Men of Midnight Complete Collection

by Emilie Richards

  Mara responded politely to all of them. She allowed herself to be examined and judged, and she didn’t flinch from questions. By the time she was nearly ready to return to her own cottage, she realized that she was going to miss the hotel. She had begun to make friends, a benefit she hadn’t expected. Some of the same people who had come to investigate had stayed on for the duration. The couch-sitter now brought flowers from his garden every morning, and the furniture arranger had agreed to Mara’s suggestion that together they draw up a new plan for the lobby that would facilitate the flow of traffic while at the same time provide cozy seating groups.

  There were others, as well. The woman who delivered fresh sheets each day had a son in Dublin and loved to talk about her visits there. The greengrocer sought out Mara every afternoon to discover whether she had been pleased at supper on the previous night with whatever fruits or vegetables she’d selected from the menu. Most touching of all, Sarah MacDaniels and her children—whose lives Mara had probably saved—had come in at the end of the first week with a basket of fresh blackberries and a promise of a winter’s supply of jam.

  “How did you know about that horse, Miss?” Sarah had asked as she and the children were leaving. “Just how did you know?”

  Mara shook her head. She couldn’t make up a story for Sarah. Of all people she deserved to know the truth. “I wish I could tell you, but I can no’. I just did.” She smiled warmly. “Have you no’ had that happen yourself, Sarah? Have you no’ felt something deep inside you, then watched it come true?”

  Sarah nodded. “Aye. Once I woke up from a sound sleep and got out of bed for no reason to check on my weans. Something told me to do it. My oldest had a high fever, even though he’d been well before bedtime. I dinna know what would have happened if I had no’ awakened.”

  “Then you understand.”

  “But no’ everyone would.”

  “Which is why I keep the truth to myself.”

  Sarah nodded again. “And why I’ll keep it to myself as well.”

  There had been other benefits, too. April to play with and read to and cuddle. Hot water and indoor plumbing, a view of a garden she didn’t have to work herself, meals prepared by Frances Gunn, the finest cook in the village.

  And Duncan.

  Mara had wondered at the beginning how it would be to have Duncan so close at hand. At first Robbie had found her fascinating, too. Her second sight had been as attractive to him as her trim body and long golden hair. But after they had married, Robbie’s enchantment had ended abruptly. The reality of living with her visions had eclipsed the novelty.

  She was not married to Duncan. He had never been awakened in the middle of a night by a wife trembling and crying from nightmares of things to come. He had never been asked to leave a party because she was overwhelmed with impressions and had to retreat. He had never been forced to purchase the quietest house on the quietest street, never given up a holiday in bustling Rome for one at a lonely seaside villa, never abandoned the idea of having children because he couldn’t bear the possibility of passing on her handicap to future generations.

  Duncan had never had any of those experiences. But in her two weeks at the hotel, he’d had others. He had been there when she’d realized that Mrs. Robbins, a warm, witty pensioner who came to the hotel each Wednesday and Saturday for tea, would not last out the year. He had learned to tell when she was becoming engulfed in images, and he’d learned to help her avoid those times. He found quiet places for her to retreat and often went with her. He drove her up to her cottage every night so that she could see for herself that all was well.

  And he had yet to ask anything of her that she couldn’t give him.

  That changed on what was to be her last Friday afternoon at the hotel. Her arm was out of the sling now, although it was still tender. She had begun to exercise it more, and it promised to be good as new eventually. She still had headaches occasionally, but the severity had decreased. Best of all, her recovery had coincided with the return of Nancy’s husband from London, and next week Nancy would be ready to take back her afternoon shift.

  “I’ll just be going,” Nancy said, when Mara came to relieve her after the midday meal. “But before I do, you should know something.” She lowered her voice. She and Mara were coconspirators now. Over the weeks Nancy’s feelings had progressed from hesitant gratitude to outright affection. “April’s mum called this morning. She tried to get me to put her through to April, but, of course, I did no’. I’ve strict instructions to put her through to Mr. Sinclair when she calls.”

