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“Your heart always belonged to someone else.”
Flynn gave her a sad, understanding smile, but she read something in his eyes that he couldn’t blink away. Something that looked a lot like Lucy felt.
“It did,” she admitted, knowing he wouldn’t believe any argument she made to the contrary, and that he’d already made up his mind to do the noble thing. “But so has his. Just not to me.”
“He was trying to do the right thing—”
“For himself.”
“Lucy, you have no idea how hard it must’ve been—”
“Don’t I?” Her features hardened into a lethal stare; she felt their edges lock into place—jaw firm, mouth taut. “You both think because I’ve never lost a spouse I don’t know what it is to live in a world where everything is wrong. You and Wyatt don’t have a monopoly on suffering.”
Flynn’s gaze, ever at odds with the image they’d all held of him for so long—terrorist, traitor, monster—softened under her scrutiny. On someone else, she might’ve called the expression pity. But not him. He knew too much, had witnessed too much to feel anything so superficial.
“I only meant—”
“I know.” Lucy forced herself to take a breath, regain composure. “I’m sorry.”
Flynn smiled. “For what? Holding us all to account? Your words may carry a sting on occasion, but they are never off the mark.” He adjusted the saddle on his horse, whether out of necessity or distraction, Lucy couldn’t decide. “You’re right. We have been acting like our pain sets us apart. But yours is no less valid.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
“I was only trying to see things from Wyatt’s perspective.” Flynn sighed. “Something that’s become increasingly difficult to do.” His gaze met hers again and as it did, any levity they might’ve gained for a fleeting moment was gone. Sorrow crept into its place. Longing for something he would never be selfish or shortsighted enough to claim, especially while he remained convinced of Lucy’s indifference toward him. Of her attachment to another.
She took a step toward him and he tensed, seeming to fight the impulse to back away. Then she took his hand. “I used to think fate was this unconquerable force holding us all in thrall. I don’t know what the future holds, if anything in that journal is meant to happen or it’s all just possibility. But…,”
“But what?” His words were low, breathless, as he stared at their joined hands.
Lucy laced her fingers with his. “Don’t give up on me.”
“That,” he said so softly she almost had to strain to hear though they stood so close she could’ve pulled him into her arms if she wanted, if she let herself succumb to a desire she hadn’t anticipated, and one she couldn’t have imagined in her wildest dreams, “is something you never have to fear.”