Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
Logan was not trying to trick Adeline, though he could tell she thought otherwise. It had taken five minutes to get her to enter the bedchamber that had been prepared for them, and now she was perched on the edge of the bathtub, tapping her foot impatiently.
“Are you going to leave?” she asked, at last.
Logan walked to a chair by the window and sat down. “Why would I be leavin’? I told ye, they only have one chamber. It’s nae as though too many guests come through these parts, so they daenae have more chambers than they need. Like I said before, I’m nae tryin’ to fool ye.”
“I need to bathe,” she said. “That’s why I need you to leave. You’re not staying for the show, Logan.”
He tilted his head to the side. “What show?”
“You’ve done this on purpose. I know you say you haven’t, but you clearly have.” She swept an anxious hand across her hair, her dark locks still held in place by the ribbon he had tied, aside from a few stray strands that framed her beautiful face. “I could’ve gone back with Theo or your uncle. Nothing would’ve happened to me. You just made that up.”
Logan sighed. “Ye cannae be too careful, Adeline. Ye’ve become invaluable to me, and I couldnae risk anythin’ befallin’ ye on the ride home. Even if ye werenae ambushed by lads with naught better to do, it’s treacherous on the road back, and I dinnae want ye ridin’ with anyone but me. I ken the roads better than anyone.”
“Well, fine, but would you please get out so that I can bathe in peace?” Adeline urged. “I don’t want to be grouchy, but you’re testing my patience here.”
I could test somethin’ else if ye’d allow it, he wanted to say, but he figured she would not appreciate it at such a time.
He stood up, deciding to be courteous. “I’ll be downstairs. Will half an hour be long enough?”
Adeline seemed surprised by the gesture, pushing herself off the edge of the steaming tub. “You’re going to go?”
“That’s what ye wanted, is it nae?” He walked to the door. “Ye’ve had a long day, ye’ve done the work of hundreds by yerself, and I’m proud of what ye’ve done here, even if the curse isnae miraculously lifted in the mornin’. The least I can do is let ye bathe in peace, as ye say.”
A flicker of something passed across her face, but he could not read the expression. Was it disappointment he saw in her enchanting eyes, or was he merely seeing what he would have liked to see? Either way, he opened the door and headed out without another word, leaving her to her bath.
Almost an hour later, carrying two bowls of hot stew and half a loaf of fresh bread, Logan headed back up the stairs to the bedchamber. He had spent the past hour among good people, his people, hearing their worries and woes as they drank a draft of ale together. And though he had braced for the accusations of Adeline being a witch, there had been none.
“Ye did a fine thing, invitin’ that lass to the island,” one man had said, tears in his eyes. “I daenae ken if she can fix this curse, but she’s given us all hope. I daenae mind tellin’ ye that.”
“We’ve been waitin’ for someone like her, m'laird. Ever since the news came of what was happenin’ in the north, we’ve all been fearin’ for our lives,” the man’s wife had agreed. “Now, we daenae have to worry so much. It’s nae as if our lives are in Ben Donohue’s hands anymore, heaven help us.”
“I daenae like to count me eggs before they’ve hatched, but me daughter feels cooler already,” someone else had said. “We thought the lass was mad when she had us boilin’ water for the baths and for drinkin’, but I’ll be damned if it isnae workin’.”
“Will she be stayin’?” another woman had asked. “It’d be a worry off our minds if she is, though I expect she’ll be back to Wales soon, eh? Once folks hear of what she’s done here, if all goes well, everyone will be wantin’ her.”
Logan had not liked that last sentiment as much as the plaudits Adeline had been receiving, though it was perpetually gnawing at the back of his mind.
She was an asset to his island, she had become invaluable, and if it turned out that she had lifted the “curse” with her future knowledge of medicine, he did not know how he was supposed to relinquish that security. It could change everything, reducing the number of lives lost each year to illnesses, childbirth, and accidents.
And he was starting to like having her around.
Reaching the door to the bedchamber, he knocked awkwardly with his elbow. After an hour away, he was fully expecting her to be out of the tub and tucked into bed, where she would undoubtedly make him sleep on the floor. Not that he planned to.
“Adeline?” he called out when she did not respond.
Silence echoed back.
Worried, he set the bowls of stew and bread on the floor and turned the handle. He poked his head around the door, surprised to find Adeline still in the tub. Her knees were drawn up to her chin, her arms hugging her legs. But he did not even think about her nakedness. It was the glimmer of tears in her eyes and the droplets running down her cheeks that caught the entirety of his attention.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. “Are ye hurt?”
He approached the tub cautiously, but she said nothing, staring down into the cooled water as though she could see something that he could not.
“Adeline?” He kneeled beside the tub, gently resting his hand on the curve of her back. “Adeline, what’s the matter?”
She finally stirred, lifting her gleaming eyes to his. “Being around all these people… all these tight-knit families…” She wiped a tear with the back of her hand. “It’s going to sound stupid but… I miss my sister. You remember I told you she was working somewhere around here—around Scotland?”
Logan nodded.
