by Caro LaFever
She started off at a brisk pace.
There was enough light to make it easy to see in front of her. Dodging the rocks and tree limbs, she strolled across one meadow and into Will’s deep, dark forest. The scent of pine enveloped her, clean and crisp. A soft wind whistled through the branches and a duo of birds warbled along with it.
Ceri began humming.
Singing had always been a part of her. As a young girl, one of the few joys she’d had was going to St. Callwen Church and belonging to the choir. When she’d married Gareth and, at his insistence, quit the church, it had been a bitter pill to swallow. But she’d done it for her sick mam and her young brother—she’d had no choice.
She switched from idle humming to an old Welsh carol she’d often sung during the holidays.
The memory of the last time she’d sung, the memory of Lorne Ross stepping out from behind the tree, rushed back.
The fire of his hair in the sun.
The smell of him that stirred her inside.
The beauty of his thighs with the light traces of red hair.
Her singing stopped. She snorted.
“The beauty of his thighs,” she muttered. “Have you gone mad?”
She didn’t answer her own question, because it might open her brain up to all sorts of other things she didn’t want to think about. Walking up a ridge, she caught the first sounds of running water. Ross Burn wasn’t quite a river, and was a bit more than a stream. When she got to the top of the hill, she saw the spring runoff was at full peak.
Will would have loved this.
Trudging to the edge of the water, she climbed onto the wide boulder he’d often sat on when he fished. When Elis got here, they would get their poles and come here in Will’s honor.
A tight flash of pain ran through her. His death still hurt. Would hurt for a long time.
Elis would miss him, too. He and Will had spent most of the last four summers hiking in the forest. Will had taught her brother how to fish. How to hunt. How to love this piece of land so dear to his heart.
Something he’d never been able to pass on to his own son.
Maybe he’ll listen to ye, Ceri.
Her hand brushed across the rough rock as she thought about it once more and then rejected it for the last time.
Lorne Ross didn’t understand this place.
Lorne Ross didn’t fit in to this place.
Lorne Ross didn’t love this place.
He wouldn’t listen because he didn’t fit or love or understand. It was as simple as that.
She had to keep fighting. For Will. For Elis. For herself. And most of all, for this place.
A brown trout jumped high into the air, flashing its scales in the spreading sunlight before splashing into the stream once more. The sight pulled her from her thoughts and she laughed.
“What are you trying to say to me, Mr. Fish?” she called out.
He answered with another leap into the air, and she laughed again. All her worries fell away, and she realized Will’s whisper from heaven had been right.
The forest healed something wretched inside her and gave her hope.
She lifted her head and began to sing.
Chapter 11
Bloody hell.
The woman was singing again.
Lorne stopped in his tracks, his chest heaving from his run, trickles of sweat running down his sides. What the hell was she doing here in the middle of his forest at 5:30 a.m.? Not only here where she shouldn’t be, but singing in her pure, clear voice making him think of angels and heavens.
He never thought of angels and heavens.
He should keep running.
Keep running along this rocky path and also keep running from the memory of her. For the last two days, he’d successfully run from all of Doc’s hints and suggestions, run from the images trying to flash through his brain, run from anything to do with Ceri Llewellyn.
His showers were no longer anything except a celibate cleaning. His daily runs were taken far-to-early in the morning to put him in danger—or so he’d thought. His days were filled with looking at his code instead of staring at her from the tower.
His nights?
His nights were the only thing out of his control. He hadn’t slept much during the last few nights. He’d gotten a lot of code done.
He should just keep running.
Her voice rose above the rumble of the water, soaring into the dawn sky. A trio of greenshanks trilled along with her from an overhanging branch. Lorne had the absurd feeling he’d wandered into some strange fairyland.
He never wandered. Anywhere.
Shaking away the notion of fairylands, he stepped off the path and onto the tuft of grass leading to the stream. He shouldn’t do this, he should keep going. Yet he had the impossible-to-deny compulsion to catch a glimpse.
One glimpse of her, and he’d leave.
Lorne peered over the shrub blocking his view.
Sunbeams poured down on the woman, gilding her in light. Her dark curls were pulled into a ponytail, her face raised to the warmth. She wore a simple jumper and jeans, to his relief, instead of that provoking cotton robe. Her eyes were closed, much to his further relief.
The song lifted into the air, as much a part of the scented pines and rush of the burn and fresh, clean air as anything he’d experienced.
The realization stung him with a sharp prick.
She seemed to belong here.
He never had.
Lorne made to pull away, keep running, when it hit him where she sat.
On his da’s rock.
He’d forgotten. It had been years and years since he’d tramped these woods with his father. Years since his father had tried to make him fit in. Still, the memories seared his brain in a sharp slash. This was the rock his father had always sat on when he fished. This was the rock his mum and da used when they picnicked in the summer. This was the rock he’d climbed on as a lad before he’d been told he was clumsy.
She was sitting on his family’s rock.
Pushing the shrub aside, he strode to the edge of the stream, making a lot of noise.
