“Just how much did you hear in that room?” I giggled as his breath tickled my ear and I made a big show of being a carefree girl in love as the officer looked up at us again.
“So no one else was with you when you went exploring? You didn’t see anyone else on the path?” He asked and I shook my head immediately.
“No sir, I was the only one down there. It was just me being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I assured him and he sighed and flipped his book closed.
“You must be very grateful that you found her when you did.” He said to Ian and the other man nodded firmly.
“I kick myself that we let her go down there by herself and that it took us so long to go looking for her. But we found her and got her to a hospital and that’s what matters.” Ian squeezed his arms around me, making me giggle again and the officer blushed.
“Young people in love. This is the part of my job that I enjoy the most. Seeing couples like you two get your happy ending. Thank you very much for taking the time to talk with me Miss. Williams. I hear you’re leaving to head home soon?”
“Yes sir. Mr. Cameron is driving us to the airport tomorrow evening.”
“I hope you have a safe trip home and you remember Scotland as more than a hospital room.” The older man chuckled as we all started to walk back towards the house and I laughed lightly.
“Trust me, I have far better memories of my time here than the hospital room. Besides, half of my stay there I slept through.” We reached the lane-way a moment or two later and we escorted the officer to his cruiser. When he was gone, Ian put his hands on my waist and turned me to face him, a quizzical look on his face.
“What?” I smiled and he tipped his head to the side slightly, regarding me intently.
“You didn’t get the chance to answer me back there. Just how much did ye hear?”
“Enough.” I winked at him playfully but the serious look on his face made me elaborate, if for no other reason than to put his mind at ease. “I heard most of the conversations in my room, starting with you and Edan talking with Dr. Michaels when you first walked in. So I hope, Dr. Andarsan, that you didn’t say anything in there that I wasn’t meant to hear.” I teased and we both thought of his conversation with Emma.
“Nope. Everything I said in that room was the truth, and I always hoped deep down that you could hear me.”
“So you really don’t mind being in love with an American tourist who is about to get on a plane and go home?” I asked carefully and watched a slow, sexy smile slide across his face. Ian stepped very close to me, cupped one hand around my jaw and ear and pulled my face to his for a heartbreakingly tender kiss.
“Not at all lass. Because I’m getting on that plane too.”
Epilogue
Ian, Rachel and I disembarked from our plane and as we walked through the terminal towards the baggage claim, Ian puffed his cheeks out in the universal gesture of ‘man, it’s hot!’. I laughed and winked at him as we spotted the luggage carousel up ahead and adjusted our course to go that way.
“Aren’t you glad I made you change during our layover in Los Angeles? You’d be dying now if you still had your khakis and button-down shirt on.” I teased and he pulled a face at me
“It’s not that it’s hot so much as it’s just not what I’m used to.” He defended himself as Rachel deftly snapped up my suitcase and her duffel off the carousel. We waited until we saw Ian’s suitcase come around the turn and he lifted it up and set it down on its wheels, extending the handle to pull it along behind him. I extended my own handle which Rachel promptly took out of my hand.
“You deal with your crutches. I’ve got the bags.” We then turned and headed towards the doors leading to the parking lot and Rachel left us standing out front with all of our bags while she went to get the car. Ian and I waited patiently and he looked around himself in appreciation. Hawaii and Scotland were both islands surrounded by very large bodies of water but that was where the similarities ended. He could now understand my comment about seeing palm trees, sparkling blue ocean waves and sand whenever I looked out a window. It was like standing in the middle of paradise. Of course it helped that I stood beside him and he wondered if the faint smell of pineapple and coconut he could detect was in the air around us, or if it was me. Inhaling deeply, he turned slightly to look back at me and couldn’t help but laugh. There was his answer.
I stood just behind Ian, leaning on my crutches while I squeezed a tiny amount of lotion into the palm of my hand and then spread it over my hands and arms. When I heard his laugh I looked up and winked.
“Now you know where the smell comes from.” We shared a laugh as I saw my red Jeep Wrangler pull up to the curb and Rachel jumped out. I stood by uselessly as Ian and Rachel loaded our bags into the back and I turned in surprise when I heard someone call my name from behind me.
“Lani! I thought that was you!” When I found the source of the voice, my mouth fell open in shock and at the bottom of the stairs, along the curb Ian and Rachel both turned, Ian’s protective - and slightly jealous - radar kicking in.
“Mark?” I asked in disbelief, seeing the tall young man with the heavy tan and sun-bleached hair approach and his face split into a huge grin.
“Hey! I wasn’t sure that was you I saw over with the baggage but when I saw Rachel I knew it had to be you. Look at you! Wow, you look great! Love the hair!” He gushed enthusiastically and I raised my eyebrows a fraction. Seriously?
“Thanks! I think the crutches and full leg cast really do it for me, don’t you?” I asked dryly and the smile on his face froze and then slowly disappeared as he realized that I did have a cast covering my entire right leg - now covered with all sorts of signatures and farewells from the Cameron clan that I had just left behind - and I was using crutches to hold myself up.
“I thought you looked a little shorter.” He said dumbly but before I could snap at him, Ian appeared by my side and started to take my arm to help me down the few steps to the Jeep.
