by Ella James
His dark brows do something funny—a twist between puzzled and amused. “Okay, boss.”
He turns away from me, and I sit back on my rock. He’s shed his poncho, for reasons I can’t fathom. In the rain, his long-sleeved shirt clings to his muscled back and shoulders. I tell myself it’s okay that my eyes are clinging, too. I’m not admiring him—only his form.
He circles out around the first cluster of sheep—ten or eleven white spots, maybe thirty meters downslope—the way a good dog would.
So he does know a bit about it.
Still, I don’t think my lambs will move for him. Not for a stranger. They’ll spook up the slope, or down at best.
A moment later, I watch, slack-jawed, as he herds them in a straight line across a smattering of boulders, over a dozen or so meters, driving toward the next cluster of sheep.
I clench my jaw and give a shake of my head. Lucky break there. He won’t be able to move this larger group. No chance of that.
The Carnegie’s a good stretch away now. I can hear his low voice, but I can’t make out his words, although the rain has quieted down a bit. I watch in shock as he gathers the two small groups together. They move as one great splotch of white down the dark hillside.
What’s he saying to them?
I get to my feet, and I want to move closer. I want to see what he’s doing. What is it about him? Is it posture? Something about his footing? Was his mother part border collie? Makes fine sense, given he’s a son of a bitch.
I’m holding my breath as he gets the sheep to move along beside him, gaping as he moves them down the slope a bit to where the gulch narrows. The way it stripes the landscape, he can’t get them down into the valley without crossing it.
Let’s see him try this! He steps out ahead of them, and then starts walking backward through the water. He doesn’t stumble or slip once, and soon he’s standing in the middle of the flowing gulch.
The flock won’t follow. My fluffins will cross gulches when it’s not raining, but when the runoff flows this swiftly, they won’t move, even for me. They won’t move unless there’s two with crooks, coming at them from both directions.
Except…they do. My lead ram, Dumbledore, follows the Carnegie like a puppy. For a long moment, he’s the only one swimming toward Declan. Seconds later, the rest follow, turning the gulch white in the moonlight, spilling up around the Carnegie into a spread of slanted pasture not fifteen meters from the final cluster.
What is this?
My head spins as he neatly gathers the flock and drives them down the slope-side in a wearing pattern, moving side-to-side behind them, making a soft sound that, from here, sounds like a throaty hum.
Mike and Benny can just barely move this flock, and that’s with me assisting and no rain at all. The Carnegie herded them as well as I would have. I scowl at the splotch of white spreading over the dark grass. Maybe better.
I shake my head, hands on my hips. Of course he’s good at this. He’s likely good at everything, which is why he’s not Declan but the Carnegie—a wicked, arrogant pig of a man.
I start up the slope to where my forgotten pack sits. By the time I’ve got it strapped to my back, the Overlord of Ewe has got the flock grazing a patch of grass deep in the valley. Streams of runoff from the slopes pool at the valley’s center, then flow toward the Patches; beyond there, the gulches drain into the sea.
Operation Ewe must have taken fewer than forty minutes, and he never had to ask for my help.
I make my way down the hillside slowly, watching him move among the herd. He’s a dark blot gliding through a sea of fluffy pale, blurred by the rain that won’t stop falling. As I near him and see his large form more clearly, I’m surprised at how sparse and lithe his movements are.
Who is he?
A git. A self-enamored plonker of the highest order. Some people like to preen at all times. My mum used to call these people “showboats.” That’s what he is—a showboat. Quite a handsome showboat, I admit as I close the distance between us. He looks even better with his hair slicked back, pasted darkly to his forehead and his temples. Again, I think of pirates.
When I’m near enough for him to touch, he reaches for me, palm out, as if going for a handshake.
I draw my hand away, making my point. I’m burning to ask what trick he used, where he learned it. Instead, with just the briefest glance at him, I say, “You’re free to go back to the village now.”
Seven
Declan
Her head is down, so I can’t see her face, and she can’t see the grin I’m trying to hide.
