Scot on the Run

by Janice Maynard

  Should she believe him? Why else would he have stopped? His body gave him away. He wanted her. A man couldn’t fake that kind of thing.

  She swallowed her tears and her frustration. “You’re right, of course. I would appreciate it if you would get me my crutch so I can go upstairs.”

  Still he played with her hair. “It’s early yet. Why don’t we sit on the front steps and look for stars?”

  The leaves on the trees would make that difficult, but she was in a mood to be persuaded. “Okay, but I still want my crutch.”

  She sensed that her insistence bothered him. Surely he didn’t expect her to lean on him forever.

  “Fine,” he muttered. He eased her gently into a chair. “I’ll be back.”

  When he returned, Cinnamon trotted at his heels, her canine expression hopeful. Bella had to smile. “You’re a sweet baby.” The furry companion would come in handy. With the dog between them, maybe Bella wouldn’t do something stupid.

  The night was still and hushed. Though it was awkward, Bella used her crutch and sat down hard on the top step. Cinnamon curled up at her hip. Ian staked out a position in the other side of the dog, standing and leaning against the railing. “I miss this when I’m in the city,” he said.

  “Miss what?”

  “The outdoors.”

  “You don’t go outside in London? I’ve been there. They have parks and such.”

  “Of course,” he said. “But Skye and the Highlands are different. Glasgow in Gaelic means dear green place.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Good grief. At this point, they would soon be discussing the weather.

  “Ian?”

  “Hmm?” He sounded distracted as though his thoughts were a million miles away.

  “I shared with you about my novel. Will you tell me the real reason you’re so keen to avoid the paparazzi?”

  She saw his shoulders rise and fall and heard his deep sigh. “I suppose I must. It’s no’ a big secret, really.”

  She stayed quiet. His Scottish accent had thickened, indicating a change in his mood, though she wasn’t sure why.

  “I had trouble with school,” he said simply. “My aptitude for numbers and reasoning developed early. Many of my teachers quite honestly didn’t know what to do with me. Most of them did their best. They let me muddle along on my own…gave me advanced textbooks, that sort of thing.”

  “I’m guessing it’s not every day a genius comes along.”

  “Not a genius,” he protested. “But different than most.”

  “Okay, not a genius. Call it what you will, I’d say you ended up at one point knowing more than the instructor.”

  “Aye. When I was fourteen. The man thought I was smarting off to him, but honest to God, all I wanted to do was learn. One day before school he wrote out an involved equation on the board. Most of my classmates were outside, lingering to the very last instant because they hated the classes and the homework. Me, I loved it. I always went in early to get my notes in order and to be ready for the lecture. I sat down at my desk as usual, but that’s when things went south.”

  “Tell me,” she said, her heart in her throat. The image of Ian as a vulnerable young lad haunted her.

  “I sat there reading the figures he had written, and I saw a mistake.”

  “Oh, Ian.”

  “It was plain as day. I didn’t want him to be embarrassed when the other lads came in, so I jumped up, erased a few letters and numbers, and corrected the math. Mr. Bingham showed up as I was doing it. He was apoplectic… started screaming and calling me names. The others came running, of course. I was stupid and naïve when it came to the nuances of male pride. I had diminished him in his own classroom, and he made me pay.”

  “What did he do to you?”

  Ian’s rough laugh held little humor. “I may have forgotten to mention that I stuttered. School was often hell for me when I was forced to give an oral report or simply to answer a question verbally. You know how children can be. Not only were my abilities an affront to them, but my speech impediment gave them plenty of fodder to torment me.”

  Bella winced. She knew she didn’t want to hear what came next, but since she had asked the question, it was too late. “Go on,” she said. “Tell me.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ian was afraid to sit down beside Bella, even with the dog between them. His blood still pumped. Sexual hunger was a living, breathing beast that rode him hard. Reliving his past was like peeling away a layer of skin. He felt raw and wretched. Still, if hearing the details of his painful adolescence helped Bella know and trust him, the catharsis might be worth it.