“Well, it’s far, even with planes,” she continued. “I haven’t seen her at all in the last year. Haven’t spoken to her as much as I wanted to either, because of time zones and phone lines, and… a million other excuses I keep making, when I could’ve put in so much more effort.”
Logan hesitated. “Phone lines?”
“It’s a way to speak to people from anywhere in the world,” she replied tightly. “You use a phone. It connects you to them, so you can talk. There’s video, too, where you can see their faces while you’re talking, but we never had good enough service for that. I don’t know how to explain what service is. It’d be like if you were trying to yell to someone on the beach from the keep. On a clear day, they’d probably be able to hear you—so, that’d be good service. On a windy day, they wouldn’t be able to hear much at all—that’d be bad service.”
Logan slowly brushed his thumb across the nape of her neck. “I understand.”
Surprisingly, he did. He could picture what she meant, even if he could not picture what a “phone” was.
“I just keep thinking about what happens when someone realizes I’m not home, and that I’ve gone missing. My sister…” Adeline’s voice caught. “She’s going to think I’m dead, and I can’t do that to her. We’ve lost too much already.”
Logan paused his gentle caresses. “What have ye lost? I take it yer maither isnae really a witch-catcher.”
“She was a cop,” Adeline replied quietly. “A… constable, I guess you’d call it? She caught criminals. My father was—I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” Her demeanor switched sharply, as if she had just realized she was in the bath, and he had entered the room without her permission. “You shouldn’t even be in here. I’m not done.”
But Logan did not move. “Have ye thought of a way to leave yet?”
“Do you think I’d still be here if I had?” There was an edge to her voice, but it did not match the frightened look in her eyes, nor the slight tremble of her lips. “I have no idea how I got here in the first place. Not really. So, I have even less of an idea about how to get back. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
He got up and took a clean blanket down from the rack by the fireplace, before standing at the side of the tub. He held it out for her and turned his head to give her some privacy.
“Ye’ll catch a chill if ye stay in that water,” he said, ignoring her harsh tone. “I willnae look, but ye must get out.”
She stood abruptly and snatched the blanket out of his hands, wrapping it around herself. “Thank you,” she muttered, her voice possessing no gratitude whatsoever.
“Have ye ever thought that ye might actually be a witch?” he asked casually, walking to the chair by the window.
A strangled sound, half growl, half hiss, left her throat. “Do you think it’s funny to keep saying that? You do realize that if anyone were to hear you, they’d think you were serious, don’t you? You’re putting my life at risk by even joking about it, and, frankly, I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
“I wasnae jokin’,” he replied.
“Oh, of course, you weren’t.” She rolled her eyes as she clambered out of the tub. “After everything I’ve just done today for you and your people, you still don’t trust me. That’s why you wouldn’t let me ride back with Theo or your uncle. You weren’t worried about me getting ambushed on the road. You were worried about me turning them into toads or something equally ridiculous. That’s why you wanted to keep me close by. Admit it. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard it today.”
Logan leveled his gaze at her. He could not stay seated. The fire in her eyes drew him like an angry moth. A second later, he was on his feet again, approaching her the way a fox approached a rabbit in a snare.
“Do ye really want to ken why I think ye’re a witch?”
He kept walking toward her until there was no distance left to close between them. She held her ground for a moment, before edging backward… only for the backs of her thighs to bump against the lip of the bathtub, blocking any route of escape.
“I asked ye a question,” he growled, planting his hands on either side of her, gripping the edge of the tub to stop himself from gripping her thighs instead.
She glared at him, giving the smallest tip of her head as a nod.
“Because ye’ve bewitched me!” His breath caught in his throat. “I cannae think of anythin’ else but ye ever since ye landed on me beach with yer purple hair and yer selkie skin, and it’s pushin’ me toward somethin’ like madness, Adeline. When I’m near ye, ye unleash somethin’ in me. It was there in the library, it was there by the pools, but ye told me to forget it all, so I did me best to. Believe me when I say I’ve tried, but ye’re lodged in my head like a barb, and I daenae ken how to get ye out!”
Her breathing shallowed as she stared up at him, her chest heaving. “Why do you think I stopped the kiss?”
She said it so quietly that, at first, he was not certain he had heard her correctly.
“What?” he rasped.
“Why do you think I stopped the kiss?”
Logan clenched his jaw. “Because ye think me a barbarian with nay manners.”
“I’m not afraid to like someone who’s a little rough around the edges,” she shot back, anger flaring in her eyes, “but I am afraid to like someone I’m going to have to leave sooner or later. What’s the point? Don’t you get that?”
Logan did not have an answer, for though he would not admit to being afraid of anything, he understood. After all, just one kiss had left his head spinning. What would one more do? What would it do to him when she had to leave, if they went beyond that one kiss?
“You want to know how I came here?” she continued, her cheeks flushing red. “I freaking wished I wasn’t alone! That’s how!”
Logan’s arm snaked around her waist, pulling her off the edge of the tub. He held her tightly against him, overwhelmed with a desire he could not suppress anymore. “Ye’re nae,” he growled.
“What?” she gasped, her palms running up his stomach to his chest.
“Ye’re nae alone,” he replied, dipping his head to kiss her.