The Scent of Forever

by Julie Doherty

  With gulls swooping and tourists coming to inspect the beach, he whispered them now. “Father, forgive me.”

  With that, he turned and headed for home, his shoulders rounded like the weathered rocks of the strand.

  Chapter 36

  The two police officers sipping tea at Doug’s hefty kitchen table looked unsatisfied with Ann’s story, and who could blame them? Detective Christina Spencer, a slip of a woman with a tight, auburn bun and a London accent, could not fathom why any intelligent lady might “hitch up her skirts” and go hiking alone.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Maggie asked, squeezing Ann’s hand underneath the table. “The guy on the ferry must have spiked her tea, then left her to wander around as high as a kite while he went home to his wife and kids.”

  “And why would he do that?” Spencer asked.

  “Maybe he hates Americans. You should be looking for that asshole instead of wasting time here.”

  Maggie didn’t believe Ann’s story, either, but she loved Ann enough to pretend she did. “Put this on,” she said earlier, handing Ann a sweater. The sleeves will cover your wrists. I wish you’d tell me what happened.

  I can’t, Mags. Not yet.

  But you’re really okay, right? I mean, I’m no genius, but I’ve been around. It looks like somebody tied—

  I’m fine. I promise.

  They talked and hugged each other and the bottle of peatreek through the night, leaving both of them exhausted and hungover.

  “Did the tea taste funny at all?” Spencer asked.

  “Sorry?” Ann glanced at her empty cup. “Oh, the ferry tea. Not really, no.”

  “Not really, or no?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have anything else?” Spencer asked her partner, an overweight man in his mid-forties.

  He shook his bald head.

  Spencer stood. She slid a business card across the table. “Here’s my number in case you think of anything else. Your bags are at the Stewart Street station in Glasgow. You can pick them up at your leisure. I think we’re done here.”

  “So, that’s it?” Maggie asked.

  “That’s it,” Spencer said, whirling her yellow rain jacket around her shoulders. “Unless Ms. McConnell has something she’d like to add?”

  Ann looked down at the tabletop and shook her head.

  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  Doug extended an arm toward the archway. “I’ll see you out.”

  A lump rose in Ann’s throat. She longed to uncork the flask of horrid truth bottled up inside her, but doing so would spark an investigation that would accomplish nothing but label her a lunatic. “I’m sorry I caused so much trouble.”

  Detective Spencer offered a false smile. “At least it had a happy ending.”

  When the officers left, everyone moved to the sitting room, where William waited on a leather couch facing the fire.

  Ann felt his eyes on her as she settled into a chair next to the hearth. Burning peat crackled and warmed her knees.

  “Where’s James?” Maggie asked, flopping next to Doug.

  “In bed,” William replied.

  “They gone?” he asked Doug.

  Doug nodded. “And not a moment too soon.” He slapped Maggie’s knee. “One of us has to work tomorrow. If no one minds, I’d like to turn in early.”

  “Oh, Doug, really,” Maggie said. “Must you go back to that awful job?”

  He flashed an expensive grin. “You know I must, darling. And when I get home from my blue collar job, I shall expect my woman to have dinner waiting.”

  “What? Are you serious?” Then, she laughed and said, “Fine.”

  “Will you be okay by yourself tonight?” she asked Ann.

  “Of course. You go on.”

  Doug pulled Maggie to her feet. She was lovestruck at last, by a man who’d traded riches for refuse. There was justice in that, and humor. The moment Ann felt like herself again, she would tease Maggie about it.

  After the couple left, the room fell silent.

  Ann twisted the knitted sleeves of her borrowed sweater and watched the fire. In the awkward and lengthening quiet, the tick of a mantel clock seemed to amplify.

  “What are we doing, Ann?”

  She flinched. “Sorry?”

  The layers of William’s dark hair hung in messy curls, like he’d just come in from a storm.

  “What are we doing?” His taut lips created a horizontal line in the stubble below his mouth. He looked firm—or was it disapproving? One of his eyebrows had a diagonal scar she never noticed before.

