of but couldn’t entirely repent of, either.
It was devastation on the dirty face of one of the men’s sons that still haunted him. The wee lad had tried to protect his father, just as Broden had protected his. A couple of months later, when a degree of reason had returned and gut-wrenching remorse had overcome him, he’d tried to find the lad and his family, if he’d had any.
He’d wanted to apologize and offer to help them financially. Even after searching for a fortnight, he’d had no luck. To this day, he wondered what had happened to the wee, skinny lad and remorse gnawed at his peace of mind.
That guilt had also driven him to the bottle.
When pished, he couldn’t remember much the next day, which was one reason that he never drank to excess anymore. More than once, he’d awoken in a strange woman’s bed, with no memory how he’d come to be there.
What had been a sliver of shame had expanded into full-blown self-disgust.
Kendra didn’t much like the Broden McGregor she already knew. She’d be appalled and repulsed if she knew him for the former womanizing drunkard who’d killed two men.
“I’m nae holdin’ a grudge if that’s what yer thinkin’,” she said. “It has been many years, but I canna help but think what a man says while pickled comes straight from his heart.”
Her assumption wasn’t farfetched.
“I was plump, and I had hideous red spots all over my face. I didna care much about my appearance back then. But ye see, Broden, I worshiped ye as only a silly, young lass can. Ye wounded me with yer careless words. Wounded my spirit, and it took me a long while to overcome that hurt.”
“Kendra…?” He clamped his teeth together, despising the self-centered arse who’d hurt her so long ago. “If ye say I said those untenable things, I dinna doubt ye. I shallna insult ye by offerin’ pitiful excuses. I was an inconsiderate, unforgivable, blackguard.”
A fragile smile softened the corners of her mouth. “’Tis a long time ago. I shallna deny it stung, but I’ve tried to put it behind me. Still, until two weeks ago, ye still treated me like I had the plague.”
Because he’d been so bloody frustrated at her rejection of him. Her enmity. Now he understood why she’d rebuffed him at every turn.
“I can only beg for yer forgiveness.” He captured her hand again. Somehow, he must right the wrong he’d done. That she’d suffered from for so long. “Tell me what I must do to make it right?”
She tilted her head sideways as if confused by or uncertain of his motives. “Perhaps…” A long, uncertain paused stretched out between them before she dampened her lower lip. “Perhaps, we could start over?”
