‘Dear God,’ he whispered. I knew what he was thinking. I’d seen often enough the way even the tiny puff of gas released from the cooker would crack into flame at the touch of the match. I just didn’t want to think what would have happened to that room, and to me, if I had opened the door with the candle still lit in my hand.
After a long silence, he said with a weak laugh, ‘Carrie, you’re going to have to be a bit more careful about the gas.’
Then I had to put the thing that had been hanging so uneasily in my mind into words: ‘I didn’t leave the gas on.’
He pulled back, holding me at arms’ length and looking down at me, his heavy brows slightly raised. ‘Carrie, you must have,’ he said bluntly. ‘You just don’t remember.’
‘I didn’t,’ I said, and before he could reply I added, ‘And I didn’t shut that window. It was open when I left the room.’
‘Now, what’s the point of saying that?’ he cut in sharply. ‘The window was shut and the gas was on. It was your room, you were in there, you must have done it.’
‘I didn’t,’ I insisted, angry and frustrated.
‘Come on, Carrie,’ he answered. ‘You made a mistake. All right. Now forget it.’
‘Well, what about the rug?’ I demanded, my voice rising. ‘The hall carpet was all shoved up against the door outside.’
‘So?’
‘To keep the gas in. We would have smelled it downstairs otherwise.’
He shook his head and stepped back away from me, explaining elaborately, ‘Maybe we kicked it there by mistake. It’s loose, it slides. Or maybe Caitlin did it. She plays with the rugs downstairs.’ He shrugged impatiently. ‘You’re being a bit neurotic, Caroline,’ he said coolly, almost in warning.
I wondered for a moment. Maybe I was. I had thought the carpet was Caitlin’s doing, too, at first. But still it seemed an extraordinarily convenient coincidence; the rug did effectively seal up the room and contain the leaking gas. And so did the shut window, the window I had left open, as I did every day. I sensed he didn’t want to pursue this conversation but I had to know.
‘Dominic,’ I began hesitantly.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, woman, don’t be so damned childish. Is it so hard to admit you did something silly?’
I glared at him in the darkness a moment, and then I whirled away, fighting tears of frustration. I found it hard enough to believe myself that somebody had come into my room and set an awful trap for me. I certainly could not voice my fear in the face of Dominic’s mockery. As I stumbled up the stairs, I heard him shout angrily, ‘Where the hell are you going now?’
‘To bed,’ I said. ‘In Caitlin’s room.’ I assumed that was safe enough, and I wasn’t waiting to ask him.
Safe or not, he let me go. The room, with its open skylight, was fresh and clean smelling. I shut the door behind me, but I still didn’t have the nerve to strike a match. Instead I slipped off my skirt and sweater and climbed, in darkness, into the narrow bed.
I waited to hear if he would come up the stairs. He didn’t. I heard the click of the front door shutting. Then outside the house a car motor started, and I heard the gravel clatter and spit as Dominic drove away into the night.
It is not an easy thing to believe that someone has tried to murder you, especially if you are used to living a normal life among civilized people. By morning, I had managed to convince myself that such a thing was impossible. I must accept the lesser unlikelihood: that I had somehow shut that window, somehow left the gas, about which I was generally so cautious, running and unlit. And the carpet was, after all, a coincidental accident.
I got up early that morning, after lying awake for hours the night before. The whole event had baffled me completely; it left me feeling caught between two impossibilities, and bound eventually to believe one of them. Even then, doubts wandered around my mind and hung there uneasily for days.
I put the whole thing behind me, determined not to speak of it again. Still, that evening was the end of my peace at Sron Ban. I could never completely relax there again.
And then there was Dominic. When I left Caitlin’s room, I saw that his door was shut. I hadn’t heard him come in; it must have been very late. That was on my mind, too. Where did he go at night? I had wondered vaguely before, but now, when I really began to think about things, I quickly realized that the hours he kept were odd indeed. I remembered how he had warned me they would be, in his office in New York.
I hadn’t thought about it then; in New York it seemed logical. New York thrives day and night, and it’s quite possible to live life normally in any permutation of the hours you choose. But not here.