The woman’s voice stopped, mid-trill.
Lorne propped his fisted hands on his hips and glared at her. “What are ye doing here?”
Shock ran across her beautiful face before she sucked in a breath and scoffed. “I can be here anytime I want.”
“It’s 5:30 in the morning.” He noticed his voice was high, which meant he was upset.
He shouldn’t be upset she was merely sitting on a rock. A rock was merely a rock. It shouldn’t matter that this rock had once been his father’s favorite place in the forest.
But it did.
The woman shouldn’t be sitting on his family’s rock.
“So?” She arched a dark brow and sneered at him.
“Ye shouldn’t be out here at this time of the day.”
“Really?” She pulled her legs up and encircled them with her arms, like she meant to stay on the rock for the foreseeable future. “Who says?”
The sneer stayed on her face and layered her words. The sneer made his skin itch. The sweat coating his torso had gone cold, and he felt sticky.
He hated being sticky.
He didn’t know what else to say to her.
He needed a moment to think.
Yanking his shirt off, he paced to the stream and stuck it into the water. The cold felt good on his hands so he splashed some of it on his chest and arms.
Silence echoed behind him.
Lorne splashed some more water over him, trying to think how he could get the woman off his family’s rock and out of his da’s forest. She wouldn’t listen to his words and she wouldn’t be moved by his claims and threats. If he were feeling rational as he usually was, he’d go back to the path and finish his run.
He wasn’t feeling rational. The realization made him stand and glare at her once more.
She stared right at him, her dark gaze drained of any emotion.
&n
bsp; “That’s my rock.”
Both dark brows rose this time and the edge of her sensual mouth curled. “Really?” she repeated. “Who says?”
Getting close to her wouldn’t be a smart move. His brain yelled at him to go. Yet Lorne Ross had learned something about himself when he’d stood on the castle’s balcony and looked down at the Pictloch villagers.
Ross blood did run in him.
Stronger than any desire to run far from this woman, his blood demanded he stand, he conquer, he rule. With a quick jerk, he dropped his shirt and moved toward the rock.
The woman’s eyes widened and she scuttled back, to his great satisfaction.
He gripped the edge of the rock and clambered onto it to land on his knees in the center of the slab.
She perched on the other side and put her hands around her bended knees again. Her gaze never left him, as if she expected him to pounce.
Some instinct inside him wanted to pounce. But he had no idea what he would do with her if he did. Instead, he sat down, right in the center, crossing his legs beneath him, folding his arms in front of him.
Silence fell, filled only by rushing water and twittering greenshanks.
A familiar feeling washed through him, one he hadn’t dealt with in years.
Awkwardness.
His hands fisted under his arms.
All the money he’d earned, all the awards he’d won, all the accolades and respect he’d garnered in his industry fell away. Leaving him wretchedly like before. When he’d been young. When he’d yearned.
“This isn’t your rock.” Her voice no longer held a sneer, rather it was completely matter-of-fact. “This is your father’s rock.”
“My father is dead.”
The words hit him blindsided. Four months ago, he’d received the news with equanimity. He’d been slightly surprised because his da hadn’t been that old. Still, he’d moved through the shock with ease. When he’d arrived in Pictloch and seen the grave, he’d been fixated on far more than his da being gone. And during the last couple of weeks, this woman and her challenge to his rights and to his peace had taken over his concentration.
But suddenly, quite unexpectedly, the reality hit.
Lorne looked across the burn to the other side of the forest. The trees and shrubs were blurry.
“Oh,” the woman said.
A hush fell once more.
He stared at the trees and shrubs until they came back into focus. It took far too long for his liking.
“I miss him, too.” Her voice came low and warm.
The trees and shrubs went blurry again. He hated this. But he couldn’t leave because this was his family’s rock. Now, his rock. Trying to distract himself, he swung around to stare at her.
For the first time, she didn’t look at him with a sly smile or an angry sneer. For the first time, her brows weren’t frowning and her eyes weren’t shooting darts at him. For the first time, he saw her inner beauty as well as the outer.
Her eyes were wide and open and filled with kindness.
Kindness? Towards him?
He frowned.
“Don’t.” Her dark brows furrowed, too. “Don’t reject my feelings just because they match yours.”
“Reject?” he murmured the word, not really taking it in. Because he’d become absorbed by her eyes.
They were brown.
Not exactly, though. His da would say they were soilleir-dhonn, a Gaelic word he’d used to describe the spring coat of a mountain hare to a son who didn’t care. A son who might not have cared about an animal, yet still remembered every word his da had said.
“I loved your father.” Her words butted into his thoughts, trying to ruin his concentration.
He scowled, not willing to think about what form of love for his da she was talking about.
“I did.” Her gaze narrowed making it harder for him to pin down what he wanted to know.
Pushing her love and his da from his mind, he leaned closer. “Open your eyes.”
“What?” She jerked away, peering at him with suspicion. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said.” Frustrated, he unfolded his arms and knelt in front of her on all fours. “Open your eyes.”
