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Scars Of A Highlander
Highlander Romance
By: Cassandra Michaels
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Scars Of A Highlander
Martha looked at Ross with tired and swollen eyes. She hadn’t slept a wink the night before, and her body ached with fatigue. She let her eyes linger on his face as she tried to soak up as much detail as her tired mind would allow. She could already feel the dull ache in her heart starting to fire up as the seconds ticked.
“You look tired.” Ross said when he noticed Martha’s eyes on him.
She smiled weakly and nodded. “I feel it, too.” She replied.
“Didn’t you sleep last night?” Ross asked with eyes that burned with concern.
Martha felt a wave of guilt over the concern in his eyes. She didn’t want to pass her misery to him. She didn’t want him to have to carry her burdens as well as her own. She sighed. “I guess I just had a bad night.” She said and then she shrugged casually.
“Well, you need to try and get some sleep tonight.” Ross said as he stepped forward and kissed her gently on the forehead.
Martha tried not to cry as she felt his heat transfer to her skin. She already missed him. He hadn’t even left, but she already missed him. “I guess I just really hate this.” She said with her eyes fixed on the floor.
“I know.” Ross said gently.
Martha could feel his eyes on her as he spoke, but she didn’t look up to him. She didn’t want him to see the upset in her eyes. She didn’t want him to feel guilty over something he couldn’t help.
“It’s only temporary though.” Ross said as he tried to cheer her up.
“Three months is a long time!” Martha said quickly.
“I know.” Ross said sadly because he didn’t know what else to say.
Martha had been dreading him leaving ever since she had found out. She could remember him sitting in the bath when he took the call. She had been sitting in the room talking to him about something of nothing and then everything had changed and suddenly he was being taken away from her.
It wasn’t his fault, though. They needed the money. He had been offered as job as a fishing worker, one of the deadliest jobs in the world, and he was slated to sail across the North Sea of the British Isles, where shipwrecks happen all too often. It was the same place her father had lost his life when she was a child. The déjà vu of that final walk out the door and that final goodbye was a dense and overpowering. The thought of separation, not just for a few months, but possibly forever, had been hanging over Martha’s mind like an ominous shadow. She couldn’t believe that it was already time for him to leave. She couldn’t believe that she would be going to bed with only herself for company and that she would wake up without his arms around her.
She hadn’t wanted any of this. They had only been married six months, and now it was guaranteed she’d be spending the rest of the year without him. It wasn’t fair. Every time that Martha thought about the fact that he was leaving it made her chest feel tight and airless. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to live alone seven nights a week. She didn’t want to have a relationship based around phone calls, but what could she do?
“Do you have everything?” Martha asked as she glanced over at his bags. She could feel tears burning the corner of her eyes, as she tried to push them back. She was stronger than her emotions were leading her to believe, and she was determined to save her tears for after he had left.
“Aye, I think so.” Ross said and then he sat on the sofa beside Martha. “You know, I’ll be back in no time.” He said in a reassuring voice that fell flat of being reassuring.
“I know.” Martha said and she tried to hold her voice steady.
“It won’t be that bad.” Ross said softly and then he pulled her into his arms.
Martha didn’t fight his pull as she fell onto his chest. She let her face rest against it as she listened to the sound of his steady heartbeat. The smell of musk and mild sweat filled her nose and she breathed in deeply as she tried to commit it to memory. She was desperate to remember every last detail because she knew that her nights were about to turn much longer than they had been and she would be relying on nostalgia to pull her through to the morning.
Ross stood up when his phone started ringing and Martha found her eyes overflowing with tears. She knew what the call meant. She knew that it was time for Ross to leave, but she wasn’t ready. She had spent the last few weeks trying to mentally prepare for the moment, but it hadn’t been enough and she could feel herself falling apart as he hung up the phone and glanced over at her sadly.
“That’s my ride.” He said.
“I know.” Martha said quietly as she stood up, so that she could say goodbye to him properly. She walked over quickly and threw her arms around him. She could feel her fingertips gripping onto his shirt, as she fought desperately with her tongue, so that it couldn’t beg him to stay. “I’ll miss you.” She managed to choke out, as he stepped away and kissed her.
“I’ll miss you too.” He said with a sad smile. “I love you, you know. If anything happens to me, which it won’t, just know I’ll always be with you.” He reminded her, as he picked up his bags and walked to the door.
“I love you too.” Martha said as she watched him walk out. She waited for him to leave her line of sight and then she closed the door. She could already feel the impending emptiness of her home without him in it, and for a moment she didn’t dare move because she was so sure that she would shatter if she did.
