All The Time You Need

by Melissa Mayhue

  As if in the far-off distance, she heard the door behind her opening. She would have called out for help, but she had no concentration to spare, all her energies focused on keeping her from letting go. She tried to prepare herself for the impending pain, but when her fingers did slide from their hold, she knew there was no way to prepare.

  The jolt against the hard, cold stone didn’t happen. Instead, the hard surface she found against her face was as warm as the arms that had caught her.

  “What in the name of all that’s holy did you think you were doing, hanging from the window ledge like that?” Alex demanded. “We’ve doors to reach the bailey below. And stairs. You’ve no need to climb out the windows. No’ even if you thought to escape.”

  She could have played the offended party here, demanding he put her down or take his hands off her, but having just had the overwhelming adrenaline surge that accompanied a major fright, she felt too weak to stand on her own. Too weak to even think on her own. Let him think whatever he wanted for the next few minutes as she recovered her wits.

  As for her, all she wanted was to be held against his strong brick wall of a chest, safe and sound, her arms wrapped around his neck in exactly this way until the last remnants of fear roiling through her body drained away, like a child being held by her parent.

  “Well?” he asked, tightening his hold as he clearly waited for an answer, pressing her body even closer to his own.

  Okay…that had been a really bad analogy. With him holding her like this, she didn’t feel at all like a child and her parent. Not even a little bit. The feelings racing through her body as he held her like this weren’t in the least bit paternal. Or maternal. Or fraternal, for that matter. They weren’t any kind of ternal she could imagine. They were of an entirely different nature.

  It felt as if a smooth, liquid heat melted through her body, coursing along every vein and artery, hardening her breasts and tingling down into her very core. She felt—

  “Oh,” popped out of her on a gust of embarrassment as she realized that what she felt was probably the most intense physical attraction she’d ever experienced. Even knowing that, she had to force herself to loosen her grip around his neck and draw back from him.

  He allowed her feet to slip from his grasp to touch the floor, but he kept one strong arm around her, under her arms, holding her body snug up against his, face to face.

  The all-over body tingle intensified until she wasn’t sure she could stand it any longer, her breathing little more than sharp, shallow gasps for air.

  Bringing the flat of her palms up against his chest, she pushed away from him.

  Good Lord, but the man had a magnetic presence. He was the magnet and she was the puddle of iron filings, drawn to him like on those game boards she’d had as a child.

  “I’m waiting,” he reminded, his eyes glittering with some emotion she couldn’t put her finger on. “What possessed you to attempt to climb up the wall?”

  Her brain faltered for a moment as she remembered why she’d been up there, and she bit back the words that would have implicated her in having spied on him, shirtless and glistening in the sunshine below.

  “Shutters,” she answered breathlessly, finally able to remember her original purpose in having foolishly arranged the makeshift ladder. “Needed them open. For the sun. Fresh air. For your father.”

  And just like that, while trying to recover from possibly the most embarrassingly erotic moment of her life, she suddenly knew what approach she’d use to try to convince the acting laird of Dunellen to allow her to return to the arbor.

  Chapter 10

  Alex moved slowly along the dark corridor, hoping to keep the flame on the small candle he held from blowing out. The sun had sunk below the horizon hours before, sending all the inhabitants of the castle scurrying off to their beds, allowing him at last to complete the visit he’d attempted to make earlier in the day.

  He needed to see his father. To talk to him even if his father couldn’t hear or answer him back. He had sought the time he needed earlier in the day but had been completely distracted from his intended course when he’d found Annie hanging from the window ledge by her fingertips.

  By the saints, the experience had shaken him to his core. But whether it had been his fear of the woman falling or his having held her in his arms that had been responsible for his rattled emotions, he couldn’t bring himself to admit. Even now, hours later, he could still see her hanging so high above the floor, her fingers slipping across the stone just before she dropped. The thought of what might have happened had he not chosen that exact moment to enter his father’s chamber knotted his stomach.

  Even in the best of circumstances, Annie had a disquieting effect on him. So disquieting that he often found himself going out of his way to avoid her. That much he would freely admit to. But on this particular occasion, when he’d held her in his arms and her breathing had quickened to his touch? It was that which had sent him from his father’s chamber immediately after determining that, other than some minor scratches to her hands, she was unharmed as a result of her unwise adventure.

  It was that same experience, that same reaction to her, that had sent him storming to the depths of the castle, ranting like a madman, searching for whoever was responsible for leaving the shutters closed in his father’s chamber. He wasn’t proud of the scene he’d caused, but he felt sure that particular little task would never go undone again.

  Outside his father’s bedchamber, Alex stopped, one hand resting on the heavy wooden door as he debated whether to enter, remembering all too well his last uninterrupted visit to his father. The day he’d first returned home, he’d rushed directly to his father’s bedside after he’d learned of Alexander’s failing health. On that occasion, he’d been assaulted by a horrid metallic smell as the door had opened. The odor of stale blood and filth. The odor of death and decay. The smell had been little more than a precursor to the sight that had awaited him inside, that of his father’s arm limply hanging over the side of the bed, dripping blood into a collection pan on the floor. Alexander’s eyes, when Master Montague had lifted the lids, were without recognition or, indeed, any sign of life at all. Alex had been unable to bring himself back to this room again until this afternoon, and that visit had gone so far astray that he’d done little more than glance at his father before he’d made his escape.

