by Ella James
Four
Declan
“It’s a pretty good life.” I smile at the little blue-haired lady who’s been standing by my table for five minutes. She’s clutching a cane that’s got a dog’s face carved up top.
“But aren’t you worried about being injured?” She shakes her head. “Those balls are thrown so fast.”
“I’m good at dodging them.” I flash her another smile that falters at the corners.
Her son, a big, burly guy standing behind her, pats her shoulder.
“I think it’s time we get on, Mum.”
“Quite right, Johnny.” She smiles over her shoulder, and I hold out an index card bearing my pen-scrawled signature. “Don’t forget this.”
She smiles, and Johnny leads her to a group of four other white-haired ladies. I toss back the last of my Guinness and turn to the girl beside me.
“I’m gonna step outside for just a second. Hold my seat?” I wink, and Dorothy beams. “Of course.”
But on the way outside, I’m stopped by a young mom and her son—this one grade-school-aged. He wants a baseball signed. I take some time for him. A few more steps toward the door, and an older man stops me. He’s wearing a plaid flat cap, his face sporting the deepest grooves I’ve ever seen. He sticks his hand out.
“Seymour, sir.”
I shake it. I can never tell how hard to go with old guys. Better to go too hard than too soft, I think, so I do that, hoping I don’t crush his hand.
“Nice to meet ya, Seymour.”
His lips twitch at the corners. “You’re my favorite.” His voice warbles.
“Is that right?”
He nods once. “Used to be my wife’s, too.”
I know better than to ask about the wife, and sure enough, Seymour tells me she passed on three years ago.
“She spotted you when you were just a rookie. Said, ‘That one’ll be a record-breaker.’”
I give him what I hope is a kind-looking smile. “Thanks for telling me that.”
He shakes his head then clears his throat. I run a hand back through my hair. “I just wanted to greet you,” he tells me, in that halting way that very elderly folks have. When I feel sure he’s finished speaking, I nod.
“Thank you. Looking forward to spending time here again.”
I get out the door, but kids are outside. These are older kids—teenagers. I see them notice me in a sort of domino effect: one then two then three, now eight, and finally a hush falls over the group. Some look down, a few grin, and one girl’s jaw drops right before her cheeks flush.
I can’t help laughing. “C’mon, guys. You’re making me self-conscious.”
That’s all it takes to break the ice. The youth of Tristan da Cunha crowd around to see my iPhone, begging me to show them videos of other Sox players, pleading for me to sign their clothes and, in one case, a hand.
The look in their eyes…especially the guys. It’s pretty sweet at first, but soon I feel like I can’t breathe. They all talk fast and loudly, desperate to impress—to impress me. Their questions never end, and that’s okay, except my hands are shaking now. My throat is dry. My head is pounding.
By the time a brown-haired woman in a pale pink pants suit walks up, my eyelid is twitching.
“Homer? Hi—I’m Mrs. Dillon, hospitality coordinator for the island. I’m here to help you escape,” she teases, in a soft, low voice.
Thank fuck she’s pretty low key, because her appearance heralds another half hour of on-air time. We get into a green Land Rover and she drives me down the road, onto another little road, and up the foothills to a little Hobbit cottage tucked into a grassy hill, under a sky of storm clouds. Inside, she shows me everything, even opening the freezer and trying out the faucet in the bathtub. I appreciate her hospitality, but when she leaves, I lock the door.
Back in the bedroom, I open my bag, fumble past some folded clothes, and snatch out one of two oversized ibuprofen bottles I’ve got rolled up in two editions of ESPN Magazine.
I wrap my fist around it, feeling lightheaded at the clattering sound it makes. Still, I walk around the house again, checking things out. I open a few windows so I can listen to the rain when it comes.
I’m okay, I tell myself. Sweat prickles along my hairline as I look down at the bottle. I want to take the top off, but not yet. If I see the shit inside, sometimes it’s too hard to hold off. I’m not due for another mini-dose of subs for two more hours. With that taper and the Valium one, I’m allowed to take a little extra—but I don’t. I didn’t bring much extra. Don’t want room to fuck up.
