Chapter 29
29
Subject: New job opening?
From: Harper Clegg
To: Chris Bailey
Chris,
I would certainly be interested in interviewing for the new position. Thank you for thinking of me. Let me know what date/time suits you.
Best,
Harper
Harper closed her laptop before she could regret sending the email. She was doing this. Fraser had made it quite clear that there was no reason to stay – not that she’d expected one.
Not even for a minute.
All right, perhaps a part of her had been hoping he would at least show a little bit of sadness. An “I’ll miss you, Harp,” or “Is this really what you want?” Instead, he’d seemed painfully eager to cart her off to the train station.
Tears rolled down her face as she sat back in her chair, tracing the neat, curved corners of her desk. Had she misread him? Fine, they’d agreed that this was only a holiday fling, but he’d made her a bloody writing corner with her name on it. He’d carved a fairy from wood for her. She’d thought maybe that meant something.
She’d got her silly hopes up, like a naive little girl who still believed in fairy tales. This was her problem. It would always be her problem. She wanted more than anybody else could give her. She expected happy endings where they didn’t exist. She saw kindness and mistook it for love because she was too desperate to have it.
Choking on a sob, Harper pushed herself away from the desk. She couldn’t remember the cabin ever being this quiet before. Not even the owl kept her company tonight.
It was early. Almost five o’clock in the morning. She hadn’t been able to sleep, so she’d hammered nonsensical words into her manuscript all night, desperate to finish at least something properly before she left. She’d wanted to prove to herself that she could be more than one thing. That if Fraser didn’t want her, it didn’t mean she wasn’t still worth something.
Of course, she’d done a terrible job and would likely delete it all when she was in the right headspace.
Huffing, she decided to calm her noisy brain down with some fresh air. Outside, the moon was a silver smudge in the cloudy indigo sky. The earth smelled fresh and clean, but relief lasted only seconds. After that, her eyes caught on the chopping block. The memories they’d made there resurfaced, from the first time she’d seen Fraser cutting wood, to the feeling of him inside her, making her feel fuller, more wanted than she ever had before.
“Fuck off,” she snapped at the block, marching away from the cabin. She couldn’t be here, not when he was so engrained in everything around her. It was his fault she was in this mess. If she hadn’t fallen for him, her decision would have been simple. Easy. She would have gone back to Manchester as planned, and that would be that.
Leaves crunched underfoot as she trudged through the woods in her slipper boots. She didn’t know where she was going. The café wouldn’t be open for hours, and the loch carried just as many memories of him.
But then his words echoed in her head.
I’m just saying, when I want to sort my head out, the loch does the trick. It’s like a natural reset button for the body.
A reset was exactly what Harper needed, especially for her body, which was still all… achy and Fraser-obsessed. She didn’t want her skin to feel like his anymore. She needed to wash him away, wash away all the things holding her back from just getting on with her life.
A fine, chilly mist lingered over the water’s surface. The café was nothing more than a silhouette ahead of her, and she could vaguely make out the black dot of Captain Angus’s docked boat beyond the reflected moonlight. She let out a deep breath, already feeling better for being out in the open. Free. She pushed away memories of Fraser daring her to dip her toe in. This wasn’t about him.
“ I’m the main character!” she shouted into the air defiantly. It didn’t feel true, but it was nice to hear the words bouncing off the trees. “Or at least, I’m supposed to be!”
One day, she thought, she might be. She’d thought Belbarrow had been important because it was where she’d found Fraser, but there were other things she’d discovered here. The ability to hike up a small mountain without passing out. Confirmation that she was good with kids, and mums, and demanding B&B owners. A story that might not be finished yet, but had still been fun to write.
She’d found out here that she wasn’t just one thing. She wasn’t just a heartbroken, pathetic woman running away from her problems. She was a writer, a creative, a helper, a friend. She was sexy and silly and shy and confident. He hadn’t made her those things. He’d just brought them out in her.
Roughly, she slid off her clothes. The cold pinched her skin instantly, like claws. She shivered. Thought about going back. But she wasn’t that person anymore, either. She didn’t back down from difficult things.
She peeled off her leggings and stepped into the water.
Fraser knocked on the door of the cabin, his jaw tender from grinding his teeth all night. He wasn’t willing to leave things with Harper like this, so much so that as soon as dawn had showed signs of breaking, he’d rushed to his car, unable to wait a moment longer. He wasn’t even sure what to say. That he cared for her? She surely already knew that. That he was sad she was leaving? That wouldn’t make the leaving part any easier for either of them.