“What did you think?” My mouth bends into a smirk as her eyes swing back to mine.
“Of what?” Oh, but she’s frosty. So nonchalant.
I hold my crook up, wiggling my eyebrows. “My skill with the crook, of course.”
Her poker face is on point. “It’s quite lucky that you found that crook. Not so many trees up there.”
I snort. “Not good at being wrong, huh?”
“What?”
“You thought I was full of shit.”
“I simply didn’t want to see your face again.”
I bark a laugh.
“In any event, your work is done.” She waves out toward the ocean, gleaming beyond the patchwork expanse of fields and pastures. I realize what she’s really gesturing to is the road that runs along the cliffs, bridging the Patches and the village. Then she waves over her shoulder at me and starts up the hillside.
I give her a minute before following.
I was right—exertion helps. Being in this valley, in a stream-striped bowl of grass between the foothills—that helps, too. The fog at my feet, the mist on my skin—I feel…relief.
But I know it’s temporary. I can’t leave here, not until I get something worked out with her. Clonidine, if nothing else. I don’t want to offer her much in the way of why, but somehow I’ve got to win her over.
The slope she’s hiking up is steeper than the one we just came down. At its peak is an arc-shaped rock formation, rising up alongside several steeple-like spires. Off-the-cuff, I’d put this peak at maybe two thousand feet. Behind it and back some distance is the infamous volcano—formally known as Queen Mary’s Peak. I can’t see it for the clouds.
I shield my eyes from the rain and squint up at her. What’s she doing anyway? Trying to escape me, or looking for more straggling sheep? I wonder what’s on the other side of this peak; I don’t know the landscape yet.
I decide she’s probably heading to the high ground to have one more look around before she heads in for the night. Does she know more rain is coming?
I don’t want to spook her, so I hang back as she climbs, keeping maybe forty yards between us. And I watch her. I watch the way she gathers her hair, braiding the loose strands even as she weaves around boulders and navigates the river-like runoff that’s flowing down around the deeper gulches. I watch the way she hefts her pack up higher on her back, stopping for a second to do something with the strap.
When she reaches the top of the grassy slope and the bottom of the rockface that marks the peak, she leans her head back, as if tasting raindrops. Then she turns slightly to look over her shoulder, her face turned toward the Patches.
Looking for me?
Maybe.
I pull out the infrared binoculars Mac sent with me and watch as she flares red and yellow. That’ll be my cover story when I catch her: I forgot to hand these off as promised. Hopefully I’ll get to offer more apologies, maybe help her herd a few more sheep. As we walk back toward the Patches, I can broach my dark topic.
It’s not a solid plan, but it’s the best I can come up with. Of all fucking people, why does she have to be the stand-in for the doctor?
Serves you right for being a dickwad.
I follow her until she slows at the spot where the cliffside goes sharply vertical, pointing toward the archway and the spires. Then I close the distance between us, coming up on her as she pauses to shift her pack again.
“Hey…just me.”
Finley whirls on me with wide eyes, wobbling back as she holds up her hands. “Why are you here?” Her voice is shrill and very English.
“Sorry.” I hold out the binoculars. “Mac sent these with me. I forgot to pass them off down there.” I wave down the hill as Finley reaches for them slowly. She grabs the binoculars and takes a hasty step back.
“You’re not— Are you afraid of me?”
In the moonlight peeking through the clouds, I see her lips purse. Her pretty eyes are wide and wary. “Oh, of course not. I’m completely at ease. I have known you since we were wee ones in our nappies, after all.”
Fuck. “I’m sorry.” I run my hand back through my wet hair. “I…” I shake my head. “That was thoughtless.”
“I always find it reassuring when someone follows me silently up a mountain after dark. So it’s lovely you did that. Thanks for these.” She holds up the binoculars. “Have a nice hike back now.”
“Actually, I want to see the rocks up there. Is that a natural arch?” I point to the rock formation fifteen or twenty yards above us.