  Mara knew about those instructions. Nancy had warned her repeatedly the morning she’d trained Mara to take her place.

  “She’ll be phoning back,” Nancy continued. “Mr. Sinclair was out when she phoned the first time. And when she hears a different voice at the desk, she’ll ask you to put her through to April. I likely can guarantee it.”

  Mara felt suddenly chilled. “Thank you for the warning.”

  Nancy chattered on. Her granny was better. Mara should come over some evening to meet her Harry now that he was back. Did Mara think that Mr. Sinclair was going to let her rearrange the lobby furniture?

  Mara made all the correct responses, but her mind remained on Lisa. After Nancy had gone, she settled herself at the desk and finished the paperwork that Nancy hadn’t gotten to, but her distress increased. And when the telephone rang at half past two, she knew who was waiting impatiently across the Atlantic.

  She picked up the receiver. “This is the Sinclair Hotel. How may I help you?”

  There was a slight pause. “Excuse me? Did you say this is the Sinclair Hotel.”

  “That’s correct. May I be of service?”

  “Umm… Yes. I’d like to speak with April Sinclair, if she’s there. This is…a friend of the family’s. From the United States.”

  Mara knew that Duncan was back. She had eaten dinner with him at noon. They had exchanged a few hurried kisses in a dark hallway and promises of more. Now he was in his office, and April was playing with Primrose in the garden outside Mara’s room.

  “Hello?” Lisa sounded puzzled that there had been no reply.

  “I’ll connect you. It might take a moment. She’s outside. Please dinna hang up.”

  “Oh, I won’t. I promise I won’t!”

  Tears filled Mara’s eyes, but she didn’t know exactly whom they were for. She put the call on hold, then started down the hallway closest to the garden and her room. She beckoned April inside and when the little girl came in, she unlocked her own door. “There’s a call for you. Somebody I know you’ll want to talk to. Take it in here, April,” Mara said. “Just hang it up when you’re done. Then come and find me. I’ll be at the front desk.”

  Dread had replaced tears by the time that April ran through the lobby. Mara held out her arms, and April leaped into them. Mara held the little girl tightly against her.

  “That was my mommy!”

  “I know, dearest.”

  “She wanted to talk to me!”

  “Of course she did.”

  “She says she misses me.”

  “Of course she does.” Mara rocked back and forth in her chair. “I’m certain she misses you very, very much.”

  “She wanted to know about school and my friends and my room. She wanted to know everything!”

  “And did you tell her everything?”

  “I told her about Primrose and Uncle Andrew and Iain, and about the dead toad we found in the garden.”

  “The important things.”

  “And I told her about you.”

  Mara went very still. “Did you, April?”

  “She said she thought you were nice, too, for letting her talk to me. What did she mean?”

  “I suppose she was just glad that I did no’ mind going outside to look for you.”

  “Oh.” April was already beginning to sober a little. “Daddy doesn’t know I talked to Mommy…Lisa. Does he?”

  “No, I dinna think he does.
”

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  Mara had been asking herself the same question. The answer had to be yes. But when and how were different matters. “Would you like to be the one to tell him?” she asked.

  April frowned. She didn’t answer.

  “I can tell him if you’d rather.”

  The frown began to fade. April’s phone call had been too wonderful and too important to let anything spoil it. “Do you think she might come to see me? Do you think Mommy might come?”

  She would come. Mara knew it as surely as she had ever known anything. Lisa would come, and she would bring pain and turmoil with her. Mara hugged April, then set her firmly on the floor. “What I’m thinking right now is that a certain wee puppy might just take it in his head to run out in the road if you dinna go find him.”

  April ran off in search of Primrose. The lobby was silent. For once no one was watching. Mara put her head in her hands and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  Duncan waited for Mara to walk through the door of his apartment. He had been moved to cook supper for her himself, as moved by the fact that April was going to Lolly’s for a sleep over as by his desire for pasta—which Frances rarely served in the dining room.

