Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
T hroughout the morning as Bryan and Lùcas raced to install the new living room windows, he kept one eye on the darkening sky and an ear out for the Americans ’ disgruntled return. They would at least be mollified that he was right about the storm. Maybe he could take them to the castle tomorrow.
The wind picked up and he cast a wary eye out towards the water. They’d been gone a long time. Too long, unless they had found something else to do besides stare at the old pile of stones.
Could be they were just staying out to enjoy fresh air before the storm chased them indoors. Deep in his bones, though, he had a sense of foreboding he couldn’t shake, the kind that haunts you for hours after you wake up from a bad dream.
Perhaps it was only the urgency of getting the house watertight before the weather broke, or the pall of yesterday’s run-in with his neighbors hanging over him, but his stomach churned like the roughening surf as he and Lùcas spread caulk around a frame and set the next window in place.
A single raindrop landed on his arm, and he clocked the sky again. Good timing that it had waited until the end of the festival—and until they’d gotten the drywall up.
“How soon do you reckon I can move in?” Lùc asked, out of nowhere. At Bryan’s confused frown he added, “ Wes asked for recommendations on places to stay, so I thought…”
Bryan had rather hoped they’d all moved on from such notions. Had he completely and utterly misread the situation? If he could misread that, what else had he gotten wrong? Was Grace , in fact, not attracted to him in the slightest? Kissed him back because she felt sorry for him? Kissed him, and then regretted it because she hated him? Or his face? Or his beard?
“Umm… Can I still? After they leave?” Lùc asked, hesitantly.
“?’Course,” Bryan told him, then suddenly asked, “ What do you think of the beard? Keep it or shave it?”
His cousin looked up, head tilted like a pup. “ It’s a nice beard,” Lùc said, scratching his own baby-faced chin.
Bryan just shook his head and got back to work.
“Can I have a job in the distillery when it’s done?” the boy asked.
“Do you want a job in a distillery?”
Lùc shrugged, and Bryan sat back on his haunches, wiping his sweaty forehead on his shoulder.
“When do you leave school?”
“Already did.”
Bryan nodded for Lùcas to help him pick up the next window and heft it into place. “ Going to uni?” he asked.
When Lùc didn’t respond, he glanced up at and his cousin shrugged again. “ What would I study at uni?”
“What would you?” Bryan turned the question back on him.
“Art, I suppose,” Lùcas said, shaking his head.
It surprised Bryan a little, but maybe it shouldn’t have, coming from someone who couldn’t resist illuminating the margins of library books. “ Great opportunity to get off the island for a while, if you think you’d like to explore,” Bryan suggested.
Lùcas shook his head again, slapping caulk on the next frame. “ If my da has his way, I’ll work at the shop and never leave until they put me in the ground.”
“And if you had your way?” Bryan asked.
Again he shrugged.
“It’ll take a while to get the distillery up and running,” Bryan explained. “ But if you’re here and still want a job, it’s yours.”
That seemed to please the lad, whose shoulders relaxed a bit as they continued to work in silence until Bryan had an idea.
“One thing I’ll need sooner rather than later—a logo and a label. You wouldn’t have any interest in helping me design them, would you?”
His cousin’s face lit up like Bryan had switched on a megawatt light. “ Truly ?”
“If you’re keen.”
“I’ll start drafting ideas tonight!”
Oh, to be seventeen and have the energy to do anything after a day of hard labor.
They picked up the next window just as thunder cracked overhead, and together they slid into a faster pace. There was only one left to mount when Eòghann burst through the back door, wild-eyed and breathless.
“Are they here?” he demanded, and Bryan’s stomach sank.
“What d’you mean?” Bryan asked, though he had the worst kind of feeling he already knew.
“Gavin down at the ferry called, said two idiots in a dinghy were out in the middle of the ferry lane. Captain said he didn’t see them until he was right up on top of them. Gavin said by the sound of it, ‘twas Eilidh’s boat. She hasn’t been out in years, so I thought?—”
“Aye,” Bryan said grimly, as a paralyzing chill ran through his bones.