“Friend of yours?” he asked a touch sarcastically and Mark pulled himself up to his full height, trying to be intimidating but it fell flat when Ian made the final step up to the same level we were standing on and Mark realized that the two men were the same height.
“Former boyfriend thank you very much.” Mark defended himself and I snorted.
“Please. The term ‘boyfriend’ seems so inadequate these days. Short-term lover maybe.”
“You weren’t singing that tune six months ago, baby. We were hot stuff back then!” The surfer-dude attitude he was so fully embracing wore on me and I suddenly wondered when I had ever found it enticing.
“Yeah, but like the sand we used to roll around in, it starts to chafe after you’ve been out of it for awhile. And I certainly wouldn’t want to knock you over doing something as simple as giving you a hug.” I smiled primly and Mark opened and closed his mouth once or twice with a rebuke that never came. Touche.
“Personally, I like the benefits of having a woman who’s the same height as you.” Ian spoke up, and I bit back a smile at the tone of his voice. This was going to be good.
“And what’re those?” Mark asked, raking Ian with a cool, superior look that the doctor brushed off with a smirk of his own.
“Well, one is that it’s easier to look into her eyes and kiss her when she wraps her legs around your hips and makes love to you. All night. And then again in the morning.” Mark’s mouth continued to work soundlessly as he stared at us and I laughed with a pretty little blush.
“Mark wouldn’t quite know about the morning bit. He was always out in the surf before the sun came up.”
“His loss. My gain. Come on, my dragon, let’s get ye in the Jeep.” Ian put an arm around my waist to help me down the stairs but before we made it more than two steps, we heard Mark snicker.
“Your dragon? You’re actually letting him refer to you as a dragon-lady?” the sarcastic tone made me stop walking as I gritted my teeth and Ian gasped silently wh
en he saw my face. For the duration of two blinks of an eye, my eyes had been the same bright-green dragon-eyes that he’d seen almost every day while I was on the estate. But as quickly as they appeared, they disappeared again and while Ian glanced at Rachel to see if she’d noticed - and the dumbfounded look on her face indicated she clearly had, making him suddenly wonder if maybe the dragon in me wasn’t dead after all - I turned to face Mark. With a very animal-like purr I raked my gaze up and down him and then wrinkled my nose.
“Oh honey, you have no idea. But then I guess that doesn’t surprise me. You never did have much of an imagination.” And with that, I leaned into Ian as we continued down the stairs and he effortlessly lifted me up and into the passenger seat of the Jeep. Rachel couldn’t help but laugh at the look on Mark’s face and just as he opened his mouth to say something more, she cut him off.
“Mark, seriously. Save your breath. Don’t you have a surfboard to fall off or something?” at her comment, Mark’s face turned red and I laughed and looked back and forth between the two of them.
“What’s this about falling off a board?”
“While you’ve been overseas, Mark’s been making the news around here. Apparently, the last three surfing competitions he’s entered he’s lost miserably because he can’t seem to stay on his board. I guess that’s why you’re here, isn’t it Mark? Coming home to practice on waves you’re familiar with.” Rachel reported and I couldn’t help it, I turned just a little petty.
“That’s okay! He still had his tiny, waif-like girlfriend to leap into his arms and hug and comfort him after his losses. Right, Mark? I mean, that’s what you said you wanted.” I turned to look at my ex as Ian got in the Jeep behind me and I heard him snicker.
“That’s not nice, lass.” He chided, only half-seriously and I snorted.
“Neither is making a woman who cared about him feel like she was a worthless giant. But I’ve learned to accept and be happy and proud of the woman I am and men like him can’t hurt me now. Let’s go home, Rach.” I turned to my friend as she started the truck and with a sweet smile, Rachel and I both waved at Mark and we all laughed when Rachel’s wave turned into her giving him the middle finger as we pulled away and merged into traffic.
Next in the series.....
DragonKeeper
Coming to you sometime in 2019.
Opening
When the video-call connected, the first thing that came into focus on my monitor was a blue sweater-clad arm as it adjusted the angle of the laptop screen.
“Can everyone see okay?” Edan asked the room full of people behind him and various voices agreed so the big man stepped back and I got my first clear view of the estate’s parlor. The chefs Alice and Will sat on chairs near the kitchen doors, Ciara was sitting on the floor in between two bouncy chairs, her and Edan’s twins William and Alexandria strapped down and dozing fitfully in them. Edan went to sit in the chair behind his wife and Ian leaned casually against the wall near Alice. A large Christmas tree was visible, all lit up with twinkling white lights and it glittered like a giant diamond.
“Lani! Rachel! Hello! I know it’s a still a few weeks away, but Merry Christmas!” Ciara called out happily, waving excitedly from the floor and I laughed as Rachel leaned over my shoulder and waved at the room of Scotsmen.
“Hello everyone! Mele Kalikimaka!” We called out the Hawaiin version of ‘Merry Christmas’ in unison, waving at the roomful of people and my gaze lingered on the doctor longingly. It had been a month now since Ian had flown home from his vacation here in Hawaii and I missed him sorely. I knew he had responsibilities that he needed to tend to and we talked as often as we could, either on the phone or over Skype but for some reason, seeing him with everyone else made the distance between us much harder to bear.
