Signs of Love

by Skye, Harper

  “Like this…” Zach nodded out the window to the beautiful land all around them.

  “Yeah,” Ailsa nodded. “This…” She nodded out the window at the adventure that they were having together. “And this…” She nodded at the way their hands were clasped together.

  “Oh sweetheart.” Zach released her hand for a moment and brushed his palm against her cheek, against the pain creasing the corners of her eyes.

  “It’s okay,” she said, finally meeting his eye. “They’re just thoughts.”

  “I’m here.” Zach said, taking her hand again and increasing his grip.

  “I know.” The truck had almost slowed to a stop. “Keep driving,” she reassured him. “I want to see this so-called Last Train to Nowhere.”

  “Sure?”

  “Sure.”

  Forty miles outside of Nome, rising out of the grasses of the tundra were the remains of several train engines that stood like lost souls slowly rusting away. They had been shipped all the way from New York City during the gold rush of the early twentieth century, Ailsa had read. It had been part of a great dream to connect Nome to the rest of Alaska. But then a huge storm had taken out much of the train track and at that point the train engines had simply been abandoned. Now they were like ghosts. Beings that had been built to travel great distances, but were now condemned by circumstance, a lack of railway track and a vast amount of rust, to stand still forever.

  As they came into view at last, Ailsa felt her eyes widen. The enormous rusty train engines slowly sunk into the earth. They were creatures of modernity looking so out of place against the timeless landscape of grasslands and mountains and lakes that changed so slowly no human eye could perceive it.

  They really were the most amazing sight. Fucking hell, Ailsa thought. The Last Train to Nowhere. If this wasn’t a metaphor for her life over the last few years, she didn’t know what was. But she wasn’t going to let it be her future. Looking over at Zach’s profile, she gave his hand a squeeze and watched as a muscle in his jaw twitched and his eyes crinkled into an easy smile. She had gotten off her train to nowhere, and she was holding tight to the man who had shown her how to live again.

  Chapter 35

  As the plane took off from the small airport in Nome and climbed higher into the wide Alaskan sky, Ailsa looked down at the tiny town that faced the immense body of the Bering Sea. It was so isolated you couldn’t even get to this place by car. And that’s where she would leave all her doubts behind, Ailsa decided, gripping her hands into fists. She would not let the trauma of her past fuck up her present any more. She had already decided — she was going to stay in Alaska. Even if it scared her shitless. Even if she knew she really didn’t deserve Zach or the love he was offering. She was going to try. Try to stay and make a life with this man sitting next to her. The man who made her happy.

  Fuck it! She thought. I’m happy. Maybe the bear means something. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s just a stupid dream. Anyway what has the universe and all its signs done to help me these last four years of hell? What good did it do the night of the accident?

  Fucking universe and its bloody fucking useless signs. She silently glared out the window and shook her head. Then she turned in her seat and settled in against Zach’s shoulder. He looked up from the book he was reading and kissed the top of her head, without knowing he was giving Ailsa just the answer she needed.

  Ailsa was determined to start creating her life with Zach in Fairbanks. The day after their return, she found herself kneeling on the floor of the bedroom trying to sort through her piles of clothes when she heard Zach step into the doorway.

  “I don’t want you living out of your bags anymore,” he announced.

  Ailsa looked up at his tall body leaning against the door frame. His jeans hung loose at his waist and hugged his muscular thighs. His black teeshirt pulled slightly tight across his chest, and there was a relaxed power to his arms as he brought one hand onto his hip. God he was sexy sometimes. Ailsa bit her lip, stifling a smile.

  “I’ve got a chest of drawers out in the corner of the workshop. It’s almost finished, just needs a few hours work. I could bring it in for you.”

  Ailsa looked down at the shirts and jeans and socks sitting in half-hearted piles on the carpet of the bedroom. It still looked like she was visiting for the week, when she had actually been living in Zach’s cabin for months.

  “Okay,” she nodded at him, her wide mouth pulling into a smile.

