Under a Storm-Swept Sky

by Beth Anne Miller

  Blinking back tears, I hesitantly reached out and covered his hand, waiting for him to yank it away.

  But he didn’t. He opened his fist and clutched my hand instead.

  “I wanted to die,” he repeated without looking at me, “but like with everything else, I was too scared to make it happen. Which is ironic, given that the Sutherland clan motto is Sans Peur, ‘No Fear.’ No wonder my father fucking hated me.”

  My heart broke for that lost boy. “Rory, that doesn’t mean you were too scared; it means that deep down inside, you didn’t want to die, not really. You wanted to live; you just needed someone to help you see that.”

  His lips curved slightly. “Maybe. Anyway, Mrs. Mac thought Tommy was the one who could get through to me, and she was right. Tommy’s two years older than me, but he knew—” He broke off for a moment, and then said, “He knew what I was going through.” From the way he’d hesitated, I knew that wasn’t what he’d started to say.

  He pulled his hand from mine and stood. “Long story short, he made me join this group of kids he took out hiking nearly every weekend. I resisted at first—it was like opening up a wound, and I couldn’t bear it. But then I started to actually like it, no matter how hard I tried not to. It was a program that encouraged kids from all over the UK to go outside and get involved with nature, with the community, and so on. I stuck with it, earned my awards and certifications, and got myself back on the right track at school.”

  “And now you work with those kids.”

  “Aye, I wanted to give something back. I owe everything to Tommy and Mrs. Mac. If not for them, I don’t know what I would have become. They saved my life.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I graduated secondary school and eventually got my Mountain Leader certification. And Tommy and I have been best friends ever since.”

  I had no doubt it was more involved than that, but I knew he wasn’t going to say more. Not now, anyway. That he’d confided so much was a surprise—and a hell of a lot more than I’d bargained for with my simple “so tell me about Tommy” comment. I wondered what had driven him into such darkness—darkness that still clung to him today. It wasn’t fair for him to have had so much heartache in his life.

  “I’m glad you have Tommy, and I’m glad you had Mrs. Mac. Sometimes just one person can truly make a difference in someone’s life. Do you still write?”

  “I don’t have the time to do it during the busy season, but in the off-season, when the nights are long, yeah. Short stories, mostly, but I have some other things I’ve been playing around with. I jot ideas in my phone so I don’t forget them. Anyway, we need to get going. I don’t like the look of the sky.”

  Indeed, it had gotten darker while he’d been talking, and now the sky was an angry charcoal gray, the clouds heavy and full, as if they were about to burst.

  Which they probably were.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Rory

  The sky looked truly ominous, more so than it had when we were on the Ridge a few days ago. “Before we go, put on your rain gear and cover your pack,” I said to Amelia, then got busy doing the same for myself. It was a necessary precaution as well as a distraction. That conversation had taken an unexpected turn.

  What the hell was she doing to me? First, with her comment this morning about why she didn’t want to wake me, and now… What was it about her that made me want to tell her everything? Every goddamn dark thing from my past, things no one knew but Tommy—things even he didn’t know?

  Tell me about Tommy, she’d said. I’d immediately felt a crushing jealousy that had stopped me in my tracks. After this morning, when she’d devoured me with her eyes, when she’d touched my face, when I was helping her take off her pants and both of us had nearly combusted… She was going to ask about Tommy?

  But then she said she’d asked so we’d have something to talk about, and it was like the goddamn floodgates had opened. I’d actually told her I’d wanted to die—something I’d never told Tommy, though he probably suspected it.

  I couldn’t let my guard down like that again. I needed to get her to the end of the trail so she could go back to her life and I could go back to mine.

  The minute we stepped off the paved road and onto the path along Loch Sligachan, the skies opened up, torrential rain pouring down. Shit. This was already a difficult path, with frequent burns to cross, all of which would become flooded in this rain, especially after the downpour a few days ago.

  We couldn’t go much faster, or I’d be putting Amelia at risk. There was nothing to do but push forward and try to get to Sligachan as soon as possible.

  We reached the first of the burns. It was a small, shallow one, with stones that made it easy to cross—unless it was pouring and you had a bum knee. I stepped on the first stone, then turned back. “You’re going to step exactly where I step, okay? The rocks are going to be a little slippery, but I’ve got you.”

  “Okay,” she said quietly, staring at the stream.

  “Hand me your poles.”

  Her eyes shot up to mine. “What?”

  “They’re not going to help you across, and they’ll likely make things worse. You’re going to hold my arm, and I’m going to hold yours.”

  I prepared my response to her argument, but she wordlessly handed them over. I secured them to my pack and took her arm, just above the elbow. “Okay, now hold onto me.” She clutched my forearm as if it were a lifeline.

  I stepped to the next stone, testing it to make sure it wasn’t going to move. “Okay, step to the one I was just on. Lead with your left foot. Go ahead, I’ve got you.”

  She stepped with her left foot, then brought her right foot forward, wobbling only a little. “Good! Now the next. Always lead with your left foot.” Within moments we were on the other side. Amelia closed her eyes in obvious relief. “I hate to burst your bubble, but that was just the first of many burns we have to cross today.”

