She clicked her tongue and grimaced. “We’d best leave now before they find out I added the laxative to the soup as well.”
With a sly grin, the dishwasher helped us make our escape out the back.
Callum and Aidan had disappeared, probably to toast their old friendship. To my surprise, I felt a twinge of regret about my aborted date. Still, I had accomplished my mission, if only partially successfully. I shuddered to remember how Li had offered Antoine a taste of her soup. Before long, she would be forced to beat a hasty retreat to O’Farrell’s Guesthouse.
Bri’s medicine chest was both famous and infamous, containing drops, salves, and pills for any malady known to man. To me, it had always seemed like a magician’s closet, but for Charlie, it was confirmation that Bri was really a witch who flew over Frankfurt each night while we slept. It seemed to me now that eight-year-old Charlie hadn’t been too far wrong.
We cautiously stepped outside into a dimly lit backyard. Rain fell in sheets. The wind had knocked over several dustbins and was whipping across the pavement, as if intending to clear up the mess it had made with a celestial high-pressure cleaner. The awning offered no protection at all against the icy downpour. All I wanted was to return inside at once, police or no.
I spun around, but the door had locked behind us.
“Shoot!”
I rattled the doorknob in desperation. Bri hung heavily on my arm while at the same time trying to light a cigarette. Within seconds, my composure collapsed like a house of cards.
“Bri! Lose the cig and stand on your own goddamn feet before I let this storm blow you all the way to Shanghai.”
“Good for you! I never knew you could curse,” my aunt cackled over the howling wind. She waved a soggy cigarette in front of my nose. “This one’s had it anyway.”
Staring at the sad slug of tobacco, I wished Aidan was there—Aidan, who knew how to handle things, who made me feel safe.
But he was off distracting Callum, maybe even sweet-talking the police officer, and our only choice was to hike down to the village and hope to find a charitable soul. I closed my eyes, trying desperately not to cry, and heard Bri’s voice as if it was coming from far away.
“What do you say we get in Mr. Murray’s car before we drown out here?”
I squinted into the rubbish-strewn backyard, and indeed, there was the green truck—lights on, engine running. Aidan jumped out and ran towards us, leather jacket pulled over his head.
“Miladies ordered a taxi?”
Something happened to me in that moment. Aidan took Bri’s arm and helped her to the truck while I huddled against the building, paralysed with surprise at the fluttering in my stomach. So that’s what everyone was always talking about.
He gives me butterflies, Josefine, hundreds of them, an entire army! I could hear Charlie’s voice, see her arms thrown wide like one of those idiots who jump out of planes for fun—Charlie with an otherworldly smile on her face. She was fearless, sure she’d live and love forever. She was like this every time she fell in love. But Charlie’s romances were like clockwork. Heartbreak would follow, sure as Grandmother’s five o’clock tea. Each and every time.
“Josefine? Are you coming?”
I looked up in a daze. Aidan was patiently waiting, oblivious to the rain that glued his shirt to his chest. He was freezing—I saw it in the way he tensed his shoulders—but didn’t seem to care. I was all that mattered to him at that moment.
As soon as we were in the truck, I impulsively reached for Aidan’s hand, but let go just as soon as I’d grasped it. His skin felt warm despite the cold.
“We should probably wait for the police officer,” I said in a low voice and turned to the back seat, where Bri was already snoring, her mouth hanging open. “I don’t want you getting into trouble for helping us.”
“The policeman already left.” Aidan’s face gave nothing away.
“Why?” I asked, surprised.
“Well, good old Officer Bell owed me a favour.”
He looked almost sheepish sitting there with his strong hands wrapped around the steering wheel. How could I ever have assumed he didn’t work with his hands?
Because you’re a lousy judge of character, Josefine—especially when you’re personally involved.
“I’ll find out one of these days what kind of shady business you’re involved in, Mr. Murray. All of Kincraig seems to owe you,” I said. He just shrugged. “Come on, what’s your secret? Did you divide a lottery win among the populace? Do you bribe them all with baked goods?”
