David lifted an ear bud dangling from its cord, “I was running.”
“From what?” Iona was ready to claw, she was hungry because of this man, she was now muddy and probably bruised because of him too. She stepped around him and began walking back to the house before her bad temper exploded all over him.
“Let me walk you,” David ran to catch up.
“I can walk just fine on my own.” Iona picked up her gait. “Don’t let me keep you from your run.”
She could feel his presence next to her though she was trying to keep herself from looking.
“I didn’t take you for an early riser,” She spit the words in his direction but still refused a glance.
“Yeah well…” He was wearing running clothes she could tell from a glance at his feet. She’d hardly looked at him, she’d been so intent on getting away.
Iona turned a quick eye toward David and just as she did she slipped on a patch of wet leaves and nearly fell all over again.
David’s reflexes were faster this time and he held onto her torso. Iona looked up at his face. He was sweating heavily, his hair soaked with sweat. His shirt clung to his body and she could see the outlines of muscles underneath.
“I’m fine,” She pushed herself away from him.
“Your welcome,” David smiled.
Iona adjusted herself and stared at the man in front of her. She wasn’t sure why but he made her nervous, put her on her guard. She’d met very few young men her own age and certainly none that looked like this one.
“What sort of things does one need to be able to do as a bodyguard? Running through the fog I suppose?”
“Well,” David lifted his eyebrows and took a breath. “Observation I guess,” He looked at her to see if she was in earnest but she kept her face placid and he continued. “Being able to assess situations and threats. Knowing exits, that sort of thing.”
“…And if someone was a threat, what would you do? What sort of skills do you actually possess to defend me?”
Iona crossed her arms and watched as a sly smile crossed his face. She cocked her head, annoyed and not at all charmed by the smile.
“Have you saved anyone’s life then?”
David seemed to consider her question then raised his shirt. Iona opened her eyes wide not understanding his gesture.
“Two lives, and two messy scars…”
When she let herself look she saw a deep scar that ran along the side of his ribcage and another at the top of his chest.
“Someone did that to you?” Iona had a strange impulse to touch the scars but moved her hands to her own sides.
“Yes, someone did.” He pulled his shirt back down and turned back toward the castle. This time Iona had to catch up.
“The man you saved… was the man you talked about, the one that recommended you to my father?”
David didn’t respond but looked Iona over from the corner of his eye. “I suppose with a bow and arrow in your hand you could be pretty dangerous yourself.”
“I suppose I could be,” Iona was only slightly gratified by the quasi compliment. “Do you know how to shoot?”
“A gun?”
“A bow.”
David laughed, “No. Not in the least. Would you like to show me?”
“I’d be curious to see what your aim is like,” Iona smiled back. There weren’t many things but this she was sure of.
The two walked back, Iona with mud all over her black trousers, and David with his tee-shirt suctioned to him with sweat. Iona’s stomach growled loudly when they’d reached her archery park and she was happy to think of David getting partially frozen from the cold air hitting his sweaty clothes.
“So you just set the arrow,” She picked up her bow and placed the arrow. “Pull and aim,” She pulled the bow back until she could feel it on the skin of her cheek. “Release,” The arrow went straight to her target.
“That easy?” David took the bow from her and she handed him an arrow when he’d gotten adjusted. He mirrored her movements impressively well and she felt a pang of excitement as she always did when she got to shoot with someone else.
David released the arrow. It went wide, far too wide.
“You missed Hank,” Iona began walking forward to find the lost arrow.
“Hank?”
Iona pointed at her target dummy, “Hank.”
David nodded. They found his stray arrow at the base of a tree a good ways off course.
“A little practice maybe,” She handed it to him. “You can keep it as a souvenir if you like.”
David exhaled, “To remind me of my humiliations?”
“Not such a bad thing to remember, is it?” She smiled, delighted at the way his shooting had gone.
“Let’s do it again,” He looked at the piece of weaponry in his hand.
“Ok,” Iona looked at Hank then walked away from her dummy. “We’ll use the regular targets this time. Maybe you can get on the board.”
They walked back and this time there was no tutorial. Iona lifted her bow and arrow then quickly released, the bow finding its mark directly in the center.
David took the bow from her and his hand grazed hers.
“Your skin,” She reached and felt his hand again. “You’re boiling.”
David raised his shoulder and placed his arrow.
“Are you feeling well?”
He pulled back, aimed slightly to the right this time, then released. The arrow found at mark on the board.
“Very well, indeed.” David smiled.