So far, knowing what will happen if I cave to either craving has been enough to keep me straight. If I blow through the subs or the Valium all at once, the post-acute withdrawal will be worse than it is now—and on the island, there’s no getting more of either drug.
I poke through the fridge and pantry, but I don’t think I can eat, so I step onto the patio behind the house and watch the clouds gather and burst. I lean my back against the wall and shut my eyes and feel my body tremble.
You’re okay. This is the best place for you. Good things coming.
Back inside, I force myself to eat an apple, drink some water.
The rain is really coming down now, bringing darkness early. Good. I lie on the too-soft bed and stare up at the ceiling. I laugh softly.
Here I am.
Just a few steps and I’m in the bathroom, running the faucet of the claw-footed tub.
Another few minutes and I’m sinking into a pile of minty-smelling bubbles.
I squeeze the ibuprofen bottle in my hand and grit my teeth. My chest feels hot and tight. I dry my hand off on a towel, twist the top off…peer inside. It’s the tiny Ziploc bag of papery amber fragments that gets my blood pumping: the Suboxone strips, cut into micro-doses. My hand shakes as I work the baggie’s zip-seal open. I just want to touch one of the strips. Sometimes a fake-out like that helps…something to chill me out.
I stick my fingertip into the baggie. It’s no bigger than a business card. I feel the strips. So many of them. My jaw aches as I clench it against the urge to stuff a dozen of the little fucking triangles under my tongue.
I’m not the praying kind, but I send one up.
Help me. Please.
Then I lean my head against the bathtub’s rim and breathe.
Finley
Carrying a bleating lamb down a muddy trail in the midst of a storm is quite a challenge. I couldn’t do it if I didn’t know the trail by heart. But I do, and so we’re making it.
The sky is black as night and pouring buckets, with rolling clouds that move and shift so quickly they seem supernatural. Wind blows sheets of rain across the valley out below me, turning all the dirt paths mud. Another strong gust makes me wobble, but I dig my heels into the squishy ground, wrap my little lambie baby closer, and lean my head back slightly so my jacket hood falls lower over my forehead—and I keep going. Slow and steady wins the race.
I’m shivering as I tuck the wool blanket around my bundle. I found the ewe who birthed her dead near the feed troughs, with this wee one bleating in the grass. I helped her feed from another ewe for a bit, but when the lightning started up in earnest, I knew it was time to head downhill.
I’ve got some ewe colostrum in the freezer at Grammy’s house. Also a thermal blanket. I wish I had stored those things down at the clinic, but…I didn’t. I’ll be dropping by and knocking, politely asking him if I might rummage through his freezer.
I cuddle Baby closer as I reach the ridge of rocks near Gammy’s cottage, over which I see the blurry lights of the settlement. With careful footwork, I make it past the stones, down the steepest part of the path, and into view of the house.
I see light through the windows. I hope that means he’s awake. It isn’t late, only about seven, although the storm has caused dark’s curtain to fall early.
“Almost there,” I murmur, blinking rain out of my eyes.
Baby bleats in reply, and I feel her rooting
at my arm as I clomp through the mucky grass around the cottage. I shift her weight so I can work the key into the door. Then I remember I’ll need to knock.
I raise my hand and knock three times, loud and steady. Then I shut my eyes and steel myself for that face. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—but that face. I’ve never seen a man so handsome. If I’m being honest, I didn’t realize one existed. That he’s Declan Carnegie…well, it makes my heart sore. For so many reasons.
I paste a polite smile on my face and wait, my heart tap-dancing.
C’mon, Carnegie. I know you’re in there.
I look around the stoop, searching for mud tracks or other signs of life, but all I see are my own boot-prints and shadows.
Perhaps he’s not here. Perhaps someone took him home for dinner or he’s at the pub. A fellow like him—probably the pub. Dot is pouring him drinks, and Holly’s giving him that odd look I saw her give another tourist recently; she said it’s called a duck face. Dot and Holly are both young and unencumbered. Maybe he’ll sweep one of them away, across the ocean and—
Sod off, Finley.
