Chapter 20
Cian woke with his arm around a pillow and his breath turning to clouds in the cold air. The bed beside him was empty, and he panicked. Had he bloody dreamt it all?
Nay. The bed had yet to cool from her body, and the air tasted of his Matty lass. He just hoped she hadn’t struck out on her own with some foolish notion of sparing him the bother of seeing her back to the world.
She’d compared her Yeti-man to the Beast. Perhaps she worried he wouldn’t allow her to leave…
He found the courage to turn and face the room. Her coat was missing, but the sight of her skis chased his worst fear away. The coals had been brought back to life, and the room grew warmer by the minute. A pot of water waited to boil. The sack of coffee had been set out.
Aye, his lass would be back. His lass. For part of the day, at least.
He took advantage of her absence to change into clean underthings and don his dry denims. The new shirt was clean and dry, the bloodstains gone. So he was presentable when Matty returned and he had the coffee ready.
She closed the door and removed her coat, and after a quick smile, she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.
Had they run out of things to say?
She tested the heat of the stove, then pulled down a pan and began heating the smokehouse ham. Cian pointed to the bag of wheat still sitting on the sled. “Shall I make some bread—”
“No time for bread. I think we should get going as early as we can, so you’re not coming back in the dark, you know?”
She was eager to be back in the world, then, where things made sense.
She’d been brave to believe his fanciful tale as long as she had.
But just as she’d tried to explain to him in the night, she was afraid of going under.
Being wrapped in his arms hadn’t made it easier.
She was still, as she said, freaking out.
“I understand. But know that it will take less than three hours to reach Aviemore.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he lied. Even if they walked sedately all the way, it wouldn’t take three hours to reach the armory. But he knew a few roundabout paths that could extend their last hours together.
It fairly broke his heart when she was content to drink her coffee and consume her ham standing at the stove.
She pointed to her bag. “I’ve already packed my things, along with some vegetables, just in case. Do you have skis?”
“Dinnae fash. I shall keep up.”
She let out an awkward noise that might have been a laugh, or might have been her overly excited nerves escaping.
“I’ll just follow you. If you follow me, we’ll get lost for sure.
” She strode smartly to the bed and lifted a blanket to fold it.
She’d already folded and returned everything to the trunk.
But for a pot and a pan and two mugs, not a hair was out of place.
The books and shelves had been straightened.
Cian swallowed the emotion rising in his throat. “Dinnae do that, if ye please.”
She froze. “Don’t fold the blankets?”
“Dinnae erase the signs of yer passing through m’ life.”
She froze. Her eyes filled with tears, and she slowly set the blanket back on the bed. A blink turned those tears loose and they poured down her face in two clean rows. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Two long strides took him to her. He gathered her into his arms and held her as tightly as he dared. She tipped her head back and closed her eyes, begging him to kiss her. When their mouths met, the coals in his heart woke and shook off their dust to bring him back to life again.
After a long while, he allowed her to catch her breath while he pressed his cheek to the top of her head. His tears dropped into her hair like the start of a storm he dared not unleash. “I’ll not keep ye here. But ye must ken that I want to.”
“You should come with me and leave this place behind, but I won’t make you. If that man found you and sent you back, I’d never forgive myself.”
“Silly us, for imaginin’ we had choices.”
“Exactly.”
He finally let his arms fall away from her, and he took a step back. “I need only a moment.” From the far wall, he collected his well-dried great kilt, spread it on the bed and pleated it as swiftly as Matty had braided her hair, then put it on over the top of his new clothes.
He banked the fire, closed the shutter, and went to the barn to trade his house boots for the fur ones, then he strapped on his snowshoes. His large fur became a bag he stuffed the other ones into, then he slung the lot over his back, in case of worse weather.
Matty stood in the middle of the snow-covered road and stepped into her skis, poles at the ready, her bag on her back. She offered him a brave smile, then looked at the sky. “The weather might hold.”
“Pity the last storm didnae last a week.”
She laughed. “We would have been snowed in until spring.”
“Aye.”
Her long sigh might have been silent, but it made a long steady cloud that gave her away.
“Come on, Matty lass. The fun is over. Time for yer Yeti-man to see ye home.”
The Cairngorms were painfully beautiful. I hadn’t noticed much before since I’d been too busy wallowing to look up from the Ryovan track. But that morning, it took my breath away. Maybe because I would never see a picture of them in the future and not superimpose Cian MacInnis into the scene.
My Yeti-man wore snowshoes. With skis, I had a hard time keeping up with him, even though much of the time, we were headed downhill.
I couldn’t help but wonder if he was in a hurry to get rid of me, but then he’d stop, claim to be out of breath, and take the time to kiss me senseless before we got going again.
I should have objected. I knew each kiss would make it harder to walk away from him, but I no longer cared about being sensible. And feeling something deeply wasn’t a sin. If I bawled my eyes out for the next week, or month, or year, so be it.
Silly me. I thought I’d been sad before I got on that plane for Scotland. But now, I wondered if those tears over Nick had contained much emotion in them at all. Had I only been mourning the loss of the restaurant?
