Under a Storm-Swept Sky

by Beth Anne Miller

  “Next time,” he said, handing me my shirt.

  I checked that everything was where it should be and slipped the shirt over my head, tugging it down to my hips.

  Now for the fun part. I picked up my clean panties so that I wouldn’t have to ask him to hand them to me.

  No longer needing to cover my chest, he lowered the blanket a few inches. “Okay, go for it.”

  “Don’t let go of the blanket.”

  “I won’t. But if you could be quick, that would be brilliant.”

  He kept his gaze fixed on something—or nothing—over my shoulder as I peeled off my wet panties, shimmying as I had with the shorts to get them off my butt without jostling my knee too much.

  “Okay, I’m going to stand up. Just, like, stay close.” I held the blanket around my hips as he pulled me up. I shifted most of my weight to my left foot and anchored the blanket around my waist as if it was a towel. “Can you hold my arm?” I asked.

  He nodded and took my upper arm, steadying me as I eased my right foot into the leg of my panties, and then I leaned on him and slipped my left foot through. “Okay, if you could take my arm again, and just look over at the sea for a second?” He obediently shifted his eyes and I yanked the panties up, maneuvering awkwardly under the blanket. “God, that was an effort.”

  “Tell me about it,” he muttered. “Have a seat before you put on your pants, and let me see your knee.”

  I re-tucked the blanket around my hips and sat on the rock once more. He carefully prodded my knee, which looked less swollen than it had before. He glanced at his watch. “It’s too soon for more ibuprofen, but you can take some before you go to bed.” He retrieved the ACE bandage and wrapped my knee, then handed me my sweatpants. “Can you manage these yourself?”

  I nodded, and while I pulled them on, he picked up my wet clothes and began laying them out on some large, flat rocks to dry. Including my underwear. “Hey, I can do that,” I protested.

  He looked up at me, his eyes wide and incredulous, my panties clutched in his hand. “Seriously?” he drawled, his accent thicker than usual, “you had no problem with me seein’ you wearin’ them, and no problem strippin’ them off six inches from my face, but you don’t want me spreadin’ them on a rock to dry?”

  “It’s different,” I muttered, feeling foolish. “You weren’t touching them.”

  “Aye, well, holding your wet underwear is not as titillating as you seem to think it is,” he said. He wrung them out, slapped them on the rock with the rest of my wet things, and went into my tent, returning with my fleece. “Put this on, and sit here in the sun to warm up.”

  He handed me the fleece, and then stripped off his shirt, wrung it out, and spread it on a rock, then strode back into the water without a backward glance, wading out until he was waist-deep. He turned to the right and began swimming, as if a leviathan were chasing him.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a similar outlet at the moment. All I could do was sit on my rock.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rory

  I swam until I could barely move my arms. And all the while, I couldn’t clear my head of the images that flashed by like some dirty slideshow.

  No, not dirty, not Amelia. Beautiful, feisty, stubborn, sexy as hell. When I’d knelt before her in the tent to help her with her pants—I didn’t think I’d ever been so turned on. It had taken every ounce of strength in me not to kiss her. Judging by the look in her eyes, she might even have kissed me back.

  And then that ridiculous scene after we got out of the water—why the hell hadn’t I just let her get changed in her tent? I was some kind of masochist. I pictured her in my mind, stripping off her wet shirt and shorts and sitting before me in her navy bra and underwear like a goddess. Are you ready? I’d asked her, not realizing what I’d said until the words fell out of my mouth. Her lips had parted, her cheeks had turned pink, and I had held my breath, hoping—afraid—she would say yes.

  When she’d protested me wringing out her wet underwear—as I’d known she would—I’d nearly said that while handling them wasn’t sexy, seeing her in them had nearly killed me.

  I needed to get her out of my head. She’d put her trust in me to help get her through this trek. Taking advantage of her—even if she might not slap the shit out of me for doing so—was not part of the deal.

  And I still haven’t cooled off, I thought as I emerged from the water a few hundred yards down from where we were camped and trudged down the beach.

