by Karina Halle
Then it happens.
A gunshot rings out in the bar.
I scream and instinctively throw myself down on the bench, the horror wrapping around me, the world going fuzzy and grey.
I must be whimpering. There’s this frightened, wheezing sound, like a cornered animal, coming from my throat. I pinch my eyes shut and pray for it to be over, my nails digging into the wooden bench.
He found me. He’s not dead after all. He’s come to finish the job.
“Jessica,” a voice comes through, faint and a million miles away.
A hand touches my shoulder.
I flinch and open my eyes. With the ceiling lights behind the shadowy face, it looks like I’m staring into the dead eyes of Lewis Smith all over again.
“Jessica,” he says again, his accent a thick brogue, his face coming into focus.
Keir is standing over me, his hand on my shoulder. He crouches down to my level, his other hand smoothing the hair off my face. “It’s okay,” he says as his eyes search mine intently. He looks about as frightened as I feel. “It was just a champagne cork.”
I blink at him, trying to make sense of what the fuck just happened.
A champagne cork.
I completely thought it was a gunshot. More than that, I thought I was about to live it all over again. I thought the dead were coming for me.
And I just made a fucking fool of myself.
I try and ease myself back up into a sitting position. Keir tries to help me, supporting my weight, but I quickly brush him off.
“No, I’m fine.” But I’m not fine. My heart is a marching band in my chest. Still, I have to pretend.
Somehow I manage a smile as I ease myself up, my eyes discreetly taking in the room. As I thought, a few people are staring at me, probably wondering what the hell is wrong with that chick that she has to duck and cover when a champagne bottle gets popped. My cheeks are hot and red, but more than that I feel disgusted with myself for being so vulnerable. Maybe I shouldn’t have skipped the meeting after all.
But even though there’s still time to make it across the street, and even though the logical, rational part of my brain is telling me to cut my losses and just go, I’m staying put.
For now.
“What happened there?” he asks quietly as he sits down. He edges my beer toward me. Suddenly I want to do a bunch of shots instead, grab a bottle of scotch and down it until all I feel is fire.
I was hoping he’d ignore what had just happened, just as he had ignored my sister slipping up last week and asking him if I was part of the support group. I expected him to ask at some point tonight about it, but while that seemed to slide past, what just happened cannot.
“It was nothing,” I tell him.
“Nothing?” he repeats, obviously not believing me.
There are many lies at my disposal and yet it takes me a long time to come up with one. “I’m just jumpy,” I tell him. “Didn’t sleep well last night.”
I glance up at him warily. He holds my gaze; it feels as solid as an embrace and just as limiting. I have no choice but to stare back at him, daring him to know me, the real me.
Finally he says, “You don’t strike me as the jumpy type.”
“No? What kind of type do I strike you as?”
A smile tugs at his lips. “The type that normally wouldn’t give a guy like me the time of day.”
Now it’s my turn to be flabbergasted. “Yeah, right.”
“I mean it. You’re not just beautiful, little red, you’re bold. You eat guys like me for breakfast. And guys like me wouldn’t mind one bit.”
Just when my pulse has started to slow from the earlier scare, it’s picking right back up again. This time, something else has me on edge. Those fucking butterflies.
“Nothing to say to that?” he says, tilting his head in a cocky manner, his green eyes gleaming playfully. “What a surprise.”
“I don’t eat…” I start and then stop myself. No matter what I say, it’s not going to sound good. “Never mind.”
“Oh, please go on,” he teases. “I’d love to hear all about what you eat and what you don’t.”
I eye him, unamused. “Very funny. Anyway, you have to be bold if you’re crippled. The world is unforgiving, and if you don’t fight your way through it, you’ll be left behind.”
A shadow seems to pass over his eyes, his brow furrowing slightly. “Not sure if the term crippled should be applied to you.”
“Well, I can’t walk without crutches,” I tell him, a defensive heat building in my chest. “And once the cast comes off next week, who knows what kind of woman I’ll be after that? It might take months for me to learn how to walk again without any aid, and then I’ll never be the same. I’ll never be able to do all those fucking things I once took for granted.”
He tilts his head back slightly, appraising me under long dark lashes. “It’s about time.”
“About time for what?” I practically snap.
He nods at me. “For this. To tell me how you really feel. You’re bold, Jessica, just as I said. But that boldness hides something as equally raw and powerful underneath.”
Fucking observant jerk.
I sigh noisily, like I’ve been holding my breath all this time, and look away from his gaze. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad I saw a glimpse of the real you.”
“I’ve been real this whole time,” I’m quick to point out, even though it’s partly a lie.
“I know,” he says softly. “But everyone has layers. I’m just happy I’m getting a glance at what’s underneath.”
I can’t help but hear the innuendo in that one. Too bad the concept terrifies me.
I turn the conversation around. “So you said you used to be a mechanic. You want to open your own shop. I feel like there’s a missing piece there. What else do you do? What else have you done?”
“I did a lot of traveling,” he says, palming his beer. I’m drawn to his hands and the way they grip the glass. I briefly imagine them cupping my breasts and how they would feel against my soft skin.
