Carried Away

by Jill Barnett

  She stared up at him through blurred eyes that couldn’t really see anything but her dumb old tears.

  “You are crying,” he said, as if she had disappointed him.

  She spun around them, and ran out the door, dragging the dress with her as she ran down the hall. She didn’t stop until she was inside the dark bedroom with Graham. She closed the door and leaned against it, her breath catching for a second.

  Graham was still asleep. She could tell because he hadn’t moved. When her eyes adjusted to the dark she could see his even breathing.

  Her brother never cried for their mother or their father. Graham never had nightmares and went to sleep just because he was told to.

  She stood with her back pressed hard against the door and she looked around the dark room. It was so very quiet, the way the air was before those cold strong storms that came sometimes.

  There was nothing to be afraid of. No monsters lived in the tall closet with the mirrored doors. No snakes or alligators were hiding under the bed so they could bite her toes.

  But still she was afraid. She crossed the bare floor quickly, just in case, then she crawled on the bed. She lay her head down on a feather pillow that was cold with the chill of the room. She didn’t use the sheets and blankets to cover her. Instead she wrapped her mother’s pretty green dress over her.

  If she tried really, really hard she could remember her mother. She could see her dark red hair and hear her laugh. As she lay there very still and quietly, she began to smell her mother’s scent, so faint and far away at first, the way it was sometimes when she tried to picture her mother’s face. Like she almost had to chase after the image to remember.

  But the smell of her mother was there, just like all those memories of when they were happy and were still there. Somewhere. Or was she losing those, too? It was then, with the faintest scent of lavender around her, that Kirsty cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter 20

  “Guess who holds thee?”—“Death,” I said. But there,

  The silver answer rang . . . “Not Death, but Love.”

  —Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Amy was going to die.

  Once the little girl with the gun had appeared, everything happened so fast. The gun went off; Amy went in the water. When she resurfaced both the girl and Georgina were gone. It was as if the sea had just reached out and swept them away.

  Her parents must have told her a thousand times when she was growing up: if you’re lost, stay in one place so someone can find you. But she never had been lost or separated from them. ’Til now.

  So she had stayed in one place for the longest time, watching the cave fill up while she waited to be found. Now she realized that the only thing that had found her was the rising tide.

  She spotted a single starfish on the wall behind the lantern. It clung there the same way she clung to the rock ledge. Alone. Even the black crabs were long gone. Water glistened from the cave wall in front of her like mirrors reflecting a kaleidoscope of what her short life had been.

  She wondered if drowning was an easy way to die. If it was instant. Did people really sink to the bottom? Would she look up and see a dark cloaked figure floating toward her? She couldn’t quite conjure up a mental image of Death approaching her with a sickle gripped tightly in one white hand and the last breath of her life held in the other. Was dying alone the best way? Or the worst way?

  If Georgina were still there she wouldn’t be alone. But Georgina wasn’t here. Amy felt certain that Georgina wouldn’t abandon her, no matter how brittle she tried to be. Amy trusted her.

  Besides she had heard Georgina call her name. She could be lost out there somewhere. She could die, too. But the Georgina Bayard she knew wouldn’t let a little thing like the Atlantic Ocean defeat her.

  Amy looked out at the sea, wondering if she had any of Georgina’s nerve within her. She wished she was a better swimmer. She took a deep breath and tried to climb out of the water. Her heavy skirt and the constant cramp in her side stopped her. No matter how many times she tried to pull herself up, she just couldn’t find the strength.

  She suddenly regretted all those doughnuts she’d eaten. They sat in her stomach like a tub of mud and made her side ache terribly whenever she even tried to swim a stroke.

  She gripped the jagged and slippery edge of the rock ledge and looked out at the cave entrance. The water was so high she could only see a sliver of mist; it floated like sea smoke.

  The lantern sat on the ledge near her hands and still flickered weakly. One more inch of water and the wick would be out.

  She propped an elbow on the rock, rested her head on it for a moment or two, and tried to calm herself. Her heart was thudding fast. Her breaths were shallow and hurried. She was just plain scared.

  She bit her lip hard and slowly tried to pull herself along the rock toward the entrance, afraid to let go. Afraid not to.

  Calum MacLachlan swam through the cave entrance a second later, a lonely figure making steady, methodical strokes that cut through the water easily. One more stroke and his head came up and turned toward the light while he treaded water.

  His spectacles were gone and his black hair was slicked back like a sea lion’s. Light from the fading, sputtering lantern cast the sharp angles of his cheeks and strong jaw into hollow shadows. Water clung to a deep smudge of thick beard stubble that made his jaw and cheeks look like they were dusted with coal.

  Amy looked into that darkly handsome face of his and felt a nervous mixture of fear and thanksgiving. How strange he was to her, this man who had kept hollering to his brother that he didn’t want her. Yet he had fully expected her to go willingly into his bed. She had been scared of him then.