  What the hell had I been thinking, to agree to this? And how the hell were we going to get through the next few days, just the two of us?

  When I reached the camp, Amelia was sitting right where I’d left her. I pulled my towel from my pack and dried off, uncomfortably aware that she was watching me.

  “You swam for a long time.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t get in my usual amount of exercise today,” I replied, knowing it was a dick thing to say, but spoiling for an argument. To my surprise, she didn’t answer, and I looked up.

  Her face had gone pale, and she didn’t meet my gaze. When she spoke, her voice was small. “You must regret offering to help me. I’ve messed up your whole routine—and saddled you with a helpless girl who can’t even manage to undress herself.”

  Damn it. A wave of shame swept over me. I knelt before her. “I’m sorry, Amelia. I shouldn’t have said that about the exercise. It’s not even why I swim. And I don’t regret offering to help you.” She did look at me then, one eyebrow raised. “I don’t. It’s just…different…from the way I usually do things, and it’ll take some getting used to.”

  “If you say so,” she said.

  “I do.” I pushed myself to my feet. “Give me a minute to change, and then we can get dinner going. It will be good for both of us to turn in early tonight. Oh, and Amelia?” She looked up, that lost expression still on her face. I needed to make that go away. “I think you did a pretty damn good job of undressing yourself. But maybe practice will make perfect?”

  The light came back into her eyes, and her lips curved in a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  A few minutes later, I poured boiling water into Amelia’s beef stew pouch and my chicken stir-fry. We sat on two boulders side by side to eat.

  “So why the Skye Trail?” I asked after a few minutes.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I’m just wondering why an American lass who’d never been to Scotland would choose to do the Skye Trail.” Amelia looked down, absently swirling her spork in the stew without actually eating any of it. I laid my hand on her arm, and she raised her eyes to meet mine. She looked…hollow, and I immediately regretted bringing it up. “I’m sorry. We can talk about something else.”

  She smiled slightly and shook her head. “No, it’s okay. Sometime last year, Carrie did one of those at-home DNA kits and found out she was 30 percent Scottish, which she hadn’t known.”

  I gaped at her. “How can you not know you’ve that much Scottish blood?”

  She let out a surprised laugh, her eyes sparkling with humor. It lit up her whole face, and made me…want things I had no business wanting. “What’s so funny?” I mumbled.

  “The horror in your voice. Like, you can’t imagine anything worse than someone not knowing she’s Scottish.”

  “Och, no, I cannae think of anything worse. We Scots have oor pride, ye ken,” I replied, purposely exaggerating my accent, since she’d seemed to like it when I’d done so before. She blinked, her cheeks going slightly pink. I cleared my throat. “Anyway, go on.”

  “Um, right. She didn’t know she was Scottish because it was on her maternal grandfather’s side, and he died when her mom was very young, so it never came up. She wanted to know more, so that led her to do her family tree, and found that her family lived on Skye in the early nineteenth century before emigrating to New York.

  “And that’s what led to her wanting to see Skye. I suggested we do a trip to Scotland for our college graduation. We could s
ee castles and men in kilts—what?”

  “So you fancy a man in a kilt, do you?”

  “I mean, is there anyone who doesn’t? Do you have one?” she asked, her eyes lighting with interest.

  “Aye, of course I do. The Sutherland tartan is a forest green and navy blue with red, black, and white.”

  “Do you ever wear it?”

  “I’ve worn it to a few weddings, but it’s really just for special occasions. I don’t have it with me, if that’s what you’re wondering. It’s not exactly practical for the trail.”

  “I guess not, but it doesn’t cover much less of you than the shorts you’re wearing, does it?”

  “If I’m just standing around, no. But if I were to trip on a tree root and fall arse over teakettle while wearing it, you’d see quite a lot more of me than if I was wearing shorts, if you know what I mean.”

