“I’m glad it didn’t.”
“Me, as well. ‘T’would be a shame if I expired before getting me hands on such a bum.”
My breath caught in my throat; up until then, we’d been engaged in a bit of harmless flirting centered on how we’d accidentally seen each other naked, but Robert’s last comment had ratcheted our flirting up from ‘harmless’ to ‘dangerous’. And those hands gently squeezing my hips weren’t helping.
Robert pulled me forward, pressing me against him as he tilted my hips upward, his hands splayed across my butt. I laid my hands against his chest, and stared down into his eyes.
“Tell me, love,” Robert murmured, “do mermaids kiss on dry land?”
“They’d probably suffocate,” I said, my nerves sending my mouth into full on babble mode. “I mean, they probably breathe with gills or something, so they’d flop around like a fish out of water.”
As the words left my mouth, I realized that I’d ruined the moment. Gills? Really? Here I was, dying for Robert to kiss me, and all I could manage to talk about were gills. Before I could figure out how to salvage things, the washer buzzed underneath me. I didn’t know if I was irritated or relieved.
“Um, the clothes are done,” I said. “We need to take them out.”
Robert nodded, then he pulled me the rest of the way off the washer, keeping his hands firm against my butt. He held me against him for a moment, then he said, “I am glad ye are no’ a mermaid. I like ye just the way ye are.”
“Oh, um.” Amazingly, I didn’t blush. “Thank you.”
Robert relaxed his hold on me, and I slid down his body while his hands slid up my back, eventually cupping the back of my head. “Ye are quite welcome, love.”
I wet my lips with my tongue and heard bells; someone had opened the Laundromat’s front door. Remembering we were in a public place I pulled away from Robert, and busied myself with emptying the washer and flinging the clothes into the adjoining dryer. A few moments after that task was done, the other washer buzzed, and I repeated the process. All in all, the laundry gave me about ten minutes of focused activity before I had to face Robert again. Should have filled a third machine.
I turned toward Robert, my hands jammed in my back pockets, and said, “So.” The dryers were drying away, I had nothing to do for at least an hour, and I had no idea of what I should say to the man. Having limited options, I decided to babble in the truest sense of the word.
“It will probably be another hour before everything’s done. Drying takes a lot longer than washing, though I’ve no idea why. Then we can fold everything, and bring it back to the cottage. Or, if you want, we can separate our clothes here, or we can just throw everything into a basket and separate things at the cottage. Or—”
“Karina. Quit your haverin’. Just sit here wi’ me until these machines finish their tasks.”
Robert smiled, and extended his hand. I accepted it, and let him pull me onto the bench beside him. Robert dropped his arm around my shoulders; after a moment, I leaned my head against him.
“Robert?”
“What is it, love?”
“I’m glad you’re not a mermaid, too.”
He snorted. “O’ course you are, being that mermaids are female.”
I laughed softly; I hadn’t thought of that. “Well, I’m glad you’re not a merman, either.”
Robert pressed his lips against my forehead. I shut my eyes, and hoped that the moment would never end. “As am I, Karina love.”
Chapter Twenty Three
Chris
“Christopher.”
It took me a moment to realize I was being addressed. I hadn’t heard my own name in so long I hardly remembered it. Not that I needed it. I had her, and she was all that mattered.
Her.
Sorcha.
When she’d first led me into her home, I’d expected a house with regular walls and floors and furniture made of wood and upholstery. Instead we’d stepped into a grand room as large as a concert hall, where the ceiling was speckled with stars and the chandelier shone like the sun. It was so bright I couldn’t see who else was there, but I felt their hands as they took my coat, removed my shoes, stroked my hair. Gentle, cool fingers put a goblet to my lips, and I drank nectar that was almost as sweet as Sorcha’s mouth.
The hands guided me to the center of the room, and I laid down on a bed made of vines, covered in tiny white blossoms. Somehow the bed became a garden, and then a ballroom, and Sorcha and I were dancing as we spun across the polished floor. Or maybe we’d been standing still, and the stars spun around us. That would make sense, since Sorcha was the center of my world, my beginning and my end. She was everything.
