“When I lost Brianna, I had terrible dreams for months and months. I’d wake screaming in the night just like you. It’s truly awful, how disorienting dreams can be. How completely you believe that they’re real, even if they’re completely irrational…”
“Yeah, that’s the part I hate the most,” she said softly, shaking her head. “How real it all seems. How my brain just completely fails to notice that nothing that’s happening makes any sense.” She sighed. “That’s why I took so long to – you know, act like anything that’s happened to me was real. You know? It all seems consistent and everything, but… well, so do my nightmares, and I know those aren’t real.”
“I’m real,” he assured her with a smile playing around his eyes. “But I suppose I understand why it took you so long to come around.” He hesitated. “Does that mean you’ve decided all this is real?”
She blinked, considering this question. “Well, I haven’t exactly decided it’s real… but I’ve decided to act like it is.”
“Good enough for me.” He smiled at her, reaching out to squeeze her hand – an oddly intimate gesture in the dark of the room, though she supposed it wasn’t anywhere near as intimate as the way he’d held her in his arms before. “Do you want to talk about the dream? I often found that telling someone about what I dreamed helped take the power away from it.”
She hesitated. Did she really want to talk about this with him? Did she really want to talk about this at all? Would it help? Was it possible that it would make her worse? She had been thinking about the failed negotiation and that had triggered the dream in the first place, she was pretty sure… though it might just have been the stress of being unwell and powerless to do much to care for herself. Or was her reluctance just avoidance? Was she just not wanting to confront her problem head-on – was she hiding from it, letting it gain in power in the shadows? She bit her lip, deciding to go with her gut. Her gut said Robert was a good man – someone she could trust, someone she could take into her confidence. Hadn’t he trusted her with his own personal stuff? Besides – it was a valuable exercise, as her therapist had always told her, to practice opening up to people. Even if it was a mistake. Especially if it was a mistake.
“I’ve been having these nightmares for four years now,” she said softly, trying to gather herself to tell the story in a controlled way. “They started back when I worked with the police department as a hostage negotiator.”
“You’ve mentioned that,” he said, looking at her inquisitively. “It’s not a job any of the other women have mentioned to me.”
“No, it’s a pretty niche line of work,” she admitted with a smile. “But basically, I was in charge of talking to the bad guys when they’d taken hostages or otherwise had leverage that they wanted to use. A lot of the time it was kidnappings – children of rich or even just well-off families who had been taken by criminals insisting on ransom before they let the children free. I was there to make sure that the situation… well, went as well as could be expected. My main responsibility was trying to keep the hostages safe. My next priority was getting the bad guys caught.”
“That sounds like important work,” he said, tilting his head. “Did something happen to make you quit?”
“Yeah,” she said, almost laughing. “Yeah, something happened. It was … it was stupid, really.” She shook herself. “No, it wasn’t stupid, it was… traumatic. When I was being trained for the job, they always told us that we wouldn’t be able to win every single situation – that sometimes, something awful would happen to the hostages, or the bad guys would get away. A lot of our training was about understanding that we could do our best, but sometimes even our best wouldn’t be enough… we learned how to distance ourselves from that, how to not take too much responsibility for the bad things that happened. I guess I didn’t learn that lesson too well,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.
Her therapist had always encouraged her not to lean too hard on self-deprecation, but she needed it to get her through this story. Robert was a good listener, at least – his blue eyes were fixed on her and he was waiting patiently for her to continue.
“I was good,” she explained, wanting him to have the full context. “I was really good at my job. I’d never lost a hostage, and most of the time I managed to manipulate situations so that the bad guys got caught, too. Not every time, but enough, you know? Enough to know that I was instrumental in getting bad guys off the street, in reuniting families. I guess I got cocky. So when they called me in to deal with this guy who’d taken his family hostage… well, I thought it would be easy.”
“His own family?” Robert sounded shocked. “What did he want?”
“He didn’t want anything, that’s the thing,” she said heavily, shaking her head. “He… we got the call from a worried neighbor who said she’d seen him through the windows, shouting and ordering his wife and children into the living room. She said she’d seen him with a gun, that when she’d called their home phone that he’d picked it up and barked at her to mind her own business. So we sent officers out – but he’d barricaded the doors, and at any rate we didn’t want to risk him hurting his wife and kids. Generally with guys like that, if they’re going to murder their families… well, they do it straight away,” she said, biting her lip.
Robert looked horrified – she realized it was heavy stuff she was telling him about. And belatedly, she realized that the topic of murder might be a sensitive one for him.
“We don’t have to talk about this,” she said, shaking her head. “With your wife, and everything, I understand if you don’t want to hear about murderers –”
“It’s alright, Brianna,” he said softly, reaching out to take her hand in his. “I want to know what happened to you.”