  Her gaze immediately dropped to my lap, and I realized I’d made a tactical error with my flirting, because her stare was so intense it felt like I was naked, and my body was reacting accordingly. I needed to get this conversation back on track. “What else were you planning to see in Scotland?”

  Her eyes snapped up, and her face was even redder than before. “What?”

  “Castles, kilts—what else?”

  “Oh, right. We wanted to see the scenery, drink whisky, stuff like that. Carrie was all for it, but there was this weird gleam in her eyes as she’d paged through the guidebook I’d bought. A few days after we’d started planning, she came to me with this ‘great idea.’”

  “Let me guess. She wanted to hike the Skye Trail.”

  Amelia nodded. “Yeah. It was totally out of left field. I told her I thought we were planning to do a road trip. She suggested we come for two weeks and spend one of them hiking. She had all the info on Scotland By Foot printed out for me to see. God, she was so excited about it, raving about how awesome it would be to hike Skye,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “I totally shot her down. I’m not a hiker. There was no way I could do something as mountainous as this trail. And definitely not for a week. She insisted we had plenty of time to train, but she wasn’t getting it. It wasn’t just that I didn’t think I could do it…I didn’t want to. I hated hiking.”

  “Did you tell her that?”

  “Yes. And I felt awful about it. But a few days later, she had a new plan. She’d go to Scotland a week before me and do the trail. Then I’d meet her after, and we’d do our road trip. I was so happy, because it meant she didn’t have to give up the hike she was now dying to do, and I didn’t have to hike eighty-whatever miles across the Isle of Skye. It was the perfect solution.” She looked up at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “Until I nearly got her killed.”

  That despondent look in her eyes was one I’d seen in the mirror far too many times. I got up and gestured to her rock. “Scoot over,” I said to her.

  She looked at me questioningly, but shifted over. Taking a chance, I sat down and slung my arm around her shoulder. She stiffened at first, then melted against me with a shuddering sigh.

  I held her to me, breathing in the scent of the shampoo she’d used that morning. “I’m sorry for asking you to talk about Carrie.”

  “Don’t be. I just miss her.” She raised her head from my shoulder and looked out at the sea.

  “For what it’s worth, you may not have started this trail as a hiker, but you became one pretty damn fast.”

  She turned to me, her eyes wide with surprise. “How can you say that? I went—how did you say it?—arse over teakettle just a few hours ago.”

  “Yeah, but injuries happen to all of us. I’ve had at least one hairline fracture in my ankle—possibly two. Plus countless sprains and muscle strains. It’s just the nature of constantly being out on the trail. Before you took that tumble, you kicked Old Ben Tianavaig’s ass.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Aye, I really do.”

  “Thank you for saying that,” she whispered.

  We passed the rest of the meal in silence. Amelia started to get to her feet. “What are you doing?”

  Her face turned pink. “I, uh, need to pee.”

  “Let me help you,” I said. Her face turned more pink. “I mean, let me walk you over there.”

  “I can do it,” she said. I just raised an eyebrow, reminding her of her promise to follow directions. “Fine,” she huffed.

  I handed her the trekking poles and helped her to her feet. I walked her to the “pee spot,” not holding on to her, but staying right by her side in case she lost her balance.

  When we got there, she turned to me, her eyes narrowed. “You’re not going to hold on to me while I pee, are you?”

  “No, unless you need me to.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Her tone clearly said that she wouldn’t ask for my help under any circumstances, so I held up my hands and backed away. “I’ll be just over there. Shout when you’re ready to walk back.”

  I wandered far enough to give her privacy but stayed within earshot. A few minutes later, she said she was ready.

  The walk back was slow. She stumbled at one point, and though I caught her before she fell, I could tell that she was just done. I picked her up, poles and all, and carried her back to the campsite. Her complete lack of protest was the truest indication of how exhausted she was.

  I helped her lie down on her pallet with her leg elevated, gave her more ibuprofen to swallow, then zipped up her sleeping bag.