  “Can I expect an answer before dawn?” he asked, leaning forward and clasping his hands between his knees.

  She felt the blood drain from her face and chest. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I mean what happens now? It’s pretty damn clear we have feelings for each other, and my son . . .” His voice cracked with emotion. “James thinks Christmas came early. Do ye know what it does to me to see him in your arms? Ye’re the lost lid to an empty jar, Ann.” He paused, his throat bobbing. “I wanted ye before I saw how good ye are wi’ my boy, but now . . . Jesus.” He ran his hands through his hair, struggling to regain his composure. “I proposed marriage on Iona. Ye were gonny say aye until I mentioned wains. Then, ye ran like a gut-shot cat. I told mysel’ ye’d look for me before ye went home. I had a whole fantasy built up around how ye’d come to get me, to say ye changed your mind.

  “Then, the next morning, I watched from a rooftop as ye left the island, left me, left us. Wi’ every step ye took, ye yanked oot another meter of my guts. I walked to the strand south of the dock and watched the ferry go. I cried. Cried. Can ye imagine? A man of my age, cryin’ o’er a woman.”

  Ann recalled the sight of him, a mere speck on white sand. “I saw you, and I knew I’d made a mistake. You weren’t the only one suffering. Leaving you was like tearing off a limb.”

  “I went to Glasgow to find ye.”

  “Maggie told me.” She pictured him rushing into the hotel. He must have envisioned a much different scene than the one he found. “Will, I was planning to go back to Iona. Ask Maggie. She’ll tell you, because I emailed her from the Oban ferry.”

  Nigel spilled tea. “I do hope I haven’t destroyed anything.”

  “There’s something about me you need to know,” she said, shaking away the memory. She rubbed the arms of the chair and tried to muster up the courage to tell him about her infertility. “You see, I . . .” Why was it always so hard to say the words aloud? Did saying them change anything? “I can’t have children.” There. There it was. She sat back and waited for the pity-laced apology that always followed that disclosure.

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Maggie told me.”

  She scowled and sank deeper into the chair. “Saves me from doing it, I guess.”

  “Do nae be angry wi’ her. She let it slip, and I’m glad, because it explained a few things, like how a woman can be on the verge of accepting a man’s proposal and then turn tail.” He moved in front of her, then hooked a finger under her chin to tilt her face up to him. “Ye have to believe me, Ann, it does nae matter.”

  His touch was too firm, too forceful, too similar to Nigel’s. She flicked his hand away, knowing he would wrongly interpret her reaction as rejection.

  “It does matter, William. What happens when James starts asking why he has no siblings?”

  He pulled her to her feet. “We’ll tell him the truth. I’m a rather big fan of honesty.” He clasped her hands to his chest, where his heart punched bone and hard muscle. “My heart beats for three people only: me, James, and now ye. Would more wains be nice? Sure. Do I need them to be happy? No. Ye’re enough, Ann, I swear it.”

>   She pulled away to watch the peat glow in the hearth. “You know who else said that? My ex-husband. And then, suddenly, I wasn’t enough. He also needed a girl he met in a coffee shop, needed her so badly he left me sitting in a fertility clinic while he banged the hell out of her.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be so crass, but I’ve lived this. I know how quickly the rot can set in.”

  “Are ye gonny get hooked on drugs?”

  She whirled to face him. “Of course not. Why would you ask such a thing?”

  “Using your own logic, I should be afraid to let ye into my life for fear ye’ll end up a strung-oot whore who likes to shag strangers in my bed.”

  She scowled. “That’s absurd.”

  “Aye, it is, every bit as absurd as thinking I would abandon ye because I canny throw a bag of sprogs up your fanny.”

  She sighed, slightly offended by his vulgarity, but mostly lost for a comeback.

  Victory sparked in his eyes. “Now that that’s settled, there’s one other thing, and it’s every bit as serious. Ye know how James and I feel aboot ye.”