  He had steamed and marinated vegetables overnight to serve over fettuccine, and he had chilled a bottle of vintage French Chablis, purchased on his last trip to Fort William. Frances had sent up a loaf of her best oat bread; he’d made a salad of local lettuce and glasshouse tomatoes. There were two servings of the hotel’s special trifle in glass bowls in his refrigerator and fresh, thick cream to serve over it.

  And there was dark roast coffee to savor after everything else had been eaten. If he and Mara were thinking about coffee right about then.

  Having Mara at the hotel for two weeks, within reach at all times, had been torture. He had walked around in a perpetual state of temptation. He had told himself again and again that Mara was still wary, that she had been hurt too deeply to take sex lightly, that she was still physically weakened and emotionally vulnerable.

  And each time he’d seen her, he’d wanted to take her to his bed and explore every secret of her mind and body… particularly her body.

  Familiarity hadn’t bred contempt; rather it had bred desire, and along with it, respect and admiration. Mara had faced up to the problem of her reputation in Druidheachd, and she had held her head high, enchanting and charming a fair number of the locals along the way. Duncan was enchanted and charmed himself. He couldn’t sleep at night without dreaming of her. He couldn’t walk through the hotel halls without hoping he would run into her. He couldn’t work at his desk without seeing her face on the papers in front of him or hearing the musical cadences of her voice on each breeze that drifted through his window.

  Tonight there were no breezes, but a bracing wind that announced a storm was to follow. He had almost adjusted to the cold Scottish climate again, to penetrating mists and smirr, the fine rain that was a step beyond fog. He had learned to look forward to lengthy summer nights and iridescent clouds that adorned the blue noonday skies, to spectacular views of distant treeless peaks and an unpolluted loch one brief stroll away.

  He didn’t want to live in Druidheachd, and he didn’t know how that might affect his growing desire for Mara. But for now he was happier than he had ever expected to be.

  The wind carried April inside with it. She had been outside most of the day, and her cheeks were as pink as Primrose’s ridiculous lolling tongue. The puppy squealed happily—Duncan was resigned to the fact that Primrose would never learn to bark—and skidded across the floor to his water dish where he landed headfirst with a splash and another squeal. Duncan, experienced by now, already had a dishrag in hand.

  “It’s going to rain, rain, rain.” April danced in circles. “Rain, rain, rain…”

  Duncan rose after setting Primrose back on all fours and mopping the water. “Let me guess. You think it’s going to rain.”

  April tackled him, wrapping her arms around his hips. He stroked her hair. “Did you see Mara downstairs?” he asked.

  “She’s coming. Coming, coming, coming.”

  “Let me guess. You think she’s coming.”

  “Daddy is silly. Daddy is silly!” She began to dance around the floor again. He couldn’t remember seeing her so happy. She was growing into the little girl he had never expected to see but for whom he had wished desperately. At the moment she wasn’t worried about anything. She had nothing to do except be herself.

  For the first time he wondered if perhaps someday he might be forgiven for being a bad father after all.

  There was a soft knock on his door, a tentative knock. He crossed the room and threw it open. Mara’s expression was serious. She assessed him, and he had the strangest feeling that she wasn’t sure if she was satisfied with what she saw. “Shall I come in?”

  “No. I thought I’d serve you supper in the hallway tonight.” He grasped her arm and pulled her inside. “Welcome to the madhouse. April and Primrose are competing to see who’s crazier.”

  April tackled Mara, then she grabbed her father, too. They were cocooned together in one little girl hug. Duncan could see a faint sprinkle of freckles across Mara’s nose. He was close enough to kiss them and just disciplined enough to resist.

