Under a Storm-Swept Sky

by Beth Anne Miller

  Oh no. Had something happened to her? I tightened my hand around his in sympathy. To my surprise, he made a sound that was almost like a laugh.

  “This is not a tragic story, Amelia. I’m sorry if I worried you.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Emma isn’t the reason for my nightmares. Just hear me out, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Anyway, after the trek ended, I had a week off, and I went to see her. We had a great time. She was smart and funny, and when I was with her, I didn’t think about…things.”

  I knew he meant the things that haunted him in his sleep.

  “For the first month or so, we saw each other a few times, and it was great. But that was at the beginning of the season. Once things really got busy, I barely had any time off. And she couldn’t handle it. She called me incessantly while I was working, and if I didn’t answer in the evenings—which was usually because I was out for dinner with the group or asleep—she got paranoid. She accused me of messing around with the girls in my group. Which I never, ever did.”

  No, he wouldn’t. “I believe you,” I said.

  He scoffed. “I wish she had. She assumed that there was always a lass in my group that was hitting on me, and since I’d said yes to her, that obviously meant I said yes to everyone.

  “I should have just ended it, but I hated that she thought of me that way. I hated that she thought of me that way, and I didn’t want to lose her, so I took a week off and went to see her, which seemed to reassure her. But then my holiday was over, and it went right back to the way it had been before, with her accusing me of being unfaithful. Tommy and Gav couldn’t understand why I didn’t break it off with her. I should have, but I didn’t want her to think it was an admission of guilt.

  “I was miserable—all the time. It was affecting my work and my friendship with Tommy because I was angry with him for saying what I didn’t want to hear.”

  Tommy must have been so frustrated, watching Rory spiraling because of this girl and not being able to help.

  “Then she showed up on a West Highland Way trek I was guiding in late September, near the end of the season. It was on the third day, and we’d stopped for lunch at this hotel along Loch Lomond, like we always did. I was chatting with one of the women—whose boyfriend was in the loo at the time—and suddenly there was Emma, shrieking at me about how she knew I’d been cheating on her and now she had proof. And then the boyfriend came out and heard Emma’s ranting.”

  “Oh crap.” I could just picture how that went down.

  He laughed harshly. “Aye, you could say that. He immediately believed Emma—which says something about his relationship with his girlfriend—and threw a punch at me.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep. I ducked it, and he later apologized, but the damage had been done. In one minute, Emma had undermined my authority over the group. I told her we were done. Then I called Tommy, who was off that week, and asked him to cover the rest of the trek for me. He agreed immediately, even though I’d said some nasty things the last time I’d seen him. I waited for him to get there, introduced him to the group, and then left, so furious I couldn’t see straight.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry, Rory. I want to punch Emma in the face. I mean, you can’t, but I can, right?”

  He laughed, for real this time. “I’m picturing you striding up to her, your cheeks flushed with anger, your eyes shooting daggers. I don’t even need to picture you actually punching her; the righteous indignation is good enough.”

  “Your experience with Emma was truly shitty,” I said quietly, “but I’m not sure I get how it’s related to us.”

  “Her actions—and my inaction—could have put SBF in jeopardy. People don’t pay good money to hike with a group where the guides have drama, and SBF is still a fairly new company that relies on word of mouth. We were lucky that the folks in the group were decent people who didn’t leave shitty reviews or badmouth SBF online. But Scarlet was worried for a few weeks after that group finished. And she wasn’t happy with me. And that wasn’t even the worst part, really.”

  There was more?

  “Even though Emma turned out to be a disaster, even though she nearly cost me my job and my friends, for a while I had someone to come home to. Someone who missed me when I was gone. Someone I was looking forward to lying around with on a winter day, watching movies. For those months, I wasn’t alone. And then suddenly, I was alone, and it fucking sucked.”

  It explained so much.

  “Amelia, I’m always on the road, guiding a trek almost every week during busy season, or doing weekend hikes with clients or kids in the off season. I live with Tommy and a bunch of other guys in a shitty flat in Fort William. My life isn’t conducive to a real relationship. There are a couple of girls I hook up with from time to time, but they don’t want more, and neither do I—not with them. But it’s different with you. I’ve already told you things that I’ve never told anyone, not even Tommy. I would want more with you, but I—we—can’t have that. And to go down that road, even for just the few days we have together, only to then be alone again once you’re gone—I can’t do it.”

  His words were both thrilling and devastating. “So, what? We just ignore this?” I whispered. I practically burned every time he touched me. How could we not act on it?

  “We have to,” he said sadly. “We’ll finish the trek, and then we’ll say goodbye, and you’ll go back to your life. Maybe we’ll email once in a while. And maybe you’ll come back to Scotland one day, and we’ll meet for a drink. That’s all it can be.”

  I could picture it going down exactly as he’d just described. And it hurt, so badly, to think that after all this, we’d be reduced to an occasional email when he wasn’t busy with a trek.

  “I’m sorry, Amelia,” he murmured.

  “Me, too. I kind of wish we could go back to hating each other.”

  “I never hated you, though I admit to being a condescending dick on several occasions.”

