by Cara McKenna
The little crofter’s cottage she’d passed the previous dawn couldn’t be far—two miles, tops. Sadly, the route was uphill, and her pack felt as though it were filled with cinder blocks. It hurt where the straps bound her, so badly she felt she must be bruising. Dehydration made her light-headed, lining her mouth with cotton and chapping her lips. She focused on each step, trying to lure her mind off the discomfort. Right, left. Right, left. She hummed cheery pop songs, punctuated by low moans each time a cramp twisted her guts.
“Fucking fuck.” She hugged her middle, gnashing her teeth through the latest pang.
Perhaps a mile up the hill, she dropped to her knees, toppled by the weight of the pack, muscles too spent to catch her. Her palm found a rock and was rewarded with a bloody scrape. The impact had barely hurt at all. And that didn’t feel right.
She made it to her feet, reeling.
Not even a hundred yards on, she fell a second time, tripping on a sharp outcropping veiled by the wild grass. This time it was her head that found the rock.
White flashed. The pain didn’t follow for five seconds or more, but when it did, she cried out. As the dancing spots blinked away, Merry lurched onto her side, fumbling with shaking fingers to unsnap the buckles at her waist and chest. The pack tumbled aside, feeling like half a ton of dead weight. She touched her temple. Her fingers came away red and slick.
That’s not good.
I’m going to die out here. And I’ve never even been in love.
God, that was too pathetic. Too pathetic to accept, frankly.
For a time—a minute, an hour, a day, who knew—she stared into the hard blue sky and listened to the river rushing, waiting for her limbs to re-materialize and her brain to quiet, for panic to make room for calm. When it did, she struggled to her knees and detached the plastic whistle fob from her backpack and gathered a water bottle and compass. Before striking out from Glasgow she’d bought a GPS tracker, a clip-on device that she now moved from her bag to her pants pocket. It wouldn’t do much aside from lend her a vague sense that she was still tethered to some human being, someplace. And if she perished out here, well, they might just find her before the crows did.
With that cheerful thought, she started back up the hill.
Yesterday the cottage had seemed no more than forty-five minutes’ hike. She should have come upon it by now, surely. Or was panic making a snail’s pace feel like a sprint?
But finally, after seeming hours—stone walls, red door. A tiny house no bigger than her apartment appearing beyond the rise.
“Thank you thank you thank you . . .”
A spasm of nausea curled her body. She groaned until it passed, sucking desperate breaths through clenched teeth. Her arm ached as she dug the whistle from her pocket and brought it to her parched lips. She blew. Barely a wheeze at first, but she puffed into it with every step, the cottage growing closer, closer. She’d make it. She might have to crawl, but she’d make it.
The blowing triggered a head rush, and a hundred paces from the little home, she fell to her knees again. Her temple wailed as she got back up, but something else screamed—anger. Panic. Frustration, that no one had heard her and opened the door. Had she imagined that smoke?
No, someone maintained this place. The thatch on the roof was too tame, a broom leaning against the doorframe not weathered enough to have been abandoned here. It must be a holiday cottage. Please don’t let its renters have picked yesterday to head home . . .
“Hello?” she shouted, staggering the final few yards. Her fist thumped the heavy wooden door with a rattle, compounding the ache in her arm. She pounded and shouted, the impact as weak as her voice. “Hello! Please! I’m hurt.”
An aluminum sign was hung to her left, the kind you might buy at a hardware store. No Soliciting. Too exhausted to make sense of it, she put her lips to the whistle and mustered a mighty breath just as the door swung in.
The man clapped his hands to his ears, wincing. Merry was so startled she let the fob fall from her lips. Blue eyes widened, aimed at her bleeding head.
“Hello,” she said dumbly, feeling drunk, stabbed in the guts at random intervals by the cramps, stabbed in the temple by her throbbing cut. “I may be dying. I’m not sure.”
The door opened wider. A dark-haired man was steering her inside, around a corner. Something hard slammed into her butt and legs—a chair seeming to rise up from the floor to collide with her body. She gripped the seat at her sides with both hands, convinced it was floating, that she’d flip over and tumble off if she didn’t hold tight. She wanted to lie down. On the nice, solid floor, where maybe the world would stop rocking this way. She tried to slide her butt from the seat, but the stranger stopped her, pinning her shoulders.
“No, no. Stay put.”
“I need to lie down.”
“You can’t. You’ve had a nasty knock on the head.” He crouched before her, hand still clamped firmly to her shoulder. Gently drawing back the skin above and below her lids, he peered at her eyes. “You’ve not got double vision, have you?”
“No, just a terrible headache. And everything’s spinning. And I’m nauseous.”
He continued to scan her eyes with his blue ones. Gray-blue like the lochs, and the autumn sky just before dusk, Merry mused, still feeling drunk. Cold like slate, hard and sharp. His overgrown hair untamed, like the wild heather. Whoa, deep.
The man covered her eyes with his warm hands, then took them away. “Your pupils are good.” The scent of tea sweetened his breath. God knew what hers smelled of.
He’s hot, she thought idly, a thought so inappropriate given the circumstances, she chalked it up to the head injury.