  Instead, he lifted April off her feet and swung her to his hip. She was almost too large now to be held that way; she was definitely growing up. “Look, Springtime, you’ve got to get yourself together. Jessie’s going to be up in a few minutes to pick you up for the sleep over.”

  “I’m all ready.” She clasped his neck in a death grip. “Ready, ready, ready!”

  “I think she’s ready,” he told Mara.

  “And excited about it,” Mara said.

  “Is that why you’re so silly tonight?” he asked. He tickled her, and she giggled and kicked to get down.

  “I had a wonderful day,” she said. She began to dance around the room again.

  “Did you? I’d say all that fresh air and sunshine agrees with you. Or was it the walk over to Cameron’s for ice cream?”

  “No. ‘Cause I got to talk to Mommy.” She stopped spinning.

  For a moment Duncan didn’t register what she’d said. He was busy watching Mara. It was the change in her expression that brought him to attention. “What did you say, April?”

  April stood very still now. “I got to talk to Mommy.” She looked up at Mara, as if asking for help.

  “Mrs. Sinclair called this afternoon and I put her through to April,” Mara said. “They had a nice chat, did you no’, dearest?”

  “She misses me,” April said. “Just like I miss her.” She still didn’t look at her father. “I told her everything.”

  “Did you know who was calling?” Duncan asked Mara. He kept his voice neutral, but it took considerable effort.

  “Aye, I knew.”

  There was nothing he could say that could be said in front of April. He gazed out the window until he could control his tongue. “Did you remember to pack your toothbrush, Springtime? And how about your seal?”

  “My seal and my lamb.” April relaxed again and beamed at Mara. The lamb had been a birthday gift, lovingly sewn by Mara from scraps of her own fleeces.

  “And how about Primrose?” Mara asked. “Did you pack him, too?”

  “Silly! He has to stay here.” April wrapped her arms around Mara’s waist. “Can I pack you?”

  “Will I fit?”

  April’s giggle was interrupted by a knock. Duncan opened the door and ushered Jessie and Lolly inside. There was a flurry of greetings, followed by a flurry of goodbyes.

  Finally he and Mara were alone, and the apartment was as silent as suspicion.

  He crossed the room and poured himself a whiskey. He kept his back to her. “May I get you a drink?” His voice froze the air between them.

  “I dinna think so. I dinna drink with anyone who is angry with me.”

  “Angry is a pale word
for what I’m feeling.”

  “Then tell me what you’re feeling, Duncan, and let’s have it on the table. Dinna pretend that nowt’s happened.”

  He faced her. “You let my daughter talk to her mother. I put an ocean between Lisa and April. I put thousands of miles between us. I’m living in the most godforsaken part of a godforsaken country just so Lisa can’t have any interaction with April! And you let April talk to her!”

  “Aye.”

  He slammed the glass down. Whiskey sloshed over the rim. “Who do you think you are? It’s my decision if and when Lisa ever gets to talk to April! Goddamn it, I paid enough to have the right to make that decision, didn’t I? And then you come along, with your bleeding heart and your conviction that you know what’s best for everyone, and you take that decision out of my hands! And I’m the one who has to live with it! I’m the one who has to watch that woman ruin my daughter’s life again!”

  “You’re right, of course. I had no right. But I’d do it again, Duncan. Because you’re right about something else. Lisa is ruining April’s life. But no’ in the way that you think. She’s ruining it by no’ being part of it.”

  He covered the distance between them, towering over her. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her until the rage inside him subsided even a little.

  But he didn’t touch her. He had never touched anyone in anger, and even this, even this betrayal would not alter that.

  “You weren’t there,” he said softly. “You weren’t there when I unlocked a bedroom door and found my child, my little girl, huddled in a corner screaming her heart out. There wasn’t even a light on in that room, Mara. Lisa hadn’t even had the decency to leave a light on! April’s still afraid of the dark. To this day she’s still afraid!”

  “I’m no’ defending Lisa, Duncan.”

  “Then what are you doing? What in the hell are you doing?”