“How are you, Lani? Rachel?” Edan asked and we laughed and shrugged indifferently.
“Same old, same old. Work’s getting busy now that the holidays are almost here. We’re being assigned our Christmas charges as people are booking their vacations so I don’t know how much down-time I’ll have this year. Especially since someone is still in physio and unable to really take on a full job yet.” Rachel shot me a mock glare and I laughed and shrugged helplessly.
“What do you want from me? I just had my cast taken off two days ago.” I stuck my tongue out at my best friend and as we giggled together, everyone on the other end of the call laughed too.
“Show off those legs, Lani!” I hadn’t noticed the other young woman sitting on the floor near Alice’s feet and when I saw her I grinned.
“Steph! Hi! Okay, hold on, it still takes me a minute to get up and walking.” I slowly rose to my feet, using the table to support me and in Scotland, Ian watched the computer screen both critically and longingly. He watched me step back away from the table so they could all see that, sure enough, my full leg cast was gone and I did a little twirl to show off my increased mobility. He was ecstatic to see the plaster gone, the broken femur I’d suffered while here had bothered everyone. There wasn’t a single person on the Cameron’s estate that wasn’t grateful that all I had suffered had been a broken leg, some cracked ribs and scorched hair, knowing that it could have been so much worse. But the full cast had chafed at him because I had been so active and full of life while visiting, always out for an early morning run and taking others along with me like Stephanie and her boyfriend Jamie, or playing soccer or volleyball if I could get enough people interested.
Now, to see me twirl around carefully, he eyed my long, lean legs and he couldn’t help but chuckle when Will laughed and pointed at the screen.
“I think you need to get a tan on that pasty white leg of your, lass! You look like one of us!” The room erupted into laughter and Rachel and I grinned while I nodded a bit ruefully in agreement.
“It won’t take me long to get my tan back on my leg Will, not to worry. Part of my daily physiotherapy routine is going to be taking a walk on the beach in the sand.” I sat back down in a chair beside my cousin and Rachel poked me in the ribs jokingly.
“Just remember, no surfboards until your doctor tells you otherwise!”
“Yes Mom.” I stuck my tongue out at her as we giggled and I felt positively giddy. Rachel and I had gone on a castle-viewing tour of the British Isles back at the end of September and I had been forced to stay on the Cameron’s estate while Rachel had flown home because I had trespassed on their property, not realizing that once I had set foot inside their impressive stone-walled estate, it wouldn’t be so easy for me to leave again. Niether my grandfather or my father had told me that we were all dragons, capable of taking human form to blend in with the rest of society, they had just forbidden me to ever go to the Isles, in hopes that would be enough. They had hoped that by living in Hawaii, I would be content to stay in the land of sunshine and surf and would never want to venture to a land where our ancestors had lived, trapped by Fae magic. To live on the Cameron estate we could be free and take any form we liked, the privacy of the big walls giving us that luxury. But if we were to set foot over the property line – without a direct Cameron heir – we’d change into dragons, and I wasn’t sure if we would be able to change back without crossing the property line again. I hadn’t been able to test that theory while I’d been there. Of course no one had told me that, I had to figure it out for myself a few years after my parents were killed in a car accident and I had disobeyed their order to travel to anywhere but Scotland.
While there, I had learned a great deal about who I was, who my Dad and grandfather had really been, and I had also learned that my mother hadn’t been the plain, meek and mild woman she’d let on to be. My mother had been one of the most powerful witches ever known but she had kept it tightly hidden from me and the outside world and I was still learning about her and her abilities now that I was back home and going through her old journals up in the attic. That magic had saved my hide while in Scotland when I’d taken on two fairies, hell-bent on destroying the Cameron’s land whe
n Edan refused to leave it. There had been a battle down in the bay that their land circled around and I, while in dragon-form, had been crushed by some falling boulders during our fight when one of the fairies had struck the cliffside with lightning. With no other options, I’d channeled some of Mom’s power and crippled the Fae enough that I’d been able to breath fire at him and he’d gone up in flames, but not before cursing me. It was because of that curse – that my dragon-heart would stop beating at midnight of the start of the Samhain – that I had been able to leave the estate as a human, and had been rushed to hospital, hence the leg cast. The dragon in me was dead.
To see everyone who had become so dear to me while I was in Scotland sitting in front of a laptop made my heart feel tight in my chest. I missed them all so much! Then it hit me, someone was missing.
“Where is Hugh?” I asked suddenly, realizing that Edan’s father was nowhere to be seen and Ciara laughed, brushing her long blonde hair over her shoulders as she glanced at something I couldn’t see.
“He’s coming Lani, don’t worry. He wants to show you my latest painting but I guess he has to get the room ready first.”
“Get the room ready? What do you mean? Why can’t you just bring your canvas out to the parlor and put it on an easel like all of your others?” I scrunched my brow in confusion, even as my gaze drifted back to the tall doctor standing quietly against the wall. God I missed him and longed for the feel of his arms around me!
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