  She was scared of him now. Until he moved closer with an intense look of relief that surprised and confused her. Before she could speak he was next to her in the water. One large hand reached out and cupped her jaw and cheek as tenderly as any lover’s touch she could ever dream up.

  “You’re okay.” For a moment she wondered if she had imagined the wealth of emotion she’d heard in his voice. In those two words.

  It had been so long since she had heard that kindness and protectiveness in a man’s voice that she couldn’t respond. She thought of her father, the only man she had known who had loved her for herself. It was a difficult memory for her and thinking about him had brought tears to her eyes.

  Calum MacLachlan mistook those tears for fright.

  “I know you hit me with the glass because you were frightened. Don’t be. I won’t hurt you, lass. I give you my word.”

  She stared at him.

  The look he gave her fell over her like magic. “I’d sooner cut out my own heart.”

  That was the last thing she’d expected to hear from him. Common sense told her she should be quivering with fear. His arm slid firmly around her and he pulled her to his chest, which was warm and real and made her feel safe.

  “Will you trust me?”

  She looked at his face, really looked at it, and saw nothing there to be afraid of. His expression was full of only honest concern for her.

  He was waiting for an answer.

  She nodded, and none too soon either, because just a moment later a shallow wave drifted in and the lantern went out.

  It was suddenly black. She inhaled sharply; it sounded loud inside the dark hollowness of the cave.

  “I have you, lass. I’m going to turn away. Put your arms around my neck. Let my back support you. All you have to do is hold on. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” She locked her hands around his neck. He touched her fingers for a second, gave them a reassuring pat, then he swam out of the cave.

  A few strokes and she took a breath of cold foggy air, then lay her head on his shoulder in exhausted relief while he continued to swim, and that was how Calum MacLachlan saved her life.

  Chapter 21

  Advice would always be more acceptable if it didn’t conflict with our plans.

  —Ne
w England proverb

  Georgina was still locked in the bathing room. She prowled the room the way a caged animal did. Animals had a natural instinct to keep moving, so when the opportunity came they could act in an instant. She would be ready if the moment came when she could escape.

  So she was thinking and walking, because there was nothing else left to do. She thought about John Cabot, about her home, and all her plans. Her stomach wound into a tight knot.

  One rash and stupid act by the MacOaf and she was on the verge of losing everything. He’d taken everything she had been fighting to save and put it just out of her reach. She punched a fist into her other hand as she walked. She had to get back. She had to.

  If she could return before too much time had passed, she could make an excuse about her disappearance.

  What kind of excuse? She paced again, thinking of lies. She stopped and struck a pose she thought she liked. She cast a quick glance in the mirror on a wall.

  Too stiff.

  She rolled her shoulders back and raised her chin to an elegant and confident level.

  Much better. “Why, John, dear!” she said with a swipe of a raised and elegantly graceful hand—the same gesture used to greet guests you wanted to impress. “You won’t believe what happened!”

  She froze in that stance for a moment before her posture crumpled. Then what could she say? She wandered around the room in a circle, thinking.

  What to say? What to say? God knows she could not tell the truth. She could just see his face. “Well, John, dear, you see this enormous Scot came and snatched me away, then locked me in his home.”

  She’d have no reputation left. Her reputation was all she had. John Cabot would never marry her if he knew she’d been kidnapped. That would be just too scandalous.

  She had to escape, come up with some excuse. Perhaps she could tell him she had gone after Amy Emerson. Yes, that would work.

  Two women alone. That took care of a chaperon. She nodded. Then she could come up with something heroic to work on John’s sympathy. She would have to repair the damage to his ego. After all, she hadn’t shown up to meet him. Heroism was good for sympathy. Sacrifice and all that sappy rot would certainly work. He was, after all, a man. Men respected heroism.

  Within a few minutes she had her plan, complete with the sympathy element. She rubbed her hands together, then crossed over to the woodstove in the corner of the room and warmed her hands and feet.

  The room had slick slate floors that were icy when you didn’t walk on the rug. She looked around her. The room was surprisingly large and convenient.

  There was plumbed water and taps. A surprise. She’d thought of these coastal islands as backward, places that only had one-room fishermen’s shacks filled with dead fish and dust. Outhouses and earth toilets. Rickety moorings and wrecked pieces of ships.

  A large copper water vat stood in the corner near the stove, and pipes snaked out if it and ran to the sink set in a knotted pine cabinet and onto the huge porcelain-lined tub.

  There was a linen closet she had first thought was a door to an adjoining room. Inside the closet were thick bathing towels stacked in a neat orderly fashion, every one aligned with the next.

  Considering what she had seen of the house, which wasn’t much, she’d thought the place was a huge sty. But this room was spotless. The house seemed to be a strange mix of mess and order.

  But right now, to her, it was just a prison. She felt too blasted helpless, unable to do anything but pace the room and think. She wanted to act, not think. She wanted to get away. She wanted to get home.

  She stared at the locked door for a long time, then searched the room for something to jimmy the lock. As she looked around she caught a reflection of herself. The image was enough to make her cry—if she were one to cry. She wasn’t.