  “Why’d you act like that, then, if you didn’t hate me?”

  “I thought you were too obsessed with taking photos to post on social media, defeating the purpose of being out in nature and leaving technology behind for a week. I also thought you were too inexperienced, and I was afraid you’d get hurt. I may have also liked the way you looked when you shouted at me,” he admitted, sending a little thrill through me. “Why’d you hate me?”

  “I didn’t hate you.”

  “Then why’d you keep picking fights?”

  “Because when I fought with you, I wasn’t thinking of Carrie. And I felt alive again, for the first time since the crash.”

  “The two of us are a fuckin’ mess,” he said.

  “We really are.”

  “I can be a condescending dick again, if you want.”

  “And I could pick fights with you.”

  “Pretty sure that’ll happen anyway.”

  I laughed at that. “You’re probably right. Maybe we could just try to get along and enjoy the occasional fight?”

  “Deal.” He shook my hand, lingering for a moment before letting go, then rolled to his side, away from me. “Good night, Amelia. Sleep well.”

  “’Night.” I curled up, making myself as small as possible so I wouldn’t brush against him. Sleep well, he’d said. As if I would sleep at all with him lying six inches away from me.

  An hour later, he was asleep, if his even breathing was any indication, and I was still wide awake, my mind unable to rest. I’d offered myself to him in a way I never had before with any other guy I’d known for so short a time, and he’d turned me down in so gentlemanly a way that I couldn’t even be mad about it, damn him.

  The bed shifted, and I was suddenly pressed up against a wall of heat. I peered over my shoulder. In his sleep, Rory had rolled to his back, his arm coming to rest against me. I tried to ease away from him, but there was no room.

  This was going to be the longest night, ever
.

  I should have just let him sleep in his tent.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Rory

  Rain poured down, the sound a violent drumbeat against the nylon walls of the tent. But inside, it was another world entirely: dry and warm and smelling of spring and sunshine.

  She leaned over me, her long hair tumbling over my bare skin with an erotic tickle. I sucked in a breath as the motion brought her hips flush against mine, only a few layers of fabric keeping me from her.

  Her tongue stroked along mine as she kissed me. Then she broke the kiss and sat up, her lips curving into a smile as she gazed down at me. She reached back and unhooked her bra, then slowly dragged it down her arms and tossed it to the side. Wordlessly, she took my hands and brought them to her breasts, her lips parting on a gasp as I cupped their weight in my palms and traced them with the pads of my thumbs.

  Then it was my turn to gasp as her hands slid down my abdomen. My hips rose to meet hers, and I lifted my gaze in time to see her lips curve in a slow, seductive smile. She leaned over me once more, her hair falling around me as her hand dipped lower…

  I came awake as the dream faded. Unlike my other dreams lately, it didn’t leave me wracked with horror and grief. But it did leave me with my body painfully aroused from the most vivid erotic dream I’d had in a long time.

  There was a soft sigh, and a warm body snuggled into mine. My eyes snapped open. What? And then I remembered.

  I was in a too-small bed in the Sligachan Hotel, curled around Amelia with my face buried in her hair. My right arm was wrapped around her waist, my hand nearly touching her breast. Her hand lay over mine, as if she’d pulled my arm around her and hadn’t let go.

  We couldn’t have been any closer to each other unless we were naked.

  I needed to move away from her, even though that was the very last thing I wanted to do. But I couldn’t stay wrapped around her like this. Not after turning her down the way I had.

  I carefully disentangled myself from her and eased out of the bed. It was early yet—the light coming in through the window was the pale gray of dawn—but I couldn’t go back to sleep. Not with my body hungering for hers.

  There was an indentation on the bed from where I’d lain so close to her, and I wondered what it would be like to wake up with her in my arms for real, to make love to her as night gave way to dawn.

  I’d taken things too far last night. But she’d been going on about how I didn’t want her, and I’d had to show her how wrong she was. How much I did want her. I’d intended just to kiss her, but then she’d pressed her body to mine and kissed me back, and I’d just given in.

  I thought of how she’d felt under me, how her body had responded to my touch, how she’d arched against my hand. If I hadn’t jostled her damn knee, I was certain the evening would have ended differently, with our bodies sated and entwined for real, without this misery hanging over us. But what I’d said to Amelia was true. I couldn’t bear the thought of being with her and then letting her go. She was an amazing woman who would do anything for those she loved, even at her own peril.

  The kind of woman I could love. The kind of woman I’d be devastated to lose.

  But she was here to finish the trek and return home to her life in the States. It was no use dwelling on those thoughts.

  I sank into the armchair under the window and stared out at the mountains. Our walk today would take us past Bla Bheinn, the mountain that had irrevocably changed my life. The source of my nightmares. And the reason I continued to guide the Skye Trail, month after month, year after year. I could never let myself forget, even for a second.

  I needed to get through today, get past Bla Bheinn without incident. Then we’d be in the homestretch, and with any luck, we’d complete the Skye Trail in three days and my life could get back to normal.

  Amelia made some small sound in her sleep, and I dragged my thoughts away from the mountain to just look at her for a moment. Her dark hair was spread across the white pillowcase, her lovely face was relaxed in slumber, her lips were parted slightly.