“Not bad,” Iona looked at the arrow for a long moment. Her elation at his previous failure quickly sizzled out. “You should probably get some rest.”
“I’ve had plenty of rest.” David turned to Iona. He handed her bow back to her then turned into the castle.
Iona stood for a long time looking at the target. She thought briefly about setting herself up another time but put her tools down instead. She brushed her fingers absently against the skin of her hand.
Chapter Three
David was in better spirits after his morning trials. He hadn’t dared shoot again in front of Iona least his arrow take off for another tree.
He showered, changed, and went back downstairs with smells of a solid Saturday breakfast wafting up to him.
“Did you sleep well?” Coll asked David over his newspaper. Jinx must have brought it with him from the main land, no way a newspaper was ever delivered out here.
“Quite, thank you.” David was ready to pounce on the dining room but opted to take his cue from Coll.
“You’ll want to eat up today, the Lawrence’s don’t come on Sundays so Iona usually scrambles up breakfast. Lettie is a much better cook,” Coll stood as he folded his newspaper into neat crisp lines then placed it on the side table next to his chair.
“With a smell like that I’m not sure I could help myself.”
“What do you think of our little Island?” Coll stood in place and David had to rein himself in from thoughts of the dining room.
“It’s beautiful.”
“And my daughter?”
David shifted as his mind sifted through answers, “Quite a family resemblance.”
“Good, I would like you to think of me when you see her,” Coll smiled and began walking toward the smells.
“You mentioned that your leaving Scotland was a story for another time,” David followed behind Coll, thrilled to see a buffet set out on a side table. It would be a much better way to gorge himself without asking Jinx for repeated helpings.
Coll picked up a plate, “I did. It’s simple really. Our family shared some bad blood with another clan.”
“So you left?” David didn’t picture Coll as the running sort.
“For Iona, yes.” Coll placed two pieces of toast, eggs, and ham on his plate. “I had two brothers, they were both killed then… her mother,” Coll stopped his movement and David noticed a slight tremble from Coll’s hand. “Her mother’s murder was too much.”
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Coll turned and took his plate to the table. David used the absence of the other man to add a few extra heaps of ham, sausage, eggs, and toast to his plate. Someone who didn’t know better, would assume David a man half starved.
“Iona is all I have left. The most precious person in the world to me now. I would do anything for her.”
David turned and found Coll looking at him with hard eyes.
“Like move to an Island off the coast of Maine and never let her leave?”
Coll’s jaw flexed, “Including that.”
David set his own plate down before filling his mug from the carafe of coffee.
“It’s not so terrible, you know? The Island is beautiful and Iona has a very nice life.” Coll leaned forward onto the table.
“I didn’t say it was terrible.”
“What’s terrible?” Iona walked into the dining room, her hair trailing wildly behind her.
“The Maine weather,” Coll smiled brilliantly at his daughter. She didn’t seem to buy his transition but didn’t call her father out on it either.
David’s skin grew hot at the sight of her. He wondered what had made him show her his scars that morning. Was he showing off? It wasn’t like him, he never did things to get a reaction from people, and he had never shown anyone those scars before.
He stabbed at his food and took a large bite of egg, ham, and toast.
“You must be famished Iona, off to bed with no dinner.” The upset Coll had shown only moments ago was replaced with affection for his daughter.
Iona walked around the table with her plate and placed it down across from David.
“I had even thought of it,” Iona said sitting in front of her plate.
David looked up, her plate was towering with just as much breakfast as his own. He smiled at the sight of it then took another forkful of food before Iona could notice.
Chapter Four
There was a rocky shaking of the plane and Iona grasped the armrest and closed her eyes. It would be too much to die in a plane on her first trip anywhere.
“It’s normal,” David’s voice came from across the aisle. “Just a bit of turbulence. We should be landing soon.”
Iona looked at David and tried her best to smile. Tried her best to believe him. Her father sat next to her snoring softly, completely undisturbed by flying through such a rocky voyage.
“Flight attendants, prepare for landing,” The pilot’s voice came over calm and unperturbed. Iona watched the seatbelt light flick on, she double-checked her own.
She’d been in a state of constant knots and nerves since leaving the Island. It was amazing to her that David and her father both seemed so easy going through security at the airport. She had frantically taken off her shoes and pushed her carryon luggage through the screening station. Movies didn’t usually show that particular part of flying and it had left her unprepared.
The plane glided into the Toronto airport.
“Oh,” Iona gasped as the plane hit down with a dramatic thud. First class seats did not, after all, mean a smooth flight.