She could feel a deep wave of sadness wash over her, as she trembled under the weight of her sobs. There was no longer silence stretched out before her, but her the sound of her own sorrow, as she cried out into the emptiness and wished desperately that Ross could back and put his arms around her.
******
Ross has been gone for three days, when Martha finally decided to go out. She had the luxury of being able to work from home, but since she had found herself alone that had quickly turned into somewhat of a curse. The air was brisk with the chill of winter when she stepped out into the bright and misleading sunshine. She pulled her door closed and locked it quickly, before she turned to leave.
It was only four weeks until Christmas and her friend had told her about a Christmas market that her small village was holding. She walked passed her car and onto the pavement as she pushed her hands roughly into her pockets. She didn’t want to take the car. She didn’t want to make the trip pass any quicker than it had to because the idea of going back to the lonely and quiet house was daunting.
She strolled down the street without any care at all to the time or the cold, which had started to
seep underneath her clothes to lay its icy chill on her skin. She shivered as she turned a corner and a gust of wind smacked her across the face. She felt like crying. She felt like turning around and going straight home, but she knew that it wouldn’t make anything any better.
She stopped walking for a minute as she tried to calm herself down. She had been getting overly upset over the smallest of things since Ross had left and she knew how stupid it was. She knew that she needed to be an independent person and that she couldn’t rely on him to always be there, but still, she was finding it harder than she thought she might.
She took a deep breath and looked over the rolling hills of the Scottish Highlands. Her village had been built in a small bowl of hills that stretched out further than the eye could see. She had always thought that it was beautiful. In the spring time it the green hills turned pink with blossom and in the summer they become studded with butterflies and wildflowers that filled the air with their delicate perfume. Martha could even see the beauty in the winter months, when the trees had been stripped bare and the snow covered them with a delicate blanket white until spring.
She let her mind wander back over the days that she had spent walking around in the countryside. She had spent countless hours with Ross, as they discovered the world around them together with only their feet and a poorly drawn map for help. She could almost see their figures walking up the hill as she squinted and forced her memories to play in real time.
The wind gave another great gust and knocked Martha back into the present. She was only five minutes away from the Christmas fair and she could already hear the spirited music and buzz of conversation that was being carried through the air with the wind. She sighed, as she realized that it would be another two days, before she would get to see Ross standing beside her and then she started to walk again out of fear from freezing.
The Christmas fair filled up the whole of the village square. Martha let her eyes glaze over the wooden cart stalls and bright fairy lights that had been placed in nearly every space available. The whole village seemed to sparkle and Martha could feel the cheerful spirits of the locals as they walked about the market and took part in the festive activities. She walked down and blended herself into the crowd.
She knew everybody who was at the fair, but she didn’t feel like talking. She’d only gone out for a simple distraction away from her empty house and she didn’t feel like she had enough energy to waste on pretending to be okay. She kept her head down as she moved through the crowd, so that nobody would notice her and then she stopped when she had reached the end of one of the small streets. She looked back over the distance she had just walked and sighed as she realized that she hadn’t seen any of the stalls.
She thought about walking back down the street, but the flow of the crowd was moving in the other direction and she knew it would make her stand out too much.
“You look down, child.” A voice behind her said.
She jumped at the sound of someone being so close and turned around to see who it was. She knew everyone in town, but the voice didn’t sound familiar. Her eyes met with a small woman who looked as though she was in her much later years of life. Her skin was deeply wrinkled and her back, slumped in on itself, gave the appearance of a hump. Martha didn’t recognize the woman at all, but she didn’t seem threatening. “I’m fine.” She said with a little nod of her head out of appreciation for the stranger’s concern.
“You don’t look it.” The woman said quickly.
“Well, I am.” Martha said with a confused, but insistent look on her face.
“You’re not.” The woman disagreed and then she pulled up her dark brown woolen shawl and shivered slightly.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Martha asked her. The woman clearly seemed to think that she knew Martha.
“You don’t.” The woman said with a little shake of her head. “But, I can see the sadness that you’re carrying and I want to help.” She said as she held out her hand.
Martha looked down at the woman’s old and age marked hands. She was holding a small bottle of what looked like dark blue liquid. “What is that?” Martha asked her as she reached out and took it from the woman. She lifted it to the light, so that she could look at the properly and noticed that there was a golden dust that seemed to shift throughout the inky blue liquid. She had never seen anything quite like it and she could feel her curiosity being pulled out.
“It will help you remember to be happy.” The old woman said with a smile.
“What’s that even supposed to mean?” Martha said and she could feel her face screwing up with poor understanding.
