by Lydia Fane
“How you’re feeling?” he asked.
Skye opened her mouth to reply, but choked suddenly on a throat gone thick and dry. The man winced, reaching over to hand her a glass of water. The condensation beading on the side of it triggered an almost paralysing thirst in her, and she reached for the glass. She was alarmed to note that her hands were shaking a little.
He gravely handed her the water, before gently assisting her to sit upright. His hands were large and capable. She could feel how warm they were, even through her clothes. Distracted by the cool water, she felt almost no pain as she was moved. The water soothed her throat, washing away the dryness and fuzziness that plagued her. She experimentally cleared her throat.
“Better,” she said, and wished that her voice didn’t sound quote so hoarse. She took another mouthful of water, and swished it around her cheeks.
“Are you in pain?”
“A little,” she admitted. He frowned, and she felt a touch guilty for bringing that expression to his face. As if he had read her mind, he placed his hand over hers again, comforting her.
“Just thinking about painkillers, and the best time to give them to you. You’ve been out for a while. I don’t want to overdose you.”
His words raised a pressing question for Skye. “Not meaning to sound clichéd, but where am I?” She asked.
“What do you remember?” he countered.
“I feel like I’ve been out drinking, but the last thing I remember clearly was flying up the coast,” she said thoughtfully. “And I think I’d remember meeting someone like you before now.”
She saw a slight flash in his eyes, as if he appreciated the compliment, before they turned more serious. “You’re right – you were flying up the coast, and a bad storm came up.”
Skye felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, and sipped at the water to try and soothe herself. The man continued.
“I was on duty in the lighthouse when your mayday came in. You came down just off the shore here. Thankfully you didn’t look to be badly injured when I pulled you onto the beach, but the same can’t be said for your plane. I might even go so far as to say it’s a miracle you’re as uninjured as you are.”
Skye swallowed hard at this calm recitation. Memories bloomed in her mind: black clouds and black thoughts. Rain splattering against the windshield of the plane, and pain in her wrists as she fought against the controls. The scream of the wind, and her scream of denial as the last engine had failed.
“Hey,” the man said softly, touching her hand again. “Come back. You’re safe, and mostly uninjured. It was hard, but you got through it.”
The touch of his hand sent another surge of warmth through her, and she automatically looked up. His blue eyes were wide open, bluer than the sky, and for a second, Skye felt like she was freefalling into infinity. Then he blinked and once more he was just extraordinarily ordinary, trying to offer comfort.
“Just focus on what happened, not what could have happened,” he said.
Skye could see the sense in what he was saying, but still that sense of panic clawed at her. She forced the memories back as far as she could, trying to breathe slowly and deeply.
She almost felt embarrassed to be losing it like this in front of this stranger, this man who had saved her. She wanted him to like her, perhaps even to be impress by her, and surely her breaking down wouldn’t give him a good impression,
But his eyes were non-judgemental as he watched her carefully. His hand was still warm on the back of hers and she used that touch to get control of herself, anchoring her firmly in the here and now.
“As you said, it could have been much worse,” she admitted. “Do you have a phone I can use? I should probably let my family know what happened before they start to worry.”
“Certainly do,” he said agreeably. “But first, I’d rather have you eat something so that we can get some medicine into you.”
“That sounds alright,” Skye said, pushing back the covers and slowly swinging her feet towards the edge of the bed. The man moved out of her way, and thoughtfully turned his back to look out of the window.
It hurt to move, but Skye gritted her teeth and pulled herself to her feet, digging her nails into her thigh to distract herself. Her clothes were dry, but stiff with salt spray and tattered in places, presumably from the crash. She tugged them away from her skin, and grimaced. Hardly the nicest things to be wearing when faced with such a gorgeous specimen of the male of the species.