  The next three days were going to be torture.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Amelia

  I opened my eyes, suddenly cold, as if my blanket had been yanked off. But no, it was still there. I rolled to my back, my body dipping into an indentation in the mattress that was still warm, as if…well, as if Rory had been snuggled up behind me and had just gotten up.

  The room was bathed in the silvery light of morning, and Rory sat in the armchair by the window, his hands tunneling into his unruly hair.

  “Are you all right?”

  He jolted, then slowly took his head from his hands and turned to look at me, his features indistinct in the shadowy room. “Yeah, just couldn’t sleep any longer.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and stood. “I was going to wake you in a few minutes, but since you’re up, let’s have a look at your knee.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and eased my leg onto his lap. His hands on my skin were an uncomfortable reminder of last night, even though his touch was far less intimate. He unwrapped the bandage and gently prodded my knee. “The swelling’s gone down a bit. How does it feel?”

  I carefully flexed it a few times, then got to my feet and walked around the room. “It doesn’t hurt as much as it did. I mean, it’s not great, but it’s definitely better than it was.”

  “Good.” He slid from the bed, retrieving his phone from his nightstand and poking at it. “It’s almost seven. Let me re-wrap your leg, and then we should get moving. It’s nearly twelve miles to Elgol. That’s going to take us all day. And there’s more rain expected later, so we want to get to it.”

  “Super. I can’t wait to be wet and cold and miserable again. Okay if I grab the bathroom first? I won’t be long.”

  “Go ahead. Might as well put on your rain gear, too.”

  A little while later, we were on our way. We went over a lovely old stone bridge that offered a stunning view of the glen cutting between the mountains. I stopped on the bridge to take some photos, the first since before we traversed all the streams and rivers yesterday, when I was afraid I’d drop my phone in the water.

  “This is a very famous view,” said Rory. “It’s actually more famous if you take the photo with the bridge in it. Let’s compromise, for Carrie. Give me your phone and go stand over there.” He gestured to the right side of the bridge. When I was in position, I turned. “Say ‘Sligachan.’”

  Grinning, I said it, and he snapped a few pictures before handing back the phone. “I took a close-up of you and then a zoomed-out one so you can see the background. Glen Sligachan separates the Black Cuillins to the right—so called because they’re comprised of black igneous rock—from the Red Cuillins to the left, so called because they’re mostly granite and look reddish when the light hits them. There’s your geology lesson for the day.”

  “Take a selfie with me,” I blurted out. I didn’t have many pictures of him (and those I did have may or may not have been ones I stealth-snapped earlier in the trip under the guise of taking scenery shots) and wanted at least one good one.

  “Sure. I’ll take it; my arm is longer than yours.” He sat beside me on the stone wall and leaned in close. “I think we got some of the view as well,” he said after he snapped a few shots.

  “Thanks, Rory.”

  “No worries. Ready to go?” He handed me my poles, and we started off.

  “Would you like me to take a picture of the two of you?” We turned to see two middle-aged women behind us on the bridge.

  “Aye, that would be brilliant, thanks,” said Rory. “Can I bother you to take one with mine as well?” My heart gave a happy little kick at the thought that he wanted to remember me after the trek was over.

  They took pictures of us, and then we returned the favor before crossing the bridge and going through a gate to pick up the path.

  The sky over the glen was dark and brooding, and the tops of the mountains on eithe
r side were cloaked in mist. It had been amazing when we were up on the Trotternish Ridge and we could see the mountains stretched out on either side, but walking at ground level between Marsco on the left and Sgùrr nan Gillean on the right, looking nearly straight up at their imposing faces and cloud-enshrouded peaks? It was awesome.

  I took a few pictures and then just stared. No photograph could begin to do justice to this place.

  “Are you all right?” asked Rory, after I’d stopped for maybe the tenth time in as many minutes to gape at the mountains. “Is it your knee?”

  “No. I just never imagined a place like this. Not ever.”

  “Glen Sligachan is pretty damned impressive.”

  I shook my head. “Not just the glen. All of Skye. I mean, I’ve seen The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, where they film in exotic, scenic places. Of course I know that those places exist in the world. And I knew that Scotland had some pretty amazing scenery, too. But I just never—” I broke off, not even sure how to put my thoughts into words.

  “Never what?”

  “Never imagined the way it would make me feel to be here, to be standing among all this beauty. I know it’s been spectacular all along, but I think in the first few days, I was so focused on putting one foot in front of the other and taking all the photos I could, and trying to remember every detail for Carrie, that I just forgot to take it all in for myself. And now that I am, it’s going to be hard to go back to flat Long Island and even flatter Miami.”

  I could stay here. The thought came to me, sudden and unbidden. I shook my head to clear it. No, of course I couldn’t. My life was back in the States, where an iced coffee was never more than ten minutes away, where my family and Carrie were. Where my new job was. I pictured the wide beaches of Miami, the avenues lined with palm trees, the beautiful weather. Then I thought of the traffic. And the crowds, and the noise. And the oppressive heat and humidity in the summer.