“Do I get a snog too?” Archie had interrupted with interest, holding out his phone. Four of the others had been beside him, all offering their phones.
“Hell, yes,” Aidan had said. “But you’ll never know when it’s coming. Thanks doesn’t seem to cover this.”
“You’re all right,” Dougie had said casually. “Just be careful, eh? My wee girl’s picture’s on there too, and I’d rather keep it.”
And so Aidan had left with a bag full of phones to add to his evidence. And Chrissy had climbed into the shared people carrier and driven back up to the house with warmth, relief and curious happiness in her heart.
It was still there as she gazed out at the rain. Aidan was coming today. She jumped out of bed and almost ran through to the bathroom to shower.
It was only as she was dressing that she registered the note on her bedside table, scrawled across a scrap of envelope.
Gone to Glasgow x.
The disappointment was like a bucket of cold water. She yearned to see him again, just to talk. Not necessarily about the future. Now the heat was off, they could relax, take the time to know each other better… And make love. A lot of love.
Swallowing her impatience, she finished dressing and went downstairs to track down some coffee and breakfast. Jim was in the kitchen, preparing a delicious-smelling lunch with the help of Thierry and Gerry, who were labouring while asking questions.
“All right, Chrissy?” Jim greeted her with a grin. “Bit of an adventure last night, eh?”
“A bit,” Chrissy agreed, pouring herself some coffee. “Thanks, guys.”
Dougie wandered in from the back door and winked at her. “Saved your man for you.”
Annoyingly, she blushed, but managed to say, “Aye, you did. I’m going to be saying thanks for a long time.”
“Nah,” said Dougie. “He’s all right. For the polis.”
Chrissy stuck her tongue out at him and walked out of the kitchen and along the hall to her office.
Izzy sprawled behind the desk, gazing out at the rainy view. “Hey, you’re up,” she observed. “Dan MacDonald says he’ll start on the field next week. Margaret Dunn’s signed up for the computing workshop, and Louise is going to do woodwork!”
“Fab. They’re trickling in.” Chrissy set her mug on the desk and threw herself into the vacant chair.
“Mrs. Dunn said she’s talking her husband into the art class. Morag might do that one too.”
“Morag wants to do all of them. I think she might be bored. Did you bring that note up to me?”
“No.” A smile flickered across her rather beautiful face. “He did. Aidan. I was going to wake you, but Glenn just sent him up. You could have knocked me down with a feather.”
A warmth that was part excited and part soft and fuzzy seeped through her at the thought of him gazing at her while she slept. She wished he’d woken her. She wished he’d climbed into bed beside her…
“Anyway,” Izzy continued, “he came back a couple of minutes later, said you were still asleep but he’d left you a note.”
Chrissy grimaced. “Gone to Glasgow. Doesn’t give much away, does he?”
“Nature of the beast,” Izzy murmured.
Chrissy shifted in her seat and reached for her mug. “He’s like no one else I’ve ever met,” she admitted.
“He has something,” Izzy agreed.
Chrissy refocused on her. “It must have been like that for you when you met Glenn.”
“More so. I didn’t want anything to do with anyone who’d ever broken the law.”
Chrissy lifted one eyebrow. “Are you saying there’s hope for me?” she asked lightly.
Izzy appeared to consider, regarding Chrissy with her head leaning to one side. “Glenn sent him up to your room. He obviously believes it’s a done deal.”
“So did I, up to a point, at least. So what’s he doing in bloody Glasgow?”
Izzy shrugged. “Work?”
Resignation? Did this mean he’d come back tonight? The strength of her longing took her by surprise all over again.
Izzy leaned forward. “Chrissy. You’re worth coming back to. Never doubt that. He knows it.”
But she’d pushed him too fast because she saw time slipping away from them. He was more troubled than Izzy knew, and where he was concerned, Chrissy wasn’t sure of anything.
Aidan didn’t come that night, or the next. Louise, encountered in the post office on the third day of his absence, didn’t mention him. She was too busy telling Chrissy about the mobility scooter that would enable her mother to go out on her own again, and the nurses who would come in twice a day to help her father.
“Don’t forget your staff,” Chrissy reminded her. “Did you speak to Aidan about that?”
“Oh yes, he’s quite happy. So’s Mum. We’re looking at names together. Thanks for giving me that push, Chrissy.”
Unexpectedly, Louise hugged her, and questions about Aidan dried up in Chrissy’s throat.
When it was dark, and she’d given up all hope of him coming that day either, Chrissy walked down to the beach, trying to exhaust herself so she’d stop thinking. The fact that he hadn’t called depressed her. If he had any intention of coming back, wouldn’t he have kept in touch? Of course, the police still had her mobile, but he could have phoned the house. She suspected she’d just joined the ranks of his exes who littered the village from his teenage years.
And she cared too much. Damn but she did.
Halting in the sand, she threw back her head to try to stop the stupid tears. It didn’t help, but since it was dark and she was alone, she let them come. Then, when they slowed, she walked the few feet down to the sea and splashed cold, salty water over her face. At least the shock did her good.
