Now, after a snack lunch with the centre staff, came the best part of the day as far as Francesca was concerned—taking her two favourite dogs out for a long ramble. Sometimes she walked in the extensive grounds of Strathlochan Castle. The private gardens were closed to all but paying visitors on certain days of the year, but the current laird had opened up the rest of the estate for locals. Francesca enjoyed the rolling fields and the native woodlands. At other times she went further afield, up into the hills for longer, wilder, more solitary walks.
Today, with Luke, she chose the castle. The estate bordered one side of the loch that gave the town its name. The castle building itself was impressive, as was the magnificent scenery in which it was set with the backdrop of the hills. They passed the grand building and, beside it, the small chapel where Frazer and Callie had married on Christmas Eve.
The azaleas and rhododendrons, whose fat buds were almost ready to open, would make a spectacular show any day now but for the moment the last daffodils lined the more manicured pathways near the buildings. As they walked deeper into the countryside, the cultivated plants gave way to wildflowers, including celandines and wood anenomes. In another month or so the woods would be awash with bluebells. Pale blue skies held wispy streamers of white cloud, and she saw the first swallows skimming across the fields and around the farm buildings. They were early. Was that a sign of a good summer to come?
‘How long have you been working at the rescue centre?’ Luke asked as they headed deeper into the woods, the two dogs, Murphy and Harry, enjoying the freedom of being off the lead.
‘Ever since I came back to Strathlochan. I was never allowed to have pets when I was a child,’ she admitted, recalling her youthful disappointment and her craving for a friend, even a four-legged one.
Luke nodded, understanding in his eyes. ‘Neither was I. I always wanted a dog.’
‘Me, too. I’d take these two home today, but it’s against my rental agreement to keep animals at the flat.’ She sighed, watching what looked like two huge black teddy bears, hairy and cuddly, frolicking through the undergrowth, feathery tails wagging rhythmically. ‘Besides, there’s not enough space there for two hulking great Newfoundlands. It’s such a shame, they’ve been at the centre for months and haven’t found a home. Their former owners moved abroad for work and no one seems to want to take on two such big dogs at once. And such young, bouncy ones. They’re only two years old. As brothers they’ve been inseparable, and they need to stay together, if possible.’
‘One day…’ Luke murmured, taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.
‘Yes.’
Lacking the motivation to pull away, she allowed Luke to link their fingers as they walked on along the path. Thoughts nagged at her. Why, when she was so bad with people, so awkward around them, did she always find Luke so easy to talk to? Being close to him generated discomfort but of a very different kind—because he made her burn with need and desire. And it took tremendous effort not to dwell on the spine-tingling, amazing kiss they had shared the previous morning. She was so aware of him, so attracted to him. It was as if all the cells and molecules in her body were somehow programmed and magnetised to be drawn to his. Two halves of one whole. But why? How could that be?
‘I was interested to hear that you were still running,’ Luke commented after a while, holding back a low tree branch so she could pass by without catching herself.
‘I jog to keep fit now, nothing else.’ She glanced at him, surprised that he had brought the subject up. ‘Why?’
‘Ma and I looked out for mentions of you in the local paper and watched when the junior trials and any other races were on television. But I always wondered why you did it. The running, the intensive training. If your mother pushed you as much I thought or if being a top athlete was what you really wanted.’
Amazed by his astuteness, she dragged her gaze from the disturbing intensity of his, halting as they emerged from the wood and turning to look at the view of the castle, loch and town spread out below them. Murphy and Harry, panting from their enthusiastic exertions, flopped to the ground in a patch of shade nearby, doggy grins on their faces.
‘Chessie?’
