14 JUST ONE QUESTION

FINN LEANED BACK on his hands and stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle. "Aye, I was likely born this way," he answered grudgingly. "From as early as I can remember, my mother told me so."

"What did she say?"

Finn frowned, clearly bristling at her questioning. "That's two questions, Astrid."

"Aye, but it's linked to the first, so we'll allow it."

Finn muttered an oath under his breath, yet Astrid pretended not to hear. Despite everything, she was genuinely curious about this man's origins. She wasn't sure why—perhaps the isolation was getting to her.

"She said I was demanding from the first," he replied, his tone gruff now. "That unlike my brothers, I cried all the time." His hazel eyes narrowed then. "Her answer was to leave me bawling, for hours at a time, I'm told. Then, when I grew from a wee bairn to a lad, I was prone to fits of temper … so my nurse locked me in a store cupboard until I calmed down. None of it helped though. I grew up wild, argumentative, and sly. My father smiled the day he put me on the boat to Mull."

Astrid's breathing grew shallow at this tale. Finn talked as if his upbringing didn't bother him at all, yet to her, his childhood sounded horrific. Loch, too, had been a difficult child, but their parents hadn't resorted to such treatment.

"Yer kin sound vile," she admitted after a pause, momentarily forgetting to be wary around him. "I can't imagine ye missed them."

He gave a humorless laugh. "I didn't … I still don't."

They ceased talking then, the crackle and pop of the fire between them mingling with the rumble of the surf. The tide had turned now, and waves rolled in close to shore .

Eventually, Astrid cleared her throat. "Well, ye have the chance to ask me anything ye like," she said, suddenly wishing she hadn't made such an offer. She didn't trust the gleam in Finn's eyes. "Go on."

"I'm thinking," he replied.

Astrid pursed her lips. "Really?"

"Aye." He continued to observe her then before inclining his head. "Have ye ever pined for anyone, Astrid?"

Her spine snapped rigid. "What kind of question is that?" she muttered, even as panic forked like lightning through her.

Finn cocked an eyebrow. "Ye said I could ask ye anything ."

Astrid wanted to snarl at him, to tell him that whether she'd pined for anyone was her business and no one else's. Indeed, the knave could have asked her anything— just not this.

Silence fell once more between them until Finn finally made an impatient noise in the back of his throat. "Come on … a man could grow old and die waiting for yer answer."

"Aye … I did want someone once," she admitted, deliberately looking away from him. "Years ago though … when I was young."

"Ye are still young, Astrid."

"Aye, but this was when I was fifteen."

"And who was he?"

Her jaw clenched. "Just one question, remember?"

"Aye, but ye slipped in a second one, and so shall I."

Astrid ground her teeth, even as the urge to scramble to her feet, pick up her skirts, and flee spiked through her.

Christ's blood, she couldn't believe she was conversing with Finn at all, let alone that their exchange had taken them here, to the very subject she'd spent a lifetime burying. These days, she didn't even admit to herself that she'd ever suffered that infatuation.

"No one of importance," she said, her tone clipped now as she struggled to rein in her panic.

Finn harrumphed. "That's no answer."

A sickly sensation washed over Astrid then, and her hands turned clammy. Steeling herself, she looked back at Finn, her belly clenching when she found his gaze locked on her. The bastard wasn't going to let this go—one way or another, he intended to get the truth out of her. She didn't understand his curiosity. What did he care about her silly girlhood infatuations?

And so, drawing in a deep breath, she gave him her answer. "All right then, MacDonald … here's yer answer. It was ye ."

Finn's reaction was almost comical. His mouth dropped open, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline.

For a moment, Astrid almost laughed, and then she remembered just how mortifying it was to admit such a thing to the man she now considered her enemy.

The day before, when he'd told her that it was her, rather than Maggie, he'd been interested in, it had stirred old memories.

Aye, she'd been jealous that day on the road back from Craignure, when Maggie had flirted with Finn—but not just because she was potentially losing her friend's attention. Maggie had found it so easy to talk to lads she liked, while Astrid was hopeless. Virile young men with hungry eyes had made her nervous and tongue-tied. What an irony that she prided herself on her negotiation skills these days yet had once struggled to meet a lad's eye.

"It's hard to believe, isn't it?" she said softly.

Finn shut his mouth before nodding. However, his eyes were still wide, startled. He was looking at her now as if she'd just taken off a mask to reveal a completely different identity.

"Maggie was always the chatty one." She dropped her gaze to her lap, developing a sudden fascination with her fingers, which she was currently twisting into knots. "She loved flirting, but I didn't. I was painfully shy back then … so, I decided it was better to act aloof, to pretend I wasn't interested in anyone. The more I liked a lad, the colder I behaved."

Finn murmured another curse, and Astrid glanced up. His eyes had narrowed slightly. "I thought ye barely noticed I breathed," he murmured.

Astrid huffed a bitter laugh. "Oh, I noticed ye, Finn … and it tore me up when ye started spending time with Maggie." Her mouth twisted then. "However, after she drowned, my tenderness toward ye twisted into hate. It was a silly, childish infatuation anyway, and would have passed with time."

She looked away from Finn then, as the intense way he was watching her made her feel nervous. Enough of these probing, difficult questions. It was her fault for starting it, but it was time to stop this conversation.

Both of them had already said too much.

However, when Astrid's gaze alighted upon the horizon, she froze.

A moment later, her heart kicked hard against her breastbone. "Finn!" she gasped, struggling to her feet. "Look!"

He twisted around, rising to stand next to her—and when he caught sight of the speck on the horizon, his breathing caught. "A ship."