“It only looks that way. It is, in fact, a hologram.”
I grin. “Someone’s a smartass.”
“Don’t slip on the way down.” She turns to go, and I move with her. “Wait.”
She turns back to me. Rain starts falling harder again, and I watch her tighten her hood. “Yes?”
“Why’d you come up this way?”
“Why do you think?” Her voice is harsh—derisive.
“To look for more strays?”
“Clearly.”
She sets off again, picking her way over the sheer rockface, moving slowly at times as she finds her hand- and footholds. I hum softly so she knows I’m still behind her, feeling like a fucker even as I know I can’t turn back without her—without at least talking to her. If she won’t help me, I’ll be in the bed by tomorrow.
After she hoists herself up onto the small plateau where the archway and the spires are, she disappears behind the arch’s left side.
Touché.
I shouldn’t be surprised, though. Why would she want to spend time with me?
I lift myself onto the plateau and blink down at the slopes below us. Fuck, we’re way up in the clouds now. From up here, the fields look postcard-sized, the six-foot-wide gulches like tiny trickles. I can barely make out the herd down near the mouth of the valley. The huts scattered all about the Patches look like soda cans. I’d say this is two thousand feet—easy.
I turn and look behind me, at the archway, which rises twenty-five or thirty feet above me, and at the area around it. The plateau looks no larger than a spacious great room, but the moon has gone behind the clouds again, and I can’t see the space well.
“Finley?”
“Up here!”
I look up.
“Atop the archway.”
I crane my neck, and sure enough, I think I see a shadow up there.
“What the fuck?”
“Don’t try to climb it, Homer. You’re quite a bit too large. The column might break. Just go back down.” I hear her airy laugh. “Or I suppose if you’re the foolish sort, you could attempt it.”
The arch’s “legs” are maybe three or four feet in diameter. They’re grooved, and actually they look pretty sturdy. I chuckle as I wrap my arms and legs around one. Even as I get started, I know it’s not a good idea, but…fuck…can’t hurt to try. I’m a pretty fucking competent climber—I summited the Matterhorn, Kilimanjaro, and Denali in an off year before college—so I press forward, grapping for each divot for my hands and feet.
By the time I near the top of the thing, the rain has petered to a sprinkle, a little bit of moonlight is beaming through the clouds, and I’m sweating like a motherfucker. My foot is wedged into a crevice that doesn’t feel quite steady, and my hand aches as it clings to a groove that’s barely big enough for one finger. To get up to the top of the arch, I’ll need to put all my weight on the unsteady nook under my left foot and grab something else with one of my hands.
Fuck me.
I grip my handhold tightly, even tucking my chin against the cold, wet stone, and find a spot that feels pretty decent for my right foot. Then, with my hand stretched up toward a notch in the stone, I shift my weight to my left foot and lunge.
The rock crumples so fast I don’t have time to readjust my grip. I slide halfway down the column, my palms getting sliced to shit as I grasp for another hold. My mind see-saws between plans to spread-eagle myself—in hopes of landing solid on the plateau—or go ahead and tuck, because odds are, when I hit the plateau, having fallen twenty or so feet, momentum’s gonna make me roll on down the slope.
Then my fingers catch on something. Fuck—I’ve got a hold.
“Declan!” She’s above me. “There’s a metal bar! By your left hand—stretch up a bit—maybe three inches! There’s a metal bar, you see it glinting? There’s metal bars all in the arch for climbing! Just hang on until you get your footing!”
I straighten that hand, my right one shaking with the effort to hold on. I feel around where she said to, and my fingertips brush something hard and cool.
“That’s it! Grab that!”
Gritting my teeth, I grab onto the little metal bar. So that’s how she climbed up without falling.
“You’ve got to find another spot for your feet.”
No shit, Sherlock. My arms scream; my right shoulder is blazing. I’m going to fall. I try to find a spot for my foot—there’s one—but it crumples. I let my body dangle as she screams. When my legs are slightly bent and my soles feel parallel with the plateau, I relax and let go.