  “Once the teacher calmed down, things became worse,” he said. “We all took our seats, but I was summoned to the front of the room and forced to sit on a stool facing my classmates. You can’t imagine what it was like to see their faces. Males at that age have a pack mentality. They can be led astray in the direction of evil, or inspired for good. On that particular day, the dark side won.”

  “You don’t have to tell me the rest,” Bellawhispered. “Really, you don’t.”

  He shrugged. While it was true that he was now extremely successful and respected for his work and his contributions, nothing would ever erase the memory of that long ago day or the weeks that followed. Surviving the psychological torment had required a special kind of courage. Though he had contemplated running away from home, the downside of having an advanced IQ was being able to calculate the odds of such a venture succeeding. In the end, he’d had no choice but to stay.

  “Ian?”

  Disappearing into the past so deeply made it a shock to hear her voice. “Sorry.” Pulling himself together, he sat down on the top step and rested his elbows on his knees, scrubbing his hands over his face. “He made me explain the equation on the board in minute detail… as if I were the teacher. It was pure agony. My throat closed up. I stuttered so badly no one could understand what I was saying. The entire roomful of boys burst into laughter that went on and on and on…”

  Bella uttered a curse that surprised him. “That was child abuse, Ian. The man should have been shot. I can’t even imagine…”

  “For the remainder of the term, he forced me to sit on the stool at the front. Every day when he put equations on the board, he made a big pretense of having me ‘check’ them. The unfortunate thing was, I continued to find errors. I didn’t know what else to do but to correct them, which made him more and more determined to teach me a lesson.”

  “We’d call that bullying now. No one would stand for it.”

  Ian shook his head at her naiveté. “There is good and bad in all of us, you know. It’s shockingly easy to turn a crowd into a mob. Boys I considered my friends turned away from me, because I had become a pariah. They couldn’t afford to be seen with me, for fear they would end up on the wrong side of an imaginary line.”

  “How did you bear it?”

  He shrugged. “The ostracism helped me in one way…made me more determined to score the highest marks… to learn far beyond what was required of me”

  “I am so sorry.”

  “I don’t need anyone’s pity,” he said sharply. “As an adult, I paid for speech therapy that eliminated almost every vestige of my disability. The stutter only resurfaces in very stressful situations.”

  She gasped audibly. “That’s why you’re so determined to elude the reporters,” she said. “You don’t want to stutter on camera.”

  “In a nutshell, yes. It’s bad enough they can splash my photograph over every media outlet, social and otherwise. I cringe at the headlines that could be written. Eligible Bachelor number two c-c-an n-n-ot t-t-talk to women.”

  Before Bella could respond to his dark humor, the sound of a vehicle climbing the hill broke the silence. Finley’s was the only house here at the top. He owned several acres that served as a buffer for his privacy. Nevertheless, the car continued upward.

  As it came into view, Bella got to her feet clumsily and used her crutch to hob
ble down the steps. When the car door opened, a woman jumped out and flung herself at Bella, nearly knocking her down. The surprise visitor cried out in an anguished voice. “It’s wee Jackie, Bella. He’s disappeared. I dinna know what to do.” Ian recognized Hilda, Bella’s friend who had dropped by earlier that day.

  They got her inside, and Ian fetched a cup of tea. Bella held the red-haired woman’s hands and chafed them. “Tell us what happened.”

  Hilda’s hands shook so badly the cup clattered in the saucer, but she drank the tea anyway. “My mother-in-law brought the boys back just before dinner. They’d had a lovely day. The boys were knackered, but they gobbled down their meal, so that put a bit of life back into them. Jackie Sr. and I were dabblin’ about in the kitchen. The boys were in front of the telly for a half hour show. I went to check on them and Jackie was gone.”

  Ian inserted himself into the conversation. “I assume you’ve called the police.”

  Hilda nodded. “They’re organizing volunteer search parties to comb the town. My big Jack is with them. Me mother-in-law has the wee one. I thought Bella might wander this hill with me. Ye know how the child likes to climb. But I forgot about your foot.”