  “Yeah?!” Zach’s face immediately brightened.

  “If it’s not too much trouble…” she added, getting to her feet.

  Zach reached out for her and pulled her waist into him. “It’s not too much trouble,” he said, smiling as if she had made some joke. He brought his arms around her waist and reached down to take her mouth in his. Immediately Ailsa’s mind was consumed by him, his tongue winding its way gently into her mouth. He wanted to love her. He wanted to take care of her. And Ailsa was determined to let him do both.

  Her mind, however, seemed to have different ideas.

  Darkness. Lights. Crash.

  Ailsa could feel Zach’s arms against her, breaking through her dream, and she gasped and opened her eyes to the deep greys of the Alaskan night. She could still feel the stifling feeling of being trapped in that dark car. She could still hear her own screams as she called their names again and again. Cait…Jon…Fraser…Caitriona…

  Ailsa gasped for breath, trying to pull herself back into this reality where she was safe in bed with Zach holding her in his arms.

  “You’re okay…” She heard Zach murmuring against the side of her head as he held her.

  Ailsa brought her hands up in front of her face, trying to rub away the cobwebs of the dream. Finally a deep breath came and she looked over at the clock. 3.30am. This was the second night in a row she had been woken by the nightmare. Reliving the crash had been a part of life these past four years, but usually the dreams came no more than once or twice a week.

  Ailsa swung her legs off the side of the bed and stood up. “I’m going to get a drink,” she said trying to sound normal, trying to sound okay.

  She pulled on her robe and walked down the hall to the kitchen, flicking the switched for the low cabinet lights to come on. Filling a glass with water she turned around to see Zach standing beside the kitchen island. “You didn’t have to get up.”

  Zach didn’t reply. He walked over and got a glass of water for himself and then stepped around the island to straddle one of the bar stools. He had pulled on a white teeshirt, Ailsa noticed. She tipped the glass to her mouth again, letting the cool water run down her throat. She must have been screaming. Her throat felt raw. “I’m sorry…”

  “What for?”

  She looked up from her empty glass to see his warm brown eyes on her. “I don’t know. Waking you up at 3.30 in the morning. Being a fucking mess…Everything…” She shrugged.

  “Ailsa…” he pushed himself away from his stool and came over to her. For a moment he paused, looking down at her from his height, and she felt small standing in her bare feet on the wooden floor. Small and full of so many cracks. “I don’t know what to say when you do that.”

  She felt his rough hand surrounding the side of her face as he gently brought her gaze upward. “You didn’t cause that accident. It was a fucking terrible thing that happened to you. Now you have nightmares about it. I’m here because all I can do is be with you and love you through it. Being sorry, there’s no place for that here…” He shook his head tenderly at her.

  “It’s not getting better,” Ailsa whispered. “Maybe I’ll always be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Broken.” She felt herself choke on the word.

  “You’re not broken. You’re in pain. Deep wounds heal very slowly sometimes love.”

  “Yeah…” She rubbed her slender fingers against her face, and she wasn’t sure whether it was to clear her head or hide her face. She looked up.

  �
��It’s just a bad week,” Zach reminded her. “You’ve been here for a long time now, and it’s not always like this. You’ve had a lot of weeks here where you didn’t have any bad dreams at all.”

  She tried to shake her head dismissively, but her mind echoed with the memory of her internal conversation with the universe. She had told it to fuck off. And now it was coming back at her with a vengeance that couldn’t be denied. Ailsa could see in the way Zach’s brown eyes slightly narrowed that he suspected there was something else she was holding inside, but he wasn’t going to push her.

  “It will get better,” he said after a moment.

  “What if I keep waking you up, though? This week, next week, next month. What if it never stops. It’s been four years, Zach. It might be easy for you now because you haven’t been dealing with it that long but…”

  “No!” Zach’s voice was firm and came from low in his chest. “No Ailsa.”

  “No what?”

  “No to what you’re thinking.”

  “What am I thinking?”

