Men of Midnight Complete Collection

by Emilie Richards

  “Andrew, I’m fine.” Her voice sounded exactly as she had feared it would. Dreamy. Tentative. Affected.

  “Wiggle…your…toes.”

  “You’re a tyrant, aren’t you?” She wiggled, then bent her foot back and forth.

  “Any more pain?”

  “Not a bit.” She managed to look him in the eye. There was something in the gaze he returned besides concern and determination. Something warmer flickered there.

  Or was that her imagination, too?

  “Do you want to try walking on it?” he asked.

  “No. I can’t thank you enough, but go eat your fish. It’s probably cold.”

  “I doubt it could be. There was hardly time.”

  Hadn’t there been? It seemed to her that he had lingered over her for years. Decades.

  She struggled to sound normal. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  He gently lifted her leg and slid from beneath it. Then he crossed to his own side of the booth. “I’ve had leg cramps myself. I used to climb, and once I got a cramp while I was hanging from the bald face of a mountain. I had to scramble up, cramp and all, or die trying.”

  She winced. “That’s terrible.”

  “So I’ve learned what to do.”

  “I’m lucky.”

  He gazed directly at her, and the warmth she’d thought she’d seen was still present in his eyes. “Luck’s a relative thing, Fiona. It might be that I was the lucky one.”

  * * *

  Jamie Gordon hadn’t drunk quite as much as his older brother Peter, and he’d been luckier for it. Just one short year ago he had decided to ease up on whisky and tighten up on his purse strings. In a moment of supreme self-knowledge he had seen the dead end on the road he was traveling, and he had decided to make something of his life.

  All because of a ghost.

  “Peter, would ye wake up, man?” Jamie leaned forward carefully and grabbed the toe of his brother’s boot. “For God’s sake, Peter, would ye please wake up?”

  “Haud yer wheesht!” Peter kicked sharply, and Jamie sat back to avoid him.

  Jamie didn’t shut up, as requested. He knew if he did, Peter would go directly back to sleep. “We’re out in the boat, Peter. Dinna make such a fuss, or the monster’ll be having us for tea.”

  “Huh?” Peter opened his eyes. Slowly. Carefully, as if he were uncertain exactly what he might see.

  “Out in the boat,” Jamie repeated slowly. “On the loch. Together.”

  Peter stretched, but his eyes were still blank.

  Jamie sighed. He was just nineteen and Peter all of twenty-one. Peter was taller by two inches, and better at soccer, shinty and rugger. There was nothing his older brother couldn’t do, in fact, except think. Thinking was Jamie’s job.

  “I caught a fish or two while ye were sleeping,” he said. He pulled his stringer out of the water and held it aloft. Two brown trout and an eel wriggled there. “Mum’ll be glad, I ken, that one of us could remain sober.”

  “Maybe she’ll give ye an extra biscuit or twa, Jamie-bairn, for being such a good wee laddie.”

  “Maybe I ought to stand up and pitch ye out of the boat.” Jamie’s eyes narrowed. “That’d sober ye.”

  Peter didn’t stir. “Maybe ye ought to stop the girning and start the engine, Jamie-bairn.” He tipped his face to the sky. “It’s about to rain.”

  “Maybe that’d sober ye.” But Jamie had to agree it was time to leave. The skies above Loch Ceo, perfectly clear an hour ago, were now fast clouding over.

  “I dinna like the rain,” Peter said.

  Jamie knew why. A year before, Peter had nearly drowned in a freak storm. Of course, he had been warned. Jamie himself had warned his brother that the burn that trickled through Druidheachd was rising and should not be crossed.

  A ghost had warned Jamie.

  “Poor old Peter,” he said as he pulled the cord on the engine. “Who’d have guessed such a swankie would be fair terrified o’ getting wet?”

  Peter made a pretense of lunging toward him, but with his coordination dulled by too much whisky, his own momentum carried him forward too fast, and he couldn’t stop. He fell straight into Jamie’s lap. Jamie tumbled sideways, and the cord went with him, snapping free from the engine. As Jamie watched in horror the cord sailed across the water to vanish under the rippling surface.