“Well, anyway. I got him on the phone eventually – that’s the first step. Once communication is established, you can start building a relationship, building rapport. I was outside with the cops who’d surrounded the house, but he couldn’t see me through the window.” She sighed. “It was about two in the morning at this point. I was tired, impatient – I just wanted him to give up and let his family go already so that I could get some sleep. I did my job, though,” she added, not wanting him to think she’d been lazy. “I didn’t neglect any steps or rush anything. I just… I remember feeling tired and not fully present. So when he started rambling, it didn’t occur to me that… that something might have been going on. It didn’t make sense. He just kept… talking and talking about things that didn’t matter, telling me about his kids’ school, his wife’s hobbies. I could see him through the window, wandering around at random as he chattered on at me.” She could still see it now… the dark, cloudy night, the police cars surrounding her, the suburban home with the lights on in all the windows…
“What happened then?” Robert prompted her when she’d been silent for a moment.
She took a deep breath. “The house exploded in flames. Everyone inside was killed. He… he hadn’t had a ransom demand, hadn’t wanted anything other than to kill his family in as spectacular an event as possible. It was all over the news for weeks – there were crews there filming the whole thing. The last thing he did was tell me I was a stupid bitch for letting him wait for the house to fill with gas.” She took a deep breath. “I could have just let the police storm the house. There was a chance they could have gotten the family out if I hadn’t assumed that I could talk him around.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Ever since then, I couldn’t work in hostage negotiation again. Even after taking a leave of absence, even after getting therapy, I’d just… freeze up if I even thought about negotiating for hostages. So I quit, retrained, went into corporate negotiations where the stakes aren’t life and death. But I still have the dreams.”
Suddenly, Robert was sitting beside her on the bed, and she didn’t resist when he pulled her into his arms again. Her body was no longer pulsing with adrenaline… she just felt weak, and tired, and shaky, and she protested a little as he hugged her, not wa
nting to infect him with her illness. But he just held her close, and she realized that she felt oddly… calm, now. Clean. As though talking through the event again had helped clear out some of the residual guilt and fear she still felt.
“You’ll feel better,” he said softly, pulling back to look into her eyes. “Slowly but surely, the pain will ease, Brianna. I know that from experience.”
“Thanks,” she said softly, gazing into his eyes. Her body was responding to the smell of him, the warmth of him, the closeness of their bodies in the quiet room… but as much as she was drawn to him, the grim reality was that she was too weak to do anything about it, even if he did look like he was itching to close the gap between them and claim her lips in a kiss. Instead, she just let him hold her until she felt drowsy enough to get back to sleep. The last thing she heard was the door clicking shut – and then she was fast asleep in the warmth of her bed. And if any dreams disturbed her slumber, they weren’t about the explosion.
They were about Robert.
Chapter 17
She still felt pretty wretched when she woke in the middle of the morning, but at least she’d slept reasonably well. Brianna felt oddly light, even with the weight of the disease making her body feel heavy… as though a weight had been lifted from her chest. Who’d have thought her therapist was right – that opening up and talking to people was actually a very good idea? Chuckling to herself, she rolled over in bed, realizing that there was a bowl of porridge waiting for her on her bedside table. The servant who’d delivered it must have been very quiet – she smiled as she sat up in bed and set about eating it. Though her appetite was far from its usual self, she knew how important it was to keep eating, to keep herself strong enough to fight off this disease. After all, it wasn’t as if she had any modern medicines to rely on.
What a strange thought – no medicine. No hospital if she got sick, no doctors… only the women up at the Keep. She was so keen to meet them that the illness chafed at her, and once she’d finished her porridge she even tried getting up to take a short walk around the room to see if she was on the mend. But even that moderate effort exhausted her, and she lay back down, irritated and a little frightened. Would the modern nurse up at the Keep know how to treat her if she got any worse? She felt oddly vulnerable, as sick as she was…
But lying down for a little while restored some of her strength, and she forced herself to calm down. She’d had nasty colds and flus before that had recovered without any kind of medical intervention – all she had to do was remember the eternal advice of staying hydrated and getting plenty of rest, and this disease should go away quickly too. It was important to keep her spirits up, though, so she was quietly pleased when a knock at her door sounded not long after her rather tragic attempt at walking around the room.
It was Robert, again. She tried not to read too much into how many visits he’d been paying her lately, though she couldn’t keep the smile from her face as he came into the room and took his usual seat at her bedside. In his hands was a thick stack of what looked like paper or parchment, and he had a smile on his face that made her intensely curious about the contents of the documents he was holding.
“How are you feeling?” he asked first, and she shrugged her shoulders, reflecting on her illness.
“Pretty much the same, honestly. Better after getting some decent sleep,” she added with a smile. “Thanks for talking me down last night. It helped a lot more than you’d think.”
He nodded seriously. “Of course. I’m always willing to listen to a friend in need.”
She stopped a frown from flitting across her face. Was that all she was to him? A friend? Surely not.
“What’s happening? What’s all that?” she asked, nodding at the paper in his hands. A broad grin spread across his face.