‘I did enjoy athletics—at first. When I was young and it was a hobby, it was fun,’ she allowed after a long pause. ‘You’re right, it was my mother’s dream, not mine, that I should become a success. She had delusions of grandeur and started thinking Olympic medals and the kind of substantial sponsorship deals that would give her a luxurious retirement.’ Francesca paused, hearing the bitterness lacing her tone but unable to help it. When Luke’s fingers tightened on hers, conveying his support, she continued. ‘Once things became an obsession with her, it ruined any enjoyment for me. She started her rigid schedule, the strict diet, her rules for me and my behaviour—no friends, no distractions, no outside interests, just running and school. School came a poor second in her eyes and she’d take me out for days to travel to athletic meets around the UK.’
‘How did you cope with all that pressure?’ he asked, a frown on his face.
The breeze blew some escaped tendrils of hair across her face and she absently tucked them behind her ear with her free hand. ‘I don’t know. I hated standing out as so different from everyone else. Being shy didn’t help. Despite my mother’s ambivalence about education, I recognised the importance of it for my future, and hid myself away with my books whenever I could.’
‘Yeah, that sounds just like me.’ Luke’s smile had a hard edge and it was her turn to express her understanding of how difficult his upbringing had been, squeezing his fingers as he had hers. ‘My father demanded I leave school at sixteen but I battled to stay on, knowing that my brain was my only way out. I had no intention of ending up like my father and brothers.’
‘Your mum told me your father died a few years ago. What happened to Jon and Pete?’ she asked now, giving in to her curiosity.
‘Jon followed in our father’s footsteps—last we heard he was in prison for armed robbery. Pete woke up to the mistakes he was making. After my father died in jail, Pete cut out, moving to America to make a new life for himself. Neither of them keep in touch with Ma or me.’
Francesca turned more to face him, trying to pick up the nuances in his changing expressions. ‘That must be hard on her. Your mum is an amazing lady, doing her best for all of you in horribly difficult circumstances. I always admired her. She didn’t deserve all the hassle the others gave her, but how proud she must be of you.’
‘Thanks, Chessie.’ His soft words were accompanied by the gentlest of caresses as he brushed the back of his knuckles across her cheek. Her skin tingled with sensation. ‘That means a lot to me. And despite all the bad stuff, I always knew I was blessed to have her. I wish you’d had that, too.’
Embarrassed, she shifted and turned back to stare at the view. Somehow, despite the difference in their backgrounds and upbringing, and the material privileges she’d had access to that had been denied to him, Luke had always seemed to understand that her life was less than perfect.
As the dogs stirred, gaining a second wind, they all started walking again, more slowly this time, taking the track that climbed slightly over open ground towards another stand of woodland. They paused by a stream that wound down the hillside, water-loving Murphy and Harry taking the chance for a drink and a paddle.
‘How did you manage to break away from your mother’s hold in the end?’
Luke’s question sucked her back into the past. ‘She became ever more zealous as time went by, as did my resentment.’
What she didn’t voice was how protected she had felt with Luke around, how he had sheltered her from the worst of the bullying and name-calling. Until he had left. Then things had worsened for a while. But she couldn’t tell him how miserable she had been for the two years after he had gone, her dislike and fear of her coach, her life governed by her mother’s tight control and ever more unreasonable rules.
‘Once I turned eighteen, Moth
er no longer had any legal control over me,’ she continued. ‘Things came to a head, we rowed horribly, and I found the nerve to pack up and leave it all behind, calling her bluff.’
‘I’ve been there, I know how hard it is to make the break. You were brave to take the chance, Chessie,’ Luke praised her, admiration evident in his voice. He raised their joined hands and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist, stealing her breath.
‘I hitched to Edinburgh,’ she told him when she could speak again. ‘I made ends meet by working two part-time jobs, one in a bookshop and one in a supermarket, while I waited for my exam results and to begin my training as a radiographer.’
She thought back to those difficult days, the awful shared flats she had endured, doubly hard because she had found it so scary to be in close proximity to strangers. Having succeeded professionally, she was slowly building a nest egg. She carefully managed her budget, renting her small but adequate flat when she returned to Strathlochan, riding a bike rather than running a car, searching charity shops for clothing bargains. Anything to help her one day achieve the dream of security and buying her own home, preferably in a quiet rural spot outside town. She had the image of a house in mind, one she had coveted when she had been young. Although she knew she would never own it, it gave her a goal to strive for.