Now that she was up and moving, her mind gave a little pained twinge. Her fiancé, Lewis would not approve of the fact that she was thinking about how handsome another man was. Even if it was their most recent blistering row that had led to her being in the air a day ahead of schedule, she still cared for him. It felt disloyal to be looking at this stranger in any way. She could almost hear the chastising voice of Lewis in her head.
The man turned away from the window. His brow was furrowed, his glorious blue eyes darkened with what looked like pain. He shook his head as if to clear it, and offered Skye a smile that somehow, wasn’t quite as warm as before.
“Ready to move?” he asked, and Skye nodded.
“Lead the way,” she said, and followed as the man led her down the stairs.
From the looks of things, the bedroom she was in stretched the full length of the cottage. The stairs were shallow, leading down to the open-plan lower floor. To the left was the living area and to the right was the kitchen. A frosted glass door at the far end of the building was presumably the bathroom. It was a cluttered home, but it wasn’t a mess. Books and magazines were piled up on every surface, stacked two or three deep on shelves, and spilling from overflowing bookcases onto the floor. The whitewashed walls were almost invisible beneath photos and pictures of the natural world. One wall of the living area was completely dominated by the huge granite fireplace.
The exposed wooden beams of the ceiling were dotted with odd-looking objects that Skye struggled to identify as the man ushered her towards a seat in the living area. He slid a pile of magazines out of the way and righted a fallen chair for her to sit in. She sat, and he moved towards the kitchen. She heard water running.
“How does soup sound?” he called.
“Sounds good to me,” she replied, leaning back in the chair.
For all its clutter, the house was inviting and warm. She felt comfortable here, as if she’d been here before. It was nothing like her own small apartment, and it was worlds away from her fiancé’s minimalist lifestyle. But it suited him, in a way that she couldn’t explain in words.
As the kettle came to the boil, the front door rattled and opened. Another man entered, wrapped in a bright yellow slicker.
“It would freeze you out there,” he called to the man in the kitchen, before he seemed to realise that Skye was sitting there. His face brightened in a smile.
“Ach, hello there lass. Glad to see you up and about.”
His accent wasn’t a local one, Skye thought as she watched him strip off the slicker and make his way towards the table, dodging the stacks with the ease of long practise. He moved three books from another seat, before offering his hand across the table.
“Jack Millar, lightkeeper here at station fifteen. And don’t take this the wrong way, but now that I get a proper look at you, I’m sure that I’ve seen your face before. Have I?”
Skye had to laugh. “Skye Metcalfe, and you might have. I work for Channel Thirty Two, doing documentaries and interest pieces.”
“That’s where I know you from,” Jack snapped his fingers, pleased, as the other man came out from the kitchen carrying three steaming mugs. “Has the big man here remembered to give you his name?” Jack asked.
“Not yet,” Skye said.
Jack mock scowled, shaking his head at his companion’s absent-mindedness. “Well, he’s generally known as Aries, since he refuses to tell me what his parents named him. You’d think he was embarrassed or something. And I can’t find his driving license or passport
.”
“Aries?” Skye asked. “Like the Zodiac sign?”
“Exactly that,” the newly named Aries said as he set the mugs on the table, From somewhere behind him a microwave pinged.
“That must be some name,” Skye said in a stage whisper to Jack, who chuckled lowly.
Aries shook his head. “Keep guessing,” he said, and headed back to the kitchen.
Skye found her eyes following him. There was something about the way that he moved, with grace and controlled power in every step. Would his hands move with the same grace as they touched the body of his lover?
She frowned inwardly. Now, where had that thought come from? Objectively speaking, he was a handsome man, but she was taken, and off the market. She shouldn’t be speculating about anyone’s lovers!
And certainly not imagining yourself in that position, a little voice whispered in her ear. It sounded like her fiancé.
“One of these days, I’ll figure out the name,” Jack confided in her. “I don’t know what I’ll do with it when I have it, but I’ll do something.”