“They’re already open.” She shuffled farther away to the very edge of his rock.
He crept closer. “Not open enough. Do what I say.”
Those eyes were glaring now. “I’m not yours to command.”
Why couldn’t people merely do what he asked? He never made unreasonable demands, and his goal was always to make things better, more precise, more accurate. A coil of annoyance twisted inside.
Then it hit him.
What did it matter what color her eyes were? If he knew this, what difference did it make? It wasn’t as if knowing the exact color of her eyes and accurately describing them was going to make anything better for anyone. The knowledge wouldn’t produce a new game Doc could sell, or create code that sang.
The color of her eyes meant nothing.
Lorne reared back on his heels, disgusted with himself.
She gaped at him, her eyes widening.
Why? Why now? After he no longer cared. He had no idea. Yet the compulsion was too great.
He leaned in again and got what he wanted to know, right before her gaze narrowed once more.
“AF7817.” He moved back to the center of his rock, satisfied and oddly elated.
“What?” The woman looked at him as if he were mad.
He’d seen that look on dozens of faces, multiple times. When he’d been a boy, it had scared and hurt him. When he’d been in college, he’d tried to ignore it. Over the years since he’d become rich, people hid the look as much as they could, but he’d still detected it underneath their smiles.
“Never mind.” He hunkered down on his rock, his hands stuffed under his arms once more.
“No, tell me.” She eased closer and her scent enveloped him.
There was another thing he couldn’t quite describe. The last time she’d been this close, all he’d been able to do was leave. She’d overwhelmed him with herself. This time, there was nothing more than her scent and a touch of her warmth on his skin.
Lorne breathed in, closing his eyes, keeping his focus entirely on her scent.
“Tell me what those numbers meant.”
He ignored her and breathed her in again, through his nose and his mouth this time. He knew, in the peripheral part of his mind, that identifying her scent was no more important than figuring out the color of her eyes, yet he breathed on once more.
Heather.
When he’d been a boy, when he’d been working for his father’s affection, he’d follow his da onto the moors of their estate. William Ross had loved to hike, and Lorne had dutifully put on his boots and hiked along, too. For hours, days, months, years. He’d never once understood what the draw was, but he’d catalogued an immense amount of knowledge. Knowledge he apparently still carried inside his head.
She smelled like heather in the fall.
The woman shifted once more, her scent swirling in the cool, morning air. Deep and musky, light and woodsy. If he had to name a color associated with her scent, it would be grassy green.
His eyes popped open. That made no logical sense, whatsoever.
“Lorne.”
He jerked around at the sound of his name on her tongue for the first time. Her Welsh accent made his name into a lilting roll, an exotic tinge of otherness that made his head spin.
She’d come quite close.
People continually came too close to him, and he hated it. Personal space was there for a reason, and he guarded his own with careful practice. If a person came into his office, he stayed behind his heavy, marble desk. If a person approached him at a conference or a professional gathering, he let Doc play deflector. No person was allowed in his penthouse.
She was quite close. Yes. But shockingly, not too close.
The recognition of this fact made him go still.
&
nbsp; “Tell me.” Her voice was kind again, warm again.
Lorne forced himself to meet her gaze, because he didn’t want her to understand how wretchedly confused he felt.
Eyes. Scent. Close.
Want. More than want.
Yearn.
She no longer looked at him like he was mad. She looked at him as if she really wanted to know.
His heart exploded inside, with a mix of shivery need and an overwhelming ache. “AF7817,” he choked out.
“What is that?” She cocked her head, her black curls wafting in the gentle Scottish wind.
“It’s HTML code for a color.” His hands tightened under his arms, waiting for her to look at him as if he were mad. Again.
Her face went slack for a moment before filling with amused understanding. “You wanted to know the color of my eyes.”
“Yes,” he admitted, a wash of embarrassment filling him with heat, and yet he didn’t want to leave. He desperately wanted to stay on this rock, his rock, with her, for as long as she’d let him.
“And my eyes are… What were those numbers?”
“AF7817.” He searched his mind for what Doc called it and found it, much to his relief. “It’s called dark goldenrod, but us geeks just use the code name.”
“That’s beautiful.” Her gaze went dreamy and a shot of pure joy went through him.
She didn’t think he was mad. She didn’t laugh at him.
She understood.
“I think this is probably the nicest compliment I’ve ever received.” Pleasure suffused her face, making her white skin go creamy.
“Probably?” His hands eased from under his arms.
She threw her head back and laughed.
Ceri rarely laughed.
She’d never thought there was much to laugh about. Even when Will had been central to her life, filling it with acceptance and safety, she hadn’t felt like laughing. As a child, she remembered laughing with her mam a time or two, but Dilys would go off with a man eventually, and leave her alone in their flat. She never laughed when she was alone. Elis had lightened her life and she’d laughed a time or two with him. But then he’d left for good. And the thought of laughing when she’d been with Gareth was absurd.