I laughed as I kicked my way up an incline. I’m suddenly an expert on the emotional content of tears…
At the top of a hill, Cian stopped and waited for me. I turned my skis and planted my poles, glad for a chance to catch my breath and collect my next kiss. My pounding heart would just have to rest later.
He held up his fur-covered hand and shushed me, then pointed.
Coming from a pass to the left, through a thick mist clinging to the snow-covered ground, a herd of reindeer emerged, moving steadily toward the opposite end of the plateau.
The animals walked in a long, single-file line, the lead ones breaking trail through the deep drifts.
Their wide hooves sank and lifted in rhythm, while the rest of the herd followed precisely along the newly packed path, each following in the footsteps of the animal ahead.
Not one of them strayed or hesitated—calves stayed close to their mothers.
The fog probably made them nervous as they moved in and out of patches.
Some beasts were completely surrounded and hidden by the mist, with only their antlers visible as they trooped along.
They made no noise as they moved, but together, their hooves crunching through the snow sounded like the murmur of voices in another room, impossible to make out the words.
The spray of snow being kicked out of the way was a faint whisper I could only hear if I listened closely.
They passed within fifty yards, a steady stream of gray-brown bodies against the white, orderly as soldiers, yet as wild as mustangs.
Cian and I never moved until the last reindeer vanished into the mist to the right.
And I thought maybe God was trying to assure me that Cian wasn’t as alone in this cold place as I thought he was.
We moved again, across the reindeer path, and I marveled at how narrow it was after at least a hundred of them had walked along it. A dozen kids would have made a bigger mess.
Half an hour later, we came up to another small rise, and again, Cian waited for me at the top. As far as I was concerned, he was a kiss behind. His five o’clock shadow had grown long past five o’clock, and I wanted to imprint the feel of it into my memory.
But he wasn’t looking for a kiss. He was looking ahead, across a mile of open, flat white fields, the far end of which was lined with low buildings. I came up level with him, and he turned his head to watch my reaction.
“Civilization.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t look like much, does it?”
Knowing I was patronizing him, he ignored my comment and pointed to the left. “I like to stick to that tree line, so as not to draw attention. If ye’d rather go on straight, to save the time, we can bid farewell here.”
“What? You think I can’t get lost between here and there?
Because I can.” We both chuckled, but there were already tears in my eyes at the thought of him walking away from me.
“Besides, you said you’d introduce me to John.
If I strolled in and told him I’d spent the last two days with the Ghost of Glenwhatsit… ”
“Glenmore.”
“You think he’d believe me?”
His smile widened. “Like as not. To the trees, then.”
A high-pitched whirring began in the distance, and Cian jumped like he’d been shot. “Hurry now!” He took off for the trees, loping like a nimble giant across the top of the snow, leaving me to catch up.
I kicked with all I had, trying to work up some speed but I’d already worn myself out.
I was doing little better than a walk when the buzzing engine grew louder.
I glanced up to see if it was a drone, but then a snowmobile shot up over the rise a hundred yards behind me, with a couple on the back.
When they saw me, they turned in my direction and waved.
I hurried toward them, so they wouldn’t notice Cian’s tracks.
The closer they got, the bigger their grins. At twenty feet away, they stopped and the engine cut.
“Hiya!” The driver lifted his goggles. He was young. “Cross-country, aye? Are ye lost?”
“I’m fine, thanks. Just headed to Aviemore.”
His passenger, a girl, stood up on her footrests and removed her sunglasses, her face stricken. “Ye’re the American!”
Her boyfriend sobered. “Yer name wouldnae be Matty Gaines.”
I panicked. If the whole area had been looking for me, I couldn’t deny who I was. But if I admitted it, they’d expect me to go with them into town. And that meant I’d never get the chance to really say goodbye to Cian!
I glanced around, let my eyes skim over the woods where he’d disappeared. I saw no sign of him other than the line of snowshoe marks. To keep from drawing the kids’ attention to them, I went on scanning the horizon in every direction, like I was just getting my bearings.
“Listen,” I said. “I don’t want to ruin your day. Just ignore me.”
The kid frowned like he didn’t understand. “Ignore ye?”
“You’ve got better things to do than—”
“Folks have been searchin’ for ye.”
I nodded. “I had prayed for that. I’m really embarrassed that I caused trouble.”
“No shame there,” he said. “Unless ye werenae truly lost.”
The girl swatted his shoulder. “Cannae ye see she’s been greetin’?”
“Oh, no. I was lost all right.” I sniffed, not to be dramatic, but because I needed a tissue.
The girl pulled one from her pocket and offered it to me.
I moved closer to take it. “Thank you.”
She gave the boy a dirty look. Maybe they were siblings not sweethearts.
“Would ye like to ride?” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “I can come back for her.”
“No, no. I’m okay. I got some rest. I can ski in.”
He nodded and pulled his goggles back into place. “We’ll let them ken ye’re comin’.” The girl resumed her seat, and they took off before I could think of a way to stop them.
I waited until they were a quarter mile away before I looked back at the trees. I expected Cian to show himself, but he didn’t. Shadows, snow-covered branches. Nothing moved. Had he gone on ahead?
Please, please, please let him be waiting at the armory!