I land on the balls of my feet—the impact gets me mostly in the shins and ankles, making me yell out—and tuck into a roll. Then I spread out like a starfish to slow down. Rain hits me at a bunch of different angles as I tumble, gaining momentum. Something smashes into my cheek. Shit fuck! Stars float in my eyes, and then I’m on my back, the hard rain blurring everything. I’m laughing from adrenaline, even as it makes my face throb.
What a fucking idiot.
“I’m so sorry! Are you quite all right? I’m so—”
“Shhh.” I try to push myself up, but find I can’t. Her hand is on my cheek.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Can you see me? Do you know where you are?”
Something in my chest aches. My right cheek feels like someone’s stabbing it.
“Declan?”
I shift slowly onto my side. When nothing hurts too much, I push up on my arm and look around the flooded hillside. Her face swims in front of me—wide-eyed and a little fuzzy, like the hologram she mentioned before.
“I’m so horribly sorry!”
I try to swallow, but my throat feels locked up. I realize that’s blood I’m tasting. There’s a sharp sting in my cheek.
I spit some blood out. Finley gasps.
“Sorry.” I rub my aching head, realizing that the cold at my back is the water running down the slope; I’m fucking soaked now.
“What’s hurting? How can I help?”
I blink up at her just in time to see a vein of lightning spread behind her. “I’m okay.”
Lightning streaks across the sky again, a spider web, followed by a clap of thunder so loud, I think I feel the rock below us tremble.
“Fuck.”
“I’m so terribly sorry.”
“That lightning,” I rasp.
Her hand brushes my shoulder. “Can you get to your feet?”
I start to stand and feel her hands on my arm. I don’t mean to toss her off. It’s just…instinct.
I get to my feet and find her right in front of me. Lightning strikes again, illuminating her unhappy face. All around her, the rain-soaked landscape seems to pulse and writhe. Streams of runoff glisten as they flow down the slope across from ours. Muddy water gushes over our feet, on its way down to the valley, which sparkles like a lake.
Out to my right, beyond the
flatland of the Patches, the ocean roils. The rain’s falling so hard now, it beats on my neck and shoulders like a waterfall and casts a veil between Finley and me.
I move my arms and legs, testing things out. My right shoulder burns like a bitch, but that’s normal. The rest of me feels…okay. “I’m fine,” I half-shout over the rain.
“My apologies again,” she shouts back. It’s hard to see her face in the deluge, but she sounds sorry. Even concerned. “Do you need help to your vehicle?”
“Nah. You want a ride back?” I remember what I’m here for, and I have the fuckwit thought that maybe I can hype the injury and get the help I need without admitting my issue. Addict.
She gives a slight shake of her head, leaning in closer as she cups her hand around her forehead. “I’ve got to get to the other side of this peak. The volcano’s that way, and there are likely some stragglers on its lowermost slopes.” I watch her mouth tug into a frown. Then the rain picks up—it’s painful on my aching head—and she leans toward me again. “I shouldn’t have urged you to climb the arch!”
“Ehhh, I didn’t have to.”
“You were goaded.”
“Still my choice.” I gesture to myself, realizing as I do that my pants are so wet and clingy, she can probably see the outline of my junk. I tug on one of the pant legs, feeling like an asshole. “I’ll go with you. We can leave together.”
Thunder booms, and something heavy hits the ground beside us. Her eyes widen and her jaw drops as a chunk of rock rolls past us. A pretty big one.
“Fuck…”
“You’ve the mouth of a sailor.”
“The sailor and the siren.” I flash her a painful grin.
Her forehead rumples before she shakes her head.
I wave at the peak. “Lead the way, Siren.”
For a moment, she looks unsure. I waggle my eyebrows, and her mouth tightens in what might be a small, reluctant smile, though I can’t tell before she turns and starts to climb back up the slope. She goes so slowly, I’m pretty sure she’s trying to be courteous—or insulting.