Afterward, we lay on velvet cushions, her people fanned out around us. They brought us sweet drinks, wove flowers into Sorcha’s hair, mopped my brow when I sweat. Loving Sorcha was heady work.
“Stay with me forever,” Sorcha murmured.
“Where else would I be, but with you?” I replied. I moved and the silk sheets fell away, revealing my nakedness, but I didn’t care. Let everyone in the world know that I loved Sorcha, and that I would never leave her side.
“What of Olivia?” Sorcha pressed. “What if she desired you to return to her?”
“Who is Olivia?”
Sorcha smiled, and drew me down beside her. “No one,” she murmured, as I bent to kiss her. “No one at all.”
Chapter Twenty Four
Karina
After whiling away the morning at the Laundromat, and all of the associated flirting that had occurred, Robert and I returned to the cottage. He spent the afternoon reading the crystal text, while I explored the newly reorganized bookshelves. It was stocked with titles Chris would like, Shakespeare and Burns and various other deceased poets; as for me, I’d take a good science fiction tale over poetry any day. Once I’d thumbed through the volumes and found all of them lacking, I sighed. And no matter how much I wanted it, that pile of unfolded laundry was not going to fold itself.
As soon as I started separating the clothes, Robert joined me. Despite the confessions we’d shared at the Laundromat, and all the butt squeezing that had happened, Robert and I kept our hands to ourselves once we returned to the cottage. The repetitive work of separating and folding our clothes certainly didn’t lend itself to any romance, real or imaginary.
And imaginary was just what it was. There was no way Robert would have any sort of interest in me; first of all, he’d made it crystal clear that he only sought to have ‘relations’ with a woman he was married to, or intended to marry. Since we’d known each other for all of one week, marriage was not exactly on the table.
As for me, I’m not exactly the marrying type. No, I was the type to scramble over hill and dale searching for shiny rocks and other treasures, the sort of uncouth girl who thought nothing of belching the alphabet or stripping naked in a car park.
Robert had looked pretty good in the car park. Good enough to make my belly flutter, good enough to make me wish we’d stayed at the bottom of the sea a bit longer. Good enough for me to take a fricken’ bite out of his—
“Lass.”
I looked up from my laundry and saw Robert standing over the pile of clothes, eyeing me intently. “What is it?”
“What has that garment ever done to wrong ye?”
Confused, I looked down, and saw that I had twisted one of my shirts so much it resembled a cigar more than something one would wear. “Nothing,” I muttered, smoothing the shirt across my knees.
Robert touched my chin, and tilted my face upward. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What e’er fashes ye so.”
I took a deep breath; there was no way I was going to tell Robert that I had been fantasizing about him kissing me, and me kissing him back. “I suppose I have a lot on my mind,” I hedged.
Robert’s eyes narrowed; too late, I remembered that he had some sort of built in lie detector. But, I hadn’t lied, not really anyway. There we
re more thoughts flying around inside my head than I knew what to do with. He didn’t call me on the half-truth; instead, he got up and skirted the edge of the coffee table our laundry was heaped upon. Then, he crouched before me and took my hands, his thumbs gliding across my knuckles.
“Karina lass, believe me when I say that I never intended to drag ye into this mess,” he said. “Truly, if I were a better man, I’d wish ye had never freed me from Nicnevin’s curse.”
“But you’re still cursed,” I pointed out, rather unnecessarily. As I gazed at my reflection in his silver collar, my mind grasped something else he’d said. “What do you mean, if you were a better man?”
“I canna wish to have never met ye, my lovely Karina.”
My mouth dropped open, and if I hadn’t been sitting I would have fallen. Me? Lovely? I could think of quite a few adjectives to describe my appearance—pale, freckly, awkward—but lovely was not one of them. Maybe he needed glasses.