“You’ve lost your happiness; you need to find it again.” The woman said quietly and with a distant kind of eerie way.
“Well, thanks.” Martha said with a frown on her forehead as the woman suddenly turned and started to walk away from her. Martha watched as the woman made her way up the darkening street and then out of sight. She looked back down at her hands for the bottle. It was still there with its golden glimmer, shimmering in the pale moonlight that had started to rise up into the clear night sky.
She pushed the bottle into her pocket and shook her head. There was no way that she was going to drink what was in that bottle. There was no way she was going to get poisoned by some crazy old lady who she had never seen before. She tried to push the encounter out of her head, as she filtered her way back into the crowd that was still moving slowly around the small market.
******
Martha pushed open her front door and walked into the dark hallway. The house was silent as she moved through into the kitchen and turned the light on. She shivered as she realized that she had left the heating turned off and quickly walked over to the control panel to fix her mistake. The boiler kicked in instantly and filled the silent room with a deep grumble and gurgle, as it started to prepare the water for heating.
Martha walked over to the kettle and filled it with water, before turning it on and then pulling her phone out of her pocket. She looked at the screen to see whether Ross had been in touch, but he hadn’t. She sighed, as she thought about sending him another text, but then she pushed her phone back down into her pocket because she just felt too pathetic to anything else. What her phone did tell her, though, was that a record storm was set to hit the British Isles in the next 5 days. Of course. She tried to sent that bit of information to the recesses of her mind where it would never be found again, but it kept floating back up. She promised not to mention it to him.
It wasn’t like he wasn’t keeping in touch, though. Ross text every morning and they called a couple of times each day, but it just didn’t feel like enough for Martha. She had married him with the idea that they would spend each day together. That they would wake up next to each other each morning and that the same could be said for falling asleep at night, but instead she was waking up alone with nothing, but a good morning text and a couple of pictures being sent.
The kettle finished boiling and she poured the hot water into a mug. The old woman at the fair might have been crazy, but she had been right about one thing; Martha had lost her happiness and she wasn’t sure where she was going to find it from again. She walked over to the small breakfast table and sat down with her mug of hot chocolate. She felt empty and cold inside, as she realized that there would be nothing, but her company, until the next day, when she could look forward to another couple of texts and five minute phone calls.
She could feel the small bottle of liquid that the woman had given her, pushing against her leg as it dug into the pocket of her jeans. She reached down and pulled it out. She let it roll around her palm for a moment, before she put it on the table and looked at it with the intense attention. The golden shimmer was still there underneath the kitchen light and it gave the liquid a magical air to it.
Martha could feel herself being pulled into the mystery and she pulled off the stopper, so that she could smell what it was on the inside. The liquid had no smell though, and that only en
raged her throbbing curiosity to know what it was. She lifted it to her mouth and thought about drinking it, before she placed it back on the table and scoffed at herself. She couldn’t drink it. Some weirdo on the street had given it to her with very little in the way of information. It could be anything. It could be drugs or poison or small pox.
Martha shuddered at her train of thought and put the stopped back onto the bottle. The woman had been right about her happiness, but that didn’t mean that she was going to drink some random liquid and it didn’t mean that the liquid could help. It might look like something out of a fairy tale, but this was real life and in real life, magical things didn’t happen to people like Martha.
She lifted her hot chocolate to her lips and took a long drink. She could feel the smooth taste of chocolate ride down her throat, as it warmed her slowly from the inside. She closed her eyes and tried to find a relaxing place in her thoughts, but she couldn’t quite manage it. Every happy thought she could think of had Ross in it, but that only led to a bittersweet feeling of pain, as she realized that there was still two full days, before she could see him again and even then, he would be leaving again too soon.
She could feel her eyes stinging as the unhappy feeling reached them. She had already cried so much that week that she was starting to get used to the feeling of tears burning their tracks into her delicate cheeks. She sniffled quietly, as they over flowed from the corner of her eyes and feel with quiet thuds to the table below them. She could feel her shoulders shaking as she let the sorrow take its hold of her body and then she forced herself to stop and swallow it straight back down.
She hated feeling like this. She hated feeling as though she was broken. She pulled the liquid back over to her and pulled off the stopped. She could feel a strange sense of defiance as she went against her better judgement and drank it down in one gulp. She put the bottle back down on the table and stared at it. It was empty, and the noise it made upon landing on the table was hollow.
HISTORICAL ROMANCE: Scottish Romance: Scars of a Highlander (Highlander Alpha Male Romance) (Historical Fantasy Scottish Time Travel Romance Short Stories) Page 1