‘And the running?’
‘I put on a lot of weight when I first left home—an act of rebellion after my mother’s control of my diet, weighing me every day, supervising everything I ate. So I indulged in all the foods I’d never been allowed, like chocolate and pizza,’ she confessed, catching Luke’s smile.
‘You look wonderful.’ His appreciative, leisurely appraisal from her head to her toes and back again made her flustered and brought a blush to her cheeks.
‘I learned to find a balance, to enjoy eating what I wanted to combined with exercise. I started jogging…running on my own terms. But I knew deep inside that I would never let anyone else have control over me again.’
The import of Francesca’s final words was not lost on Luke. After her years with her mother, it would always be important to her to make her own decisions and not feel closed in or trapped. It made his task even harder. As for her worries about her body, he could reassure her she was perfect. True, she had more flesh on her bones now than when she had been a young teenager, super-fit but bordering on too skinny. The new look was much more healthy…and sexier. All those lush and natural feminine curves fired his blood with desire.
‘Where’s your mother now?’ he asked, trying to take his mind off his physical reaction to her.
‘After the row she threw me out, realising I was no longer going to be her meal ticket. She sold the house and took off to Spain with her latest toy boy—he’s something in computers and filthy rich. I’ve no idea if she’s still there. I never see or hear from her.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
But he knew it did, knew how the pain and resentment never really went away. ‘Why Edinburgh?’ he asked, hoping to steer them onto safer ground.
‘For years my mother told me that my father had left when I was born because he hadn’t wanted me. I felt rejected, unloved, to blame.’
‘Chessie—’
‘It’s true and she fostered those feelings, making me feel guilty and as if I owed her something,’ she insisted, cutting off his attempt to refute her statement and tell her she had not been at fault. ‘It was only when I turned eighteen and was searching for something in the loft that I found the letters that proved all my mother had told me was a pack of lies.’
Her words brought a sense of foreboding. ‘What letters?’
‘From my birth father, begging to see me. There were birthday and Christmas cards, presents, notes to me—all things I had known nothing about.’
‘Why did she keep them?’
Francesca shook her head. ‘I have no idea. The sense of power, maybe? That was what the final row was about. And why I went to Edinburgh eight years ago—to find him. But by then it was too late. The father who had loved me and who had been denied access to me had died several years previously. Likewise, I discovered too late the paternal grandparents I had never known existed. They were also gone. There was no one.’
Luke drew her closer, wanting nothing more than to hold her and take away her pain, his heart aching for her. In his mind they were two damaged people who needed each other. It was why he had come home to Strathlochan. Home to take care of his mother. But most of all home to Francesca—to claim her and to make sure she was never hurt or alone again. He had not counted on her mental and emotional toughness and her inner scars. Just how deeply and irrevocably her bitch of a mother had affected her was only now hitting home in its shattering entirety.
‘What about your coach? What was his name?’
Instantly Francesca tensed beside him and he felt a tremor run through her. ‘Alan,’ she murmured, shivering as she spoke.
Luke halted their progress along the path, turning to face her, his eyes narrowing as he noted the pallor of her skin. Refusing to meet his gaze, she withdrew her hand from his, her fingers plucking nervously at the hem of her top. Dread pooling in the pit of his stomach, he reached out and cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him, suspicion darkening his mood and firing his temper.
‘Did he touch you?’
‘Luke…’
‘Answer me, Francesca.’ But he could see the truth in her eyes and it ate him up inside.
‘My mother wanted to get into Alan’s pants, he wanted to get into mine. She got hers, he didn’t…not entirely’
‘And your mother did nothing to protect you?’ he demanded.