  She jerked a hairpin from her hair and spent the next half hour bending it and twisting it and trying to make it work like a key. Finally she placed a hand on her back and straightened stiffly. She glared at the door, then at her reflection before she jammed the pin back into her hair where it was about as useful as an empty purse.

  She stood there trying to think of something to do. She was cold. And she should just take a bath. It would certainly warm her up.

  But with her luck, MacOaf would come strolling in. She eyed those water pipes to see if she could loosen one and conk him on his fat head. But after a few futile tries there was no way to get any section of the pipe loose.

  Exhausted and angry, she gave up and just sank to floor. She sat there, her chin resting in one hand while she mentally called down inventive curses on Eachann MacLachlan’s arrogant, handsome, and overly large head.

  She had just wished that all his great-grandchildren would be horned when she got bored and started counting her bruises.

  Twenty-seven on one leg alone.

  With a groan from her tired and sore muscles, she creaked upright, pretending she didn’t have too many bruises to count. She crossed the room.

  At the sink, she turned on a spigot and bent down, using her hand to help her drink. She finished, wiped her mouth, then reached out to turn off the faucet. And froze.

  A second later she was laughing with wicked glee.

  Chapter 22

  Love starts when another person’s needs become more important than your own.

  —Anonymous

  Somewhere high up in Heaven there had to be a big golden book that explained why people fell in love for no intelligent reason. Amy knew this had to be, because by the time Calum had her safely on shore, her broken heart wasn’t broken anymore.

  She could feel his look and glanced up.

  “Are you warm enough? It’s not much farther.”

  “Yes. I’m fine.” And she was. He’d bundled her up in his dry coat, donned his spectacles, and swung her into his arms before she even had a chance to take a step. It was terribly romantic.

  He stared down at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she told him, knowing she couldn’t tell him what she was feeling. So she just looked away.

  When she looked back, he was watching her so pointedly and as if he couldn’t help himself. She wanted to reach and touch his cheek to soften his expression. He was so serious. He was so intense. She wondered what his laughter would sound like.

  Neither of them spoke as he carried her toward the house. The silence was almost worse than her confused feelings about this man; it hung about them the same way the fog did—you were aware of it, but just plowed on through anyway and hoped it wouldn’t last.

  She knew the instant he wasn’t looking at her anymore. It was such an odd thing that she could feel his gaze on her every time. As surely as if he had touched her. She watched him openly, trying to understand exactly who this man was.

  She cocked her head slightly. “Your glasses are fogged up.”

  “Aye, lass. But they’ll have to stay foggy. My hands are full right now.”

  She felt her own flush. He carried her up the hillside without a complaint or a labored breath.

  She reached up and removed his spectacles. His steps slowed to the barest of movement, just distant crunches on the gravel of the path.

  Amy used the wet skirt of her gown to polish his lenses. Very carefully, she reached up and set the glasses on his straight nose, then hooked the wire stems back over his ears.

  “There,” she said matter-of-factly and she smiled.

  He pinned her with a look as confused as she had felt just a few seconds before.

  He almost ran with her up the steps, went inside and kicked the door closed. He stood in the giant entry with all the wood-paneled walls soaring up above them like the ancient island pines from which they were made.

  He muttered in frustration.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He gave her a long stare, then admitted, “I still don’t know your name.”

  Before she had her reasons for not telling him. But she wasn’t afraid of him anymore.


  He was waiting for her and said quietly, “Haven’t I just earned the right to know your name?”

  She smiled. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

  He just waited.

  “Amy. My name is Amy.”

  He stood there as if he needed to absorb the sound of it, then he started suddenly like someone who just realized where he was. He cleared his throat gruffly, then juggled her slightly to adjust her weight in his arms.

  She winced.

  He froze. “Did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “It’s only a cramp in my side. From the water, I think. Just as soon as I’m warm, I’ll be fine.”

  “Well then, Amy-my-lass, let’s get you settled in by a warm fire.”

  Her name sounded like a melody when he said it that way. He carried her into the same room he took her to before.

  “There you are.” Eachann MacLachlan crossed the room like a man possessed. “Where are the keys to your supply house?”

  Calum frowned. “Right where I always keep them. In the top drawer of the desk.”

  “The desk is locked.”

  Calum set Amy down in the chair. “You’re alone?”

  “Kirsty is in bed. George is locked in the bathing room where she can’t cause me any more trouble. She needs dry clothes.”

  “So does Amy.” Calum unlocked a drawer, then looked at her.

  “Who?”

  “Amy. This is Amy.”

  “Oh.” Eachann took the key, then started to leave, but stopped short of the door. “Is there enough clothing in storage?”

  Calum flipped open a green ledger book and used a finger to scan it. He looked up. “There’s plenty and the next ship is the last one this year. We can restock.”

  “Good.” Eachann turned to leave.

  “Eachann?”

  “Aye?”