Gallowglass

by Jennifer Allis Provost

  “On your side,” Robert said as he rolled me over. I spit up blood-warm water and phlegm, not caring how disgusting I must have looked. “Can ye breathe, love?”

  “Yeah,” I croaked. “Couldn’t we have just walked out while she was headless?”

  “And given the beastie a chance to attack from behind our backs?” Robert stroked my forehead, moving my soaked hair out of my eyes. “No, thank ye verra much.”

  I scowled at him, but he was right. “I am never leaving dry land again.”

  Robert snorted. “Tough claim to make, bein’ that we’re on an island.”

  I glared at him. “I’ll manage.”

  Robert got to his feet and extended a hand to me. “I’ve no doubt ye will, love.”

  We trudged up the hill side, wet footwear squelching away, in the general direction of the car park. Morag and the White Lady were nowhere in sight, probably because they were off terrorizing a whole new set of tourists. I hoped that the rumor of the White Lady being bound to the castle meant that she had to stay inside the castle and the cave below, and wasn’t free to wander about the grounds.

  Robert whistled away as we walked, quite pleased with himself at having evaded not just the White Lady but the sea as well, but I was nothing short of miserable. I’d almost died—twice—in the last thirty minutes, and climbing up a rocky slope while wearing completely soaked clothes was not helping my mood. It was like I’d been transported to my own Sisyphean level of Hades, my wet clothing having replaced the boulders.

  “Surely, ‘tis no’ that bad,” Robert quipped.

  I bit my lip; I hadn’t realized I was muttering out loud. He had rescued me, not only from the White Lady but from drowning as well, and I was whining away like a spoiled brat. “Thank you.”

  “For what, now?”

  “For saving me.”

  “I was only returnin’ the favor. Ye saved me first, love, back on Doon Hill.”

  I peeked over my shoulder and smiled. “I did, didn’t I?”

  Robert’s smile stretched into a grin. “That ye surely did.”

  At length we reached the car park; after fishing around—literally—in my pocket, I was grateful to learn that the rental’s keys were still with me. I popped the trunk, gave my fossils a hello pat, and grabbed my duffle bag. As anyone with a history of field work will tell you, never go anywhere without a change of clothes, or three.

  I dropped the duffel on the ground, yanked off my boots and threw them in the trunk. My coat (so much for waterproof) followed my boots. Next, I grabbed the hem of my sweater.

  “Lass, what the devil are ye doin’?”

  I glanced up, and saw Robert staring at me in mingled shock and curiosity. “I’m getting out of these wet things,” I explained. I unzipped my duffel, and pulled out a pair of Chris’s old basketball shorts and a tee shirt. “Here, these should fit you.”

  Robert accepted the items, but didn’t drop his gaze. “And you’re going to remove those wet things here, in the open, in front o’ God and everyone?”

  My lips twitched into a smile, which surprised me as much as it scandalized Robert. I wondered if he would appreciate any of my Hazmat training stories, during which students of both genders showered together in mock decontamination drills. Believe you me, those coed showers were way not sexy. “I’m not driving like this,” I said, gesturing at my soaked jeans and sweater. “Besides, there’s no one here but us.”

  Robert spluttered something about how someone could enter the car park at any moment, but I ignored him as I turned my back and stripped off my sweater, followed by my t-shirt; after a moment’s hesitation, the bra followed. No one likes clammy boobs.

  I pulled a long sleeved thermal shirt over my head; since it fell well past my thighs, my jeans, socks and underwear were the next to go. As I was about to toss the tangled mess into the trunk, I heard a strangled noise from behind me. I turned around and found Robert, still in his wet clothes, staring at me with eyes so wide they were about to fall out of his head.

  “Were you watching me?” I asked.

  “I was keeping watch,” he growled. “What if someone came up from behind and saw ye in such a state?”

  “I’m just changing,” I said, giving him my back again. “It’s not like this is a strip tease or anything.” The grumbling started up again, so I added, “You won’t be so grumpy once you’re wearing dry clothes. Go ahead. Change.”