“No, Mrs. Stone. It’s just that I was the boy in school who was really good at maths,” Aidan replied, putting the car into first gear.
We were soon greeted by the warm light of the O’Farrell Guesthouse. Hank, his ears pricked up, sat waiting for us on the top step of the porch. He didn’t bark, but his brethren in the shed started up a racket when they heard the truck. A man shouted something and the dogs immediately fell silent. A window slammed shut and an almost magical quiet spread across the front garden.
“That’d be Uncle Angus,” Aidan explained. He rested his arms on the steering wheel and gazed at the dashboard.
“The one with the trout?”
“Trout, dogs, geese—creatures great and small.”
We were silent for a few moments before I hesitantly unbuckled my seat belt. “Well . . . thank you very much for helping us. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“My pleasure!” His voice was warm, but he avoided my eyes.
My heart beat faster. Was it possible that cocky Aidan Murray felt self-conscious—because of me? I stared at his lips and felt a wild urge to kiss him.
“All right. So, then, I’m going to haul my trashed aunt upstairs.” I groped for the door handle.
I had to get out of this car pronto before I did anything I would regret. It was bad enough that the thought of kissing him had crossed my mind!
“I stay in the boathouse down by the lake, about two hundred yards from here,” Aidan said calmly. “If you take the trail behind the shed, you can’t miss it.” He looked up. “Just in case you need me.”
Just in case I needed him. His words reverberated in my ears, morphing into a salacious offer that made me blush.
“You’re too kind, Mr. Murray,” I stammered, and had to avert my eyes. I touched my ring, desperate for support. “I don’t think I—”
“For crying out loud, can’t you speed it up a tad? I need to go to the little girls’ room. And by the way, I am not trashed, Frau Solicitor—a little tipsy at most.”
At that moment, I would gladly have stepped into a snowstorm to create a mile-wide distance as fast as possible between Aidan Murray and my wildly beating heart. I breathed a panicked “Goodnight,” leapt from the car, dragging Bri from the back seat, and stumbled up the staircase with her.
This time, Hank mercifully let us pass.
One look was enough for Finola to know what was going on. She gracefully helped me lead Bri to the second floor, guided her to her bed, turned on the heater, and asked whether we needed anything. When I shook my head, unable to say a word, Finola just patted my arm gently and dragged Hank behind her, who had followed us and settled next to Bri’s feet.
My aunt slumped on the edge of the bed while I changed her out of her wet clothes.
“Li looked so happy,” she mumbled, screwing up her face as if she was about to cry.
Just seconds later, curled up like a puppy, she was fast asleep.
I ran the entire way. I ran until I stood in front of the porch of the warped wooden boathouse and remembered that I had to breathe. My heart was beating much too fast and my ribcage hurt. Rain streamed off my hair, over my chest, down my back, and into my one remaining shoe. I had lost the other somewhere on the slippery trail—maybe that was the first price I had to pay.
Aidan knew I would come. I realised this when he stepped out of the darkness of the porch, crushing the soda can he had nursed while he waited. H
e left it on the porch and edged towards me like you would approach a shy woodland creature. He stopped a few respectful yards away, in case I needed to flee.
And I wanted to. I wanted to escape from the silent statement in his eyes that pierced my skin.
You are here.
My chest expanded to make room for my heart. If this sensation shattered me, I would never be able to reassemble the parts into a safe and sound whole.
Yes, I’m here.
“The thing is . . .” I shouted against the wind, pulling frantically at my rain-soaked dress.
“You’ve lost a shoe, Cinderella.” For the first time, he used the informal “du” in our German conversation.
“What’s happening is . . .” I tried again, even louder, in the absurd hope that volume would hide my nervousness. “I really don’t know why I’m here, but you”—after starting with “du” I switched to the formal “Sie”—“I . . . Aidan . . . Mr. Murray . . . God!” I stamped my shoeless foot and grimaced.