“What’s that?” Coll woke up with a start then looked out his window. “Oh, we’ve landed.”
Iona laughed at her father and with relief at landing on an actual runway and not in a field after the engines had given way.
Walking through the airport Iona could barely keep her eyes in front of her long enough to walk a straight line. There were so many people to see, so many places and different things to eat. The various smells of cleaning supplies, teriyaki bowls, and strong perfumes overwhelmed her senses.
“We’ll follow the signs for baggage claim,” David pointed to a sign above them. Iona moved closer to the two men who flanked her on either side. As much as she’d protested David’s presence she was glad for it now.
The baggage carousels seemed complete chaos to her. People everywhere looking for their life in a bag.
“Wait here, David and I will get the bags,” Coll said to his daughter. Iona nodded and moved off away from the fray. She leaned back against a wall and watched her father and David move away from her and into the masses.
Every sort of person was in the airport. She’d seen them all on TV or in movies but never in real life. A fashionable Japanese family with designer bags hanging at each woman’s arm, an Indian man with a turban, two young men with floppy hair and ragged looking clothes. She hadn’t heard one other person with her father’s Scottish brogue and the flight attendant had asked Coll to repeat himself more than once. It was all a bit much to take in at one go.
Iona looked around until she found two eyes looking back at her. She immediately dropped her gaze and looked in the other direction. But when she looked back, the man was still staring at her. Iona tried to look occupied with the screens showing which carousel had luggage from which flight. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed another man joining the first. Instead of the man being interested in his companion the two now looked at Iona together.
She felt her face turn red and hot, she’d never been stared at by a perfect stranger. She brushed a hand over her hair to make sure nothing was awry. The man was tall, at least as tall as her father, the first had reddish blonde hair and the other was almost bald but showed signs of once having had a very normal head of thin brown hair.
The first man motioned with his arms and Iona looked surreptitiously for the person the man was motioning to. Her gaze fell upon a third man. She watched as the third man, with the same reddish blonde hair, looked around.
The man’s eyes fell on her. Iona picked up her carryon and moved away from the men into the crowds of people. Why had Coll and David left her? Wasn’t David supposed to be her bodyguard? What was the actual point of a bodyguard after all if not to guard her body?
Iona walked the long way around one of the carousels in the direction Coll and David had gone. She pushed through people and looked back to see if the men were still watching her.
The men had moved. She turned a full circle looking for them but saw no one with reddish blonde hair. Iona turned back.
“What are you doing? I went to look for you and you’d gone.” David was in front of her.
She was surprised to notice how upset she’d become by this small group of men.
“There were strange men looking at me,” She realized how ridiculous the words sounded the moment they were out of her mouth. “I… I was going to look for you. Why did you leave me there?”
“Who?” David looked around just as Iona had done.
“I don’t see them anymore.” She felt silly, like a child who had been having a bad dream.
David looked at her then moved to the side and put a hand at her lower back.
“We have the bags, we’ll meet your father outside.” He nudged her gently forward and Iona pulled away from his hand.
Iona did not look for the men when she’d made it outside. Instead, she lifted her archery bag, specially made her most prized possessions, and got in the waiting car.
The sun streamed through the windows of the large SUV as they made their way through traffic.
“Are you feeling ok?” Coll turned in his seat to look at Iona.
“I’ll be fine as soon as we stop driving,” Iona had felt waves of nausea on the plane. Now, in another moving vehicle, her stomach was surging once more.
“We’ll be there soon. I thought we’d do dinner somewhere special, to celebrate.”
“I haven’t won anything yet,” Iona smiled at her father’s optimism.
“Yet,” Coll smiled back.
“Actually,” Iona swallowed down another wave of nausea. “I think I’d like to stay in tonight if you don’t mind. To rest for tomorrow.” Iona didn’t want to admit that the constant influx of new experiences was leaving her zapped of energy.
“Of course, we’ll order in.” Coll patted Iona’s knee then turned and began looking through his phone. Everyone had a phone, except Iona… and what would she do with one if she did?
Coll h
ad rented a house for their stay. She knew for a fact that he normally stayed in the best hotels when he travelled, so this decision had been solely for her. Only a day before she would have complained that she wanted to experience a fancy hotel, wanted to go out to a restaurant, and to see the city, but now she just wanted a quiet place where she could breathe again.
PARANORMAL ROMANCE: Pregnant by the Dragon Shifter (Shapeshifter Protector Pregnancy BBW Romance) Page 2