I knew now that Ullapool, and Braemore, too, generally shut down with the pubs, at ten. Social life went on, true, in people’s homes, but Dominic was not social that way. As far as I knew, he had no real contacts with any of the local people. And yet, if not for social, then for what reasons did he leave Sron Ban late at night, or sometimes in the early hours of the morning?
I knew I would not find out, unless he particularly wished me to. I had learned my lesson about imprudent curiosity and I would not willingly run the gauntlet of Dominic’s fierce temper again. For a brief, unkind moment I had the thought that if he had wanted to keep some secret from me at Sron Ban, he could not have better protected himself from questions than as he had ‒ with his unreasonable frightening outbursts of anger.
I pushed the thought away, feeling guilty. What he did at night was his own affair. Besides, what secret could he have? I paused outside the shut door to my room, straightening the carpet. Then, cautiously, I pushed the door inward. The window was wide open, the curtains blowing, wet from last night’s rain. A residual smell of gas lingered weakly, but the air was totally breathable. I left the door open, so the through draft would clean the air completely, and went downstairs and out to get Caitlin.
Then, when I saw Grisel, I got an answer for my curiosity, an answer that wasn’t very welcome.
‘Was that Mr. O’Brady going out again last night?’ Grisel asked, as she handed Caitlin, gleeful and covered with spilled porridge, to me.
‘Yes,’ I said shortly, not wanting to talk about last night.
She laughed gaily. ‘That man,’ she said in wonder. ‘Does he never tire of running around? And there you were, just back from being away all day.’
I smiled wryly. ‘I’ve wondered myself,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine what he finds to do at that hour.’ I guess I was fishing a bit, hoping she knew something.
She looked surprised and said calmly, ‘He’d be off to Achbuie, surely, would he not?’
‘The Inneses’?’ I asked, baffled.
‘Why no, dear. Lower Achbuie. To see Mr. McGuire, and the others. Isn’t that where he usually goes?’
Evidently she thought it was. But why? I wondered. Kevin McGuire did work for him at the distillery. He came to the house at times to see Dominic. Still, I had soon noticed that there was no love lost between them; they were both hard put to be decent to each other, it seemed, even during working hours. I could not imagine Dominic dropping in on Kevin McGuire for purely social reasons even once, much less as frequently as Grisel assumed.
Then I saw what Grisel, in her decency, would never see. ‘The others’ at Achbuie, as Grisel had called them, were hardly the kind of people Dominic would seek out as a group for company. But among them were two young women, very attractive young women, in spite of their outlandish clothes and their deliberate discourteous manner.
I had a vision of Mary Fraser, sitting on the floor, stroking back her smooth hair with that satisfied little smile at the mention of Dominic’s name. She had said that he was different, the exception to her rule about Americans.
I reckoned that she could be courteous enough to him on occasion.
I left Grisel quickly, clutching Caitlin, and walked swiftly up the hill. I wanted a few moments alone to cope with the sudden unexpected pain of jealousy.
I remembered uncomfortably how w
illing I had been last night, and I bridled. Well, at least I had not given him what he could get so easily from Mary Fraser. I would not be one of an easy string. He even paid their damned rent, I thought angrily.
In my pride, I found the gentle ease with which he had released me bitterly insulting. He did not need me. Perhaps he hadn’t really even wanted me. What I had taken for gentlemanly courtesy could as well have been simple disinterest. He had been quick enough to go off to his lady down the hill.
I held Caitlin so tight that she squeaked with annoyance and wiggled. My pride could not keep me from crying for him.
Before I reached the garden gate, I stopped, my back to the house, and brushed the smear of tears from my face. Then I set Caitlin on the ground, and forcing myself to be bright and breezy, mock-raced her to the door.
By the time Dominic came down the stairs, there was tea in the brown pot on the table and a fire in the grate. I was determined that our relationship would return to a strictly business footing, and I went about my work with defiant efficiency.