“Good news – well, mostly good news. Our messenger arrived back early this morning bringing word from the Keep. Laird Donal was more than happy to station more guards on the road – the messenger has confirmed that a large contingent of guards headed out yesterday to start patrolling regularly up and down the high road. Several dozen men – a sizable force. Lord Weatherby seemed pleased when he found out.”
“That’s great news,” she said, smiling broadly – she’d almost forgotten what was going on outside her sickbed. “Do you think he’ll be in the mood to revisit negotiations sometime soon?”
“I’m stalling him until you’re better,” Robert said firmly. “It’s become very clear that you’re an essential piece of this puzzle, Brianna. I want you at my side when it comes to negotiating with Weatherby.”
She found herself blushing at that, delighted to be thought of as someone he wanted by his side in any context… even a professional one. “Well, I hope I’m better soon,” she admitted, glancing around the room. “It’s getting a little boring lying here all day with nothing to do.”
“Well, that brings me to my second piece of news,” he said brightly, gesturing at her with the stack of papers he held. “When Laird Donal learned of your presence here, he spread the word among the time-lost women up at the Keep that another had joined their number. Half of them wanted to ride down here immediately to see you, but it seemed Laird Donal talked them out of that.”
She nodded, a little disappointed but knowing it was the right call. As much as she’d have liked to see the women who’d also been stranded here, to ask them a few questions about what the hell was going on and confirm for herself that this was real… she knew it wasn’t right to let them risk their safety on the roads just yet. “That’s a shame. But I’m sure we’ll meet soon.”
“The messenger suggested the next best thing,” Robert said with a smile. “All of the women have written you a letter welcoming you to the area. I thought you might appreciate a bit of reading material.”
Her eyes widened in delight at the very thought. Hadn’t she just been itching for a good book? She’d had three of them packed safely in her suitcase for bus rides and the like, and she’d been reflecting on how good it would have been to have something to read… and letters from future friends were even better than science fiction novels about aliens and the end of the world. “Amazing! These are all from them?”
“Aye, they are,” Robert said with a smile, setting them down on her bedside table. He got to his feet – but she frowned, gesturing for him to wait a moment.
“Didn’t you say it was mostly good news?”
“Aye, I’d say mostly –”
“That means something went wrong.”
He sighed. “Aye, I’d forgotten. The messenger reported… well, it seems that with the increased presence of guards and the like on the roads, the group of highwaymen that had been causing the most trouble for travelers was routed. Eamon sent men after them, but from what they could tell, it’s likely the group wound up on Weatherby’s lands.”
A chill ran down her spine. “Does that mean we’re in danger?”
“Probably not.” Robert shrugged. “They’re desperate men – more likely to lie low and hide than they are to pose any kind of threat to a manor as well-guarded as this one. I’m just hoping we can get some kind of aid organized for them before any more harm is done. Or any more lives are lost,” he added, shaking his head. Then he smiled at her, a little painfully. “Sorry to finish on the bad news.”
“I much prefer having the whole story,” she said softly. “Thanks for keeping me in the loop, Robert.”
“Would you like to have dinner together?” he suggested, a sudden slight hesitation in his body language that told her that this was a reasonably significant suggestion. “I could bring both of our meals up here. You can tell me what your new friends have said in their letters.”
“That sounds lovely,” she said softly, smiling at him. “I do like your company.”
“And I yours, Lady Brianna Kendall,” he said with a smile. Then he gave her a quick little bow. “Until later, then.”
And he was gone, leaving her with a handful of letters to read…
though part of her was impatient for the day to pass, already looking forward to his return, to having dinner together. She only hoped she was feeling better by then.
To her relief, she seemed to feel better as the day went on. She kept sipping at her water as she read the hurriedly written letters from the other women, grinning broadly to herself at the excited, looping script all of the women had favored as they wrote to her. Their excitement was palpable, and she felt a warm sense of belonging as she read missive after missive. The first was from Audrina, who explained that she’d been the first to arrive in Scotland, well over two decades ago now. This was the trauma nurse that Robert had told her about, she remembered thoughtfully as she read, smiling to herself at how careful the woman’s handwriting was. Every nurse she’d ever met had good handwriting, as though making up for the illegible scrawl that doctors tended to favor. Then there were letters from Cora and Marianne, who she found to her surprise were cousins. This gave her some insight into the exact mechanism of her disappearance – Marianne explained that her cousin Cora had gone missing in some kind of car accident, her body never recovered even though her car and purse had been found crashed by the side of the road. The mystery had never been solved.
Did that mean that she was a missing person back home? She frowned to herself, thinking of how awful that must have been for her family to deal with – her mother would be beside herself wondering where her only daughter had gone. Suspicion would probably fall on Ben, too… she had to admit that gave her a little thrill of satisfaction. Still, people went missing on the moors of Scotland all the time, and she imagined it wouldn’t have been the first time that someone had wandered into the woods outside the manor and gotten lost. What a strange end to her life, she thought, a little disoriented. But it wasn’t an end, was it? In a lot of ways, it was only a beginning.
Highlander Returned: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander In Time Book 9) Page 12