But, she felt that he was way too far across the room. And the idea that the bed where he slept was just beyond those doors was admittedly tantalizing.
“I could give you a tour,” he said, following her gaze.
She wondered what he might have seen in her face, but he didn’t give any indication that he’d read in her expression anything other than continued curiosity for his home.
“Or,” he offered, when she didn’t immediately reply, “you could make yourself comfortable while I go see what I can put together for an early supper.”
She turned her attention to a narrow stone patio she saw through the windows in the rear wall. The sun was further west than she’d realized. They must have lain on that blanket pad a lot longer than she’d thought. “Supper sounds good. But I can help. Just because I turned into a raving lunatic back there, doesn’t mean I’m completely helpless. Really, I—”
“Tessa, I told ye. I willnae accept apologies.” He said it firmly, but kindly.
It made her feel better, put her more at ease, post breakdown.
He smiled—which didn’t hurt his cause. “But if helping would be a better thing for ye at the moment, how are your chopping skills? I have a vegetable plot out back, and half a roasted chicken. I could make potatoes.”
“You garden?”
“Most of us do. How else wo uld we have vegetables?”
“True,” she said, and had to laugh at herself. She’d spent enough time in underdeveloped or besieged countries to know that many, many people didn’t have a corner grocer to run to when they got low on green peppers and corn. She supposed she’d found more creature comforts on Kinloch than she’d been used to in some time, so she tended to forget the existence there, though comfortable, was still a bit rustic.
“I can chop,” she said, and followed him into the kitchen.
He kept on moving through the narrow alley-shaped area to a door she hadn’t noticed, situated in the back corner. He pushed open the door, having to use a bit of force. “Damp air from the ocean warps everything. I’ve re-sanded and reworked the floors in the main room I don’t know how many times and they’re still not entirely right.”
“I thought they were beautiful.”
“Thank you,” he said, sounding quite pleased.
“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling. He was quite cute, too. She followed him through the doorway. “Where are we going?”
“Vegetables?”
“Oh!” she said. “We’re picking them fresh.”
He looked at her, and she laughed. It felt almost as cathartic as her tears. That she laughed far more easily still stunned her a little. That she had so much to laugh about stunned her even more. She wondered if he realized how much he’d enriched her life in so short a time. But that made her think about his other declaration, about falling for her, which she’d already firmly filed in the “think about it later” file. No way could she tackle that now.
“You’d think I still lived back in that manor house,” she said.
He’d crouched down and pulled out what looked like some big orange beets from the tilled soil. “Where do you live?”
She’d crouched next to him so she could take them from him or pull some herself, but paused. “What?”
He glanced sideways at her. “Live. Do you have a home? A place you go to between assignments?”
“I’m never between assignments.”
He rotated on the balls of his feet so he was facing her. “Are you saying you have no home? Where … do you keep your stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“Okay,” he said, clearly trying to readjust his thinking. “So ye have no stuff, but ye have clothing, and, I’m guessing, a fair amount of photo equipment. Surely you dinnae travel with all of it.”
She lifted a shoulder.
“Ye do? Really?”
“It’s not that much. It all packs in these big, fiberglass trunks. I’m used to lugging or shipping them around. If I’m on a quick assignment, I just stash the trunks somewhere local, but if I know I’ll be located somewhere for a period of time, I’ll lease a place, set up a dark room, get Internet connection.” She shrugged again. “It’s easier than you think.”
“For you, maybe.” He continued to gaze at her, looking a little amazed. She found she didn’t mind that. It didn’t make her feel like a freak. It made her feel kind of … unique. Special, maybe. At least that’s how he seemed to take it.
She smiled in the face of his complete disconcertment. It was a testament to how far they’d come that she was amused by his reaction rather than defensive. “For me, definitely. It’s funny that you have no problem accepting that I’m completely screwed up over the things I’ve seen, but you can’t wrap your head around the fact that I have a vagabond lifestyle. Where would I live, anyway? What would be the point of having a fixed location?”
“Where were you just before this? You said you’d been trying to get help to deal with how everything was starting to come down on you. Where did you stay?”
She rocked back on her heels, then pushed to a stand. She was surprised that she wanted to explain. He still wasn’t entirely aware of whom he was involving himself with, despite his declaration of deep feelings. Nor, apparently, looking at her immediate surroundings, did she really know him.
“A hotel. I looked up the best doctors and that’s where I went. Lodging wasn’t all that hard.”
“More than one,” he said, not making it a question. “Doctor.”
She nodded. “I wanted to be fixed, I wanted to get back to work. I tried … everything.”
“What did they say? Did it help?”
She nodded. “Tremendously. In terms of dealing with the pain, understanding it. There were different doctors, different approaches, but they all agreed on one thing, which was that the only way I’d ever fully get past the horror of what I’d seen was to stop putting myself in the middle of it.”
“For good?”
She lifted a shoulder, then nodded.
“And have you?”