  She nodded.

  He chuckled. “And I think ye feel the same, even though for a romance writer, ye’re a mite thrifty wi’ your pretty words.”

  She hugged herself. “I’m trying, William.”

  “That’s just it, though. Ye’re gonny have to do more than try. Call me insensitive, if ye like. Say I’m a bastard for not having the patience to let ye work through whatever just happened, but . . .” He kneaded his furrowed brow and took a deep breath. “I canny go to America, and I will nae have ye coming here just to leave again. My son has suffered enough loss in his short years. We both have. It’s unfair to gi’ him hope, only to have it dashed.” He took her hand. “As much as I love ye, woman, I’m afraid we’re an all or naught sort of deal. I need a full-on aye or a plain, old no. I have no problem wi’ ye going home to sort matters oot, but I want ye back in six months’ time wearing a white dress in front of the altar at St. Stephen’s kirk.”

  Did he know the burden he was taking on? She would likely suffer some degree of post-traumatic stress. Days would break with screams. Tuna and garlic were off the menu forever. The scent of lavender, something she once adored, would now send her into a panic attack. And what about sex? Could she ever delight in William’s touch without comparing it to Nigel’s?

  It seemed only fair to warn him, but how could she do that without divulging everything? She didn’t want him to know the truth. It was too humiliating.

  “I—”

  He cocked his head and held up his index finger. “Uh uh. Aye or no.”

  “I need time. Believe me, it’s for your own good.”

  He dropped her hand and huffed to the couch. “That’s my answer, then. I will nae be strung along like a piece of chewing gum, and I’m too damn old for games.” He picked up his shoes. “I’m away to my bed.”

  Games? Was there something sporty about abduction? Something playful about sexual assault? How dare he?

  Her fingernails cut into her palms as she raced across the room. She hit him at top speed, knocking him against a wall. His shoes thudded to the floor.

  “Really?” she spat, her arms whirling like the blades of a windmill. “You think this is a game?” She was on the verge of crying. “Do you know what just happened to me?”

  He caught her sore wrists, making her wince. “I canny say I do, madam.” They were nose to nose. “And why is that?” he seethed. “Maybe ’cause ye will nae tell me?” He dropped her wrists—threw them, really. “I know something terrible happened. I’ve seen the bruises ye’re trying to hide. Ye think I’m happy another man laid hands on my woman?” His face was as red as she’d ever seen it. “Aye, that’s right, I know someone had ye tied up, and if I had to guess who”—he kicked his shoes across the room—“I’d say it was that black-haired cunt who sat behind ye on the train!”

  Her hand flew to her mouth but failed to cover a gasp. She took a large step backward. “How did you . . .”

  “Maggie found some pictures on Facebook. Who is he? What did he do to ye?”

  She was sweating and in dire need of a chair.

  “Did he rape ye?”

  “I can’t.” She shook her head. “I just can’t.” Her legs were giving out.

  William erased the distance between them, catching her. “I got ye,” he said. He held her for a long time, stroking the back of her head and repeating, “I’m sorry, pet. I’m sorry.”

  She wanted to tell him what happened, needed to tell him what happened.

  As if hearing her thoughts, he pressed his forehead to hers. “I have the greatest urge to kiss it oot of ye.” His lips brushed lightly across hers, then hovered like a question requesting an answer.

  She blinked, dumbfounded. “I didn’t get lost.” There.

  William straightened like a reed. “I know, pet. The bloke in that picture . . . did he . . .”

  She could still see the hatred in Nigel’s eyes as he grunted on top of her, his pupils tiny dots in blue ice.

  Air. She needed air. “I can’t breathe.” She clutched her throat. “I can’t breathe.”

  “Easy, pet.” He drew her to him, pressing her cheek to his chest.

  He smelled so good, so warm, so safe.

  The dam ruptured, sending tears surging in an unstoppable torrent.