I wondered later if for some reason Dominic had taken a similar vow. There was no mention that day, or in the days that followed, of the incident of the gas or of our argument afterwards. And there was no return to the mood or the affections of that day in Ullapool.
I was glad. I could manage, doing my housework, looking after Caitlin, doing the day’s letters in the office, with my feelings shut firmly away. But if he had once touched me, or turned that look of love on me, I don’t think I could have stood it.
Days later, when I had gotten my jealousy under rational control, I acknowledged that I had no right to feel betrayed. He had made me no promises. If he had offered love at all, that was all he had offered. He had offered, and I had refused. That was where the matter stood, and that was perhaps where it would have remained if I hadn’t gone one Saturday afternoon down to Achbuie to see Rebecca Innes.
I had promised Rebecca on my first visit that I would come back with Caitlin to let the children play together. And although Caitlin was happy enough at Sron Ban, playing around my feet or making mud pies alone in the rose garden, I realized that the company would be good for her.
Dominic had told me after breakfast that he would be away all day. He had gathered Caitlin up and hugged her, carrying her with him to the garden gate. I watched as she peered through the black wrought-iron bars, waving to him as he drove off.
He was good with her, and I never saw him lose his temper with her, though at times he would be too preoccupied to play and she would come retreating to me, hanging about my legs, lost and offended.
She came that way now, feeling deserted as the Range Rover roared down the dirt road and around the bend by Grisel’s. I lifted her to console her and then thought of my promise to Rebecca. It would be a good day for that.
I had nothing to do and it was lonesome around Sron Ban for both of us.
I got out the canvas backpack that Rebecca had loaned me and managed to get Caitlin into it and slip my arms through the straps. I stood up with Caitlin securely seated in the pack on my back. She squealed and giggled and hopped up and down in it, nearly throwing me off balance. I took the old shepherd’s crook that Dominic used for hill walking and with that for balance walked off down the Achbuie road.
We passed Grisel working in her garden and Caitlin shouted and bounced some more. Then she discovered she could use my hair as reins and began playing horses down the road to Achbuie.
I was out of sight of Grisel’s roof, down in the thick stand of hazel and birchwood that stood between the fields of Angus MacLeod’s croft and those of the Inneses’, when I caught sight of a figure, a splash of moving colour through the trees, ahead on the road. As I came nearer, I saw that there were two figures, two men walking, and one of them was Kevin McGuire.
I would have liked to pass him without a word; I didn’t like the man and he obviously didn’t like me. But you cannot pass in silence on a single-track Highland road. It is too unacceptably rude. And besides, he was not alone.
Then, fifty or so feet away, they stepped together into a tiny clearing where the sun splashed greenly through the thick tree branches. It lighted up Kevin’s red-gold hair and rough hard face, and it shone on the blond hair and clear features of the man beside him. I cried out, spontaneously, and choked back the cry in my throat, standing still in shock.
Chapter Nine
Caitlin bounced and protested my stopping; she liked the rhythm of walking. I shook her hands free from my hair impatiently. Swallowing hard, I walked forward, trying to forget what I had seen in the young stranger’s face.
In the sudden splash of sunshine, he had been Danny. The illusion passed in a moment. They stepped back into the shadow, walked closer. The look was gone. There was a resemblance, in the strong, thin face, the shoulder-length blond hair, the tall, graceful frame. But only a resemblance. But the few illusory seconds had reawakened all the pain in me that I had thought was at last gone, left far behind in New York. There was no perfect cure, after all, not in distance, not in work, not even in Dominic.
I braced myself and stepped forward to meet this disturbing stranger. Kevin McGuire would have walked right past me, but his companion wouldn’t let him. He stopped directly in front of me, and smiled a wide beautiful smile.
‘Hello,’ he said with emphasis, still smiling.
Kevin McGuire grunted something, as I replied to the greeting. He was in a hurry evidently, and he muttered, ‘Come on,’ and pulled his companion around me.