I knock again, a wee bit louder. Maybe he can’t hear over the monsoon. Baby bleats, and after yet another minute, I knock as if I’d like to beat the door down. When it remains shut, I chew my lip and push my key into the lock and slowly turn the doorknob.
“Declan?”
Saying his name into the dark crevice between door and doorjamb makes my throat feel like it’s closing up. But Baby bleats again, and I’m not sure what choice I have. She needs warmth and sustenance. Wee ones must eat quite a lot quite quickly after birth. We’ve already lost a bit of ground on our walk.
I push the door open and, finding the living room dark, step inside.
“Declan?”
I should shout, but I can’t seem to speak above a murmur. I’m shivering as I glance down the hall. The bedroom door appears cracked, just as I left it. The place feels still. Likely it’s unoccupied.
“Declan?” Loudly this time. When I hear nothing, I release a long breath.
He’s not here, and why would he be? The entire island wants to take him home. They’re likely stuffing him with milk tarts.
I kick my sopping boots off gently by the door, wriggle out of my dripping coat, and creep into the kitchen. I grab a few colostrum bottles from the freezer, plunk them in a pot atop the stove. While they thaw, I’ll get some blankets from my old bedroom.
I move quietly down the hall, as if he might pop up at any moment. If he did, we could be stranded here together. Lunacy. How disappointing that I’m such a base creature. One fine-looking male specimen, and it’s farewell to Godly morals and good sense.
In the bedroom, I find the quilt a wee bit wrinkled, and I wonder if indeed he was here. Surely I’d have left it tidier than that. I move toward the bathroom, Baby squirming in my arms now.
“Shh,” I murmur. “Just a moment and I’ll get you fed, dear.”
I want to dry her off and get her wrapped more tightly. Then the bottle will be thawed, and I can feed her underneath the awning on the patio so I won’t be inside should he return. After that, it’s down the road and to the Patches for me. When it pours like this, the flocks end up stranded on the foothills near the fields where we grow potatoes and graze cattle, afraid of the flowing gulches, mired in the mud, or caught in flash floods. Since Uncle Ollie hurt his back last year, it’s been my job to tend them.
I step into the bathroom, my head filled with such thoughts, and stop dead in my tracks.
Stone the cows!
He’s in the tub.
I gape down at him, sprawled out in a bubble bath. His dark head rests against the tub’s rim, exposing his thick, tanned throat. His eyes are shut, so he can’t see me as I blink down at his massive shoulders, round biceps, and thick, hair-dusted forearms.
One big fist is locked around…a bottle? As I squint, he shifts his shoulder, wincing like he’s had a long day at the nets and needs a good soak.
What in the name of the Blessed Mother?
He rubs at the shoulder, shifting his big body underneath the cloak of bubbles, and I see his thick pectoral—
“BAAAAAAAAH!”
Baby bleats, I jump, and Declan jolts up in a slosh of bubbles. He looks stunned, confused, then horror-stricken as his gaze falls to the bubbles.
“FUCK!” He bats at his lap, sloshing water all about. Then he jumps up, slapping at the water’s surface, yelling, “FUCK! FUCK! Aghh, goddamn it…”
I’m gaping at his bubble-covered bum when his hand connects with the tub’s side instead of the bubbles, making a sharp, metal sound that sets my heart racing.
“I’m sorry,” I manage.
He leans lower, shoveling water from the tub onto the floor. Then he steps onto the rug, his massive body dripping bubbles. He mutters something, spins away from me. “FUCK!”
I step back. His backside...it’s so muscular. Quite unreal, really. He turns sideways, facing the wall, his arms drawn up about his head, and I can see his—
Don’t look!
I make a noise—something like “whoawhoa”—and he whirls toward me, looking murderous. “And who the fuck are you?”