“They wouldn’t have taken it out? Not in this weather. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Bryan opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out.
“They went for a walk, you said,” Lùcas offered.
“I b-b-begged them.”
Eòghann’s face went another shade of white.
“Eilidh’s little motor?” Bryan asked.
His cousin nodded, stricken.
He was going to be sick. He had to get to them.
It thundered again, and Bryan looked up at the gaping hole that was the last window.
“I can finish on my own,” Lùcas assured him.
Bryan stared at him dumbly, trying to think what to do, until another crash of thunder made him jump.
“Go!” Lùc yelled, and Bryan raced inside with Eòghann on his heels.
* * *
The young guard at the ferry office didn’t want to lend him a speedboat or the fuel to take her out.
“It’s me or the Coast Guard . Your choice,” Bryan growled, furious the ferry office hadn’t already called in Search and Rescue .
None too eager to rally the troops over a pair of errant tourists who may or may not actually be missing, the kid relented and handed over a key and three life jackets. Minutes later, Bryan was flying towards the castle, peering through the fog for signs of life. This couldn’t be happening. Not to Eòghann , not again, and not to Bryan , either.
Suddenly his hurt feelings over last night’s words seemed so stupid. Why hadn’t he told her to wait a day? Why not promise to put aside everything he’d planned to do tomorrow and just take them? What was a few hours in the grand scheme of his reno-vation? It would have been a small price, but now…
Christ.
The water was choppy as he sped across the surf. The ferry guard had pointed out approximately where they’d been spotted, but Bryan was no expert, and out here it all looked the same, just a whole lot of darkness and wind and spray. His lungs ached, and not just from the cold. He couldn’t lose her, couldn’t lose either of them, not like this.
Seeing no sign of Aunt Eilidh’s dinghy or anything else in any direction, he turned the speedboat towards the castle. He’d just have to start at Kisimul , and if he didn’t find them there, radio Eòghann to call for backup and then work his way back to Eilidh’s place, and back and forth again if he had to.
The storm finally broke before he reached the island, amping up the sour churn in his stomach. They absolutely could not drown, not on his watch. How could he ever face Diego ? Or Eòghann ? Or anyone else?
Up ahead there was a flash of orange, out of place in the colorless gloom, and he cut the engine, searching for that flash again as the surf crashed nearly over the side of his boat.
Had he imagined it?
He wiped his face on one damp sleeve before staring back out at the water, and there it was again, the bright orange hat Wes had donned that morning, glowing like a beacon. But though he squinted through the driving rain, searching until his eyes began to cross, there was nothing to be found, not the boat, not the American Invasion , nothing.
Scenario after scenario flooded his mind, each more dreadful than the last, as the rain soaked through his thin t-shirt. He shivered, but he didn’t regret not stopping to grab a hat or slicker.
Then he saw something—dark, curly hair floating near the surface— Grace !
Bryan leaned way out of the boat, but he couldn’t quite reach.
A bolt of lightning lit up the sky and the water, and he yanked his arm back when he realized it wasn’t Grace at all, just a bunch of kelp churned up to the surface, all tangled in something that on closer inspection appeared to be the remnants of Eilidh’s dinghy. The motor was trying to drag it all down through the kelp, but strips of PVC still floated at the surface.
He dry-heaved but nothing came up, and he forced himself to slide back down in the boat to catch his breath and get his bearings.
“Call the Coast Guard ,” he yelled down the radio. “ The dinghy’s sunk.”
Then he turned the engine back on and slammed the boat forward at speed, praying they had washed up on shore. The sky was so dark now he could hardly make out the beach around Kisimul Castle until he ran up on some rocks, the hull of his boat groaning in protest. He cut the engine and vaulted into the water with his shoes still on, dragging the boat as best he could further up onto the tiny beach.
“Rios?” he shouted. “ Wes ?”
