“I’ll stay until you come back.”
“Maybe you should stay a little longer. It started to rain a while ago. I’ll check when I go downstairs, but it sounds like a real downpour now. I don’t like the thought of you going back up the mountain until it slows.”
She tried to ignore the comfort his words gave her. Seldom in her life had anyone worried about her. The people who were supposed to have loved her had more often worried about what she might do or see.
“We were lucky the weather was so bonny today. It could have rained earlier,” Mara told April when Duncan had gone.
“It wasn’t luck. It was ‘posed to be.”
Mara smiled. “Was it, now? And how do you know?”
“My mommy says things always happen for a reason. Do you think so?”
“I can no’ say.” Mara turned back the covers on April’s bed and fluffed her pillows. She couldn’t imagine that Duncan would appreciate her talking to April about her mother. She tried to change the subject. “Do you like the rain?”
“Sometimes Mommy and me would go for walks in it.”
Mara tried once more. “Guiser loves the rain because he loves to splash in puddles.”
“I’ve got a picture of my mommy.”
Mara understood defeat. “Do you?”
“Daddy doesn’t know.”
Mara sat on the bed beside her. “Perhaps you should no’ be telling me, either.”
“Can I show you?”
Minutes later Mara had seen more than a photograph. She had seen a shrine to the absent Lisa, a shrine in a carved wooden box hidden at the very bottom of April’s toy chest.
Inside the box there resided an enameled earring in the shape of a unicorn and a silver rhinestone button. There was a tattered recipe for broccoli and brown rice that looked as if it had been tacked too long on a refrigerator and a postcard to Duncan signed “Lisa” in a bold, romantic script. There was half a tube of bright red lipstick and a tiny vial of perfume with most of the label rubbed off.
And there was a photograph of a lovely, ethereal brunette gazing down at an infant in her arms.
“How did you gather all this?” Mara asked. She didn’t know what else to say. She certainly didn’t have to ask who the baby was.
“I looked. When we were moving. I found things.”
“And you put them in here.”
April took the box from Mara’s lap and, after one more quick peek, closed it and put it back in the toy box. “Lisa’s pretty, isn’t she?” She not only called her mother by her first name, she sounded more detached, as if by looking at the sad mementos, she had gathered enough objectivity to face her loss again.
“She’s very pretty. You’ll look a bit like her when you’re grown, I think.”
“Do you?” April turned. Her smile was huge. “Do I look like her now?”
Mara nodded, even though the resemblance was slight. “Aye.”
“Daddy doesn’t like her.”
Mara saw no point in offering false hope. “Does he no’?”
“Sometimes I don’t like her, either.”
“And sometimes you do?”
“I haven’t seen her in a long, long time.”
And the longer April went without seeing her mother, the more importance Lisa would gain in her life. Mara could see the truth as if it were printed on a page in front of her. She wondered how Duncan could fail to see it.
“Don’t tell Daddy about the box. Please?”
“It’s your secret to tell.” Mara brushed April’s hair off her forehead. “But sometimes secrets are very heavy things.”
“It would make him sad.”
Sad. Not angry. Mara wondered how a child could see beneath an adult’s surface with such perception. “Shall I read you that story now?”
“Will you make your voice like a fairy’s voice?”
Mara leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You’ll think it’s a fairy reading to you.”
Mara was standing at the window of Duncan’s sitting room when he returned. April had fallen asleep before the fairies had taken poor, bewildered storybook Duncan down to their home below the hill.
“It was a very big day for a wee bittie girl,” she said, turning to greet him.
“She’ll need her sleep. I imagine the puppies will wake her sometime during the night.”
“One of them is sleeping with her. He’s a sleekit laddie, that one. He came to the bedside and yapped until I tucked him in beside her.”
“I imagine he’ll be the favored beast in the morning. I hope he was the most presentable.”
She smiled and shook her head. “He’ll take no prizes.”
“It’s still raining hard. I’d feel better if you’d stay a while until it slacks off.”
She had taken care of the necessary chores before joining Duncan and April at the hotel. There were always things to do in the evening, yarn to spin, sachets to stitch, the cleaning she didn’t get to during the day. But the appeal of waiting out the storm where the roof and walls were watertight and the fire warm was undeniable.
The thought of spending more time with Duncan was appealing, too. “I’ll stay, but not long. I’ve an early day planned for tomorrow, if the weather permits.”
“And what will you be doing?”
She turned back to the window. “I’ve enough yarn spun to begin my dyeing. If there’s no rain, that’s what I’ll do. If there is, there’s still the byre to shovel and plenty of fleeces left to spin. I’ll be busy.”
“Can you really make a living doing what you do?”
“No. If I had to depend on what I make from my crafts, I’d be looking for work in the village, like most crofters. But I meet a portion of my needs, enough to keep me from draining all the profits from my investments.”
“I’d like to see you spin.”
She hadn’t realized he had come to stand beside her. His words skated along her flesh. He was so close, yet she hadn’t guessed he would join her. Duncan was a continual surprise.
She was a surprise when she was with him.
“What is it you’d like to see?” She stole a glance at him. His face was turned toward hers.