  “You’re thinking I will eventually leave you if this goes on. That I’ll stop loving you if you keep having your nightmares and keep waking me up. You’re thinking my love for you has these kind of conditions.”

  Ailsa crossed her arms over her chest, and she wasn’t sure whether it was in defiance or in an attempt to protect her heart.“Doesn’t it? Doesn’t all love?”

  “There are a few conditions,” he admitted, his voice gentler again. “I won’t share you with another man. I won’t live a hundred thousand miles away from you…But even then…” he paused and then shook his head. “I’m not sure. I think I’d probably still love you anyway.” He bent slightly so he was looking directly into Ailsa’s light blue eyes. “But I will not stop loving you because of what happened and how it affects you. I will love you on your good days and your bad days and your worst nights Ailsa McKenzie.”

  Ailsa looked into his brown eyes. The gold flecks shone out in the low light. The muscle in his jaw flickered as he looked at her with the greatest tenderness.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m absolutely one-hundred fucking percent sure,” Zach said firmly, bringing his forehead against hers.

  Chapter 36

  Two days later, and two more nights of car crash dreams later, Ailsa found herself driving into town. She needed to go see Pete, she had decided. Fuck these fucking dreams! She said again to herself. I won’t let them get to me. I’m moving on! She would go in and talk to Pete, see if he had been serious about taking her on as an apprentice. Maybe she could get some kind of work visa? Who knows? But after the barrage of haunting dreams, Ailsa needed to get something solid under her feet, make some decisions about building her own life in Fairbanks.

  She was just stepping out of her truck, pulling her long hair back into a knot, when a woman stepped towards her in the parking lot. Ailsa recognized her. It was the same dark haired woman who had been so cold to her the day she had first tried to find The Raven Coffeehouse. The same woman who had come into Pete’s music shop behind her when she had arrived with her broken bow.

  “I hope you’re not planning to stay around here.” The woman’s dark hair was thick and glistened in the sun. Her dark eyes were rimmed with perfectly traced eyeliner, and her full lips were a gorgeous shade of darkish red.

  “What?” Ailsa felt like she had suddenly shrunk three feet in front of this beautiful woman who was standing so confidently before her.

  “I just hope you’re smarter than you look,” the woman replied offhandedly.

  “I think you must have me confused with…”

  “You’re that English girl shacked up with Zach, yeah I know who you are,” the woman replied.

  Ailsa felt herself bristle. “Scottish, actually. Who are you exactly? I’m afraid I don’t…”

  Again the woman cut into Ailsa’s sentence before she even knew what she was going to say. “Just a word of advice from a woman who has learned the hard way. Don’t trust him.”

  “Who Zach?”

  “He’s gorgeous, I know.” The woman shook her head and her thick dark hair rustled against her shoulders. “He’ll make you feel like you’re the only one. I can see it in your eyes. He’s done the same to you. Told you all the shit you’ve wanted to hear for so long from a man. Told you he’s never felt like this before. Told you he loves you.”

  Ailsa could feel the color draining from her face.

  “But he doesn’t,” the woman clipped. “Take it from someone who knows. He’ll draw you in and just when you’ve let your guard down, he’ll get bored of you and find some other pretty young thing to play his game with.”

  She wanted to say something. She wanted to strike back with some witty comment. But she was so tired from not sleeping that her mind moved through a fog. All she could feel was her hands growing cold and her mind emptying of all thought.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Ailsa shook her head, finding her voice at last. “But I think you’d better go…”

  “Oh honey, don’t know who I am? I’m his fucking ex-fiancé. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…” she added lightly, as if she had just done Ailsa a public service. Then the woman turned on her heels, and Ailsa listened to the tap of her boots along the sidewalk.

  When she had gone, Ailsa looked down the street towards the music shop. Then she bit her lip and got back in her truck. Not today, she murmured to herself as she started the engine. Maybe tomorrow. But not today.