‘She told me to make nice to him because of what he could do for my career as a middle-and long-distance runner.’ She sucked in a steadying breath, closing her eyes, and he waited for the rest of it, trying to tame his anger, not wanting to alarm her. ‘Alan used to make me change in front of him. He watched me, touched me a time or two, but no more.’
Fury raged through Luke’s gut. He wanted to track the bastard down and show him what he thought of him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I would have dealt with him.’
Grey eyes, bruised with confusion and hurt, looked up at him. ‘It was after you had gone,’ she finally whispered, and he swore viciously under his breath.
‘God, Chessie, I’m sorry,’ he rasped, drawing her into his arms, closing his eyes as he felt her body shaking.
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
Even as she sought to absolve him, he detected the lingering betrayal and pain his sudden disappearance had so clearly caused her. Yes, he had worried about her, but predominant at the time had been escaping his own hell. He’d not fully considered what his leaving might mean to Francesca, who’d had no one else around to watch over her. Little wonder she distrusted people, men especially, when so few of them had ever done anything right by her. No way would he ever let her down again.
He drew back, cupping her face in his hands, looking deep into her eyes. ‘I remember the first time I saw you, coltish and pretty and with this amazing hair,’ he told her with a smile, the fingers of one hand stroking the fiery mass of curls. ‘I was drawn to you because I recognised your sadness and aloneness—they mirrored my own. We didn’t speak much but I always felt close to you, understood you, wanted to protect you. I never forgot the day we kissed. Not only for the kiss itself, as unforgettable as that was, but because of the way you marched into the head’s office afterwards and spoke up for me. God, you had guts, Chessie. Despite your shyness, you did that. For me. No one but Ma had ever fought my corner with me before. You humbled me, amazed me, made me feel I was more than I was, more than everyone else thought a Devlin could be.’
He came from the wrong side of the tracks, was a loner, had struggled all his life to escape his family’s reputation. He had been labelled bad because of his father and his brothers. He’d never done anything wrong, but he’d been pick
ed on and taunted all his life because of his surname. Aside from his mother, Francesca had been the only one who had been kind to him, who had understood him, believed in him. She had never judged him, but had stood up for him no matter the cost to herself.
No, he had never forgotten her, or their first kiss. She’d been sweet and pure and unimaginably exciting. He hadn’t meant things to get so out of hand but he’d been mad at the way she was always picked on and, yes, damn it, he had longed to kiss her. He just hadn’t anticipated it would be quite so thorough and consuming and arousing. Until they’d been caught and he’d been cast as the evil wrong-doer.
The dogs bounded around them, snapping him from his thoughts and back to the present. It was time to head back but not before he had explained something to Francesca.
‘After the kiss, I was ordered to stay away from you at school. Outside it I could never get close to you because of your mother. The day I finished my final exam I got home to find my father starting on my mother. I hit back. It felt good to do it, to protect Ma, to not let him get away scot-free, but it meant I had to leave there and then or goodness knows what would have happened—to her or to me. I was hurt and bleeding. I grabbed my stuff, made my promise to Ma and headed south to London. I hated leaving her. And you. But I had no choice that day, Chessie. I feared what he would have done had I stayed.’
‘Luke…’
Overwhelmed by powerful emotions, Francesca didn’t know what to say, but she recognised the truth of his words. Inside she cried for what he had been through. The woman she was now was proud of him for all he had achieved. The girl she had been still felt hurt and confused and abandoned.
‘As soon as I had established myself in London, I sent for Ma,’ he told her, taking her hand again as they headed into the woods, taking the path that wound back down the hill towards the castle. ‘She lived with me until my father died. With the threat from him gone, and with Jon and Pete having left town to follow their own paths to self-destruction or redemption, Ma was determined to move back to Strathlochan. I helped her buy the town house, and I bought a place for myself in case circumstances changed and I ever came back. It was a good investment, and it was rented out until recently. Now I’ve moved in.’
The Rebel Surgeon's Proposal Page 8