‘Peace,’ the young man called awkwardly over his shoulder, laughing and making the peace sign with his upraised hand. He noticed Caitlin then, riding on my back, and said hello to her, lowering his hand to brush his fingers across her soft hair. She giggled, enjoying anybody’s attention. The young man waved as they left me. He was wearing an Indian embroidered shirt and a string of beads, and next to Kevin McGuire he looked the embodiment of pure innocence.
I found myself laughing happily at him as he disappeared around the bend, walking backward, waving a last time with flattering interest.
Caitlin resumed her horse game, tugging cheerfully at my hair clip. I arrived eventually at Rebecca Innes’s door with an aching back, a bedraggled head of hair, and an utterly enchanted Caitlin.
‘I’ll get that,’ said Andrew Innes, appearing around the corner of the house. He reached up and pulled Caitlin, squeaking with protest, out and set her down in the garden, among the fat brown hens.
‘Your day off?’ he asked, as I slipped the canvas straps of the pack off and stretched my arms. I nodded.
‘Dominic’s away for the day,’ I explained.
The Innes children had come running down from the stone barn and were dragging Caitlin off to see the goats. She went, stumbling trustingly after Tambrey.
‘Don’t worry,’ Andrew said. ‘Tammy likes playing mother, and anyhow, they can’t get into any trouble in the barnyard. The cow and the pony are up in the pasture. All the goats will do is eat the buttons of their coats.’ He led me into the house, where Rebecca greeted me with great delight.
She insisted that I stay for lunch, and I was glad I was free to accept. Andrew whistled up the two sheep dogs that lay in the sun on the wood floor. He went out the door with a wave and the black-and-white border collies bounding around him.
‘Andrew’s getting the sheep up to the tank for the shearing,’ Rebecca explained. ‘He’ll be at it for days now. There’s a lot to be done.’
She went out in the garden beside the house and I helped her pull fresh carrots up out of the black earth. When she had a bundle and a thick handful of deep-green curly parsley, she heaped them together in her apron and we returned to the kitchen at the side of the house. There was a separate door at the back of the kitchen, and Tammy brought Caitlin to it at regular intervals so that she might reassure herself of my presence.
The kitchen was big and airy, lined with metal bins holding many weeks’ supply of rice and flour and coffee
beans; there was no daily shopping in this household. Rebecca stood by the solid, broad wooden table, the sunlight behind her lighting the few silver-grey strands in her thick black hair. She chopped carrots with a sure quick knife. I leaned against the wall, watching Caitlin playing and tumbling with Toby and Tammy.
In the distance was the steady maa-ing of the sheep and the sharp yipping of the working dogs.
Rebecca and I talked, about her past in Edinburgh, and mine in New York, and how I came to be here. I told her about Danny, and my baby daughter, finding it a pleasure to have a woman to talk to again. She listened with warm, kind interest.
Then, because speaking of Danny had made me think of him, I mentioned the blond stranger I had met on the road with Kevin McGuire.
‘Oh,’ she said at once, ‘Seumas Cameron, that will be.’
‘Where does he live?’ I asked.
‘He’s staying now at Lower Achbuie,’ she explained. ‘He came a week or two ago, he is a friend of Stephen’s. They were at the London School of Economics, reading political science together, before Seumas left to go to the art college.’
‘Is he an artist then?’ I asked, remembering that Stephen was the one who was supposed to paint, but didn’t.
Rebecca put her knife down and stood looking past me, at the children, out the window. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said softly. ‘He’s an artist. That one really is. Wait,’ she said and went out of the room.
She came back carrying a stiff paper and handed it to me. It was a pencil sketch of Tammy, a few frail grey lines catching the soft curve of her face, the wispy curls of hair, the deep misty eyes.
‘Beautiful,’ I said softly, delighted with the skill of it, and the likeness.
‘He was just sitting by the fire while she was having her porridge in the evening. We were all drinking coffee and listening to Andrew talking about the sheep. I didn’t even see that he was drawing. He just handed it to me when he got up to go.’
‘What’s he doing here?’ I asked.
‘I suppose he’s going to paint,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Though how anybody can work in that dreadful bouroch down there …’
Highland Fire: captivating romantic suspense full of twists Page 9