MALE PARTS! Not for long, merely an instant before my gaze leaps to his furious face. But I can feel my own cheeks burning.
“I’m sorry. I came to get—”
“How the hell did you get in here?”
“This was my Gam— err, my grandmother’s home.”
His face is pure fury: that lovely mouth pulled taut, his brows drawn down, his ocean-blue eyes narrowed with contempt.
“Your grandmother used to live here, so you thought you could let yourself inside, wander around, then into the bathroom, without knocking?”
I take another step back. I’m not looking down, but I can sense the size of it in my periphery, the way it simply hangs there, dripping bubbles on the floor.
“I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean—what I mean to convey is, I thought you weren’t home.”
He steps forward. “You knew I was staying here? And you still barged in?”
My neck and cheeks are burning, suddenly with irritation. “I knocked quite a lot and called for you. You didn’t answer.”
“What kind of person lets herself into a house where she knows someone else is staying? Even if the person isn’t home? Is that how you do things here? No regard for other people’s privacy?”
Anger stiffens my spine. “Absolutely not. I required something I could only get here. Frozen milk for her.” I hold up Baby, who bleats woefully, as if on cue.
Declan tilts his head, then makes a show of looking around the bathroom, as if to point out there’s no milk in the bathroom.
I grit my molars. “I had no clue you were here. As I said, I knocked—”
“I was asleep.”
“I knocked loudly on the front door, many times.”
“And then you let yourself in.”
“Hardly novel!” I’m surprised by the edge in my voice, more surprised to find that I feel angry and not frightened when his face tightens. “I knocked many times, as is the proper custom universally. When no one answered, I came in to get something essential. Is that a crime where you hail from?”
“Yeah.” His mouth twists. “It’s called breaking and entering.”
“I didn’t break anything. And it’s my house!”
He gives a little shake of his head. “There are Peeping Tom laws, too.”
“Excuse me?”
His mouth twists in a devilish smirk.
Shame sweeps through me as I realize what he means, followed by sheer outrage. “I didn’t know you were here! And I’m not peeping at anything.”
He shifts his stance, lifting his brows as he attempts to draw my eyes downward.
“You’re…horrid.” The ache in my chest blooms like a wound. All these years, since Prince Declan—
Baby bleats. I cradle her closer. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even have a pl
ace to stay.”
“You don’t think so?”
“What, because your last name is Carnegie?” I see a smirk lift his lips, and it makes want to pop him. “You think you’re so vitally important? Do you think we owe you something? No one asked you to come!”
“Actually, Mayor Acton begged me to visit.”
“Well he’s deluded! Baseball is an awful sport. I don’t find you impressive in the slightest!”
“No?” He looks down at himself. My eyes dip down on reflex—only for an instant before I jerk my gaze back to his face.
“You’re a pig!”
“And you’re in heat.” He arches his thick brows, as if to challenge me.
“That is absolutely vile.”
He shrugs. “You should own it. You may think baseball is boring, but you’re not bored by this bat.” A tight grin rounds his cheeks, and I struggle to use words.
“That’s repulsive as well as completely untrue. As it happens, I’m repelled by knob-heads.”
His eyes narrow. “I don’t think so.” He points to his chest, and I glance down in horror. I can see the hard points of my nipples through my blouse.
Stricken beyond coherence, I whirl and fly into the kitchen, where I start tossing frozen milk bottles into a canvas bag. Baby bleats her hunger. I’m shaking with fury.
“Rushing out?” I hear him say behind me.
“Jump off a cliff!”
“I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway.” I hear a sigh-like sound. “Why don’t you sit down there for a minute? We can start this over.”
I whirl. “Sod off!”
I hate myself for how my eyes peruse his body—clad now in a towel—before I brush past him, setting Baby on the floor so I can jerk my boots and coat on.
I feel him watching from the doorway between den and kitchen. When I’m dressed to go, I grab a blanket off the couch, scoop Baby up, and grab my bag.
“Try to stay dry,” he calls.
I stick up my middle finger as I stomp out the door and into the storm once more.