  Ian touched her shoulder briefly. “Of course we’ll help. Bella will need to stay here, but I can cover a large area on my own.”

  Hilda sobbed quietly now, her eyes closed, her head lolling against the back of the sofa. Ian suspected she was in shock.

  Bella stood and motioned for Ian to follow her to the far corner of the room. “I’m not staying here,” she hissed, her eyes flashing blue sparks at him. “I know the area far better than you do.”

  He tamped down his temper. In an emergency situation, calm had to prevail. “How old is the child?”

  “Four. Almost five. He’s been a handful from the time he was born according to the stories I’ve heard. Climbed out of his crib before he was a year old. Learned how to unlatch the doors at two. Slipped away from his mum on market day last year and ended up on a fisherman’s boat that was anchored in the harbor. He could be anywhere.”

  Ian frowned. “Is kidnapping a possibility?”

  “Not likely. Besides, most of the town knows Jackie. If anyone noticed him wandering around, they would have called Hilda.”

  “But he’s been gone for two, maybe three hours by now?”

  “Yes, I suppose.”

  Ian felt adrenaline kick in. He knew what it was like to feel lost and alone, even if his situation had been more mental than physical. “Send your friend back to her house. Tell her she needs to be there in case the boy returns unannounced. I’ll grab some gear upstairs and be on my way.”

  When he came back down five minutes later, Bella stood by the front door, crutch-free, her face pale and her chin outthrust. She had managed to put on tennis shoes, despite her injured foot. Before he could say anything, she held out her hand. “You can’t make me stay here. I’m going. So get used to the idea. The foot’s not broken. It’s only a sprain. I’m fine.”

  Ian grimaced, torn between the need to protect her and the knowledge that she was right. He did need someone who knew the area. “If you end up slowing me down, I won’t be able to carry you. A child spending the night outdoors on an early autumn night like this runs the risk of hypothermia. Every minute will count.”

  “I understand.”

  Hell, who was he kidding. If he had to, he would search for the boy with Bella on his back. She didn’t need to know that, though.

  They exited the house without further argument. Bella walked gingerly, but with increasing confidence. She must have taken a pain pill. Otherwise she would never have been able to tolerate abusing her injury.

  The hilltop was heavily wooded. Cinnamon liked to roam around up there. They brought her along, although the large dog had no formal search and rescue training. Nevertheless, her canine hearing and smell could prove to be helpful if they could keep her youthful exuberance under control.

  Because of the nature of their search, they moved around Finley’s house in ever-widening circles, careful not to miss a single square meter. After an hour and a half, they had seen no sign that anyone had been in the area recently.

  Winded and sweaty, they sat down together against two trees and reconnoitered. Ian had slung a small backpack over his shoulder. He offered a bottle of water to Bella and opened one for himself.

  She was quieter than usual. He knew she was worried. “Someone will find him,” he said. “He couldn’t have gone far.”

  “It’s not a friendly place in the dark,” she fretted. “Cliffs and water are a terrible combination for a kid with no fear.” She took a long swig of water and wiped her mouth. “What’s that thing you’ve been using?”

  He finished his water, capped the bottle, and stowed it in his pack to be recycled. “It’s a prototype I’m working on. It uses infrared technology to pick up heat signatures. The military already utilizes a form of this, but my design integrates GPS and algorithms that filter out distractions like squirrels and other animals. It’s keeping track of every inch we’ve searched and will be able to tell me if we missed anything.”

  “Impressive.”

  “It’s only good if it works. Come on. Unless you need to stay here?”

  He made it a question. No harm would come to her.

  Bella sprang to her feet with little grace but lots of determination. “I’m right behind you.”

  * * *

  Bella’s heart sank with each passing minute. Her cell phone remained silent in her pocket. She had explained to Hilda exactly what she and Ian planned to do. Hilda would have called if Jackie had been found.

  They were running out of places to look. On the backside of Finley’s hill, the land sloped sharply toward the water. They were forced to cling to trees in order to make their way downward. It was slow, tedious progress.