She rose, drying her face on the end of her scarf, and walked on until she came to the ruined cottage Aidan had pointed out to her as once being his ideal home. After a brief pause, as if drawn by the desire to wallow, she walked up to it, climbing the few broken steps from the beach and through what must have been a little garden. She could feel the stone of a path beneath her feet, well hidden by weeds.
Finding a few upright stones that might once have formed a wall, she sat on them and admired the view across the sea. It was colder tonight—there was meant to be snow tomorrow—but she didn’t move. There was something soothing about just sitting here, breathing in the salty sea air.
Until a footstep crunched sand against stone, and she jerked around. She nearly said his name as a male figure loomed out of the darkness and stood beside her. But it wasn’t Aidan.
A tall, well-built man, dark rather than fair.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice low, pleasant, almost…seductive. “I didn’t mean to startle you. You just looked so unhappy sitting there alone.”
She shrugged. “I’ll get over it. I’m not the end-it-all type.” She made to stand up, since he was a stranger. She couldn’t recall ever seeing him in the village before.
But, unexpectedly, he sat beside her on the wall, leaving a respectable distance between them, and it seemed rude to walk away immediately.
“Good,” he said, “because there’s always hope. I’m living proof. I’d almost given up on you when you cried seven tears into the sea.”
Seven tears? Seven tears wept into the sea would summon a selkie lover, according to Aidan. She felt her mouth fall open as she stared at the man beside her. His eyes seemed very dark, liquid and kind of…round, like a seal’s. Oh, bollocks!
“Okay, so you’re asking me to believe you’re a selkie, summoned by my moment of weakness down at the water?” she mocked.
“You know I am. You talked to him about us. And now I’ve come to take away your pain, to give you some of the happiness you deserve.”
She licked her lips, still gazing at him with fascination. “Are you for real?”
“Very, very real,” he said. He leaned nearer, and her breath caught. He smelled of the sea, of man. Aroused man. And all her physical l
onging for Aidan surged up, heating her body. This man was strong and handsome. He wanted her. His eyes were naked with a lust that should have frightened her. Perhaps it would have, had it not been for the softer glow behind that somehow spoke of affection, even though he didn’t know her. A handsome stranger who’d make love to her, drive into her aching body and pleasure her, make her forget one man’s neglect in the passion of another…
“He didn’t come back,” she whispered.
The stranger paused, not drawing away but coming no closer either. “Men are fickle,” he observed. “The pain will pass, and you’ll find another.”
She closed her eyes. “I don’t want another. I want Aidan. The really stupid thing is, I’d rather have this pain for him than even look at anyone else. Is that love, Mr. Selkie?”
He didn’t laugh at her. His eyes seemed to have fixed on hers, unblinking, although she was almost sure he no longer saw her. “Yes,” he said slowly, “yes, I suppose it is. Partly, at least. My wife loves him too.”
“Your wife…” The selkie of Aidan’s teenage wet dream? The naked woman from the beach and the boat. “I’m sorry.”
“I could have loved you. We could both have been happy for a time, she with him, I with you.”
“How could you be happy with me when you love her?”
He smiled. “We have large hearts. My love for her doesn’t die when I love a human woman. And she always comes back to me, and I to her. It’s been this way for centuries. But he rejected her, as you rejected me. And she grieves.”
“While still loving you?” Chrissy asked cautiously. Somewhere, she couldn’t quite believe she was having this conversation, buying into the whole selkie myth, even worrying about them.
“She’s my wife,” he said sadly. “But he’s special to her. She’s never gone back to a human before.”
“Aidan was especially troubled. Maybe that was the draw.”
His eyes came back into focus. “As are you.”
“I was,” she admitted. “I’d had some trauma in my life, and I was lonely. And suddenly he was there. Everything I’d ever wanted, everything I didn’t even know I wanted until I realized he wasn’t coming back. I’ll have to wait for him, I suppose.” She scowled. “Your wife can’t have him.”
Another sad smile curved his rather beautiful lips. “As I can’t have you?”
“Exactly,” Chrissy said. “Tempting as you are.” She smoothed her brow. “Your wife is unhappy. Isn’t it your job to make women happy?”
He opened his mouth and closed it again. “Yes,” he admitted eventually.
She nudged him and stood. “Then go and make your wife happy. All the best, Mr. Selkie. Whether you’re real or not.”
He laughed, and rose to touch her cheek. “You’re a strange human,” he observed and walked away.
She watched him turn right, away from the village towards the area beloved by the seals. In the distance, she could see the big rock where the two seals had so frequently lain. She thought something moved on it. His wife, she hoped, waiting for him.
“Either I’m insane or the world is,” she muttered.
“Not you,” said a familiar voice that made her jump and spin around, her hand to her throat.
“Damn it, Aidan, stop doing that!” But her heart thundered not from startlement but because he was here, large and solid as he moved towards her over the stones and weeds. And from fear of what he might say, that too.
She scowled. “Were you there all the time? Did you put him up to that?”
Aidan shook his head, coming to a halt just in front of her, not touching. “I saw you with him from the beach. I thought at first it was one of the blokes from the house…though I’m relieved you sent him away. Not sure I can compete with a selkie lover. You said you trusted me.”