Pebbles. Small, sharp pebbles cut into my soles to punish me for coming here.
“The least formal works for me,” he chuckled.
“It’s not fair!” I yelled, raising my hand with Justus’s ring. “I’m engaged. I’m here looking for my cousin because she stole a family ring I have to wear when I walk down the aisle because of my grandmother, who . . . Oh, it doesn’t matter!” I had a feeling that my face was as big a mess as my words. “Anyway, I need the ring to get married. And then you . . . then you show up . . . and you aren’t only handsome, oh no!” My voice cracked. “You’re also kind and funny and helpful and give me compliments. So, okay, at first I found you insufferable. And, actually, not everything you say is nice. I’ll probably never forgive you for that stunt you pulled when you drove away from me, but . . . you like my glasses. You call me a thistle—whatever that means. When you look at me, it makes my head spin. I’m supposed to be on fire? I mean, who talks like that to a stranger? Are you saying I’m not capable of . . . Because, if I want to, then . . .”
I am here and I don’t care what happens tomorrow.
Aidan was standing directly in front of me, so close I would only have to reach out to touch the irresistible dimples hidden beneath his stubble.
“What exactly do you want, Josefine?”
I knew that he already had the answer to that question. I finally dared to look him in the eye and chose to pretend that Aidan was as insecure and afraid as I. Yes, Aidan, the ladykiller who’d undoubtedly stood right here in the rain with countless other eager women. To imagine he was scared too made everything easier.
Butterflies.
You were wrong, Charlie. There aren’t hundreds of them.
There are thousands.
Our fingers intertwined and I let him pull me towards him, tenderly.
“Show me how to catch fire,” I whispered.
“No, mo chridhe—my heart,” he said. “I’ll show you what it means never to let the flame die.”
That’s when I lifted my chin to be kissed by Aidan Murray.
Just got home and found your note on the kitchen table. What the hell are you doing in Scotland? Call me immediately or at least text. Tried your phone and pager. Justus. P.S.: I love you.
10
If I’d had my wish, I would have kept reality out of that room forever, locking the door with chains and padlocks so it could never get in. Behind my closed eyelids, I replayed vivid snapshots of the night before.
Aidan’s skin, golden in the light of an oil lamp—the dragon tattoo writhing on his back as we struggled to get even closer than we already were—sweat, gasps, stammered words . . . I meticulously stored each memory. Every sound, every touch, every kiss. I even memorised my sore lips and the exhausted ache between my thighs. They, too, were parting gifts.
I knew that Aidan was no longer there even before opening my eyes to the sunlight that fell through the shutters and threw wrinkled circles of light on the sheets. I should have been disorientated, waking up in a strange place, a strange bed. But I knew exactly where I was—exactly where I shouldn’t be.
I stared at the white ceiling for a few minutes as reality crept in slowly but relentlessly, bringing along with it unwelcome friends.
Guilt. Shame.
I had cheated on Justus, and my treacherous body had enjoyed it like stolen fruit from a forbidden garden. What was worse, I would do it again, over and over if possible.
I scoured myself for the expected remorse, but found none. How was that possible? And how could I feel so dejected and so outrageously happy at the same time?
I turned on my side and winced. Something had stung me. A small thistle was sticking up between the pushed-together mattresses. Aidan had left a folded note on his pillow. The handwriting was undeniably beautiful.
You looked so peaceful that I didn’t want to wake you. I went to see my old man. The coffee maker is on and milk is in the fridge.
P.S.: At the risk of getting slapped, you look almost prettier when you’re asleep—even though you sleep with your mouth open.
I dropped the note like it was hot, then stared at it from a safe distance. What was I going to do? I felt like a passenger who had just missed the last flight home from an airport at the end of the world.
Home. What was my home? Where was it? Was it the sky-blue townhouse in Frankfurt’s West End, with the designer kitchen I had almost never used?