  “Now look what ye’ve done, ye idjit!” Jamie shoved the sprawling Peter away and leaned over the side. “It’s gone. No’ a sign of it!”

  “What d’ye mean, no’ a sign?” Peter peered over the side with bleary eyes. “It’s in there somewhere.”

  “Do ye want to go looking for it? I’ll gladly help ye in.” Jamie sat back. The sky already seemed darker, and they were a long way from shore. To make matters worse, there were no other boats in sight.

  “Have we something else to use as a replacement?” Peter got down on his hands and knees and began to search the floor. It didn’t take long. The boat was short and narrow, and although ordinarily neither man was neat, the boat was too limited in space for clutter. He climbed awkwardly back to his seat. “Nowt.”

  “I could have told ye. Nae rope, nae string…”

  “Yer stringer, Jamie? How about that?”

  “Too wide and stiff. But we could plait our fishing lines. That might do it. Cut them off in lengths and plait them.”

  Both men grabbed for their fishing rods at the same moment. Peter got to his first and triumphantly whipped it skyward, directly in the path of Jamie’s jaw. The sting of the rod against his throat sent Jamie reeling backward, arms flailing. On impact from Jamie’s elbow, Peter’s rod went flying over the side. Peter wildly threw himself forward to retrieve it, and the boat tilted precariously. In the effort to grab his brother and keep him from sending both of them to the bottom of the loch, Jamie tossed his own rod in the general direction of the boat’s floor.

  “Sit still, damn ye, Peter! Ye’ve got nae sense today. No’ a bit of it!” He held Peter tight until the boat had stopped the worst of its rocking.

  “I’ve got to get me rod, Jamie.” Peter peered into the water. He made a sound of despair. “And it looks as if ye’d better think about getting yers.”

  Jamie loosened his grip on Peter’s collar and stared into the loch. “Bloody hell.” He had missed the boat entirely. His rod floated an arm’s length from his brother’s, and because of the turmoil the rocking boat had created, neither was in reach. Weighted heavily to take the lines deep into the water below, they would not float for long. Even as he watched they began to sink. “Double bloody hell!”

  “We’ll have to row for them. Quick!”

  “We have nae oars, ye idjit! Ye made me take them out. Do ye mind doing that? ‘Jamie,’” he mimicked in a high voice, “‘we’ll have nae need of them, and they’ll jist take up room!’”

  “I dinna mind saying anything of the sort!”

  They glared at each other, but lesson learned, neither moved a muscle.

  “So, what is it yer thinking we should do?” Peter asked at last.

  Jamie peered skyward again. “I’m thinking we’d better be prepared to empty the boat of water when the rain comes.” As if in warning, one large raindrop splashed to his forehead and trickled down his nose. “Triple bloody hell.” He sounded resigned.

  “Michty! I dinna like the rain, Jamie. Ye mind what happened before?”

  “There are nae ghosts out here. And what’s there to warn us of, Peter? What good would it do now?”

  Lightning flashed across the sky, and, as if on cue, the boat began to rock. Wind swept over the loch, and with each new gust, the boat rocked harder. “If we’re lucky,” Jamie shouted over the thunder, “it’ll be a wee storm and quickly over. Just sit tight—and bail when ye must.” He felt along the bottom of the boat for the tin he’d used for bait, emptied it over the side and handed it to his brother. He had to content himself with a smaller tin that stank of long dead herring.

  Darkness descended with
the storm, a nearly total darkness despite the fact that the sun should still be just above the horizon. The wind howled along the loch’s surface, sending sprays of water into the boat. Jamie pulled his collar around his neck, but it was little protection. He was quickly chilled, and from the expression on his brother’s face, Peter was every bit as miserable.

  The little boat rode the increasingly turbulent waves as if it had been constructed for exactly that purpose. But Jamie knew that if the storm grew too violent, they would be swamped. And no one who went down in Loch Ceo lived to tell the story. The temperature was too frigid.

