by Kyra Whitton
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, pressing her thumbs to her forehead and shaking her head to clear it. “I just… None of this makes sense. Iain told me that he wanted to take me ‘back.’ Was that—whatever it is that I clearly can’t remember—was that what you think you needed to protect me from?”
His brow smoothed. “No.” Back up the path he went.
“Ugh.” She groaned. “This is the worst kind of nightmare.”
She pinched her arm, hoping it would help her wake up. All she managed to do was irritate the tender skin there. When it was obvious she wasn’t going to wake up, she hurried back to his side.
****
Without the warmth of a sun high above, the air grew cold, prickling her skin into gooseflesh. It was only when her teeth began to chatter that Alec halted. He said nothing to her, just lifted his shirt, pulling his white undershirt down when it rode up against the planes of his stomach—something Evie did not look away from—and handed her the light gray Henley.
She didn’t resist his offering, instead quickly threading the neck over her head. She kept her arms hugged to her stomach, choosing not to thrust them through the short sleeves, even though they would have likely hung past her elbows. The cotton was soft and warm. And it smelled of him; a mix of tangy citrus and cloves, perhaps from his deodorant, the faintest hint of laundry detergent, and slightly of sweat. She breathed in deeply, catching her lower lip between her teeth and raising her gaze to meet his.
“It isn’t much further.” He turned, clearly not in the mood to prolong the venture.
Evie hugged herself tighter but followed. “I don’t think I can go for much longer,” she admitted softly.
The pain from her leg was killing her, shooting up into her hip and affecting the nerves of her lower back. She felt beaten and broken, all from an activity that should have been easy for anyone else. It would have been easier for her, too, only a year before. Bitterness crept in, but she didn’t want it. She preferred to stamp it out, but there it was, drawing unwanted tears from the backs of her eyes. She locked her jaw, fighting against them.
“I know.”
She almost didn’t see the small stone cottage until he was pushing open the door with his shoulder. Nestled among the ferns, a drooping thatched roof slumped over four uneven walls.
The hinges squeaked loudly, ominously, and something in the trees fluttered away through the swaying branches. He disappeared into the shadows, and Evie followed closely into the single, musty room. The air inside was earthy, but it didn’t smell stale as if it had been abandoned for some time. And by the relative tidiness she could see once he struck a match and lit the lamps told her she was wrong to have believed the place was abandoned.
“What is this place?” she asked.
A bed piled with woolen blankets and furs huddled in one corner. The opposite side held a sturdy table surrounded by several chairs, just beside a wide stone hearth. A heavy, black cauldron sat empty over charred stones, and dried herbs hung from the rafters.
“I’m sorry there isn’t much to eat.” He rummaged through some sacks as he said it, coming up with a pair of small apples, their flesh smooth and multicolored. He held one out to her, but she shook her head.
“I don’t think I can eat anything.”
He regarded her disbelievingly but set the apple down on the table before motioning her to take a seat as he did. His teeth crunched through the flesh of the one he still held. She glanced around the dark cottage, taking in the shuttered windows.
“How did you know about this place?” she asked as she gingerly sat, avoiding putting pressure on the side giving her so many pains.
“I live here,” he said matter-of-factly. “Or I did.” He bobbed his head from side to side. “Well, do,” he amended once more.
“I don’t… get it.”
He cracked an ironic smirk. “I know. It’s a lot to take in. When I’m on this side, this is where I come. I’ve done a lot of hiding out here, and we should be safe. Until morning light, anyway.”
His accent almost seemed to change. It was a slight dropping of syllables she almost wasn’t sure she had heard correctly, but she was fairly certain it was there. “And then?”
“And then I get you back to the other side.”
“You said that earlier. I go back like a good little time turner. But then what? It isn’t like they won’t know where to look for me, you know. My parents live in one of the big houses on post.” She drew a square in the air with her fingers. “With our last name plastered next to the door. You were there. Remember?”
“We’ll figure something out, Evelyn. I promise.”
She rolled her eyes. “Forgive me if I don’t feel overwhelmingly confident.”
“Neither of them is stupid enough to abduct you from your house.”
Evie very much doubted that, but he seemed so sure, she decided she didn’t want to argue with him. She had far too many questions buzzing around her brain to dwell on any one subject for too long.
“When I came into the hospital…” She trailed off. “When you examined my records and said there was something off about them…” She frowned, trying to collect her thoughts. “Did this place have something to do with it?”
“You’re very perceptive,” he answered dryly.
“I want to know what you meant.” She pressed her fingertips into her back, massaging her muscles.
“It was only a guess. A shot in the dark. I don’t really have any more answers than you do, just some educated guesses.”
“Then why don’t you share them with me?”
“Because I don’t want to give you partial truths, well-intentioned or otherwise.” His teeth cut into the apple, again.
“So, you’d just rather leave me in the dark?” Annoyance crept into her tone just as a muscle pulled in her back.
“I’d rather figure it out with you.”
She snorted. “That’s awfully presumptuous, don’t you think?”