  She nodded, her lips curving in a slight smile. “I know, but the first one’s always the hardest, right? Now I’ll know what to expect.”

  That was just a wee stream, and the worst was definitely yet to come. But I wasn’t about to shatter her confidence. This morning, when she’d come out of her tent with her boots in hand, she’d looked terrified, but she’d gamely soldiered on without complaint.

  “I’m so proud of you, Amelia.”

  Her eyebrows went up, and a pink flush stained her cheeks. “What? Why?”

  “Because you’re doing brilliantly and have an amazing attitude, even though I know your knee hurts like hell and the trail is complete shite right now.”

  “What choice do I have?” she whispered.

  I tipped up her chin so I could look her in the eyes. “You had the choice to quit, and you didn’t, when anyone else would have.”

  She scoffed. “Most people would say that I’m stupid for doing this.”

  “Well, I’m saying that you’re brave and determined. Are you going to believe me or ‘most people’?”

  She grinned. “Well, when you put it that way…”

  “Exactly.”

  I kept hold of her arm as we continued on our way. After two more burns, each one worse than the one before, she began to falter. “Your turn,” I said.

  “My turn for what?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “To tell me a story. I need a distraction,” I added, tossing back the words she’d used earlier. “Tell me one of your favorite Carrie stories. I want to know more about the lass I didn’t get to meet this time around, but hope to next time.”

  She blinked rapidly, and I caught a brief glimpse of tears before she managed a tremulous smile. “I think I told you that she and I have known each other since we were children, right?”

  “Aye.”

  “She’s always been the adventurous one, trying to get me to go along with her crazy ideas.”

  “And did you?”

  She grinned. “Almost every single time. She has this look. It’s hard to describe, but it
’s kind of like this…”

  She lowered her head and stuck out her lower lip in a small pout, then looked up at me from under her eyelashes and blinked slowly.

  I pictured her peering up at me just like that, begging me to… I tore my eyes from her and turned my attention back to the path. “I, uh, can see how that would make her impossible to resist.”

  “It worked really well on the guys she dated.”

  I cleared my throat. “Aye, I can see that, too. Anyway, you were going to tell me one of your stories…?”

  “Right.” She chattered away, animatedly sharing some anecdote about a crazy road trip they’d gone on to see some band play in three different cities down the east coast of the U.S. I couldn’t tell you who the band was, or what the cities were, or anything else about it.

  All I could think about was how goddamn much I wanted her.

  …

  The rest of the afternoon passed in a wet, gray blur. The rain was relentless, and the burn crossings became harder and harder, which was just what I needed to clear my head and get my attention back on the trail where it belonged.

  The wind had picked up as well, churning the surface of the loch into a sea of whitecaps. The Cuillins—the mountain range just south of Sligachan—were shrouded in clouds and barely visible. And the rain wasn’t letting up.

  There were two rivers we’d need to cross before reaching Sligachan, and I was dreading what we’d find when we got to them.

  “How are you holding up?” I asked as we slogged through the mud. She didn’t answer. “Amelia?”

  ‘F-fine. I’m…fine.”

  She didn’t sound fine. At all. “Stop for a minute.”

  “W-we have to k-keep…m-moving,” she stammered.

  I dug in my heels and tightened my grip on her arm, forcing her to stop. I turned her to face me. Her face was dead white, her lips blue with cold.

  “Dammit, why didn’t you tell me you needed a break?”

  “B-because there’s nowhere to stop until we get to S-sligachan. There’s no shelter!”

  “Amelia, I’m carrying shelter on my back! We both are.”

  I looked around. There was a boulder a few yards off the path, with a relatively flat bit of ground a few yards from that. I led her to the rock and gently shoved her down to sit, then slung my pack off my shoulders.

  “W-what are you d-doing?”

  “I’m going to pitch the tent and we’re gonna take a wee break.”

  “Here?”

  “Aye. You can’t go any farther until you warm up.”

  “B-but—”

  “No arguing. Not about this.”

  Within minutes, I’d pitched my tent. I’d done it countless times, in bright daylight and the dark of night, in every kind of weather—rain, sleet, snow, wind—and it took no time at all. So little time, in fact, that I mentally kicked myself for not thinking of it sooner, like before she’d nearly frozen to death.

  I set up both of our sleeping mats so we’d have someplace to sit. Then I carried Amelia into the tent. That she didn’t resist at all really worried me.

  After setting her down on the pallet, I brought in our packs. I took off our boots, setting them in the little “mudroom” area just inside the door to the tent. I removed her rain gear from her still-unresisting body and draped it over the top of her pack, then did the same with mine.

  I unpacked my sleeping bag and tucked her inside. She curled on her left side, and I slipped in behind her and zipped it up. It was a tight fit, but that would only help. I pulled her back against me and chafed my hands down her arms. But she continued to shiver.

  She wasn’t getting warm. I knew what I had to do next, even though I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I pulled my fleece and T-shirt over my head. That was the easy part. “Amelia, honey, I need to take off your shirt.”

  She nodded. “C-cold, Rory.”

  “I know, love. I’m going to get you warm.”

