Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It’s crazy how one kiss, or maybe half a dozen, can change a girl’s perspective…
That bothy had been a godsend. A sanctuary.
Then, when I was tied up, it had been a nightmare, followed by his nightmare when I turned the tables.
It had eventually become a test kitchen, where I could prove myself worthy of the life I’d been living.
And after one good meal together, it had changed back into a sanctuary, a confessional, and I’d come out clean.
Well, vindicated, at least.
After a couple of devastating weeks, I finally had someone who was on my side. A champion who encouraged me to fight. And yes, I wanted to fight. I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to fight for.
And now, that kiss had changed things again.
I was sure we would have walked hand in hand back to his house, but it would have been awkward with him clomping through the snow, retracing our path, while I strolled along easily on the snowshoes he’d insisted I wear.
I was literally floating on air while he filled his Offroaders with snow.
When I laid eyes on the bothy again, it was no longer a frightening space, a test kitchen, or stranger’s house I needed to put in my rear view.
It was the place Cian and I would spend our last hours in.
The place I would always picture him, standing by the trunk, pulling that ridiculously long shirt over his lovely bare chest.
At the door, he bent to remove the snowshoes, then propped them on end beneath the window before ushering me inside. He pulled the blanket off his shoulders and spread it over the table to dry and set his wet boots close to the stove.
I watched him while I slipped off my boots and hung my coat on the end of the headboard.
“M’ denims are soaked through,” he said, as he stripped them off. “But m’ gown is long enough. I’ll don more when somethin’ is dry. Will that do?”
“Of course. You can’t wear wet clothes.”
My legs were suffocating from wearing my ski pants over my leggings for twenty-four hours, so I stripped them off.
“Sorry, I’ve got to get out of these.” I hung the pants on a peg on the back of the door, and the place looked like a laundromat with no working dryers.
“But I still have my leggings. Will that be okay?”
He stared at my legs for a long time, then swallowed hard. “Sure. Grand. But I reckon one of us should hold tight to the bible whilst we’re both without trousers.”
I laughed. Eventually, he laughed too, and we both relaxed a little.
I pulled my thermal shirt down as far as it would stretch, then tried to act normal while I reheated the soup.
I sat on the bed to eat while he sat on the chair with his elbows on his knees, his feet wide, and his longshirt draped down in front of him for modesty.
We laughed a lot while we ate, without saying much aloud.
All it took was a pointed look or a roll of the eyes to set us off.
And even though the darkness outside was nearly complete, the inside of that bothy seemed brighter than ever before, with a candle burning in each of the three windows, and a fourth on the table with the patchwork blanket spread beneath it.
If I’d been an artist, I would have painted this, with Cian MacInnis included in the scene—only with pants.
The front tails of his shirt hung between his legs, which left his powerful thighs exposed. I’d seen the left one when he’d stormed through the door, and I was happy to see that it had gone back to its normal color, matching the one on the right.
He caught me staring again. “Lookin’ fer the bible, Matty lass?”
“I guess I’d better.”
He nodded to the bed. “Just there, by the pilla.”
Neither of us laughed.
I took our bowls to the ledge. He added wood to the stove and patted the handle. “We’ll leave this open fer a mite and watch the fire, aye?”
“Sure.”
At a loss for what to do next, I just stood there and watched him move to the bed.
He propped a pillow against the headboard, then sat against it with his hairy legs outstretched.
He placed the other pillow in front of him, set the bible beside his hip, and patted the blanket in front of the pillow.
“Come, woman. Let us put this story behind us.”
I had nearly forgotten about storytime. I blamed it on the kiss and the way it had cleared every thought out of my head like an insulted chef throwing a fit, using his arm to swipe all the dishes off a table in one movement.
The dread was nearly forgotten, but not completely. It hung in the back corner, trembling, waiting to see if the whole night would be ruined.
“Hang on a minute.”
I went to the trunk and pulled out a bunch of folded, colorless fabrics, grabbed the sketch book and slipped the blue silk book of poetry from the shelf. I hid my nerves as I strolled to the side of the bed, set the books beside the bible, and spread the cloths over Cian’s long, sculpted legs.
When he snorted, I gave him a sharp look, and he bit back a smile.
“Do you want me to listen or not?”
His expression blanked. “Indeed, I do.”
“Well, I’m telling you that my ears won’t work if I’m looking at your bare legs. And this is all that’s dry.”
“I see yer point.”
When I was done, I climbed over one leg and settled in front of him.
The truth was that I already knew I would need his arms around me when he tried to explain that the world didn’t function the way I thought it did.
And if there was some sort of paranormal, witchy thing going on here, in real life, then I was going to need the magic of his strong arms to help me get through it with my head in one piece.
“All right, C. A. I. N. MacInnis. Tell me this story.”
As if he had read my mind, his arms came around me and pulled me back against him. Even with the pillow between us, I could feel his warmth just as well as I could feel the heat rolling out of the little stove door.
“The storm stopped,” I said. “Maybe it wants to hear this story too.”