Was it Villa Meeseberg, the family homestead, which I loved dearly, but where I couldn’t seem to breathe anymore?
Was it the chaotic house in Bad Homburg where I’d grown up, but which felt as distant from me as my parents did? It had been that way since elementary school, when they looked at each other in amazement because the ambitious little person I was seemed almost not to belong to them.
I went to the boathouse’s tiny kitchenette, rifled through the cabinets, and found a mug adorned with a bellowing stag. Pulling the bedsheet tighter around me, I listened to the coffee machine gurgle, feeling as if a trapdoor had opened under my feet.
Why did I feel this way when I had accomplished so much? My life spread out in front of me like one of my bulleted to-do lists, a stellar portfolio of competence that I could proudly present to the von Meeseberg family. Look—here is your model daughter, showpiece granddaughter, pride and joy of a grandniece. I always had excellent grades and graduated with honours on more than one occasion. My lawyerly behind sat in an ergonomic leather desk chair from which I earned a six-figure salary. I had savings, investments, and several life insurance policies.
And very soon I would marry a sensible, successful man who wanted a family and who was my equal in navigating polite society, where, over drinks, you established business friendships and made important small talk and donations to charitable organisations while a nameless server circulated with hors d’oeuvres.
I sipped my coffee and walked through the apartment. The coffee tasted just like it should—hot, black, and bitter.
Framed photos were lined up on the sideboard that stretched along a window overlooking the lake. When I picked up the first, I had to smile. It wasn’t difficult to recognise the boy, splattered with dirt and missing an incisor, proudly hunched on an old motorbike, his arms barely long enough to reach the handlebars. Another photo showed Aidan, about twenty, next to a much younger, slighter version of himself. I turned the frame around and read the smudgy note.
“Aidan and Ian, 2002.”
“So you’re Ian,” I muttered, scrutinising the pale face with soulful, dark-brown eyes. I felt strangely close to Aidan’s brother right away.
In a larger family photo, I recognised Finola O’Farrell. She was flanked by two men who towered over her like protective giants. One of them, a bearded, serious-looking man in dungarees, held her hand. The other was wearing a suit and had an air of great dignity about him. His hand rested on Aidan’s shoulder, paternal and possessive at the same time. Ian stood to the side and seemed to be looking at something beyond the frame. O
ne got the impression they’d begged him to smile for the photographer—only to find out later that he hadn’t.
Maybe I was wrong. After all, it was a photo, not a personality test. But I couldn’t help thinking of our own family portrait that hung in Grandmother’s sitting room. Charlie’s funereal expression was a perfect match for Ian’s.
“A young, great love, so full of hope. The two are made for each other,” Li had said at the family meeting about Charlie’s disappearance. Suddenly, it felt like an entire lifetime had passed since then, not just a week.
A love so full of hope.
It had sounded like a meaningless cliché. But then Aidan came into my life.
Should I really risk it?
My heart was pounding in my chest and I started to sweat.
The mere thought of abandoning what I had worked towards for years and completely changing my life knocked the wind out of me. Charlie’s face appeared in front of my eyes. I was sure that she hadn’t hesitated for a second. She gave up her studies and turned her back on Frankfurt to be with the man who apparently loved her as much as she loved him. I, on the other hand . . .
I gently put back the family photo and picked up a frame that was lying face down.
It took a few seconds before I understood what I was looking at, seconds during which reality found its way through the locked door and slapped me across the face.
After what felt like an eternity, I raised my head and looked through the picture window. The pier dissolved in the distance, where sunlight glittered on the lake. The rain had gone at last.
I slowly counted to twenty and forced myself to breathe while I let go of the previous night—for good. Then I finished my coffee, left the mug in the sink, and got dressed.
I left Aidan’s note on his pillow, but in an inexplicable fit of sentimentality, stuck the little thistle into my pocket. It pricked my finger again, as if in protest. Before I closed the front door, I cast one last look at the photo gallery and felt almost relieved.
Kissed by the Rain Page 14