  Now, here he stood, waiting, doubting his decision to come back again.

  After a long moment’s internal debate, he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. There was no point in this delay. Nothing at all to be gained in questioning his decision to come here. He had no choice but to go inside. It was his father, the true laird, lying on the other side of the big door. There was no other counsel he could seek.

  Relief filled his chest when he pushed his way inside to be greeted by a clean, airy scent instead of the stench from his prior visit. Now that he thought upon it, the same had been true this afternoon, but in the tumultuous moments that followed his entry, he’d blocked every sensory input other than the woman whose plight had consumed him.

  Tonight his father lay on his back, his arms resting on the outside of covers that had been neatly folded into place. Annie’s touch, Alex had no doubt.

  He picked up the stool from the hearth and placed it next to the bed. Before sitting, he paused again, once more studying his father’s face for any sign of change. Though the room was lit only by the small candle he carried, a shaft of moonlight shone through the open shutters, bathing his father in its glow.

  “I do believe yer looking better, Da,” he said quietly, stroking his index finger across the back of his father’s hand before sitting down on the stool.

  Perhaps it was only a trick of the moonlight or the shadows cast around his father’s bed, but he would swear that his father actually did look better than he had on Alex’s last visit. His cheeks appeared to have plumped and his skin felt less like dried husks and more like it belonged to the man Alexander had
always been.

  Now, if only his father would open his eyes. If only he could speak and give the guidance Alex so desperately needed. If only he were strong enough to resume his position as laird. Then all would be as it should be in the world.

  “Lissa swears yer on the mend.” He pressed his palms together like a supplicant in prayer and rested his hands against his father’s arm. “Of course, she also tells me that the Fae have been active in our woods again, so who’s to say which of her words I can believe and which are pure wishful thinking?”

  Alex smiled into the shadows, hoping that some bit of his father could hear him and understand what he said. Only his father would appreciate the absurdity of Lissa’s claims. From the day she’d been old enough to speak, his sister had championed a belief in their grandfather Aiden’s stories of the Fae. Though Alexander had humored his own father in the old man’s later years, it had always been clear that neither he nor Alex had held any belief in those tales. They knew the stories had been nothing more than an old man’s fantasies about an earlier, long-gone time.

  But it wasn’t Grandda Aiden or his stories of imaginary Faeries that Alex had come here to discuss. It was the all-too-real dangers confronting their clan.

  “I fear the situation with Clan Gordon is coming to a head. I know you did everything within yer power for years to avoid the conflict, but the signs are not good. Angus MacKillican and Oren MacIntosh brought grievance to be settled by the laird today. Again.” Alex shook his head before leaning closer to his father’s bed. “I was ready to dismiss them out of hand, but it was different today, Da. Niall, the oldest son of Angus, has gone missing. And Oren’s daughter, Karen, has disappeared as well. I’ve heard from near to a dozen of the outliers, all claiming to have seen strangers in the area. All signs point to the Gordons being behind these sightings on our lands, and I canna help but fear the worst for the safety of Niall and Karen. I’ve sent search parties out, but, in truth, I canna spare enough men from Dunellen’s defense to keep watch over the outliers. I hesitate to give fear a chance to take the upper hand and breed panic, but I’m considering calling them all in to wait out what’s to come within the protection of Dunellen’s walls. Those with fields and animals to tend will hardly appreciate any overreaction on my part, but I have to question how they’d feel if I failed to act on their behalf.”

  Alex forced himself to stop his ranting litany of concerns to sit in the silence of his father’s chamber, allowing the solitude to beat against his eardrums. Waiting. Waiting for his father’s wisdom. Waiting for the courage to move forward with his own decisions. Without it, he could only return to his father’s condition.

  “There’s more, Da. From the mystery of the Shaw woman who sees to yer care during the day to almost daily reports of livestock gone missing, there’s so much more. I’ll not burden you with all of it now, only…” He paused, searching his father’s face for any sign of awareness.

  Finding none, he decided there was no better time to bare his soul, to confess his fears. Perhaps admitting them out loud would give him the courage to confront his weakness and move forward.

  “I never wanted to replace you here at Dunellen. I’ve never tried to keep it from you. I wanted to see the world, to seek adventure and to leave my mark upon the land. I never told you as much in so many words, but I always suspected you knew the truth of it and that was why you sent me to Edinburgh with the excuse that the time away was to complete my learning. But now that I’m here, now that I’m doing that which I never wanted to do—”

  Alex cut his words short, straining to listen beyond the sound of slow, steady breathing in the silent room. He could have sworn he’d heard another noise in the room. A rustle or something scraping against stone. His imagination, no doubt. He leaned close, checking his father’s face once more, waiting and counting twelve slow, steady breaths his father took before he settled back on the stool.