Some clarity returned as she caught her breath, and the room slowly ceased tumbling. She managed to accept a mug of cold water and emptied half of it. It seemed to douse the steam fogging her brain, though the nausea and piercing headache remained.
The man took the mug and set it on a small table at her side, crouching once more.
“Hold still.” He pushed back her hair to examine whatever damage the fall had done. She studied his face as he assessed her injury, trying to make sense of him after all these days of perfect isolation.
His stubble was flirting with beardhood, black save for a patch of silver below his lip, and she guessed he was about forty. He had a deep pair of creases between his brows and another set bracketing his mouth—stern and steely things. There was less gray in his dark hair, but a healthy streaking at his temples. His expression was hard, but whether it was his typical look or merely one he reserved for shrill, bleeding hikers who barged babbling into his cottage . . .
No matter how stern or scowly he might be, no matter if Merry was concussed, it didn’t diminish her initial assessment. He was hot. Strong nose, distrustful blue eyes. Sort of down-and-out, rugged hotness, like a sexy, desperate fugitive. Which might explain the whole living-in-the-middle-of-nowhere thing. In any case, he didn’t look like a man on vacation.
But definitely hot.
Maybe he’ll rip his shirt to pieces, to make bandages for my head.
Oh shit, I am so hard up.
“Stay there.” The man stood and disappeared into the next room.
Merry looked around. She was in a combination kitchen and den, with a wood stove in the center, shelves with pots and pans and dishes at her end, a rocking chair at the other. The space was lit coolly by the light coming through a single window.
Her mysterious host returned with a metal first-aid box and a wet washcloth. He rolled the sleeves of his thermal shirt to his elbows. “Turn your head.”
She let him swab her temple, first with water, then with some stinging wipe. “Ow ow ow.”
“That’s quite a bump you’ve got.” His thumb circled the spot.
“Ow—yes.”
“But you don’t n
eed stitches at least.” He smeared the cut with ointment and smoothed a broad bandage in place. He sat back on his heels, expression softening by a measure. “I’ve gotten tape in your hair. Sorry.”
Merry gave the dressing a faint press. “That’s okay. What about my hand?” She held it out, palm crusted maroon with dried blood.
He took it in his own hand and wiped it clean, revealing only shallow scrapes. She stared at his mouth as the antiseptic wipe burned across the savaged skin, concentrating on the tight line of his lips until the sting faded.
“Probably not worth the trouble of wrapping,” he said, letting her hand go.
“No, probably not. Thank you.”
He backed off, resting his forearms on his knees. “What are you doing out here, wandering around with no supplies?”
“I’ve got a whole pack of stuff, but I had to ditch it when I got dizzy. It’s down the hill a ways. I, um . . . Where’s your bathroom? I should know, just in case. I’m pretty nauseous.”
He stood and went to a cupboard, returning with a large metal bowl and setting it on her lap.
“Or that could work.”
“The bathroom’s not exactly en suite.”
Her bowels had settled, at least. “Thanks.”
“Has the fall made you nauseous?”
“No, I’ve been queasy since last night, and dizzy. I hit my head when I tripped.” She touched the spot.
“Have you been drinking loch water?”
“Only filtered.”
“Have you been keeping it down?”
Merry shook her head. “Not really. Not since yesterday afternoon.”
“Want to hazard some tea?”
“Sure.” Maybe something hot would trick her body into a sense of calm.
The man went to his stove, lighting a fire in its belly and centering a kettle on top. He gathered her mug plus another and a jar of loose tea, and tidied the small kitchen area as he waited for the water to steam, seeming eager to ignore Merry. When kettle finally whistled, he filled a perforated, hinged spoon with tea and snapped it closed.
“I haven’t got any milk in,” he said.
“That’s fine. I shouldn’t push it, anyhow.”
“Sugar?”
“Please. Are you sure I can’t lie down?”
“I don’t think so. Not if you’re concussed.”
“I think I’m just not supposed to fall asleep.”
“Since neither of us seems to know for sure, let’s err on the side of caution.” His tone had gone a touch sharp, and he had a different accent than the ones she’d heard in the last village she’d passed through. Not as brogue-y as folks in Glasgow or further north, but harder than the gentle, civilized tones of the Edinburgh natives she’d encountered.
As he stirred, his blue eyes seemed to ask the mug, Why? Why? Why?
Merry was chatty at the best of times, and out here, having not seen or spoken to anyone for four or five days, she couldn’t help herself. “This is all very strange. I feel drunk.”
He nodded, not looking up.
“I hope I haven’t wrecked your vacation.”
“I live here.”
Aha. “Year-round?”
“Yes.”
Damn. “Just you?”
“Just me.”
“Have you been out here long?”
“About two years.” Still no eye contact.
“Did you grow up nearby?”
“Leeds.”
“Oh, you’re English. I was like, man, what a weird Scottish accent he’s got.”
He raised his eyes to meet hers, and in that split second she imagined she could read his thoughts: Bugger me, is she going to chatter like this all bloody day?
She drummed her fingers around the bowl. “Sorry. You know, for intruding this way.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.” Not the warmest reassurance, but fine. “How’s your stomach?”