“I’m not lovely,” I whispered. “I’m not even that pretty.”
Robert caressed my cheek with the back of his knuckles. “’Tis a shame ye do no’ see yourself as I do.”
With that, he stood and returned to his side of the laundry pile. I didn’t know if I should feel flattered by the compliments, offended that he just kept touching me whenever he felt like it, or if I should just stick with my present confused state. In the end, I decided to go with flattered.
“Thank you,” I said. “It was nice of you to say that.”
Robert looked up, and smiled. “Ye are quite welcome, love.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, rising to my feet. “All this domestic work is driving me bonkers.”
“Bonkers?” Robert repeated.
“You know. Stir crazy.” I rooted through the as-yet unfolded laundry, and found my sweater from the day before. “And I’m pretty hungry,” I added as I pulled the sweater over my head. “Aren’t you?”
“I suppose I could do with a wee bite,” Robert said, his amused gaze following me as I searched for boot socks. When I pulled on my hiking boots I realized that they were still damp, which was just gross. And I did not want to go out to eat wearing orange flip flops, or any color flip flops, for that matter; it was bad enough I’d worn them to the Laundromat.
An idea bloomed in my mind, so I entered my bedroom and dragged out my suitcase from where I’d stashed it below the bed. I unzipped it, and took out my black high heeled boots. I’d packed them to wear at dinners in nicer restaurants, and other activities that weren’t appropriate for hiking boots. Sadly, this was the first time I’d worn them; they hadn’t even made an appearance at the Italian restaurant.
After I put on the boots, I considered my sweater. It was one of the traditional cable knits, bulky and warm and more than appropriate for the early fall air. However, since Robert had said I was lovely, I decided to show him just how good I could look when I made the effort.
I pulled off my chunky sweater and opened the top dresser drawer to assess my shirt situation. I chose a form-fitting midnight blue v-neck knit top, which made my blue eyes pop while revealing just enough cleavage. I layered a black tank top underneath, mostly so I wouldn’t freeze in nothing but a thin shirt, and slipped on the v-neck. I then loosened my ponytail and combed out my hair, added a touch of mascara and eye shadow, and rejoined Robert in the common room. He was standing at the counter his back to me.
“I’m ready if you are,” I said. He turned around, and I saw that he’d been taking more notes from the crystal book. Remember what I said about hot guys and research? It was like he was trying to give me a heart attack.
Robert looked me up and down, his gaze coming to rest on my feet. “How can ye walk, balanced as ye are on those wee stilts?” he asked.
“They’re not that high,” I pouted. I had just put on makeup for the man, and he was complaining about my footwear?
“As ye say.” Robert grabbed our coats, then he extended his arm to me. “Come, love,” he said. “Let’s find out if this old man can show a pretty young lass like yourself a pleasant evening.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.” Robert opened the door, but we found our way blocked by a herd of butterflies.
“The wights,” I murmured, realizing that the butterflies were actually the garden’s tiny, colorful inhabitants. “They seem upset.”
“That they do,” Robert agreed, then he addressed the swarm of color. “Well? Let’s have it, then. What news have ye?”
“She knows, gallowglass,” they said in unison, more of a song that a reply. “She knows about the gallowglass and his lass.”
“She? Oh.” They meant Nicnevin, of course. “What does she know?” I asked.
“That the gallowglass lives, that he walks her land,” they replied. “That he looks on a mortal lass, and how he will surely hold her hand.”
I ignored that last part, and turned to Robert. “The White Lady?”
“Most likely her or Morag,” he replied. “Does she know where we are now?” he asked the wights.
A blue-winged wight, probably the one that had landed on Robert’s head the other day, perched on my shoulder and looked Robert in the eye. “’Tis only a matter of time,” said the wight, while the rest flitted around us. I wondered if the blue one was in charge, Head Wight or something. “As long as you walk her island, her minions will continue searching for you. They will not rest.”
Robert nodded, eyes solemn. “Thank ye for the warning. I will do everything in my power to keep her from this location, and your homes.”
