Roderick's Purpose - Ellie St. Clair Page 0,35

own, which to Roderick was the sweetest music, hearing the joy that seeped out of her.

As her laughter died off, her shoulders slumped a bit, and she said softly, “I only wish… I wish I had been able to bury him.”

“He’s with the church,” Roderick said, trying to comfort her. “Maggie will make sure they take care of him.”

“Yes, but he will doubtless be buried with no one present, but a few friends from a lifetime ago who likely think poorly of him for leaving his wife. He won’t have anyone there with him who truly knew him.”

“Ach, lass, I understand,” he said, “but I also believe that what’s left here is his body. His soul will remain with you, wherever you go.”

There was a pause before he heard a bit of a sniff.

“That is a lovely way of thinking,” she said.

“Are you crying, lass?” he said as gently as he could.

“No,” she said adamantly, her shoulders stiffening again. “I don’t cry.”

“Everyone cries,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, although she couldn’t see him. “Hell, even I cry now and again.”

“I doubt that,” she said with a snort.

“Believe it or not, but ’tis true,” he said. “If you don’t let your emotions show, they become too much for you to handle alone, trust me.”

“If you say so,” she said, though clearly she was finished with the conversation. “Now, tell me — where are we going?”

“We’re going home.”

Chapter 13

It was not so much his words but the way he said them that struck something deep in Gwen’s soul. She had assumed the location to where Roderick was leading her, but when he told her as such, there was something in his tone that said ‘home’ to her more than his actual words ever did. Home. It was a notion that she had never known, in any form. She supposed when she was a child, she had known what it had meant, but her memories were rather vague now, and included only a small one-room house in which there was little love but many chores and much punishment.

When Doc had taken her in, by the very nature of their life, they had never had one place in which they stayed for more than a few weeks at a time. Home was her horse and her saddlebags. An abandoned cabin now and again. She supposed the closest she had ever felt to being at home was with Doc’s original gang, who had taken her in as one of their own.

Now to hear Roderick speak so longingly of his own home made her wish for one of her own. Not that she would ever tell him of her sentiments, but she couldn’t deny the thought. It would be interesting, however, to see his family, the land he so often spoke of, and the lake with its monster.

Would his family be like him? Would they have wide smiles, easy laughter, and teasing words? Would his brothers have the same dark hair that hung low over their foreheads? Would they—

Stop it, Gwen. You may see for yourself soon enough.

She cleared her throat. “Are we close?” she asked instead. They had been alternating walking and riding the horse throughout the day, stopping to give their borrowed mount time to drink. The light was beginning to dip behind the hills, and she wondered if they would make it tonight.

“Aye, very. ’Tis but an hour or two, but it’s late and there’s not much moon at the moment so we’d be best to wait until morning to continue. We shall camp tonight and reach the land tomorrow,” he said and she nodded in acknowledgment of his words, happy to have more time to get accustomed to the thought of meeting his family. “How will you explain my presence?” she asked.

“I’ll tell them the truth,” he said casually as if it would be no problem that he was bringing a woman who had been captured as a member of an outlaw gang into their midst. “We McDougalls don’t keep secrets from one another, and I am not about to start now.”

Gwen tried not to show the tremor of apprehension that coursed through her at his words. “Perhaps it would be best that you take me to the closest train station instead,” she said. “I’ll be on my way and you can return home. There is no reason for us to remain together anymore, now is there?”

As she said the words, she felt a tug of something — pain? Regret? She wasn’t