Whoa, Jess, rein it in.
I clear my throat. “Go anywhere interesting?” I ask, knowing he’s being quite vague.
“Interesting, yes. Would I go back? No. It took me most of my thirties to realize that the nomadic life isn’t for me.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight,” he says.
“And you’ve been traveling for most of your thirties?”
He nods and his eyes trail over the patterns on the walls, as if he’s looking for something. “Aye. Scotland is home. I felt it was time to start over.”
“Be responsible.”
“Something like that,” he says, looking to me now and giving me a faint smile. “We can’t escape our responsibility to ourselves. Or to others.”
He doesn’t need to remind me of that. If I didn’t feel so responsible for Christina, I’m not even sure I’d be in Edinburgh to begin with. I love the city in many ways, but lately, even before the accident, I’ve had the crazy notion to just pack up and go. Flee my life and start over. Now, more than ever, I feel tethered, like I’m an injured animal with one foot in a trap.
Thankfully Keir changes the subject to more harmless topics. We talk about the weather and how neither of us have seen much of Scotland except for Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. We talk about rugby, how his cousin Lachlan was one of the star players for Edinburgh (and if he’s the guy I think we’re talking about, holy shit is he hot. I guess the hot Scot genes run through their whole family).
We then talk about tattoos, because the aforementioned Lachlan has a ton. I mention the mermaid I had tattooed around my ankle—which, sadly, I’ll probably never show again given it’s on my mangled leg—and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words, “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful” on my ribs. Keir tells me he has a few but remains charmingly secretive about them.
“Well that’s not fair,” I tell h
im, smacking my palm hard on the table. “I just told you mine.”
He downs the rest of his beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “That was your mistake.”
“Let me guess, tramp stamp? Tribal tat on your lower back?” I tease him.
“You’ll have to discover for yourself,” he tells me. His voice has taken on a low, rough tone that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I’m starting to feel out of my league here. The moment I adjust my legs and the pain shoots up through me, I’m immediately reminded of who I am.
“I should probably be going soon,” I tell him hastily. The bar is quiet now, time having flown by, only one other man talking to the bartender.
“You’re giving up that easily,” he says, disappointment on his brow.
I frown at him. “On what?”
“On my tattoos,” he says. “You’re not curious.”
“I am curious, I just…”
“I scared you off.”
I quickly shake my head, hating that he’s right again. “No, you didn’t scare me. I…”
“Why don’t you have dinner with me?” he asks bluntly.
Now I’m stunned. I should be scared too, but my stomach does a hot little flip at the invitation.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I find myself saying.
“I know how you feel,” he tells me. “I know you’ve just gotten out of a relationship. I know you don’t want one. I know you’re not curious about discovering my tattoos for yourself. I get that.”
Ugh. But he so doesn’t. Because I’m curious as hell, and if it were up to my ego, to my body, to my buried, long-ignored lust, I would totally say yes.
“I know all that,” he continues. “But it doesn’t mean we can’t have dinner with each other. I like you, Jessica. I’d like to get to know you better. Not by chance or accident. On purpose. Just as a friend if nothing else.”
“Men and women can’t be friends,” I say stubbornly. “Not attractive men and women who like getting drunk in bars together.”
“Never know if you don’t try.”
There’s a squeeze in my chest, like my heart is being tugged toward him. As if it’s telling my brain to give in and follow.
I get out my phone and look at the time, needing to get things under control before my willpower collapses. “I should get a cab.”
Keir watches me for a long moment, the silence, the tension between us, settling in like fog. Then he twists in his seat and snaps his fingers for the bartender, asking her if she’ll call me a taxi.
He turns back to me, displaying his palms as if to say I tried, and says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t convince you. Maybe I’ll see you around then. If luck is on my side.”
“Maybe,” I tell him, and I’m reminded it’s what I said the last time I left.
Being the utter gentleman he is, he helps me to my feet and I let him, feeling horrible for turning him down. I know that months down the line when I’m alone I’m going to look back at this moment and wish I’d said yes.
But I also know that I’m not ready to take a chance on anything yet. If champagne corks are equaling gunshots and making me dive for cover, I’m going to be a hot fucking mess for a while.
He walks me out of the pub and I take in one last whiff of his scent, something minty and spicy, like cinnamon toothpaste.
The cab pulls up almost immediately, and suddenly it’s time to say goodbye.
“Thank you for the drinks and the company,” I tell Keir, holding out my hand.
He takes my hand in his, his grip firm and hot and then leans in. I hold my breath as he places his lips softly on my cheekbone and then whispers in my ear in a low deep voice that sends shivers down my spine, “You ever need someone, you know where I’ll be.”
Then he turns around and heads down the stairs, his large frame disappearing into the warmth of the pub.
I spend a moment staring after him, my brain and heart and body having a tug-of-war, before I open the door and slide into the cab.
The St. Vincent, and the enigma it holds within, disappears as we putter up the dark streets of Edinburgh and into the night.
.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jessica
I can’t do it.
I can’t do it.