  He led her to the couch. There, between violent bouts of sobbing, she poured out the incoherent details of her ordeal.

  When she’d finished, she lay weak and silent in his arms.

  “I want to find that bastard and kill him,” he said.

  Ann sniffled and sat up. “You’re too late.”

  His face was ashen, his eyes pitiless. “I want to see him.”

  “There’s nothing to see.”

  “Ye sure he’s dead?”

  She nodded. “Quite.” Her tears began anew. “I’m a murderer,” she squealed into her hands.

  “For God’s sake, woman, I’m glad. I’m real glad.” He caressed her back and asked again, “Ye sure he’s dead?”

  “I’m a thousand percent sure.”

  He flashed a crooked grin. “A woman who carries a fire starting kit in her pocket probably knows fifty ways to kill a man and ten more to slice him up.”

  “He’s not sliced up.”

  He stiffened. “But then someone might find him. What if the cops start poking around? If we found those pictures of ye and Nigel on the train, ye can be sure they will, too.”

  “Trust me on this, Will. Nobody’s going to find him.” How could she tell him Nigel imploded, that he left nothing but empty clothes on the forest floor?

  “Ye should leave for America. Let things blow o’er for a while.” He stabbed a finger at her nose. “Mind, I want ye back. Promise me.”

  “I promise. I’ll have to apply for a visa, though. There are laws about international marriage, you know.”

  His faced brightened. “Does that mean ye’ll marry me?”

  “Yes, if you’ll have me in this state,” she said, wiping her nose.

  “That’s the least romantic acceptance I’ve ever heard.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, then dabbed her nose. “I’d have ye in any state, ye snot-nosed eejit.”

  “There’s just . . .”

  He threw his head back against the couch cushion. “God Almighty, now what?”

  “It’s just that . . . well, the whole time I was . . . all I could do was think about you, and now, here you are, right in front of me, yet I still feel hundreds of miles away.” She squeezed his hands. “I know you’re not him. I know it. I love you, I do, but I feel so disconnected and confused.” She thought she was out of tears; she wasn’t. “I want your touch more than anything,�
�� she cried. “Yet . . . there’s a chasm between us now, because of what Nigel did to me.”

  “We’ll bridge it together, hen. Ye said he did this.” He pinched her chin. “Did he also do this?” He cradled her jaw and lightly kissed her wet cheek. “Ye said he sat ye in a chair.” He lifted her from the couch as though she weighed nothing, then carried her to the recliner and set her down gently. “Did he also do this?” He knelt and took her hands, kissed them, then lifted her feet and kissed them, too.

  Walls fell at the sight of him humbled before her, his carotid arteries pulsing on his neck. She laid a hand across her heart.

  “He threw ye onto a bed. I want to lay ye doon on one as gently as I would a fledgling dove.” He let that sink in, then licked his lips and gestured toward the stairwell. “Say ‘aye,’ and I will carry ye up those steps.”

  He wanted to claim her. She wanted that, too. His was the touch she longed to remember, not Nigel’s. Could she manage it? God, she wanted to.

  Blood roared through her ears.

  “Say it, woman.” He laid his forehead on her knees, muffling his words. “Or do ye take pleasure in my misery?”

  “Aye.”

  It was a word barely whispered, but he heard it. He looked up, hopeful, then confused. “Wait. Aye, ye take pleasure in my misery or aye, ye’ll let me carry ye up the steps?”

  She laughed. “Both.”

  In an instant, she was dizzy and soaring above William’s heavy footfall. Their lips met in a fierce and unyielding kiss that turned their breaths to frantic gasps.

  William sprinted up the steps, his palms firm and hot under her rump.

  Desire gushed from its secret hiding place and flowed like lava to a fiery pool only he could quench.

  He banged across the short hallway, then pressed her against the bedroom door. He was breathless, stiff, and shaking. “Open it,” he said, clattering the doorknob and nibbling her lip. “Holy fuck, open it.”

  Biting him back, she turned the knob.