“I imagine you’re a study in grace. Everything about you flows when you move. I can see you in front of the fire at your wheel, swaying with the rhythm. What do you think about when you’re spinning? You spend so many hours alone.”
“I suppose I think about how glad I am to be alone.”
“I watched you with April tonight. You’re not always glad.”
She faced him. “No. But I’m always glad when the alternative is to be with people who are afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Perhaps no’ of me. But you’re still afraid of what I say I can do.”
“Aren’t you?”
She considered. “There was a time when I would have given anything to have the sight taken from me. Now I understand that it’s a part of me, and if it were gone, I would be a different person. And I like myself, Duncan. I’m beginning to like myself very much.”
“I like you, too.”
“But you would like me better if I had no peeks at the future, or if there was a rational scientific explanation for what happens to me. A disease with a Latin name and a cure.”
He touched her cheek. “I couldn’t like you better.”
She couldn’t pull her gaze from his. “I’m no’ strong enough yet for this.”
“Neither am I.”
“I should go.”
“Yes, you should.” His fingers slid to her chin, then into her hair; his palm was warm against her cheek.
She smiled a little, just a little. “I dinna seem to be leaving.”
“I don’t seem to be letting you.”
“I can no’ change, and I can no’ deny who I am and what I see. Dinna kiss me, Duncan, unless you’re willing to accept that.”
He kissed her anyway. She watched his face descend, and as her eyes closed, she felt the w
armth of his lips against hers. She inhaled the masculine fragrance of his skin, tasted the dark wine flavor of his lips. His arms came around her, and she could feel her breasts sink against his chest. Her hips pressed against his, and she could feel desire stirring in Duncan as well as herself.
Her arms crept around him, even though she knew she should push him away. He kissed a sensuous trail to her ear. “Don’t kiss me, Mara, if you can’t accept a few doubts. I’m no different from you. I can’t be anyone except who I am.”
“I dinna want this unless we’re going to be good for each other.”
“I’m beginning to think we can be very, very good for each other.”
She settled more fully into his arms. This time her lips parted beneath his. Her doubts drifted away; thought drifted away with them. She could feel his fingertips against her back, the rise and fall of his chest, the subtle shifting of his hips. Somewhere in the distance, thunder roared as their kiss deepened.
She had always thought that desire was a subtle thing; now it was as brilliant, as illuminating, as the lightning that split the night sky. Kissing Duncan was more than a need for comfort and human contact. Her blood surged, and her pulse sped wildly. Heat poured through her and settled in places that had never before known its power.
She held him closer. His knee slid between her legs as if he understood her need to be touched there. A moan formed deep in her throat. She wanted him to touch her everywhere. She wanted to run away.
Finally he was the one who stepped back. She opened her eyes and stared into his. She had been afraid she would see doubt or self-mockery. Instead she saw desire and a reluctant self-control. “You feel the way I thought you would. You taste the way I thought you would,” he said.
She heard more than just words. She heard the unsteadiness of his voice and weeks of unconscious yearning. “You’ve thought about this?” Her voice was unsteady, too.
“More than once.” He pushed her hair off her face. His hands rested in it. “In my dreams, most of all.”
Duncan had been in Mara’s dreams, too, although she hadn’t known it until that moment. She had repressed all yearning for him, she who valued honesty above all. “I’d best be going,” she said.
“The rain hasn’t stopped.”
“But I think that I have, at least for tonight.”
“If we continue to see each other, a kiss won’t be enough.”
She knew he was right. Even now, it wasn’t enough. Her body cried out for the solace of his. “Will you tell April that I’ll finish the book the next time I see her?”
“Then you’ll be back?”
“After awee.”
“May we come to see you again?”
She leaned forward and kissed him again. Then she slipped past.
“Be careful on the road,” he called.
She didn’t turn. “Aye. It’s canny I’ll be. There’ll be flooding tonight.”
“Flooding? I doubt it. There’s been just enough rain to soak the ground.”
“There’ll be flooding, Duncan. Tonight when they come to ask for your help with it, remember that I told you so.”
* * *
Jamie Gordon hadn’t drunk as much as his older brother Peter, but he’d had enough to propel him the first mile toward home without much minding the rain soaking his shirt and trousers. He wasn’t sure where he’d left his mac. He wasn’t even sure if he’d brought a mac to the pub.
He wasn’t even sure which pub he’d been to.
“We could lie a bit under that tree,” Peter said, waving a hand in the air in a dozen different directions. “Any tree. Just until the rain stops.”
“A fat lot of good it’d do ye to lie down in this. We’d be washed away. Have ye nae sense left at all, Peter?”
Peter began to whistle. He coughed sharply when he inhaled water with his next gulp of air. “I will nae be having any more of this! It’s the back way for me. Ye can come if ye want.”
“It’s no’ safe in this rain. We’d have to cross the burn, and it’ll be rising fast.”
“Yer a poor excuse for a brother and a wee gyte at that. It’ll nae be rising. It’ll come to our knees. Nae higher. And we’re wet all over, are we no’?”
