“They pulled me off the worksite,” Liam said, heavy hands shaking as he rubbed them together, trying to get the feeling back. “Wouldn’t say why, wouldn’t say what for. Thought I was being let go, sent home, and I got so mad, I didn’t even hear when they…when they told me…”
Sitting there, in Maggie and Rían’s barely-there house, Liam was almost unrecognizable. Always so cheerful, full of life, his handsome features had been worn away by a ghostly pallor that left dark circles under his eyes. There was a paleness to his lips that made him seem two feet from the grave himself. When he looked at her, he almost broke down crying again.
Maggie held her breath a little longer, holding back tears, refusing to give ground.
“I don’t even know…” he said. “I lost a brother, but you lost another… a…”
She shook her head as if it would ward off the words a little, turned and paced around the tiny room as Colleen got the fire in the hearth going. No one spoke.
Maggie went to the hooks by the door where Rían had left his old jacket in favour of his constables’ furs, and ran her finger down the patched-up sleeve, stray threads hanging loose where she’d bit them off. It smelled of him, like the smell of his sweat after a long day in the cold. She breathed it in, knowing there would only be so many times she would ever feel this close to him again.