Her lips curved a little. Maybe he did know her, because his tone was decidedly skeptical. “The breakdown sort of made the decision for me. I’ve been getting help for the better part of a year. But I’d start doing better, and I’d take an assignment. I wasn’t completely stupid. I tried to take on things that weren’t, perhaps, as horrifying or challenging. Didn’t matter.”
“The nightmares came back, the terrors?”
“Debilitatingly so. Eventually I knew I had to take a break, a sabbatical. I was doing more harm to my career and to myself than good.”
“Did anybody else know?”
She shook her head. “I mean, clearly I was having burnout issues, everybody saw that. Nobody was particularly surprised. I never took a break. I had no reason to. There were always so many stories to tell.”
“So … when you came here …”
“It was, as you said, a retreat from battle.”
“Did you still think you could go back?”
She shook her head. “I mean, I wanted to believe otherwise, but I knew. Deep down, I knew. I wouldn’t have come here, otherwise.”
He stood, too, and brushed his hands off on his trousers. “And it’s helped? I mean, I know you said you’ve come to some decisions, about work. But … how are you with the rest? Better?”
“I don’t know, Roan. At first, yes. Then the nightmares came back, even here. But … for the past week or so”—her cheeks warmed and she smiled—“I’ve been a bit preoccupied. The dreams I’ve had have left me disturbed, but in an entirely different, far more interesting way.”
He smiled then, too. And reached up to push a stray tendril from her cheek. “That sounds encouraging.”
“It is,” she said, and felt the real truth of her words. He invigorated her, and, for the first time, she truly felt … healthier. “It’s not over yet, Roan. You need to know that.”
“Are you violent? In your dreams? Is there anything I ne
ed to know? Special ways to help you if you’re in one?”
Rather than be put out by his assumption they’d be sleeping together she was touched that his first instinct was to learn, to help, without even the slightest hint of pity. “I sleep alone, but the terrors just seem to victimize me. I didn’t fight in battles, I merely recorded them. So … no, I don’t think so. There are recommended ways to wake me out of them, but I’ve never had reason—had anyone—to try them to see what works. I usually just wake up terrified, heart pounding, drenched in sweat … and it takes a while to come down from that. But I do.”
He stepped closer, and reached for her with his free hand. He took her hand, and tugged her gently, closer, until their bodies bumped. “Will you teach me? I dinnae want to hurt ye. I want to help.”
Her heart, until then, had definitely been teased by the promise of what he might have to offer her. In that moment it swelled, and began to fall—right into his hands. It had been a big day. A landmark day. For her. She nodded, throat tight, and eyes still swollen and tender, stinging a bit with a fresh rush of emotion. She knew, looking at him, that if she was capable of love, true love, he would find a way to bring it out in her. And she wanted him to. She knew it would be swift and fast. Heady and thrilling. Good, and strong.
But there was nothing intimidating or potentially frightening about the sensation. Instead of feeling that she alone was responsible for holding up a wall against a tsunami-strength wave of terrifying emotion, she felt like the thing threatening her was simply the possibility of being swamped with … well … love. Whatever this welling sense was within her, the warmth and affection and powerful, powerful want … she welcomed it. She was all done ducking out. She was a badass non-hider now. For real.
“I can tell you what they told me,” she said to him, “and explain it in a little more detail, then … if you want, we’ll figure it out from there.”
The look in his eyes changed from one of care and concern, to a darker, more crackling one of desire. She wanted to take the beets from his hands and toss them over her shoulder, then have her way with him right there. But she was smart enough, at least that’s what she told herself, to know it was probably better for them to spend more time talking before … well, before.
“Dinner?” he said, lofting the orange tubers in his hand.
She could see him trying to bank his desire, stay focused on what he, too, thought was the better path for them to take. So, she nodded. But it took enormous willpower not to at least explore the idea of an alternate way to spend the next few hours. “What are those, anyway?” she asked.
“Sweet potatoes,” he said.
“Oh. They look like orange beets.”
He grinned. “You really aren’t a farm girl at all.”
“Despite having spent most of my adult life either in a sweltering hovel under a mosquito net, or in a bombed-out building under a mattress … apparently my childhood has also left lingering scars that I wasn’t even aware I possessed.”
“So … not a cook.”
She shook her head. “Forager extraordinaire. You’d be amazed at what I can find at four in the morning, in the worst places imaginable.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
She shrugged, but she was smiling. “Have it your way, then.”
“Oh,” he said, the intensity leaping right back into his green eyes, all but electrifying them, “I intend to. At some point.”
“You know,” she said, throwing caution directly into the wind, and not caring, “we could talk about my ideas for the new kinds of stories I want to tell—starting right here on Kinloch, by the way. You might have a personal interest in that one. And we can map out the three or four best shots to take for this calendar project. Over dinner.” She stepped right up against him and toyed with the button at the top of his shirt.
