Men of Midnight Complete Collection

by Emilie Richards

  Or perhaps he hadn’t given any thought to her at all. More likely his mind had been on other things. He had been extraordinarily busy.

  The village buzzed with news of the upcoming meeting to discuss the future of Druidheachd. Andrew had worked nonstop to be certain that everyone in the village intended to come. After the confrontation in Fort William, Carlton-Jones and Surrey had begun to twist the arms of property owners who had showed interest in their offers. Their attempts to collect signatures on the dotted line had met with dubious success. There was a deep-seated distrust in the Highlands of undue haste and bullies. So although several owners of small cottages had succumbed, those with larger properties had dug in their heels to wait.

  So much rode on Sunday night.

  She finished the soup and cleaned up, then she began to restlessly wander the room. She had just finished a book, and television held no interest. Fiona had learned her housekeeping skills from a mother determined to keep all germs away, so her rooms were already spotless. Only one thing was out of place.

  The last box she had brought down from the attic sat in the corner beside the door. Since the day that Mara had piqued her interest, Fiona had spent hours sorting through her father’s belongings. Most had gone straight to charity. Others she and Duncan had divided between them. The collection of pipes now resided in Duncan’s office, a sign, she supposed, that Duncan still had some feeling for the man who had sired him, no matter how inadequate their relationship had been while Donald Sinclair was still alive.

  The box was filled with papers. She had already sorted through the top third, and so far she’d only found miscellaneous bills of sale and receipts from years before. She had started a pile for Duncan to check over, although she suspected that everything was too old to be relevant. Donald Sinclair had been organized to a fault. Duncan had told her that the files in the hotel office had been compulsively current.

  Now, with nothing better to do, she lifted a new stack of papers from the box and settled herself on the sofa to continue her work. As she had expected, she found more outdated documents. She could almost visualize her father filing bills and forms until they were no longer useful, then carefully storing them in boxes for that one chance in a million that they might be needed again. She pictured a man with an obsessive need to maintain order.

  A man who demanded perfection in everything and everyone.

  She scanned the next neatly typed paper, which looked like a budget or a list of expenses from two decades ago. She started to stack it with the others, when her own name caught her eye.

  She was the sixth item on the list. “Miscellaneous medical expenses for Fiona.” There was a notation in pen beside it. “Question Melissa.”

  Her hands faltered, and what was left of the pile drifted to her lap. From the beginning she had hoped to find some clue to her own past in her father’s things, the tiniest scrap of evidence that he hadn’t forsaken his imperfect daughter. But until this moment there hadn’t been even a mention of her name.

  Now she understood why. Twenty years ago or more she had been reduced to an annoying expense in Donald Sinclair’s budget. She had been put from his sight as coldly and meticulously as the outdated hotel records. Somewhere in this box or another there was undoubtedly a file folder containing every bill he’d been forced to pay for her care.

  She pictured the words on the file guide. Sinclair, Fiona. Formerly beloved daughter.

  The tone of her inner voice was as bitter as that image. Anger burst into flames inside her, and for a moment she was so filled with it that it screened out everything else. Until the day her father died, she had held fast to a secret hope that he would come to her and beg for forgiveness. Even after his death, she still had searched relentlessly for proof that she’d mattered even a little. Now the fantasy was over.

  Since childhood she had convinced herself that she needed her father’s approval and love. With Donald Sinclair’s guidance she might step out into the world, instead of hiding in the safe, stultifying prison that her mother had created to shelter her.

  It had all been a lie. Just as her mother had told her, Donald Sinclair had abandoned his daughter because she was no longer a perfect child.

  But she had told herself an even worse lie. She had believed that she needed him to become whole and perfect again.

  She did not.

  The question Mara had asked earlier came back to her. Are the children right, Fiona? Are you whole?

  And she had answered: Almost.

  Almost, but not quite.

  Now Fiona realized that all her life she had used her own imperfections and her father’s abandonment as a shield to keep the world away. She was not at fault for his desertion. She was only at fault for letting it matter so much.

  Through the years, one decision at a time, she had let cowardice become a way of life. But there were no excuses now.

  Almost.

  She had never needed her parents’ approval or even their strength to become the woman she was meant to be. They had been far from perfect, too. Yet despite everything, she realized that she loved them still. And if she could fondly remember the young father who had carried his little girl so contentedly on his shoulders, despite the rejection that had come after, then she was living proof. Perfection was not the key to love or freedom.

  She had yearned to be free all her life, when all she’d ever had to do was spread her wings and fly. She had learned that in her weeks in Druidheachd. She’d learned that she had everything she needed inside her. She always had.

  She got to her feet, and the papers fluttered to the floor. She stooped to scoop them up, but her mind was somewhere else. She carried the papers to the corner and set them on the carpet beside the box. She would have to go through them again, since they were out of order. But that could wait for another time. There was already too much to think about.

  She straightened and started to turn, but a letter on the top caught her eye. She frowned and leaned closer; then she dropped to her knees and held it at arm’s length.

  “Fiona dearest…”

  And once again her world spun out of orbit.