“I trust you to do the right thing and to catch the bad guys—even if you might need a bit of help occasionally due to the slowness of rural police.”
“But not to come back to you?”
She slid her gaze free. He wouldn’t be talking like this, surely, if he’d come to say good-bye… With difficulty, she said, “I don’t know if it’s the right thing for you to do, to be with me.”
“It feels like the right thing to do.” He moved, taking her hand, and her fingers jumped in his and clung. “I missed you.”
She swallowed. “I missed you too.”
“I went to Glasgow, confirmed my resignation. And knocked back the private security firm who’d offered me a job.”
Her heart leapt again, with as much fear as hope. “Oh, Aidan, that has to be for you, not for something you think I want. If you resent—”
He lifted his free hand, placing his forefinger over her lips. “It is for me. Although I won’t deny you were an influence. You were right. I’d be crap at body-guarding.”
“I didn’t say that, exactly.”
“Well, you implied my skills were…otherwise. I thought about that. I thought about it a lot. I even wrote down a list of what they were and what I could do with them. And that’s why I was away so long. I met up with a few people and made a few arrangements, and the result is, we’re going to start our own security firm based in Glasgow. Business security, home security, personal protection, a bit of old-fashioned private detection. Whatever there’s a call for, one of us should be able to handle it.”
“Wow,” she managed, staring at him.
“I’ll spend some time in Glasgow and I’ll probably need to travel a bit if this takes off. But there’s a lot I can do just as easily from here. Which means I can spend a lot of time with you if you can stand it.”
She smacked her closed fist into his chest. “Stand it?”
His hand closed over hers and under them both, his heart beat strong and quick. “Maybe I could give your guys those sailing lessons. Thought I might build a house, too. Where this one used to be.”
Her lips parted. He meant it. He was staying.
“Do you think you might like that?” he asked casually. But his eyes weren’t casual. They were intense, serious.
She swallowed. “I think I might,” she whispered and lifted her face to his.
His mouth came down unexpectedly hard, his kiss strong and demanding. She gave, with joy, pouring all her bright new love into it.
“There’s so much about you I want to know,” he said against her mouth.
“I’m willing.”
His lips smiled against hers. “We could start with the biblical sense of the word. If you’d care to come back to my lair. I’d love to ravish you here, but it’s fucking cold. And Mairi Moore’s walking her dogs in our direction.”
She laughed breathlessly, breaking free, and they walked together, hand in hand towards Ardknocken.
Epilogue From their familiar vantage point, the selkies watched the humans vanish into the distance. The sea rushed around them, splashing against their favoured rock, seeming to pull it as the tide turned.
Dyrfinna said, “I don’t want to be with humans anymore. They don’t understand love.”
Runi thought about it. “They understand it differently. From us. From each other most of the time.” He turned his head, gazing at her familiar, beautiful profile. “Did he make you unhappy, Dyrfinna?”
She nodded, then turned to him, nudging his nose with hers. “She made you sad too.”
“Actually, she made me happy. Happy to have you.”
She made a soft sound in her throat. In a human, it would have been a sob. “The tide is going out. Let’s go away, far away.”
“Let’s,” he agreed.
“Iceland,” she said dreamily. “I’ve always loved Iceland.” She flopped into the water, cutting through the waves in a smooth, graceful line.
He followed, swimming beyond her, splashing her, then turned and came back to her, rubbing his head, his body against hers. “Humans come and go, Dyrfinna. They sicken and die and move on. We are eternal.”
She caressed his nose with hers, her eyes deep and
liquid. “You are my eternity, my husband,” she whispered. “Come, come…”
Side by side, the selkies swam farther away from the seals who would mate and probably give birth on these shores. The pair dived beneath the waves, twisting their bodies around each other in a dance at once familiar and sensual, then breaking back to the surface.
Some of the seals called to them as they swam away. Runi called back. They’d return. But not for a long, long time.
About the Author Marie Treanor lives in Scotland with her eccentric husband and three much-too-smart children. Having grown bored with city life, she resides these days in a picturesque village by the sea where she is lucky enough to enjoy herself avoiding housework and writing sensual stories of paranormal romance and fantasy.
Marie is the award winning author of over forty sexy paranormal romances—Indie, New York and E-published.
You can find out more about Marie and her books on her website: www.MarieTreanor.com.
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Look for these titles by Marie Treanor
Now Available:
Killing Joe
Gothic Dragon
Ariadne’s Thread
The Devil and Via
Queen’s Gambit
Requiem for Rab
In His Wildest Dreams
Fairytale Fantasies (with Bonnie Dee)
Cinderella Unmasked
Demon Lover
Awakening Beauty
Sex and the Single Princess
Every dream can come true…in unexpected ways.
In His Wildest Dreams
© 2014 Marie Treanor
The only time Glenn Brody acted on the waking dreams his mother called second sight, he landed in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Now he keeps himself grounded in the real world, turning a neglected Scottish mansion into a co-op that gives ex-cons a second chance.
He’s almost managed to ignore the persistent, erotically charged dreams featuring a beautiful, passionate woman—until that woman accosts him in the street to ask for a job.
In Her Secret Fantasy Page 21