He scanned left and right along the outer edge of the castle. Christ , what a nightmare, but if they had any sense, and the physical ability to do so, they’d have tried to find a way inside. The grounds would be locked of course, and the tide was creeping ever closer.
With a first aid kit slung over one shoulder, Bryan made his way around the tiny island towards the back side of the castle where the building itself might provide at least a little shelter from the driving rain. “ Rios ! Wesley !” he shouted again, and then suddenly Wes jumped out of the mist, throwing her arms around him.
“You were right,” she yelled. “ I’ll eat all the vegetarian crow on the planet, you were right.”
“Are you okay?” he shouted, holding her at arm’s length to assess her bedraggled state.
She was bleeding from a scrape on her cheek, and there were bits of bracken tangled in her hair, but she nodded that she was all right, biting her lip and holding back tears. “ I never swam so hard in my life.”
“Grace?” he asked her, hardly daring to breathe.
“Twisted her ankle on the rocks. She’s around the corner,” Wes yelled, pointing in the direction he’d been headed.
“Wait here,” Bryan shouted, pointing at the boat, “and radio Eòghann to call off the Coast Guard .”
She nodded, and Bryan was pretty sure now she was crying.
He found Grace huddled against the castle’s outer wall, trying and failing to use it for shelter from the rain. His heart leapt at the sight of her, whole and hale, but the adrenaline was quickly converting his fear to fury. Her eyes seemed to light when she saw him, too, and then she dissolved into tears.
Without pausing to think, Bryan cupped her face, proving to himself she was real. He pressed her up against the old crumbling stone and kissed her fiercely.
She kissed him back, her breath sweet like Irn - Bru , and for a moment, all of his anger and anxiety were forgotten, replaced by her jasmine and peach scent and the warmth of her tongue battling his, as the tightness in his chest finally loosened for the first time in over an hour.
When he stepped back to take a breath, she looked up at him with such vulnerability in her eyes, just for a flicker, before they turned hard, preparing for a fight, and just like that, his anger came roaring back too.
“You p-promised,” he shouted.
“You had no right to make me,” she argued, and Bryan looked around at their predicament in disbelief that she could still be so stubborn.
“I didn’t make you. You’re an adult,” he countered. “ Even if you don’t act like one.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I told you it was too dangerous, but you just do whatever you want, is that it? Typical American .”
“How dare you! I was trying to do something nice for my friend. She wanted to see it. Do you get that? What it means to her?”
“You know I do. But she won’t be able to see anything at all if you get her killed!”
“It was a beautiful sunny day!” she hissed.
“And I told you it wasn’t going to s-s-stay that way! Did you not hear me?”
“Oh, I heard you.”
“Did you not—did you not believe me?”
“No, I didn’t believe you,” she replied, and it stung right down to his core.
He tried to make his throat work, but for a moment he just strangled on air. “ Why ?” he finally croaked.
“You were acting like a controlling jerk. You couldn’t be bothered to ask Eòghann to go with us? We'd have been here and back in plenty of time.”
Bryan gestured at the island and the storm raging around them. “ Eòghann would have told you exactly what I did. Would you have listened to him? Are his words so much more p-p-persuasive than mine?” God damn his stammer, popping up as if to illustrate the point.
“He wouldn’t have tried to stop us, because he has a thing for Wes !”
“Not enough of a thing!” Running his hands through his wet hair, Bryan wanted to scream in frustration. Was she trying to say he didn’t care enough about her to go with them, when clearly he cared enough to warn her off and then to come out in the storm after her ? “ Eòghann would never have agreed to this. I can’t get my head around why you agreed to this! You were just hell-bent on doing the opposite of what I wanted from the moment I said no.”
Her eyes flashed dangerously telling him he’d hit a nerve.
“If I’d insisted you go, then would you have?—”
“I don’t need to be told what to do by an illiterate oaf who thinks he can read the sky!”
Bryan swallowed.