  * * *

  He was a Scotsman, bred to ignore the weather, a Highlander who took storms and fog and chilling winds in his stride.

  He was heartily sick of evil black clouds, of days that resembled night, and nights so damp that the fire on his hearth sputtered in a perpetual death throe.

  Andrew threw another stick on the impotent flames and turned away. He had lived in this cottage all his life; he had nearly been born here. The cottage had never seemed so small or smothering, and he had never wanted more to leave it.

  But where could he go? Until he was utterly secure in his decision not to drink again, he did not need the enticements of the pub. He didn’t yearn for his old ways, but he knew better than to tempt fate.

  He would be welcome in Duncan or Iain’s homes, but he was loath to inflict himself on his friends or their wives. These days he wasn’t good company. The man who could retreat easily behind wit and a broad smile was a man he no longer knew. He was only just beginning to know the real Andrew MacDougall.

  He could go to Fiona.

  Andrew had considered that often enough over the past week. Once he had driven halfway to the hotel before he turned back home. He had yearned to share his discovery, his revelations, with her. But what would he have gained? Until she could share with him, until she could give herself, there were barriers between them that made true communication impossible.

  Poppy rose from his place in front of the fire and cocked his head. Then he sprang forward, hurtling toward the door like a greyhound on his final lap. At the last possible moment he slid to a stop, rammed his head against the door and began to bark.

  Andrew crossed the room, pushed the dog to one side and opened the door to peer out into the evening gloom. Rain had begun again, cold, penetrating rain, and at first he saw nothing. Then a woman in a long mackintosh materialized in the sha
dows of the beech trees that lined his walk.

  “Fiona?” He shouted a few stern words to Poppy, who was yapping joyfully.

  She came to a stop under the shelter of his entryway. “I wasn’t sure you’d be home.”

  “Come in. You’ll catch your death of cold out in this.”

  She stepped inside but refused to stand by the fire until she had taken off her coat. He hung it on a peg, then turned back to examine her. “It’s no’ a night for a walk.”

  “It was the right night for this one.”

  He saw that she was clutching something to her chest. In the flicker of his fire, he read strong emotions on her face, but he couldn’t identify them. “What do you have there?”

  “My past.” She held her bundle tighter.

  “Did you come to share it?” he asked gently.

  “Yes. I… Andrew, do you want me to leave?”

  He had never wanted anything as much as her presence. But he only shook his head. “No.”

  “I should have called. Only, I thought if I did, you might say no. And I couldn’t have stood that.”

  “I would have said yes and come to get you.”

  “I’ve never been inside your house.”

  “There’s little to it. You’ve missed nowt.” Her hair was wet, a mass of corkscrew curls dangling over her forehead and neck. Raindrops sparkled on her lashes, and color suffused her cheeks. He thought she had never looked bonnier.

  “I think it’s the coziest house in the world.” She made her way into the center of the room, her dark denim skirt swirling around her calves as she moved. He watched as she drank in every detail. The wide plank floors that glowed like miser’s gold in the firelight. The fireplace he had built himself from stones carried from Bein Domhain, the mountain where Mara had her croft.

  He found himself telling her about it. “I built the fireplace two years ago. There was a wee worthless one there when I was young.”

  “It’s wonderful.” Still clutching the bundle to her chest, she ran one fingertip along the edge of the mantel. It was a beam of solid cherry, painstakingly chiseled and sanded, then rubbed with six coats of oil during the long winter just past. “You’ve put so much love into it.”

  Love? Andrew wasn’t certain of that. He thought of all the hours he’d spent here throughout the years, lonely hours when his worst fears had hovered unseen in this lochside monument to his childhood. He had changed things slowly and carefully, built a new fireplace to replace the old one—which far too often during his boyhood had been as cold and empty as the worst winter night. He had sanded and varnished floors where his father had often sprawled, too dizzy some nights to make his way to bed. He’d painted walls and replaced furniture, built shelves and partitions to change the cottage into something new.

  When all he had ever needed to do was change himself.

  “You’re smiling.” Fiona smiled, too. “Did I say something funny?”

  He shook his head. “The very funniest stories are the ones that take the longest to understand.”

  She tilted her head in question.

  “I’m glad you like my cottage. I like it, as well. There are only good memories here now.”

  She moved closer, in the same manner that she always did. A step at a time, with long pauses punctuating each movement, as if she weren’t certain she had any right to propel herself through space. “I brought something to show you,” she said, when she was so close that he could read the subtle nuances in her whisky-colored eyes.

  He wondered if whisky eyes were an addiction he would be forced to forsake, too. She held out her bundle. As he watched, she unwrapped a layer of plastic, then another of brown paper. She had taken no chances on the rain.

  “Take them,” she said.

  He took what appeared to be a stack of old letters. “Do you mind if I sit?”

  “Please.”

  He moved to the settee that was closest and made himself comfortable. She sat on the far end, perched as if for flight.

  Andrew snapped on the reading lamp.

  He was halfway through the first letter before he began to understand. He looked up. Fiona was watching him intently, but he couldn’t read her expression. “Finish them all before you say anything,” she said.