  Dead silence followed that, then a bit of grunting and the cold, wet smack of Robert’s clothes as he flung them into the trunk. I continued ignoring him, and his muttering, as I pulled on a pair of bright turquoise gym shorts. Curiosity got the better of me, and I peeked over my shoulder.

  Robert had evidently thought it best to strip completely before donning the dry clothing, and was standing not more than two feet away from me, completely, totally naked. Muscles rippled in his back and arms as he grabbed the tee shirt from where he’d laid it on the rental’s bumper, his shoulders bunching as he pulled the garment over his head. My gaze traveled lower, taking in his smooth back, trim waist, and truly magnificent butt. As Robert raised his foot to step into the shorts, I spied of something between his legs that brought the fires of hell to my cheeks. Then the most embarrassing moment of my life happened: I moaned.

  Flustered, I coughed and turned back to the duffle.

  “Are ye all right, lass?” Robert asked.

  “Yeah. Sea water.” I dug around in the duffle, and emerged with a couple pairs of flip flops. “These might fit you,” I said, holding the brown pair over my shoulder. I’d decided on wearing the neon orange pair.

  “Exactly what am I supposed to fit them on?” he countered. I stood and turned, and saw a now-clothed Robert staring at the footwear.

  “Your feet.”

  From the look on his face, you would have thought I’d suggested he hook them onto his ears. Although that would have been cute, too. He tossed the flip flops into the trunk with a, “No, thank you.” Then he got into the passenger side and slammed the door.

  I tossed my duffle in the trunk and shut the lid, then I slid into the driver’s seat. We were silent until we were on the main road.

  “Lass,” Robert murmured. “You’re shivering.”

  I glanced at my arms; I was covered in gooseflesh. “The water was pretty cold,” I muttered as I turned on the heat, cranking it as high as it would go. Of course, the car hadn’t warmed up yet, and the blast of cold air wasn’t all that soothing.

  “’Tis no’ just the cold.”

  I glared at him out of the corner of my eye, but—as always—he was right. “Is it wrong for me to be a little freaked out?” I demanded. “I mean, our tour guide was some kind of disappearing imp, and then a ghost woman turned into a monster and tried to kill us. And we almost drowned. Drowned, in the fricken’ ocean! How am I supposed to—”

  I slammed on the brakes, stopping the rental right in the middle of the road. Since the sheep did it all the time, I figured I could get away with it too. “Wait. The ghost monster woman recognized you.”

  “Lass—”

  “She said there’s a price on your head!”

  “Lass—”

  I laid my forehead against the steering wheel. “What the hell are we going to do now?”

  “Karina!”

  Startled, I looked at Robert.

  “First, ye will quit your haverin’. Then ye will get this metal contraption moving, and have it return us to the cottage. When we get there I shall get ye warmed and calm. Once all that has taken place, I, and I alone, will decide what is to be done regardin’ this mess.”

  I stared at him, stunned. He’d just spoken to me like I was a child, not a fully grown woman, and one that had saved his arse on a few occasions as well. I threw the car into gear and stepped on the gas, speeding down the winding country road.

  “Karina,” Robert said. When I ignored him, he reached for me.

  “Don’t touch me,” I said as I slapped away his hand. He clenche
d his fist, but respected my wishes. We rode to the cottage in silence, two long, uncomfortable hours’ worth of silence, my fury simmering the whole way. And no, I didn’t stop once. Once we were inside the cottage and the door had clicked shut behind us, I loosed all of my pent-up anger on him.

  “How could you talk to me like that?” I demanded. “I nearly died—I have never been so fricken’ scared in my entire life—and you spoke to me as if I was some stupid kid! Well, I’m sorry I if I was worried about you! I’m sorry I didn’t want the monster woman to turn you over to Nicnevin! If me worrying about you is such a burden, there’s the fricken’ door!”

  I stood shaking, while Robert stared at me. “Lass—”

  “Don’t you ‘lass’ me,” I snapped. “This is a two-way street, buddy. If you get to care about what happens to me, I get to care about what happens to you.”