“Sorry,” she said immediately, her eyes filling with unshed tears. “ I didn’t mean that.”
“?’Course you did.” He tried to smile but was pretty sure it came off as a sneer. “ You wanted to be cruel and cutting, and you knew exactly how to hit your mark. You can’t take it back just ’cause you regret it.” She might not mean the words, but she’d meant to say them. She was lashing out like an animal that was hurting somewhere he couldn’t see, and he didn’t understand why.
Grace studied the ground. They were both soaked to the skin, and the rain ran down her cheeks like so many tears, and he kind of wanted to cry himself. Before last night, he’d thought she heard him in a way most people never did.
“Why are you here?” she demanded, but what was the point of admitting he cared for her now? She probably wouldn’t hear that either.
“Why are you?” he asked, and her teary face turned belligerent again. “ You’re not leaving yet. You’ve loads more time for Wes to see the castle. Why did it have to be today, when I asked you… when you p-p—when you promised not to? Why , Rios ?” he pressed.
“Because I was angry at you!” she exploded. “ Because I was furious that you were pissed at me for not wanting to sleep with you last night!”
Bryan took a step back, his head spinning. She thought he was upset they didn’t hook up?
“You don’t get to be mad about that, you do not get to be mad at me,” she yelled, her eyes brimming with tears once more. “ So why are you here?” she asked again.
Bryan opened his mouth, but no words would come, and he closed it again.
She was staring at him, waiting, and she deserved an answer.
“Couldn’t lose you,” he finally managed, shrugging one shoulder. “ Cait would never let me live down the reviews if a guest died on my watch,” he added, to lessen the impact.
Her face crumpled as she looked up at him, and he got the sense she was about to say more mean words, just to keep him at arm’s length. So he tilted his face down to swallow them before they had a voice, and she stretched to meet him, despite not putting weight on one foot. He put his arms around her and under her to lift her so she wouldn’t hurt her twisted ankle, and they kissed as deeply and fiercely as ever before.
They kissed until Bryan couldn’t feel his lips any longer. He pressed all of his fear and worry into that kiss, and she kissed him right back, hungrily, grabbing his sodden t-shirt in her fists like she wanted to punch him, her tongue fighting his like the unkind words he knew she wanted to hurl. Another defense mechanism to try and protect her soft underbelly.
Then a cough behind them pulled him back to his senses and he slowly lowered her to her feet.
“Eòghann says if we’re not back in ten minutes, he’s calling the Coast Guard anyway,” Wes reported.
“Can you walk?” Bryan asked, unable to look Grace in the eye.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go.” He took her hand, but she stumbled gingerly forward on the twisted ankle, a soft cry escaping her swollen lips.
So he scooped her up and carried her out to the beach, dropping her heavily into the boat and taking a little cruel delight in her murmured, “ Ouch ,” when her bottom hit the bench.
Wesley handed Grace a life jacket, and Bryan helped her step into the boat before he shoved it back off the beach and sloshed out to jump aboard.
His frustration provided a sharp focus for navigating through what remained of the storm, but he hardly drew breath until he handed the keys off to the kid in the ferry office.
Eòghann was leaning against his pickup, the wildness in his eyes relaxing only the tiniest bit as Wes helped Grace squeeze onto the bench behind the driver’s seat. Bryan was shivering and relieved for his cousin to do the driving, though Eòghann’s knuckles were white the whole way to Grandad’s house, his glance darting furtively between Wes in the rearview and Bryan beside him.
Bryan hated that his cousin had been dragged into this mess. Except if it weren’t for Eòghann , he might not have… he couldn’t even think it. He only hoped it wasn’t too triggering.
“Warm up,” he suggested, gesturing vaguely to the shower when they were safely back inside his grandad’s house. As he stalked into his room to change into dry clothes, he heard Grace whisper, “ My kingdom for a bathtub,” and he tried not to let it sting. He never invited them here. This was his kingdom, and they the invaders. Maybe it was time they moved on, after all.