  “Try to get some sleep, and if you need anything—especially an escort to the loo—just yell. Don’t try to wander around in the dark by yourself, even if you feel better. I’ll wake you around eight.” I started to push to my feet, but she caught my hand. I looked into her pain-filled, troubled, exhausted eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “How am I going to do this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This!” She waved with her other hand, encompassing the tent and the world as a whole. “I needed you to carry me because I couldn’t walk fifty feet.” She closed her eyes in defeat. “How am I going to do the rest of this trek? There’s no way,” she said, her voice small.

  I tightened my fingers around hers. “Hey, look at me.” I waited until she complied. “You and I will do this, together. No matter how long it takes. For Carrie.”

  Tears welled in her eyes, and she nodded. “For Carrie. Thank you,” she whispered. Her voice was shaky, but her lips curved in a small smile. She squeezed my hand and then let go, burrowing deeper into her sleeping bag. “Goodnight, Rory.”

  “Goodnight, Amelia.”

  I ducked out of her tent and zipped it almost all the way up, leaving a small opening so I would hear her if she called out.

  I checked the campsite, making sure everything was secure for the night, then looked in on Amelia one last time. She seemed to be asleep, her sleeping bag pulled up to her neck, one hand tucked under her chin.

  She might loathe me at times, might want me at others, but none of that mattered now. She trusted me to get her through the Skye Trail, and that’s what I would do, even if it killed me.

  Which it just might.

  Chapter Twenty

  Amelia

  I didn’t sleep well, since even the slightest shift of my leg resulted in shooting pain that jarred me awake. And by six a.m., my bladder made it abundantly clear that if I didn’t get up now, things would be bad.

  I rolled to my left side and pivoted so I was on my good left knee and both hands. I reached for a trekking pole and planted it, then gritting my teeth so hard I was afraid I’d break one, I got my good foot under me and dragged myself upright.

  I paused for a moment to catch my balance, then limped outside. The sky was gray and heavy, which didn’t bode well for the day.

  I hobbled the few feet to Rory’s tent. It was zipped only partway, as mine had been. I peered inside. He lay on his back, his sleeping bag shoved down to his waist. He was asleep, his jaw relaxed and grazed with dark stubble
that I knew would look coppery in the sunlight.

  One muscled arm was under his head and his other hand rested on his bare chest, and because that wasn’t goddamn sexy enough, he’d also fallen asleep reading. There was a book on his chest under his hand. The pages looked soft and a bit dog-eared. It was clearly an old favorite. His hand was blocking most of the cover, but I could see part of it, and I knew it well.

  It was The Fellowship of the Ring. I literally thought I might swoon. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was in my top five movies of all time, and I loved the books as well, had written several papers on them in college.

  Rory loved that book enough to carry it around with him to read in his spare moments of downtime? It made me want to crawl in there and snuggle against him like a cat. Go on, I dare you, said Carrie’s voice in my head.

  Don’t tempt me.

  The insistent pressure in my bladder reminded me why I was there gawking at him. He’d said to wake him if I needed to pee, and he’d also said not to walk in the dark. But he looked so peaceful, and since it wasn’t dark outside, I would manage on my own. I’d have to walk several miles that day; if I couldn’t make it fifty feet by myself, I might as well pack it in now.

  It was slow going, but I made it to the trees and back with the help of my poles. I returned to the campsite and gingerly lowered myself to “my rock” to wait for him to wake up.

  It was silent, as if the ominous clouds were muffling the rest of the world. Then, as I watched, the sun broke through the bottom of a cloud, golden rays of light hitting the water below. If someone had asked for my interpretation of “God,” I would have shown them the scene before me.

  I wasn’t particularly religious, generally just going with my folks to synagogue on the High Holy Days and celebrating the holidays, but sitting on this quiet beach in the early morning, with those perfect beams of light shining through the cloud, it was easy to believe in something.

  I closed my eyes and raised my face to the sky. Please let Carrie be okay. Please don’t punish her for my mistake. Please let me be strong enough to get through this trek. And please let Rory find some peace from whatever haunts him.