The wight bowed. “We, in turn, shall misdirect them whenever possible. The two of you are good for the garden, bringing it life and light. We will do our best to keep you with us.”
With that, the blue wight leapt into the air toward the garden, the rest of the swarm following like so many glittering, floating jewels. Once they’d disappeared around the corner, I turned to Robert. “Should we stay in tonight?”
“Absolutely not,” Robert stated. “Never once have I hidden from her, not even when she was displeased with me, and sought to flay the skin from my back.” I gasped, my hand covering my mouth. “Do no’ fash, love, ‘twas a long time ago, afore I was her gallowglass.”
Despite his assurances, I was certain that being flayed was a fash-worthy event. “But if she sees you—”
“She will not,” Robert insisted. “’T’would be only o’ her minions, as the wight said.” He took my hands in his. “Love, do ye trust me to keep ye safe?”
My stomach rumbled loud enough for Robert to hear it. “I guess that’s your answer,” I said. “If we see any monsters, can we come back home?”
“O’ course, love.”
I really shouldn’t have been reassured by that; if anything, I should have turned around, bolted the door, and booked a flight out of Scotland. But I’d gotten dressed up—dressed up for me, anyway—and I was starved, and… and I really wanted a night out with Robert. I mean, we’d gone out to eat together nearly every day since we’d met, but I wanted tonight to be different. I wanted tonight to be something like a date.
Not that I was in any way going to admit that to Mr. Kirk. “I believe you have convinced me, reverend,” I admitted, tucking my hand into his elbow.
Robert grunted. “Ye do enjoy referrin’ to me as a reverend, don’t ye?”
“As much as you like calling me Karina.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Ye have me there.”
We left the rental in its spot behind the cottage and walked down the gentle hill to the town proper. Eager to explore the depths of Crail, we avoided the pub where the Ice Princess tended bar and wandered through the streets, passing by the Mercat Cross with its super cool unicorn finial, and getting ourselves turned around more than once. Eventually, we made our way past the piers and the sea wall, and stood on the beach gazing out over the Firth of Forth.
“Did you ever come to Fife?” I asked. “You know…before?”
“Aye. I
studied at St. Andrews, before going on to Edinburgh,” he replied. “’Tis where I became a minister, ye ken,” he added.
“Oh, maybe you should have gone to St. Andrews with Chris,” I said. I wondered what he and Ethan were up to. Knowing the two of them they were getting drunk and challenging each other with facts about obscure Elizabethan literature like the party animals they were.
Robert cocked an eyebrow. “Tired o’ me, are ye? Wantin’ to pass me off to your brother?”
“Never,” I declared. “I just thought you might like to visit. Old times, and all.”
Robert nodded, then turned his gaze back to the water. “I believe I prefer these new times with ye, Karina me lass. No, I think I’ll stay here, and see where these days take us.”
It was a good thing he was looking at the sea instead of me, because I was staring at his profile, opening and closing my mouth like a fish. Unable to formulate any sort of response to Robert’s declaration, I followed his gaze out to the water. Three seal pups floating on the waves captured my attention; while I watched, one flopped onto the shore and looked right at me.
“Look,” I said, dropping into a crouch. “Isn’t he adorable?” As if on cue, the pup rolled onto his back, and waved his flippers at me.
“Have a care, love,” Robert warned. “’Tis a wild animal, and one ye should not agitate.”
“It’s a baby,” I protested. “What could he hurt?”
“I’m sure that the local fish can tell a tale or two.” Robert placed his hand on the back of my neck. “Come along, love. I can hear your belly rumbling from here.”
“You cannot,” I grumbled, but I stood and let him lead me away from the water. Robert offered me his arm, as he was wont to do, and I leaned against him as we walked. It amazed me how comfortable I’d become with him in such short a time, how I no longer found it odd when he reached for my hand, or found random excuses to caress me. I planned on finding a few random excuses for me to caress him.
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