“Get up, Jessica,” Kat, my physiotherapist says, her voice clipped. Normally I tolerate her no-bullshit attitude with me. Normally it rubs off on me¸ making me stronger, emboldened.
Not today though. Because I can’t. I’m on the floor and she’s not.
She’s putting me through my paces. Pushing my limits. She tells me that things are only going to get harder after this. The cast is my support, and when that support is taken away in a few days, the real work begins.
But if it’s support, I don’t feel it today.
“Get up,” she says again and then kicks the walker out of the way. “Your days of stabilization are coming to an end. You need to be ready.”
I stare up at her, red-faced, angry. Can’t she see how hard this already is for me? I’m lying on the linoleum floor of her office, my arms stretched out in front of me (even though the last thing you’re supposed to do when you fall is to put your hands out). I’m sprawled out, my left leg aching from the extra strain, and the bones are screaming in my right one.
“Crawl,” she says, crossing her arms and peering down at me over her tortoise shell-rimmed glasses. “You learn to fall, you learn to get back up.”
For emphasis, she kicks the walker again until it falls over too.
“What the fuck?” I cry out.
“Crawl,” she says again. “You have to.”
I let loose a string of expletives and take in a deep breath before attempting to drag my body across the floor. It’s not even that it hurts anymore—because it does—it’s the humiliation. It’s the fear that this will never come easy for me. That I’ll forever be scarred inside and out.
I reach the walker and stand it up, all the while cursing Kat under my breath. It seems as sturdy as it will ever be, but I have to climb up it from rock bottom.
I’m practically crying as I grab the handholds and try to haul myself up. My abs, my arms, my chest, I feel every muscle stretched to capacity. I start to shake from the effort, my left knee barely providing enough leverage to get me up.
“You’re not breathing,” she reminds me, coming closer. “You breathe in, you have to breathe it out.”
I’m often holding my breath without realizing it when I’m doing these exercises, which is an even bigger disappointment considering how important breath is when practicing yoga.
I exhale loudly. It comes out like an angry bellow. I want it to fuel me.
With a rough cry I haul myself up the rest of the way, my limbs burning.
“There,” she says assuredly. “Sometimes you just need a push.”
Sweat streams down my brow as I glare at her and her smug face. “Easy for you to say,” I tell her. “If this is how you treat me when I have a cast on, which is supposed to keep me immobile, by the way, how the hell are you going fix me when the cast gets taken off? Shove me in shit and force me to crawl out?”
“If I have to,” she says bluntly. I believe her.
I let out a shaky breath, my heart starting to slow again as I lean on the walker. As soon as I get home, I’m taking a long hot bath with a fuckton of Epsom salts.
“Some days are harder than others,” she says, studying me. “You’re having a bad day. You’re going to have a lot of them. It’s okay.”
“I’m not having a bad day,” I snap at her.
Of course that’s not true. I’ve been in a shitty mood ever since I left Keir at the bar on Tuesday night. It’s been a few days, and there hasn’t been a moment where I haven’t regretted saying no to him.
It was just dinner. It didn’t have to mean anything. It would have been no different than spending a few hours in a bar with him, there just would have been food as well as drinks. I know
I keep saying that I don’t know him, but this is how I could have gotten to know him.
But I’m stubborn, and more than that, I’m scared. And that’s a deadly combination.
My brain can’t stop looping that damn last moment, though. The look in his eyes. The disappointment.
Shit.
Then the press of his lips against my cheek, the sound of his gruff voice at my ear. An invitation that still stands, one that my body wanted, if not my brain.
In hindsight, I would have been better off if I hadn’t stepped foot into the St. Vincent that day, if I had gone to the meeting as planned. I could have kept the idea of Keir as something fleeting. Instead, he ingrained himself into my brain, maybe because he represents possibility. A little ray of hope as I’m leaning against a fucking walker, my body and soul exhausted.
But the fact is, I told Keir a lie about how I got hurt, and that’s something I won’t be able to keep up. It would be terrifying to lay myself bare to him, for him to see me as the victim. As long as I don’t see him, the lie can go on.
“It’s going to get harder,” Kat says, bringing me out of my thoughts.
I give her a pointed look. “Yeah. I know. You tell me all the time.”
“And then it’s going to get better,” she says, ever so patient. “Keep being strong. Keep the faith. Remember to breathe.”
Remember to breathe. I’m not sure if I’ve ever found it easy.
When the therapy session is over, Christina is waiting for me outside the office.
“Tough go?” she asks when she sees me, her face scrunching up in concern.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” I tell her quickly, flashing her a smile. “Let’s go.”
She studies me as I move past her. I was in a foul mood earlier, and now she’s even more wary of me.
And because she’s wary, she doesn’t take me straight home. It’s another gorgeous day, warm and sunny after a few days of rain, so she drives us to the Old Town to one of my favorite restaurants down at the east end of the Royal Mile.
She wants to cheer me up. That’s her thing, always has been. The deep-seated need to please which grew like a flower out of our shitty childhood. Because of that, I understand her and it makes me want to please her in return. A vicious cycle it is, two pleasers trying to out-please each other.