  He read on, although it wasn’t an easy thing to do. Somewhere, halfway through the pile or beyond, his eyes began to blur.

  He felt Fiona sit forward, waiting for him to finish. Gamely he finished the letters, although by then, there was no need to read them all.

  “He loved me,” Fiona said, when he had finished.

  Her simple statement summed up everything. More than twenty years of pain and guilt. A father’s confessions to a daughter he had never been able to face. The pathetic withdrawal of a man who had once been filled with life and love.

  “He believed the fire was his fault,” she said. There were tears in her voice as well as her eyes. Andrew saw them through his own.

  He cleared his throat. “So he was the one who placed the heater in the closet.”

  “Yes. Apparently he’d noticed that the cord was frayed, and he’d planned to take it to be repaired. I remember Duncan saying once that our father wasn’t a man to throw away anything. So he put the heater away, but he forgot to tell my mother. The hotel was full that week, and he was busier than usual. He didn’t think of it again. Until it was too late.”

  “He never forgave himself.”

  Fiona shook her head. “That’s the hardest part. He wrote me these letters, Andrew, one on each of my birthdays. He didn’t miss a year. And they’re all the same. I think his guilt grew worse as time passed. He loved me. He’s made that part so clear. But he was terrified to face me, to see what his own carelessness had caused. So he poured out his heart on paper once a year, and the rest of the time he grew sterner and stiffer, until even his son couldn’t love him anymore. I think that was the way he felt it should be. He was so ashamed that he couldn’t even allow Duncan to love him.”

  “And he never mailed the letters.”

  “No. Don’t you see? If he had mailed them, I might have forgiven him. And he was sure that he didn’t deserve forgiveness. He punished himself until he died.”

  “He was a poor, sad man.”

  “My mother was right about him, Andrew. That’s the most terrible thing of all. He was exactly what she said, a man who couldn’t tolerate imperfections. But it was never my imperfections that made him abandon me. It was his own.”

  He placed the letters on the lamp table. She was still at the end of the settee, too far away to touch or comfort. As he watched, she moved closer. He didn’t reach out for her, only sat very still. His breath burned in his chest, but he was afraid to release it.

  “I’m very much like him,” she said softly. “I despise the parts of myself that are less than perfect. I use them as excuses to wall myself away from the things I want most.”

  She was beside him now. One heartbeat away. He lifted his hand and captured a teardrop at the side of her nose. His hand wasn’t quite steady. “And what is it that you want, Fiona?”

  “I don’t know. I’m still afraid.”

  His hand fell to his side.

  “To be held by you,” she said, even more softly. “I want to be held by you.”

  “Do you? And the things that come after holding? Do you want them, too?”

  “I want to feel. I want to feel you.”

  He knew better than to take her like this. She was at her most vulnerable and still unsure of what she had to give. She needed time to assimilate all that she’d learned. But even as he opened his mouth to tell her so, he knew that he wouldn’t find the words.

  She needed him tonight, and, God help him, he needed her just as much.

  Despite everything, he still might have found the strength to move away if she hadn’t cupped his face in her hands. “I want to feel you inside me, Andrew.”

  He groaned and pulled her closer. His fingers threaded through her wet curls, and
he brought her lips to his. She tasted like raindrops and tears, like the dark sweetness of twilight and the bright sunrise of hope. The kiss was a shared joy, an exchange. Perhaps she wanted to be held, but she wanted to hold, as well. Her hands moved along his neck and shoulders as they kissed, exploring and giving pleasure. He kissed the corner of her mouth, brushed his lips along her jawline and moved lower to find the racing jolt of her pulse.

  She moaned, a soft, womanly purr that resonated through his body. He captured the sound against his lips. “Ah, Fiona, do that again.”

  She sighed, and the sound was just as sensuous. His lips moved still lower, to the hollow of her throat. He heard her breath catch as he kissed her there. One hand crept to her waist, and he anchored his thumb in the waistband of her skirt, splaying his fingers over her denim-clad hips.

  His lips captured hers once more, and hers parted instinctively. This time the moan was his. He was lost in the pleasure of her surrender. The kiss deepened, and her arms circled him tighter, almost as if she were afraid he would leave her. He lay back against the cushions and brought her to rest against him. He could feel the soft give of her breasts against his chest and the curve of her hip against his thigh. One leg lay between his, a sorceress’s weapon of torture. Each time she moved he could feel his body’s transfiguration. They were only moments into their lovemaking, and he was moving toward fulfillment.

  Both hands were at her waist now. He felt a button against his fingertips and made short work of it. He tugged her blouse away from the waistband and rested his palms against her bare skin. Her breath caught, just for a moment, but she didn’t protest. Her flesh was warm and not entirely smooth. His heart beat faster at the intimacy of this contact. His fingertips sought and found the bottom edge of her bra, tracing the line of elastic back and forth as he kissed her.

  She didn’t protest when he moved to her sides. The skin there wasn’t perfectly smooth, either, but the small flaws took nothing away from the experience of caressing her. This was Fiona, warm and sweet and aching to be touched. His Fiona, who was so much more than the sum of her scars.