  As if the pause had changed everything, he found himself unable to continue what he’d wanted to say. What little bravery he’d managed to summon had deserted him now.

  He’d likely already said more than he should have. If some part of his father actually could hear and understand, it would only upset him to learn that his eldest son was indeed as incompetent as he’d always feared.

  * * *

  That had been much too close for comfort.

  On her pallet on the floor next to Alexander’s bed, Annie froze in her progress to edge her way closer to the big bed, praying for invisibility.

  Listening to the old laird’s eldest son list his concerns to his unconscious father certainly presented a whole new side of him for her to consider. Maybe Alex MacKillican, the acting laird of Dunellen, a man whose arrogance would rival her own father’s, wasn’t so totally sure of himself after all.

  She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t heard it with her own ears.

  And yet, in spite of how human he sounded as he spoke, she didn’t doubt for one minute that the scowling, arrogant, angry version of Alex that she’d come to know would rear his ugly self in a heartbeat if he knew she’d heard everything he’d just said.

  A shiver passed over her and a little blossom of guilt began to bloom, even though she did her best to ignore the uncomfortable emotion. Maybe she should have made her presence known the minute she’d awakened to the sound of his voice and realized who was in the room. But by that time, she had no idea how long he might have been there. No idea how long he’d already been talking or what other intimate details he might have already shared.

  What she did have an idea of was that she would have no chance on earth of convincing him that she hadn’t already heard everything he’d said up to that point.

  She was living a classic case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, if she’d ever seen one. And, coward that she was, she was firmly ensconced in the don’t category. Her best option—her only option, really—was to stay as still as a mouse and hope she could continue to avoid notice in the shadows, pretending none of this night had ever happened.

  On the other side of the bed, the deep voice began to rumble again.

  “Lissa tells me it’s not just her who thinks it’s but a matter of time until you return to us. She says that the Shaw woman claims yer on the mend, as well, and that even auld Aggie agrees. I pray they have the right of it, Da. I need you to come back to us more than I can say. I need yer wisdom and yer guidance. Yer people need yer wisdom and yer guidance. They deserve it. They deserve better than I can give them.”

  The legs of the stool scraped against the stone floor, and Annie pressed her back tightly against the heavy wooden bedframe, praying Alex wouldn’t glance over the side of his father’s bed and notice her blankets.

  “Sun will be up in a few hours. I need to take to my bed, to try for a little rest before the day starts all over again. Rest easy, Da. I’ll check in upon you again soon, I promise.”

  It wasn’t until Annie heard the door shut that she gasped out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She rolled to her back and stared up toward the dark ceiling, her heart pounding like she’d just finished a particularly taxing exercise routine. There was no way she was going to drift back off to sleep easily after a scare like that.

  Pretend as she might that this little episode had never happened, there was no way she could ever un-hear the things Alex had said. No way she could ever un-hear the pain and uncertainty in his voice. The only thing that could possibly make this moment worse—

  “You should be ashamed of yerself, lass, spying on my son as he spoke privately with his own father.”

  Alexander’s voice drifted down to her, much stronger in the dark than it had been as she’d watched over him this afternoon. Maybe if she remained very still, he’d think her asleep. Maybe she could—

  “I hear you breathing, lass. I know well enough that yer awake down there. Might as well own up to it.”

  Officially now, nothing could make this moment worse. Her patien
t had caught her listening in on a private moment with his son, like she was some perverted eavesdropper.

  Except that wasn’t how it was. Not really.

  “I wasn’t spying. It’s not my fault that he didn’t know I was here.”

  “But it is yer fault that you dinna alert him to yer presence,” he accused. “Is it no’?”

  “Oh, right. I can just imagine how that would have gone over. He would have had a fit that I’d heard anything, no matter what I said.”

  Annie didn’t think the muffled chuckle she heard was in her imagination. Alexander might find this whole little incident a laughing matter, but she sure didn’t.

  “And, just to be clear, Alex wasn’t speaking with his father. He was speaking to his father. He didn’t know you heard him any more than he knew that I heard him. If you think about it, you’re every bit as guilty of spying as I am.”

  “That’s different entirely,” Alexander responded. “My son intended that I should know what he said, even if he didn’t know that I could actually hear every word.”

  “Oh really?” Annie’s indignation grew as she considered the double standard. “If that’s true, then why didn’t you let him know you were awake?”

  His having done something like that would have been good for her, too. It would have proved that she was telling the truth about her patient improving.

  “Tell him?” A loud snort drifted from Alexander’s bed. “No, my dear. I’d not do that because I know my son well enough to know he wouldn’t have spoken so freely if he thought I was actually listening.”

  How awful was it that Alexander suspected that his own son wouldn’t feel free to express his true feelings to him? She might have allowed herself the luxury of a long rant on the dysfunction of their relationship if her own father’s face hadn’t drifted through her thoughts. Had she ever, even once, told her father how much she dreaded her upcoming wedding? Or her mother? Of all the people in this room, she certainly wasn’t in any position to be lecturing anyone on healthy parent-child relationships.