Skye dragged her mind back to simpler things, and brought her eyes back around to look straight at Jack, rather than admiring Aries’ backside. “So, you said that you’re a lightkeeper?”
“Yep,” Jack said proudly.
“I didn’t think that any of the lighthouses were still manned.”
“Not at all.” Jack warmed to the subject. “Automation is all well and good, but sometimes you need sets of human eyes on the scene. Every lighthouse on this coast is manned, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, thee hundred and sixty five days a year. It’s more of a life than a job, really.”
“The Forgotten Lightkeepers. Catchy title for a documentary, don’t you think?” she asked him.
“Aye,” he said, sounding as if he’d like to talk more about this, though he was interrupted by the appearance of Aries, balancing three bowls of soup and a plate of bread. Without spilling a drop he slid the bowls on to the table, and the plate to the centre.
“Thought you’d be looking fed as well,” he said to Jack, who grinned.
“You know me so well. This the homemade stuff?” he asked.
“It is,” Aries confirmed.
“Grab a spoon,” Jack urged Skye. “You’ve not tasted soup like this.”
Skye wasn’t entirely sure about this claim. Surely soup was soup? But she lifted a spoon and a slice of bread, and set to filling her stomach.
While it was probably not the best soup in the world, as Jack had claimed, it certainly was a cut above all the others she had tasted. It was warming and filling, with thickly sliced vegetables and chunks of chicken floating in a thick broth. The bread was still warm inside, crusty and fluffy. It was just what she needed.
Aries slid a plastic pack of painkillers over the table towards her, followed by a glass of water. “You’re not allergic?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she replied as she popped two tablets free and swallowed them.
Conversation stopped again as they returned to their soup, and soon enough, spoons scraped across empty bowls. Jack leaned back in his seat with a sigh of relief.
“That’ll keep me going,” he said. “You fit to take half the shift now so we don’t get too badly out of sync?”
Aries looked at Skye as if in askance, and she looked back at him blankly before she realised that he was taking the time off to look after her. She felt colour rising to her cheeks and damned her complexion.
“Once I’ve contacted my family, I don’t plan to do much. If I can borrow one of your books, Aries, then I’ll happily sit in and rest,” she said.
Aries nodded. “You’re welcome to borrow any book you want,” he said. “You could stay here, or read over at Jack’s. Better safe than sorry, but I’d rather not leave you on your own. Not for a while, anyway.”
“I’ve got a spare armchair by the fire that you can claim,” Jack said.
“Sounds good,” Skye agreed.
Aries cleared the plates, and Skye rose to begin wandering through the stacks, tilting her head to look at the titles.
Aries didn’t appear to stick to one genre. Pulp fiction was stacked with autobiographies, poetry with westerns. Science fiction rubbed shoulders with chemistry textbooks, and graphic novels bracketed encyclopaedias.
Over the sound of clattering dishes and running water, Jack sidled up to her. His face was faintly curious.
“What did you two talk about upstairs?” he asked.
“Nothing much. Why?” she asked curiously.
“Because Aries never lets anyone touch his books. You must’ve made quite an impression, whatever you said.”
“Really?” Skye felt a peculiar warm thrill at this admission.
“Really. Got any tips for me?”
“I have no idea,” she admitted, sliding a worn copy of Pride and Prejudice out of a stack, careful not to knock any of them down. She turned to look at Aries where he was carefully drying dishes.
“I wouldn’t have thought he’d read the classics,” she noted. “Somehow he doesn’t seem the type.”
“That’s Aries. Full of surprises. Look, when he’s done clearing up, he’ll head over to the tower and I’ll head across the way to my place. You can ring whoever you need to in privacy. Just come across when you’re done. You’re not over in thirty minutes, I’ll come and make sure that you haven’t passed out on the floor. Sound like a plan?”
“It’s a plan,” she agreed, and he buffeted her gently on the shoulder.
“Stout lass,” he said.