  “Stop here,” Ian insisted. “The dirt is loose. If you fall again, you could seriously damage your foot.” He looked at the dog. “Stay with her Cinnamon. Understand?”

  The dog whined, indicating agreement. Either that or a request for a doggie treat.

  Bella knew that what Ian said made sense, though she didn’t like it. She dared not look at her ankle. She could tell it was swollen like a small blimp. Her bottom lip throbbed where she had bitten it repeatedly, a nervous habit. It was impossible to imagine what Hilda and her husband were going through.

  Though it was dark, Bella could see Ian’s shadowy figure descending carefully. Without warning he stopped and called out to her. “I need your help. Get down here. But easy. Hold on to everything you can.”

  She and Cinnamon hurried to obey the urgency in Ian’s voice. When they finally made it to his side, he was crouched, using his prototype to scan the area below. “What is it?” she whispered. There was no particular need for discretion, but her stomach was in a knot.

  “I see something about twenty feet below us. It looks like a clump of bushes growing out over the water. I’m picking up a heat signal that’s fairly large. It could be him.”

  “But if he’s asleep or unconscious, we can’t startle him.”

  “Exactly. If he moves, he could fall. I can’t tell how much farther it is to the water, and I don’t know if he can swim.”

  Bella gripped Cinnamon’s leash until her fingers were numb. “What are we going to do?”

  Ian’s reply was terse and determined. “I’ll rappel down and get him. No worries.”

  The next five minutes were a blur. Ian had remembered seeing nylon rope in Finley’s workshop and had brought it along. With Bella’s assistance, he tied himself into a makeshift harness, secured the rope around a good-sized tree, and tested the knots.

  She took his shoulders and kissed him lightly. “Feel free to be a hero, but don’t do anything stupid. It might not even be him.”

  Ian broke free of her hold as if he couldn’t afford to be distracted. “Of course it’s him. Who else could it be?”

  “A very large skunk?”<
br />
  “Let’s hope not.”

  Ian’s descent took far longer than Bella anticipated. He had to move with agonizing care to avoid kicking loose debris down onto his target. Consequently, it was more like twenty minutes than ten before he reached his destination.

  It was so dark she could see virtually nothing. Knowing that unknown water lurked underneath the rescue attempt made the whole thing worse. Her eyes ached from trying to peer below. At last the prearranged signal came. Ian had told her to expect two firm tugs on the rope when he was ready to ascend.

  Even she and Cinnamon working together were little help. Ian was pulling himself, unaided, up the steep hillside, carrying something… someone. Please God, let it be Jackie, and let him be okay.

  Ian might be a hermit-nerd, as Finley had coined the term, but he was also a man’s man, physically strong and ready to face a grueling challenge at a moment’s notice. She prayed incoherently, especially when Ian and his burden were almost to the top and Ian’s foot slipped.

  “Are you okay?” she cried out.

  “I’m fine,” he said, his voice strained and winded. “I think the poor bairn has a broken arm.”

  At last, the two males made it onto solid ground. Ian laid the boy in Bella’s arms. He had taken off his coat and wrapped it around the child, but Jackie whimpered softly as though he were cold or in pain or both. Cinnamon licked the boy’s face. The dog then sidled up to Bella’s hip and stood guard.

  Ian untied himself and stuffed all the gear haphazardly into the backpack. “Do you have a phone signal?” he asked.

  “No. Already checked. We’ll have to get to the top of the hill for a clear shot.”

  “Damn it. His parents are going through hell.”

  She put a hand on his arm where the muscles were tense. “We’re doing the best we can. Thanks to you, he’s going to okay.”

  “We don’t know that yet. I’m not a doctor. Let’s get going.”

  Their progress uphill was excruciatingly slow. Ian moved from tree to tree, cradling Jackie in his left arm and steadying himself with his right hand. The strength and energy it must be taking to accomplish such a feat astonished Bella. Ian didn’t mention her foot again, and she was glad. Her injury paled under the circumstances. Yes, she was in pain. And yes, it was possible she had significantly delayed her recovery. But she would do it all again.