  Driving home the trees rushed past Ailsa’s peripheral vision, but she was lost in a whirlwind of thought. The most overwhelming of which was how beautiful the woman had been. Her thick dark hair had made Ailsa’s pale waves seem thin and stringy, and Ailsa continually ran her fingers through the tangled strands as she drove. The woman’s makeup had been immaculate, her lips full. Ailsa glanced at her wide mouth in the rear view mirror and frowned at her face that seemed too pale, her lips too thin, her eyes too simple. The woman had been striking. Ailsa was just…herself. Plain. Makeup-less. Not striking.

  Why hadn’t Zach told her he had been engaged?! Was it true he had really told that woman some of the same things he had said to Ailsa and then just dropped her?

  Suddenly Ailsa felt really far away from home. She remembered that she hadn’t known Zach very long. Could she really rely on him? How well could you really know a person after only a few months?

  Ailsa looked down and eased her foot off the accelerator. She was going way too fast. Breathe! Calm down! She told herself sternly. What would Rob say about you? Ex’s aren’t exactly the most reliable source of information about a person!

  She knew a kind of pandora’s box had been opened and a seed of doubt had sprouted a few roots that would inevitably grow in her mind unless she faced them. But her lack of sleep had made her mind so foggy Ailsa was finding it harder and harder to judge the seriousness of a thing. Her mind felt skittish, unpredictable and untrustworthy. Which made it almost impossible for her to know what to do.

  “So what did Pete say today?” Zach asked later that evening as he carried their dinner plates to the table.

  Ailsa had let him cook, but she wasn’t hungry. Her stomach was heavy with worries. So she just shrugged. “We didn’t really get to talk about it today. I’ll probably go over to the music shop again tomorrow.”

  “Hmmm,” Zach said looking up at her with his mouth full of chicken and rice. “What happened? Why couldn’t he talk today?”

  Ailsa tried to busy herself with her plate of food. “It’s fine. I’ll go tomorrow.” She shoved a piece of grilled chicken in her mouth so she could stop talking.

  “Okay what happened?” Zach sat up straighter and pushed his plate slightly away from him. Ailsa could feel him staring at her. And she could feel how difficult it seemed to meet his eye. “You’ve been quiet all evening.”

  She was going to have to tell him eventually. Ailsa sighed and looked up at him across the table. “I ran into someone today on t
he street before I got to the music shop. She said she was your ex-fiancé.”

  “What!?” Zach’s voice was almost a shout. “God damn her, will she not let it go!” He cursed as if to himself. “What did she say to you?!”

  “It doesn’t matter…” Ailsa was already regretting saying anything. She should have just dismissed the woman. Or worked through it herself. But of course she would have had to tell him eventually. Ailsa knew she could never lie to Zach.

  “It matters to me!”

  Ailsa wasn’t sure she had ever seen Zach angry. He was angry now though. His eyebrows were creased, and his brown eyes blazed a color she had never seen. His hands were spread wide across the table, and his breath was huffing in his chest.

  Ailsa must have frowned at him because Zach suddenly brought his hands off the table and leaned back in his chair.

  “Sorry.” His voice was still full of anger, but Ailsa knew it wasn’t directed at her. “Just…start from the beginning. Where did you see Maddison?”

  That was her name. That woman. Maddison. Ailsa hated how she felt thinking of that beautiful woman. She hated how her mind immediately filled with images of her and Zach together. He had kissed her. He had slept with her. She had been here, in this cabin. She had slept in his bed. The one Ailsa had started thinking of as ‘theirs’. Ailsa brought her hands across her face and rubbed her eyes, trying to clear her head.

  “I don’t know…I was parking the truck to see Pete and she just walked up to me. She knew exactly who I was.”

  “Yeah well she would know who you were, Ailsa…” Zach started. And Ailsa knew he was right. Although it looked like a fairly big place, Fairbanks had that small town feel. People would have seen her with Zach many times by now. She would have seen Zach dropping her off that first day outside the music shop. That’s why she came in, Ailsa realized feeling stupid. She followed me in. And I had no idea.