  “…b-being so nice to me.”

  “I can be nice sometimes. Just don’t tell anyone.”

  “’Kay.”

  I lifted her body across my lap and pulled off her fleece and T-shirt, leaving her in her bra. It was a sports bra just like the one from yesterday, but purple this time. Just like the other one, it covered more of her than the most modest of bikini tops. And just like the other one, modest though it may have been, it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen, making every cell in my body stand at attention.

  She’s freezing to death while you ogle her, jackass. I pulled her back against me once more, making sure we didn’t touch below the waist. She didn’t need to deal with that on top of everything else. She grabbed my wrist to pull my arm more fully around her, mumbling “thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Now just relax.”

  This time, skin against skin, it made a difference, and little by little, she stopped shivering.

  I listened to the rain pound against the tent. Hopefully, it would let up soon. We could stay in the tent for an hour, maybe, but no more. We still had to get the rest of the way to Sligachan, and those river crossings would be a bitch.

  A little while later, Amelia stirred, snuggling her body more fully into mine. “Warm,” she murmured.

  Aye, among other things, dammit. I needed to change it up, or she was going to be furious with me in about two seconds. I couldn’t roll her over—she needed to be on her left side so she didn’t put pressure on her bad knee. Trying not to jostle her, I moved to her other side so we were chest-to-chest and wrapped my arms around her once more.

  Amelia opened her hand so that her palm lay over my heart and buried her face in the hollow of my throat. I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of her.

  She mumbled something against my chest. I touched her cheek—warm, thank God—and lifted her chin a bit. “What did you say, lass?”

  “You’re always taking off my clothes,” she murmured. “Next time I need to take off yours,” she added in a husky voice that logically I knew was not her trying to be seductive, but damn if it didn’t sound that way. She was obviously delirious. Shit.

  “Amelia, honey, can you hear me?” I asked, shaking her shoulder.

  “Of course I can hear you. You’re practically shouting at me,” she said irritably.

  I exhaled in relief. She sounded like her usual self—maybe she wasn’t delirious? “Do you know where you are?” No response. “Amelia?”

  She sighed. “We’re in your tent, somewhere on the way to Sligachan, taking a break so that I could warm up. And you’re talking at me very loudly.”

  O-kay, so she definitely wasn’t delirious. “Your skin doesn’t feel as chilled as it did before. Are you warm now?”

  She opened her eyes and peered up at me from under her lashes, just as she had earlier when she was talking about Carrie.

  “Oh, I’m definitely warm,” she said.

  Just before she pulled my head down and pressed her lips to mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Amelia

  I kissed him.

  There, in our warm cocoon, skin to skin, with the chill finally gone from my bones, with the rain drowning out the world around us. I needed to know what it would feel like when he was fully awake and we both knew what was going on.

  He went still for a heartbeat. Then his arms tightened around me and he kissed me back—as if he’d been dying to his whole life.

  The world outside faded away but for the sound of our breath, the touch of lips and tongues, our soft moans as we kissed and kissed. I shivered, but not from the cold this time.

  I delved my fingers into his lovely hair, damp from the rain but still so soft. He shifted so I was lying partially beneath him, his hand skimming down my side and up to caress my breast through my bra. I arched against him, wanting more.

  He tore his mouth from mine, breathing hard. I opened my eyes, confused. Why was he stopping? “Rory—?”

  “We have to go. Now, while the rain has stopped.”
>
  Sure enough, it was quiet outside. How had he even noticed? I certainly hadn’t, while we were kissing like there was no tomorrow.

  He handed me my T-shirt, then averted his eyes while I pulled it on, as if he hadn’t stripped it off me barely half an hour ago, as if he hadn’t had his hands all over my body barely two minutes ago. We put on our rain gear, and he helped me with my boots. He got to his feet and helped me to mine, and we ducked out of the tent.

  The rain had tapered off to a light mist. I sat on the rock while Rory quickly and efficiently—as always—repacked our gear. A few minutes later, we were slogging our way down the path.

  Without one word spoken. As if our interlude in the tent had been nothing more than a dream.

  The heavy rain had turned the path into a muddy mess, and I was grateful for Rory’s supportive hand on my arm as we silently trudged along. I kept replaying the tent scene in my head as if it were a movie (more like a short film). I imagined the press of his lips, the wet slide of his tongue, the rough pads of his fingers tracing over my bare skin, the eager hardness of his body pressed against mine.

  I wondered if he was imagining the same thing.

  A few minutes later, I heard a roaring sound up ahead. “Uh, Rory, what’s that?”

  He looked over at me, his face grim. “The river.”

  “One we have to cross?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

  “Aye.”

  We reached the bank, and my heart began to pound. The earlier streams had been bad enough—and progressively worse as the rain had continued—but this was more than a stream. “How are we going to get across?”

  “The old-fashioned way. We’re gonna walk.”

  “We’re gonna what?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not so deep that you can’t stand. We’re just going to get wet. The good news is, it’s just about a mile from here to Sligachan.”

  “And the bad news?” Because there was always bad news.

  “There’s another river after this one.”

  I studied the rushing water for a moment. “Well, at least we’ll already be wet.”