  His jaw dropped, and I turned around so he wouldn’t see my tears. I’d always hated that I cried when I was pissed, almost as much as I hated crying when I was just plain upset.

  Ignoring the fact that I was ignoring him, and my hands that swatted wildly at him, Robert put his arms around me. “Forgive me, Karina me love,” he murmured against my hair. “O’ course, ye are correct. I was foolish to dismiss ye. I should ha’ realized that you only wished for me safety. I…When it comes to ye, I just wish to keep ye safe from her and her games. I did no’ mean to belittle ye in any way.” He tightened his arms around me. “I hope ye can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  “I’ll check, but I’m not positive,” I snuffled.

  Robert turned me around, and tucked my head under his chin. “There, love, do no’ weep,” he murmured, wiping my cheek with his thumb. “We shall rest tonight, and in the morning we shall discuss this new matter. Together, we shall determine our next course of action.”

  I snuffled again, and peeked upward. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Karina

  The next morning found Robert and I not discussing the matter of Nicnevin’s assorted minions so much as straightening up the smaller messes we’d made the day before.

  Last night, after Robert had apologized, and apologized again, for not considering my feelings, I’d taken a scalding hot shower and retreated to my room. It had been a bit early for sleep but after the day I’d had, what with a total of six hours of driving, prospecting for fossils, and almost shuffling off this mortal coil in a variety of manners, I couldn’t face anything more than my pillow and a few blankets. When I woke my stomach was furious, not at all pleased that I’d denied it dinner the night before.

  When I emerged into the common room my gaze instantly landed on Robert, whose dark head was bent over the kitchen table. He had one of my textbooks open and was scribbling away on a notepad. Holy hell, there is nothing sexier than an attractive man doing research in the morning. Or evening. More important than said man and research, I smelled coffee.

  “Did you make this?” I asked, following the aroma like a bloodhound. In addition to coffee, there was a plate of toast waiting for me, which meant that the two basic food groups, caffeine and carbs, were present and accounted for.

  “And a good mornin’ to ye,” Robert said. “Yes, I managed your black brew all on me own.”

  I smiled at him over my shoulder, then I poured myself a mug. It smelled perfect, tasted perfect…until my second mouthful, which was a bit chewy. I pulled out the basket, and noted the lack of a filter.

  “Next time, put one of the paper cones in first,” I said as I dumped the grounds. After rinsing the basket I plopped in a filter, then I located a mixing bowl in one of the cabinets. I placed the bowl on the burner, and poured pot’s contents through the filter, and voila! Real, groundless coffee. Sure, I could have made a new batch, but wasting perfectly good coffee went against my entire belief system.

  After transferring the new coffee from the mixing bowl back to the carafe with a minimum of splashes, I joined Robert at the table. “Try that,” I said, switching a mug of my new and improved coffee for the chunky stuff he had been drinking.

  “Much improved. Truly, love, I would be lost without ye,” he declared after sampling the filtered coffee. My cheeks heated a bit at that, so I brought my mug up to my face. Surely, I could blame any excessive pinkness on the rising steam.

  “What are you reading?” I asked after I’d grabbed a piece of toast. I lifted the book’s cover, and discovered that it wasn’t one of my textbooks; it was an encyclopedia about the healing properties of crystals that I’d picked up at a New Age shop in Glastonbury.

  “I was considering our pending discussion,” Robert began, responding to the new, as yet unarticulated question in my eyes, “and, being that you are a scientist as well as a scholar, I was curious if any headway has been made in the last few hundred years with regard to hiding oneself from the Good People.”

  “Science isn’t much interested in fairies,” I pointed out. “Most people, like Chris, believe that magic died out centuries ago, and that fairy tales are just children’s stories.”

  “Would that they were,” Robert said, pushing his notes toward me. “See here, I’ve made a list of stones that protect the wearer from harm, from spiritual attack, and such.”