“Still queasy. But stabilizing, I think. Or maybe I’m just not so dizzy. So are you retired, or . . . ?”
“Yes, I suppose I am.”
From what? And how, so young? And why do you live like a hermit? What’s your deal? Are you a serial killer? “Well, you’ve picked a very . . .” Remote. Lonely. Secluded. Murder-conducive. “A very majestic place. To retire.”
He nodded. For a long, awkward moment they stared at each other, and Merry wondered which of them felt more confused by the other.
“My name’s Merry, by the way. Spelled like Merry Christmas.” A jolly name she’d lived up to, in temperament and, until recently, plumpness. When her host didn’t respond, the silence made her antsy. “What’s your name?”
“Rob.”
“Nice to meet you, Rob. I mean, this isn’t so nice, how it happened. But you know.”
Rob forced an unpracticed smile that suggested he didn’t find a single thing about their acquaintance in any way nice.
She plowed on regardless, dreading silence more than she feared annoying him. “I’m from San Francisco, just backpacking through.”
“On a gap year?”
“A what?”
“A break. From university?”
“Oh no, I’m thirty-one. I’m just on vacation. My mom grew up in Inverness, and I’ve never been, so . . .” She cut herself off, knowing she’d spew on endlessly if given half a chance. I just lost a hundred pounds, you see, and my mom died last year, and I have no fucking clue what I’m doing with my life or what I want, and I suspect this guy I’ve been banging ditched me for losing the weight, and I think my best friend is next. “I don’t really know why I’m walking there, to be honest. I guess I wanted a challenge.”
After a long pause, Rob submitted to the small talk with what looked like a considerable effort. “How far?”
“Glasgow to Inverness.”
He blinked. “That’s a ways.”
“I was on track to do it in under three weeks, but I hadn’t planned on contracting whatever this is. I hope it’s just some flu, from all the camping, and being so worn out. Thank goodness I noticed your cottage yesterday.”
Rob didn’t echo her relief over this point, but instead asked, “How long did you say you’ve been sick?”
“A day, for the cramps. My headache started last night, and—” No need for details. “And some other symptoms. At first I was hoping maybe it’s just that I’ve been eating nothing but dried fruit, you know?”
“And you’ve been purifying your water?”
“Religiously.”
“Have you been swimming?”
Only in every loch I’ve passed in the last two weeks. “Yeeeah . . .” She recalled all the playful fountains she’d jetted from her lips while floating on her back, and the cramps sharpened. “Oh dear.” Before she could get a fresh apology out, her mom’s voice intervened. Say thanks, not sorry. Women have been apologizing for too long. “Thank you. For the tea, and for checking my head and everything.”
He held her gaze, looking grim. “You could have crypto.”
Her stomach knotted more tightly. She’d read about crypto and giardia and all those other scary water-borne illnesses in her travel guides, hence all the diligent filtering. “If I did . . . any guess how long it’ll last?”
“A couple of days, maybe. If it’s a virus, it’ll flush itself out. But if your symptoms get worse, you’ll need to go to hospital. Could be bacteria. Then you’d need antibiotics.”
She winced. “And how far is the nearest hospital?”
“With a vehicle? About an hour.”
“Do you have a vehicle?”
He nodded. “When you feel stable, I could take you. Better safe than sorry. And a few warm nights in an inn might do more wonders than anything a doctor could pres
cribe. You could probably find a bus route bound for Inverness, from wherever you wind up staying.”
Her heart sank. She’d come so far, all on her own, just her and her two feet and the muscles she’d earned this past year. As heavenly as a bed sounded, the thought of climbing into a passenger seat to finish this mission . . . She’d already spent thirty years too many in the passenger seat.
“I’d hate to quit now. I’m less than a week away. I mean, thank you for offering. But I’d rather just rest for a day and see how I feel . . .” She waited for Rob to suggest perhaps she could stay with him for said day, but his face told her nothing. “I don’t suppose I could rest here?”
His eyebrows rose, expression souring as he stirred sugar into her mug. “What, for the night?”
“I could get my pack from down the hill—I’ve got a sleeping bag and pad and a tent. I don’t want to put you out. I’ll sleep outside. Just so in case my symptoms get any worse, I wouldn’t be totally alone . . . ?”
He’d gone blank, attention nailed to the floorboards between them.
She changed her approach. “I could pay you. I don’t have a ton of cash on me, but—”
His eyes snapped up so fast, that stare so intense she froze.
“You can have the bed. For one night. To see if you feel different come morning.”
She released a breath. “Oh.”
He tapped the spoon on the edge of the mug, then came close to set her tea at her elbow.
“Thank you. And for the bed. Seriously, though—tell me if I’m putting you out.”
“My entire life puts me out.” His tone gave her no clue whatsoever if this was a joke or not. True, though—if he didn’t enjoy roughing it, he wouldn’t have moved out here.
“Well,” Merry said, watching as he knocked the spent tea into a plastic bucket and started a second cup. “That’s very kind of you. Do you get a lot of backpackers bothering you for stuff?”
He snapped the infuser spoon closed and dropped it in his steaming mug, finally meeting her eyes.
“I don’t usually open the door.”
Chapter Three