  Fear rose inside him. What had been an irritation was now far more. Had he offended someone on high or, worse, something, some hideous, hellish creature, down below? Had he gone back one too many times on the vows he had made a year ago? He’d been to the village kirk more than once since that day beside the rising burn. He’d been so often that the minister had learned his name. Surely that was often enough for any man.

  “Look! There!” Peter leaned over and rattled Jamie’s knee. “Look off in the distance. Someone’s coming for us!”

  Was it because he still drank whisky? He rarely drank too much. The barman at the hotel had nearly forgotten his name.

  “Jamie, have ye nae ears? There’s a boat coming! A boat!”

  Jamie looked up and saw his brother’s arm extended over the water. He was pointing into the darkness. Jamie squinted, but he couldn’t see anything. He leaned forward, hoping for a glimpse of the promised miracle.

  A dark shape rose from the water, just meters away. It had a slender head with huge amber oval eyes that glinted fiercely under the glare of the next crack of lightning. Its neck was as long as the mast of a schooner. As he stared in horror, a tail arced out of the water thirty or more meters behind it and viciously slapped the waves.

  Jamie screamed at exactly the same moment as Peter.

  It was one of the few times in their lives that they had agreed on anything.

  CHAPTER 6

  Fiona loved pretty clothes. As a child she had been relegated to wearing neutral colors and simple, unadorned styles because her mother had believed it was best not to draw attention to a body so laced with scars. She had grown up in long-sleeved oxford cloth shirts and cotton slacks that hid the condition of her leg but didn’t rub, as fashionably tight jeans might have. After she had been questioned relentlessly in high school about the scars on her neck, she had taken to wearing turtlenecks under her shirts to hide even this sign that she had been a burn victim.

  She was in college before she began to question her mother’s judgment. She had been burned, but she had survived. Was there an unwritten code that, as a memorial to her past, she should dress the part of a corpse? Her first independent purchase had been a coral angora sweater with a cowl neckline that nestled just under her chin. She had bought a coral-and-brown plaid skirt to wear with it, and brown boots of butter soft leather that stopped where the skirt began.

  Her mother’s tight-lipped assessment hadn’t made the next purchase easier, but Fiona had persevered until she now possessed a wardrobe of pretty, feminine clothes that still hid the basic truth.

  The basic truth, the reality of scars and damaged muscles and joints that would never work perfectly again, must have been apparent to Andrew today. Fiona knew what he had learned when he massaged her calf and thigh. The miracle was that he hadn’t seemed to think it mattered. He hadn’t pitied her, and he hadn’t hesitated to help.

  And his eyes had glowed warmly afterward, as if touching her had been a pleasure and not an act of compassion.

  She carried that glow with her on their trip back to Druidheachd. Through a sudden storm that made driving slow and treacherous, she let that glow warm her. When they stopped in front of the hotel, she turned to say goodbye. Rain still fell, and the sky had grown dark, but she could see Andrew’s face in the softly muted glow of the street lamps and floodlights illuminating the walkway.

  “I’m glad we went. Thanks for taking me with you. And the fish and chips were great. Every bit as good as you promised.”

  “I plan to see Sara again next week. Would you like to go with me?”

  “If it’s not any trouble.” She started to get out, but he put his hand on her arm and kept it there.

  “Why would it be?”

  She frowned at him. There was evidently more to this exchange than polite clich;aaes. “Just that if it’s out of your way to bring me, or if I slow you down too much…”

  “Fiona.” He shook his head. There was both exasperation and understanding in his voice. “Is that how you think of yourself? Someone who slows down the rest of us? Is that why you did no’ tell me to slow down today when I was walking too fast? You’d prefer to suffer?”

  “I’m not a masochist, Andrew.”

  “Did I say you were?”

  “I have never preferred suffering to not suffering. Just the opposite.”

  “Then why did you no’ tell me to slow down?”

  She was embarrassed, but she knew she owed him a real explanation. He had been too good a friend for less. “I guess I don’t want anybody to think of me as different.” She smiled ruefully. “If I’m going to be different, I guess I’d like to be silently different.”