The smile she received was tight-lipped and hinted at quiet amusement. Deciding she’d had enough of the circular conversation, she rose, gritting her teeth as the pain shot through her hip. The muscles pulled, keeping her from fully straightening at first, but once she was on her feet, it dissipated some. Alec must have seen the wince as it passed across her face.
“Why didn’t you say something?” he demanded, a hand under her elbow in an oddly supportive gesture.
“It’s fine. Nothing I don’t deal with every day.”
His jaw clenched. “Yes. And I pushed you further than I should have.” He cut his gaze away in a blink before turning it back to her. “I’m sorry, I should have known better. I wasn’t thinking.”
She blinked up at him, not expecting his apology, much less the ring of sincerity. She could have said something, she probably should have. But she hadn’t, and yet, rather than berating her for not speaking up, he was berating himself for not knowing. It was…
Unexpected.
Her sudden shift in emotion only served to remind her—for whatever reason, she didn’t know—he was going out of his way to help her.
She swallowed and stared back. The reflection of flickering flames danced in his eyes, the rest of his face cast in shadow.
His head bent just as she lifted hers up, and just a whisper from her lips, he asked, “May I—”
But she cut him off as she pressed her mouth to his. There was a momentary hesitation, but then his hand was in her hair, cradling the back of her head gently as his lips explored hers. Her arms curved around his neck, drawing him closer. His chest pressed against hers, warm, and solid, their hearts beating out of sync, his fighting to catch up with hers. Her whole body hummed, a jittery mixture of anticipation and fear. In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to lose herself there, in that cottage, with him, perhaps forever.
Never had she felt so consumed by someone, before. Not with Calum. Not with Iain. Not with any number of boys or men, before.
It was scary.
Or maybe it was intoxicating.
She lifted herself onto her toes, gasping a little when her hip and knee twinged.
He broke away. “May I see if I can relieve that a little?” he asked gruffly.
Evie stared at his mouth and nodded dumbly, her mind reeling and lips tingling from his kiss.
Before she could step away from him, he swept her legs out from under her, lifting her up as if she didn’t weigh anything at all, and cradled her to his chest gently. He carried her to the bed, gently lowering her to the feather-stuffed mattress, and settled on the edge next to her, his body turned to her. With gentle hands, he pressed his thumbs into the muscles of her thigh, massaging gently, watching her face for any sign of pain.
There was nothing sexual about the way he touched her, but it wasn’t in a completely professional fashion, either. She watched him, as well, hoping to catch a glimpse of what he was thinking. But as their gazes met and held, he revealed nothing.
“Tell me about yourself,” she murmured. She needed to break up the silence, to focus on anything but the lingering taste of him.
“What do you want to know?” His voice was low, not much more than a whisper. Gruff. He was concentrating on her aching limb, his thumbs pressing in, making small circles.
“I don’t know. Whatever comes to mind. Where you’re from. What you do. Siblings? Pets? I don’t know.”
“I never knew my father,” he said softly. “He died before I was born. I’m the youngest of eight.”
“Eight? Wow.”
She could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “I know.”
“I bet that made for fun holidays.”
Her joke was met with only a soft “Mmm.”
“What, no slinging potatoes over politics?”
“We were never tight knit. Not like—” he cut himself off.
“Not like what?”
“Not like my wife’s family.”
Her head jerked up. “You’re married?”
His eyes were unfocused, caught somewhere beyond the shadowed stone walls surrounding them. “Not anymore.”
Evie dropped her gaze away. “I’m… I’m sorry.”
His massaging momentarily ceased, but picked up once more. She winced as his thumb pressed into a tender spot.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “She died. It was… a long time ago. But her ghost is something I will always live with.”
She swallowed; it was something they had so very much in common, the loss of a partner. She cut her gaze away, concentrating on his hands, turning his words over in her mind, her heart aching. But it was more for him than for herself. “It-it gets better,” she murmured, not really sure if she was making a statement of asking a question.
“No,” he told her. “It doesn’t ever get better. You just learn to live with it.”
She sucked in a breath. “How?”
“You find someone else to live for.”
Their gazes pulled together, again, and in his eyes she found a longing so raw she had to break away, again. But his hands continued, the ache beginning to leave her muscles. Who had his wife been? What was she like? What happened to her? She decided not to pry.
“I always thought my family was close,” she murmured, wanting to give him something in return. “But I never realized how close we were until I saw how strained Calum’s relationship was with his mother.”
“Was he your…?” He trailed off but his question remained
She nodded. “Fiancé? Yes. Though I think we were engaged less than half an hour when… when he died. So, it probably doesn’t count, right?”
He didn’t say anything. But his massaging ceased, and he gently squeezed the muscle just above her knee in something akin to sympathy.