“Or?” he managed, and she was deeply gratified to hear the gravel in his voice, the thread of need. Glad to know she wasn’t the only one feeling what she was feeling, wanting what she was wanting.
“Or, you could ignore my less than lovely appearance at the moment, and at least pretend I’m looking fabulous and dynamic and sexy … and give me the rest of that tour you offered earlier. Fair warning though, being as we promised honesty with each other at all times.”
“Which is?” He tossed the sweet potatoes over his shoulder.
“At a certain point in said tour, I might try and have my way with you.”
“Really,” he said, then made her squeal by scooping her up in his arms.
“Roan, I am not a small—you can’t just—”
“Does it look like I’m strugglin’ under the unbearable weight of ye?” he said, as he carried her quite easily back into the house.
“No, but you don’t need to—”
“Oh, that is where you’re wrong,” he said, his wide grin carving that dimple deeply into his cheek. “I have all kinds of needs. And carrying you in my arms? Just one of many.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and laughed. “Many, huh?”
He kicked the kitchen door shut behind him with force enough to wedge the warped wood back into its frame. “That I know of at this moment. I plan to add to the list as I get to know ye better.” He slid her around in his arms and kissed her. “Find out what ye like … what makes your eyes go all—” He kissed her again, longer, lingeringly, pausing in front of the door to the back hallway, and pressing her back up against it, until he could turn her and wrap her legs around his waist. He pushed right up in between them, making them both gasp, never once lifting his head.
She locked her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips … and kissed him back, releasing the full tumble of emotions, needs, wants, confusion, and joy. The kiss was as wrenching, as cathartic, as her breakdown by the cliffs … but rather than deplete her, exhaust her, and leave her feeling hollow and empty … it started an energy, a focused, driving force, that grew the longer she simply allowed herself to fully experience it.
Finally, he lifted his mouth, and her lips felt all tender and puffy and … loved.
His eyes glittered as he looked into hers. “Like that,” he finished. “I will happily make it my mission in life to find more ways to make you look at me, just like that.” Then he was making her squeal, in surprise and delight, as he hiked her up on him, pulled her close, and shifted them so he could yank the door open at her back.
He carried her down a wide hallway, and she vaguely found herself thinking that he was right, it didn’t smell at all like a barn, but that was about the extent of her awareness beyond the man presently carrying her. “You really do have a Rob Roy complex, don’t you?”
“If you dinnae mind being the conquered maiden on occasion,” he said, giving it right back to her, “then, aye, I can play savage heathen.” He kicked the door open to his room and turned so they fell across what felt like a sea of down and linen.
He rolled her to her back and half pinned her to the bed, his hand on her wrist, the other cupping her face. “And, for the record?”
He leaned down and kissed her again. It was so sweet and ardent and perfect, she felt her heart tilt dangerously close to its final tumble.
“For the record, what?” she asked, when he finally lifted his head. Not that she much cared what the answer was. She was too busy looking into the face of the first and only man she was truly going to fall in love with. How terrifyingly wonderful was that?
She pushed fear away, and the thousands of questions that went along with it, and for once, just let herself feel and experience the joy.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Never more so than right now.”
“Roan—”
“Do ye want me, Tessa?”
She framed his face, and very deliberately looked right into his eyes. “Oh aye,” she said. “I want only you.”
“Ye have me,” he murmured. “Ye have all of me.”
Chapter 18
He thought he�
�d be more worried about taking proper care of her, being enough for her, allowing himself to care so much, so quickly, and being terrified he’d lose everything when she couldn’t handle it and took off.
Instead, all he could think was, thank you, God, for giving me this time, this moment … this woman. He accepted the gift for what it was, knowing he was the richest man alive, no matter what came after.
He leaned down, and though she lifted her head to claim his mouth, he pushed her back down … and kissed her gently. Her cheeks were still ruddy from her tears, her eyes puffy and tender, and her lips soft and full and waiting for the taste of his. He took his time and kissed each part of her, soothing, tender, but also stirring … if the soft sounds she was making and the hips moving beneath his were any indication.
She finally slipped her wrist free from beneath his hand and gently cupped the side of his head, bringing his mouth to hers. “I want this,” she murmured. “I want you. And I want to give back.”
“You do,” he said against her lips. “The way you respond to me makes me feel like I could slay dragons.”
He felt her smile against his mouth. “Is this more of that warrior heathen thing?” she teased.
He nipped at her chin, then claimed her mouth with a kiss so heated and passionate, she was left panting—and so was he—when he finally lifted his head. “Maybe,” he said, in answer to her. “Is that going to be a problem?”
She shook her head, and her eyes were gleaming. That lovely perfect smile hovered at the corners of her mouth, and he thought there was nothing they couldn’t get through as long as she looked at him like that.
“If there were such things as dragons, I’d gladly slay however many it takes if it will keep ye looking at me the way you are right now.”
“You say the loveliest things.” Then she surprised him by rolling him to his back. “Just how is it that I look at you?”
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