  “If you were preparing a list of words that described yourself, would different be at the top, do you think?”

  She was caught off guard. She didn’t know how to answer.

  “Do you remember earlier, when you told me that the children on the burn unit are no’ normal children?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “I think you’re correct. They’ve come through something the rest of us might no’ be able to understand completely. I can no’ minimize that. But I can tell you this, as well. None of us is normal. All of us are different in some way. And we owe it to each other to respect that. But I can no’ respect you and you can no’ respect me if we hide from each other.”

  “Is that what I was trying to do?”

  “I’ll make allowances for you if you make them for me.”

  “What could I possibly have to overlook about you?”

  “I suspect you’ll find all sorts of things if you look closely enough.”

  She found that hard to believe. Even this conversation was an example of his bone-deep warmth and compassion. “I’ll be honest with you from now on. Besides, I got a taste of what happens when I’m not.”

  He leaned forward. Her breath caught, but she didn’t close her eyes. “Good,” he said. He kissed the tip of her nose, a little-sister kiss, but still strangely moving. “And I’ll be honest, too.”

  “That means if you ever feel like I’m a burden, you won’t ask me to come along out of a sense of duty?”

  “A burden?” He shook his head. “Is that on the list, too?”

  “Good Lord, pop psych with a Scots accent!”

  “You could never be a burden. Quite the opposite.”

  She liked the sound of that more than she should.

  She got out of the car and watched him drive away, windshield wipers slapping in random bursts and tires spraying streams of water in his wake. His car had disappeared before she opened the door and went inside.

  The day had been long and tiring, and her first thought was of a warm bath followed by something simple for supper. She had warned Duncan and Mara that she probably wouldn’t be back until late, so she knew they wouldn’t expect her to eat with them. She had planned to rest before seeing them at all, but Duncan was in the lobby when she walked in.

  “Back at last, huh?”

  “Umm….” She lifted her shoulders in a stretch. “And tired. It’s a long trip back and forth. But productive. We got to visit Sara, and I read to her. Andrew did the most ridiculous magic tricks. He needs lessons, but the kids ate it up.”

  “You were gone longer than I thought.”

  “We went out for lunch. I guess we stayed longer than we’d planned.”

  “Come have a drink with me. I want to talk to you.�
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  “Has something happened?” She thought of her mother, completely alone in New York now that her only two children were in Scotland.

  “Nothing like that. I just want to talk to you.”

  She raised a brow. “That’s the voice you use with April, Duncan. Is it going to be one of those conversations?”

  “No. April’s a little young for this conversation.”

  “It’s sounding worse all the time.”

  “Then let’s get it over with.”

  She wanted to beg off, but she followed him toward the pub like a dutiful younger sister. Duncan had been her best friend for too long to defy him now.

  The pub was almost empty, an unusual event even for such an early hour. Duncan motioned her to a seat in the corner, where they were less likely to be disturbed. She had loved the hotel pub on sight, despite its resemblance to an ancient mausoleum. With its thick stone walls and slate floors, it should have been gloomy, but she only found it remarkably old, and, like Mara, history appealed to her.

  “You know, I never thought of this, but I think I like old things because anything that can survive for such a long time amazes me.” She took her seat and smiled up at Duncan. “This building will be here when you and I are dust. They’ll be serving beer and whisky here into eternity.”

  He looked down at her without smiling, and she knew what he was thinking. Survival amazed her because she almost hadn’t survived. She shrugged. “It’s a good thought, not a bad one, Duncan. Some things endure. I like that.”

  “Have you had anything to eat? Are you hungry?”

  There were always a few meals prepared in the pub, simple fare for regular patrons. She wasn’t particularly hungry, but she realized that if she ate now, she would have one less thing to do later. “Do I smell steak and kidney pie?”

  “Probably.”

  “I’ll have a little, if it’s ready.”

  He went behind the bar and filled two glasses with beer. She had learned to drink it warm, as the locals did, and she was just as glad tonight that it was, since the pub was always chilly. She rubbed her arms to warm them. Poor circulation was a problem she would have into eternity. Like the pub, some things endured.