“His father died when he was young, too. So, it was just the two of them, him and his mother. He had been accepted to universities all over the world, but I think he was afraid to leave her. Or maybe he was just afraid of her, period. End stop. Not that St Andrews was a bad decision, but Harvard, Oxford, some university in Tokyo, I can’t remember which, they had all offered him acceptance. I didn’t meet him until years after that, but knowing him, he had no intention of ever leaving St A’s. He applied just to show that he could. Or so he told me.” Evie snorted a quick little laugh, her lips curling into a smile as she remembered the way Calum’s cheeks pulled his mouth into a grin.
She shook herself back. “It was different when I was around, though. She seemed to… really like me, even if he didn’t get along with her. And she was-is-possibly the sweetest person I know. We had tea several times at her insistence. She would make us extra cakes and bannocks and send them home with me. My family was always as functional as you can be with deployment after deployment after deployment and move after move after move. There were years where our whole lives revolved around a countdown. A countdown until the next move, a countdown until deployment. A countdown for R&R, a countdown until R&R was over. And then there was always the readjustment. My mother was always trying to keep us together for everything. She didn’t want us to go out on Friday night because my dad was home. She didn’t want us to go out on Friday night because our dad wasn’t at home. She—”
Evie broke off, her forehead creasing.
Alec’s warm hands still cupped her bare calf, but he made no move to remove them. And she made no move to pull away. Instead, she relaxed deeper into him and sighed.
“She was always just trying to keep us together,” she murmured to herself, her mother’s behaviors and intentions suddenly clear. Their relationship became strained when Evie announced she would be going to Scotland, and she’d never understood why. “She didn’t want me to leave because someone was always gone. She just wanted her family to be close.” She looked up to meet Alec’s confused stare.
“Sorry. I’ve been… angry with her for awhile. She kept pushing me, keeps pushing me to stay close. She never supported me studying overseas, and I always resented her for it. I guess I still do. I just didn’t realize until now why that was,” she mused.
“You never realize how much it hurts those you leave behind.”
A prickling of shame swept over her. She had never thought of it that way. Perhaps she had selfishly held a grudge, not seeing things from her mother’s prospective. She wouldn’t have changed anything, but maybe… It’s possible she wouldn’t have been quite so angry the last couple of years. “Know a little something of this, do you?”
“Mm. I do. I was often away from my wife. I was all about duty and country and advancement. She would beg me for time and I wouldn’t give it to her. And then… Well, it was too late. I didn’t realize what I had lost until there was no way to get it—her—back.”
His hands hadn’t moved in awhile, and he abruptly pulled them away.
Evie considered pushing herself back up into the sitting position, but she felt so relaxed, she couldn’t make herself. The mattress enveloped her in its goose down softness, and she melted into it, instead, watching him from beneath heavy lids. “You must have loved her a lot.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think I loved her enough.”
“What do you mean?” She nestled onto her side, drawing her hands up between her cheek and the feather pillow.
“She loved me. She loved me so much, and with more ferocity than I deserved. I didn’t realize… I didn’t realize how much I meant to her or she to me until it was too late. And when she was gone and I felt like my soul had been ripped apart, that’s when I knew. It was a painful lesson.”
“What do you mean? What lesson?”
“To cherish every moment.”
“Is losing her what made you decide to become a doctor?” she murmured, her lashes sinking toward her cheeks.
“I don’t think you’ll like my answer.”
She couldn’t control them anymore. Her eye drifted shut. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
The seconds ticked by, the welcome darkness closing in over her, tempting her into dreams.
/> “I became a doctor to protect you.”
Chapter Ten
His words reached her as the fog settled in, and she made no indication she heard him. The mattress shifted as he eased himself away, his warmth leaving with him
With his taste still lingering on her lips, she slipped fully into sleep.
****
Evie’s breath caught and she startled awake.
She sprawled chest down on the bed, her ear resting on the crooked angle of her elbow. Shoulder stiff from the position, she rolled onto her side, gritting her teeth at the dueling sensation of relief and stinging pain. The last thing she remembered was Alec murmuring that he was there to protect her before she pushed through golden-grassed fields with the travel companions of her dreams.
Looking around the small cottage, she found Alec at the opposite end, standing by one of the small windows, its shutters open. He had rid himself of his shirt though the jeans he wore were still slung against his narrow hips. Silvery moonlight played along the muscles of his back, the curve of his shoulder. She had always had a weakness for broad, straight shoulders, and her mouth suddenly went dry.
The memory of his hands on her skin was still fresh, the firm press of his fingers gently massaging away the aches. So intimate, his skin upon her skin. As he told her things she was willing to bet he hadn’t told many other people. As she recounted things to him she knew she had never told another living soul.
It was an intimacy she’d never felt before. Not with Calum, not in those moments she spent in the back seat of a car with Iain. This was different. Consuming. Longing and desperation sweeping over her, blotting out the rest. The pain, the fear, the confusion all fell away, and all she felt was need.
For him.
Her bare feet met the cold stone floor as she slipped from the bed without murmur or pause. No longer did pain shoot up her hip from her scar-crossed thigh, though the ghost of an ache remained, and she padded across the uneven cobbles until she stood a breath away.