  I put down my mug and looked over the list. I opened my mouth to ask if we were supposed to trudge around with rocks in our pockets all day, only to shut it. As a geologist I did that anyway. “Why are these here?” I asked, pointing to the column titled “Summoning”.

  Robert’s eyes darkened. “Just in case.”

  I nodded; based on the things I’d seen of late, I was perfectly all right with him not telling me the whole truth. If he thought I didn’t want to hear it, he was probably right.

  “This is good,” I murmured. “Very good.” I mentally organized the stones he’d listed, sorting the ones we could easily obtain from the rarer—and heavier—items. Then I spied the plastic laundry basket tucked away in the corner of the kitchen and remembered our seawater-soaked clothes, moldering away in the rental’s trunk.

  “Before we can get working on this list, we have an important job to do,” I said as I finished off my toast.

  “Oh?” Robert cocked an eyebrow. “What sort o’ job might that be?”

  “I am taking you to a Laundromat.”

  ***

  After Robert and I had loaded the laundry basket full of our dirty clothing, including the stinking waterlogged mess from the rental’s trunk, we drove to the closest Laundromat. It was a large establishment, with three rows of sparkling white machines, and there was only one other patron—a human patron, thank all the gods—was present. We claimed the aisle farthest from the other person, and set to work.

  “Yet another modern miracle,” Robert said as I tossed items into the washer. “No’ having to waste one’s time with such mundane tasks as the washin’ and such will free one for research.”

  “Agreed.” I stuffed one machine full, added a packet of detergent, and started the wash cycle. Once that task was complete, I dumped the rest of our clothes into its neighbor. “Hand washing is definitely not one of my preferred ways to pass the time.”

  Once the second machine was full and washing away, we investigated the magazine rack. Robert and I flipped through all three of the outdated tabloids, reading about the latest celebrity antics. When I finished reading the third one, I checked the first washing machine’s timer; it still had a few minutes left in the cycle.

  Bored, I hopped up onto the machine’s lid. Robert rose from his seat and stood directly in front of me. My perch brought me to just above eye level with him. I liked being taller.

  “What do we do now?” he asked.

  “We wait for the wash cycle to be over with, then we put the clothes in the dryer, and then we wait some more,” I replied. “Doing laundry is not the most exciting activity.”

  Robert nodded, his blue eyes glinting as he moved closer and positioned himself betw
een my knees. “Karina me lass, I’ve a confession to make.”

  “Oh?” I was feeling a bit coquettish; something about Robert’s and my clothes tangling together in the machine beneath me was turning me on. “What sort of confession?”

  Robert set his hands on my knees. “When ye were getting out o’ those wet things yesterday at the car park, I caught a glimpse o’ your bum.”

  “Did you now,” I murmured. “Why, reverend, I’m shocked.”

  He smiled lazily, blue eyes at half-mast. “’T’would have taken a stronger man than I to look away.”

  I returned his smile, and hooked my finger in the collar of his shirt. “Since we’re confessing, I have two to make.”

  Robert’s eyes widened. “Please. Share them with me.”

  I looked down, studying Robert’s hands where they lay on my knees. “At the castle, after we made it through the tunnel and into the sea, the waves just overwhelmed me. I really thought I was going to drown. Then you helped me breathe, and…and I felt like a mermaid kissing you. I know you weren’t really kissing me, but it felt that way.”

  “Karina love,” Robert murmured, sliding his hand up my outer thigh. I caught it, and laced my fingers with his. “What… What is your second confession?”

  I looked up, and speared him with my gaze. “When we were changing in the car park, I saw a bit more of you than just your bum.”

  Robert stared at me for a moment, then he burst out laughing. “And how did ye find me?”

  “Everything appeared to be in order.”

  “In order? Is that all ye have to say about the sight o’ me in the altogether?”

  “You didn’t say anything about my bum.”

  Robert gently tugged his fingers from mine, then he slid his hands up my legs, coming to rest on my hips. “’Twas such a sight, me heart nearly stopped.”