“Stop flirting with our guest,” Aries shouted mildly, turning to brandish a tea towel in their general direction.
“It’s not flirting, it’s my winning charm,” Jack called back.
“I’d give you that quote about a rose still smelling sweet, but then I’d be paying you a compliment.”
“And we couldn’t have that, could we?”
Skye could see in that instant how close these two men were. They bantered back and forward with the ease of long practise and the gentle affection of men whose lives depended on each other. Her fingers itched for a camera. They were as close as brothers, or so it seemed to her.
Aries emerged from the kitchen, the tea towel dangling from his shoulder. He crossed the floor to stand at her side.
“You feeling all right?” he asked her.
“Just achy,” she said. “But I’ll be fine when the painkillers kick in.”
“You find a book?”
She held it up as if for inspection, and was pleased to see his eyes warm, along with his smile. “It’s one of my favourites,” she said.
He leaned in close, his breath brushing against her ear. “Mine too,” he whispered, and a spark of pure lust shot through her like a lightning bolt, shocking her silent. Something stirred in the back of her head, feeling like sharp nails running down a chalkboard. Aries flinched but controlled it so quickly that if she hadn’t been so close to him, she wouldn’t have noticed. She shook her head to try and clear it of the feeling, and Aries stepped back as the moment passed.
“If you need me, I’m just over in the tower. Come and find me,” he told her, before turning on his heel and walking out with no more farewell. She would have felt more stung at his sudden change in demeanour if Jack hadn’t rolled his eyes and followed with a wave of his hand and a tap on his watch face.
The phone was sitting over in a corner nook, and Skye made her way over to it. She felt unaccountably nervous as she wrapped her hand around the receiver.
She dialled the number she knew by heart and let it ring. She leaned against the wall and tried to pull herself together. The memory of the blazing row she’d had with Lewis was still fresh in her mind, the hateful and hurtful words still stinging.
No one picked up on the other side, and it went to answer phone. The voice of her fiancé was curt even on the machine.
“Lewis, it’s Skye,” she said after the beep. “In case you hear that my
plane went down, I’m fine, just bruised. I’ll ring you later.”
No sooner had she hung up, she began second guessing herself. Maybe she could have been nicer, gentler about telling him what had happened. He was her fiancé after all. Too late now, she sighed, and picked up the book. Maybe some escapism was in order.
***
Outside, Aries was about to head over to the lighthouse to start his shift, when Jack laid a firm hand on his shoulder.
“What’s up with you, Aries?” he asked, unusually stern. “This woman’s got you waxing and waning. And you’ve always been the calm, unflappable sort.”
Aries shook his head. “There’s something about her that calls to me. Every time she speaks I can feel it in my bones. She’s special, Jack. I wish you could see her aura. Taurus would be blinded by her.”
For the first time, mentioning one of his lost family didn’t bring a stab of pain to his heart, merely a wistful ache.
“So why do you keep looking like you’re hurting?” Jack asked.
Aries considered how best to put it into words. “She’s warmth and light, a beacon in the dark. But sometimes I can feel a darkness in her, a web that pulls down and strangles the light. It feels to me like razors and broken glass, tearing me apart from the inside. It cuts deep every time it appears.”
What Aries knew but didn’t say, was that it was demon taint. Skye herself was pure, but someone near her wasn’t. Someone near her was strangling her attention, polluting her core.
“Can you help her?” Jack asked, and Aries thanked heaven for his caring friend.
“I believe so,” he said. “Time will tell.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Just be yourself. Your own aura compliments hers. Mine agitates.”
“I’ll look after her,” Jack said, and strode off towards his cottage.
Aries headed towards the lighthouse to check that list of jobs that were on the schedule. There was paperwork, but there was always paperwork. The weather wasn’t due for an hour, and there were trees to clear over by the tree line.
Action sounded appealing. Aries reached for the axe, ready and sharpened in the storage nook. He rested it over his shoulder and headed out again.