Jamie continued to stumble down the road. He wasn’t even sure he could find the back way home. He’d gone about twenty steps when he realized Peter was no longer beside him. He stopped and turned. Through the rain he could just see Peter’s outline disappearing into the field at their left. He debated whether to follow; the rain seemed much more daunting without his brother beside him.
“Wait!” Jamie stumbled after him. “Peter, wait!” He caught up to him easily. “Ye know where yer going?”
“I know. Do you no’?”
“Haud yer wheesht! O’ course I do!”
The ground under Jamie’s feet sank lower with every step. He went quickly from uncomfortable to miserable. Brambles tore at his legs, and once he tripped over a stone, sprawling facedown in the mud. “We should no’ have come this way,” he said after Peter helped him to his feet.
“Ye can always go back.”
Jamie thought of all the times that Peter had beaten him soundly at their childhood games. At eighteen, Jamie was still the thinker and twenty-year-old Peter the doer. But tonight they hadn’t an intelligent thought between them, and nothing they were doing made any sense at all. He plodded on, lifting his feet higher, setting them down carefully. The rain seemed to be falling faster. He wondered about the burn.
“I’ve a rock in my boot.” Peter hobbled to a boulder large enough to sit on and began to unlace his boot. Jamie crossed and recrossed his arms for warmth. He had never been this cold, not even in the midst of winter. Peter cursed repeatedly. His fingers were numb, not nearly as clever as usual, and the laces were soaked and knotted.
“I’m going on,” Jamie said, when it was obvious Peter would be a while. “I’ll go on just a wee bit.” He wanted to see the burn and make his own decision about whether it should be crossed tonight. “I’ll wait up ahead for ye, Peter. I’ll stay in shouting distance.”
“Och, go on. Yer setting my nerves on edge.”
Jamie started in what he thought was the right direction. He moved slowly and carefully, never intending to get very far ahead of his brother, but as the ground sloped down, his speed increased. He entered a stand of trees and for the first time thought he knew where he was. If he was right, the ground would continue to slope and then level off. The burn would be just ahead.
When the ground began to level off, he felt a surge of pride.
He tried to decide whether to wait there for Peter or whether to forge ahead on his own. Peter wouldn’t wait for him. That he was sure of. If Peter missed him in the dark, he would go on without him.
He took a few tentative steps forward, torn by the desire to be home in bed and guilt at leaving his brother behind. He had told Peter he would wait, and he was usually a man of his word.
He took a few more steps, and then he halted in his tracks and stared at the light coalescing just in front of him.
At first he couldn’t believe what he saw. He couldn’t remember how much he’d had to drink that night. He couldn’t even remember where he’d had it. So why should he believe his eyes when they told him that eerie green light was forming into the shape of a woman in the midst of the trees ahead of him?
He put his hands over his eyes, then peeked through his fingers. The light—the woman—was still there.
“Who are ye?” he shouted.
The light seemed to move toward him. He took two jerky steps backward and fell. He could feel the earth under his backside and the rain on his face. He was still awake, and before him was a ghost.
He covered his face with his hands, and this time he didn’t peek. He hadn’t been inside the village kirk in years. His mother went sometimes, but his was not a family that took to religion. He tried to remember a prayer. There had to be a prayer.
He could no more remember a
prayer than remember where he’d left his mac. He stumbled to his feet, his face still covered. He turned and fled. Halfway up the slope he slammed into a tree. His hands fell away from his face, and he tumbled backward. At the bottom of the hill he opened his eyes, expecting to meet his death. The woman was standing only yards away. Even gripped by the worst fear he had ever known, he saw how beautiful she was.
She stretched out a hand and stroked the air in front of her, again and again.
She was warning him away.
Jamie wasn’t certain how he knew the ghost’s intent. But at the moment he realized that he wasn’t to come any closer, she vanished. He rubbed his eyes and peered through the darkness, but the lady of light was gone.
“Peter!” He found his way to his feet and started up the slope again. “Peter!”
“I’m right here, ye idjit!” Peter materialized out of the darkness. “And what is it yer doing there, when you should be at the burn?”
Jamie told him what he’d seen, or at least he tried to. The words came out wrong. He stuttered. He sputtered. But when Peter tried to push past him, he grabbed his arm. “Ye can no’ go that way, Peter. That’s what she was saying.”
“Saying? She did no’ say a thing, did she? She was no’ even there! Ye’ve had too much whiskey and too much rain!” He shook off Jamie’s arm and started down the hill.
“Peter. Dinna go that way!”
But Peter disappeared into the rain. As Jamie watched, his brother’s dim outline vanished completely.
It didn’t take Jamie long to consider what to do next. He started back toward the road at a run. He was completely sober now, sober and determined. He would not remain in the woods, not for all the whiskey in Scotland. He was sorry that Peter hadn’t listened, but not sorry enough to follow him and try to persuade him.
He was the thinker and Peter the doer. And now he thought that in the very near future he would become a sober man and a regular at the kirk, as well.
CHAPTER 8
The entire month of May was stormy, but no night had been as threatening as the one of April’s birthday celebration. The burn that wandered lazily from the hills above Druidheachd had risen swiftly, spreading and rushing up the slopes that enclosed it until it had changed from peaceful stream into roaring river.
Men of Midnight Complete Collection Page 10