The cabin remained silent. He considered turning around. Going home. Cam would kill him, though, and probably Mum, too. He wasn’t sure what they expected from him, but it wasn’t this.
So he pulled out his keys, thinking Harper was probably still asleep. The least he could do was make her a cup of tea and be sure the heater was running hot enough. The temperature had dropped overnight, coating the fallen leaves in frost. She would need more layers than she’d been surviving in from now on, and she could say goodbye to cold showers unless she wanted to come down with pneumonia.
However, when he slipped the key in, he found it already unlocked. Thank god they were in the middle of nowhere, otherwise he’d have to lecture her on how dangerous that could be. He stepped in as quietly as his heavy boots and creaky floorboards would allow, wincing as the door clicked shut.
He froze when he saw a heap of shadows on the couch. Had she fallen asleep here?
“Harp?” he whispered gently, his blood pounding in his ears. Just her presence made him regret everything he’d said yesterday. Made him regret not just begging her to stay because he—
No. She was shivering, her face pale enough to stand out in the shadow of her blanket. Her lips were a frightening shade of blue, teeth chattering uncontrollably, and her hair…
Damp.
“ Harper ?” Fraser dropped to his knees, brushing the tangled hair from her face. He gasped when his knuckle brushed her cheek.
“You’re freezing. Why the fuck are you so freezing?” Instinct drove him up, seeking another blanket. In his panic, he couldn’t find one, eventually tearing off his coat to press over her in the hopes it would transfer his warmth. “Harper, love, talk to me, please.”
Though her lids remained shut, she mumbled something raspy and unintelligible under her breath. He leaned in, cupping her quivering jaw in his hands. A waxy sheen coated her face, terrifying him, but he tried to keep his voice even. “What? What did you say, sweetheart?”
“Went for a swim.” Her words slurred together like sludge in her mouth. Dread tore through him like somebody had buried his axe right down his middle.
She’d gone for a swim. Before dawn. In freezing cold weather.
“We need to get you to a hospital. Now.” He wasn’t even sure if he should move her. She looked so small, so breakable, hidden under the pile of blankets, which was clearly doing nothing to warm her up.
“I’ll b’ fine,” she said, a confused wrinkle burrowing between her brows. “Jus’ cold.”
“You’re not just cold,” he whispered. “You’re hypothermic. What were you thinking?”
“’m the main character.”
He frowned. She was talking nonsense.
Any hope that this looked worse than it was dissipated, especially when her lids drooped closed again. Fraser swore, pressing his forehead against hers and wincing when that icy cold frosted his own skin. He should call an ambulance, but this cabin was miles from anywhere. There was no street number, no street, only a dirt track leading up to his gate. Who knew how long it would take for the paramedics to find them?
No. He would have to take her himself. He could go to Fort William. It was only forty minutes away. Thirty if he was lucky enough to avoid the traffic, which he should be so early.
“Hold on, sweetheart.” He stood up, trying to find where she ended and the blankets began. When he found her knees, he scooped her up, whispering soothing words he wasn’t sure she could even hear.
She mumbled again, something he couldn’t make out, and his throat clogged with a fear he’d only ever felt for his family before. This was so much worse than the day Harper climbed Macaskill Ridge. He wasn’t even sure if he’d been this scared when Cam had her emergency C-section, when Mum’s knee gave out, or when Eiley didn’t pick up her phone.
“I’ve got you. Stay with me, Harp. Please,” he begged. He held her to him with one arm while he wrestled with the car door, swearing until it finally came free. Carefully, he placed her into the passenger seat, his hands fumbling and trembling as he wrapped the blankets around her tightly and tried to fasten the seatbelt over them.
“Fuck!”
All this time he’d spent trying to control everything. To make everyone’s lives easier. To be the one immovable oak in everybody else’s hurricane. And now he couldn’t help the woman he loved. He couldn’t make her open her eyes, couldn’t get her to talk to him, couldn’t chase away this cold.
“Please don’t do this.” The plea cracked through his voice. “Please be okay.”
He wasn’t sure what he would do if she wasn’t.
He shut the door, climbed in beside her, and immediately put the heat on the highest setting before starting the car.
How he would manage to drive in a straight line with this much terror surging through him, he didn’t know.