Chapter 15 #2
She was really not a weeper—the past two weeks aside.
She generally ran away from her problems, or tried to bury them in the dirt, or scrub them off her dishes.
Unfortunately, it was too dark to just run out the door, and Madelyn’s dishes were already finished.
All she could do was stand half a room away from a man who had repeatedly kissed the socks off her almost seven hundred years ago, and try to keep herself from shattering.
And then it occurred to her, with a terrible sense of finality, that he wasn’t pretending not to know her. That look of utter bafflement on his face wasn’t feigned.
He honestly didn’t remember her.
Something had obviously happened, something dreadful, something that had wiped out anything he knew about his past— or at least the part of his past that included her. That realization was so terrible, she had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from making noises that would have frightened him.
He strode across the room and took her by the shoulders. “Are you going to faint?” he asked sharply.
She shook her head, then she pulled away from him. If he actually pulled her into his arms, she would make those terrifying noises.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look it. Why don’t you come and sit by the fire?”
She didn’t want to, but she knew if she said no, he would pick her up and just carry her to where he wanted to put her.
Despite the polished exterior, she supposed he hadn’t changed all that much.
So she nodded and let him walk her back to the great hall.
Patrick had built up the fire and was pulling four chairs closer to it.
Cameron saw her seated in the chair closest to the hearth, then sat down next to her.
She heard them talking around her, but she couldn’t make sense of anything anyone said.
She stared down at Cameron’s feet so she wouldn’t be tempted to look at his face.
She supposed he might have bought his boots in Edinburgh this time around.
They were scuffed, though, which led her to believe that whatever else he did, he still walked over his land.
His knees might have been covered with jeans, but he still rubbed them absently now and again, just as she’d watched him do in his own time.
She supposed if he’d had a knife to hand, he would have been fingering it as well.
She looked up reluctantly past a denim shirt stretched across shoulders she had put her arms around a dozen times, up to his face. She had to blink several times to manage to actually see it.
She realized she was shivering only because Cameron had taken a black leather coat off the back of his chair and was putting it over her.
“I’m all right,” she said quickly.
He shot her a look that said he had no intention of listening to her protests. She’d seen that look before, more than once.
It almost killed her to see it now.
He tucked his coat up under her chin, then sat down again.
Sunny closed her eyes. It smelled like him, like heather and wind over Scottish meadows.
It was just more than she could handle. She pulled her knees up into the chair with her, bowed her head, and wept.
She didn’t care what anyone else thought.
She absolutely could not stand another moment of the torment.
She felt Cameron’s hand come to rest gently on her head. “Let me take you home, Sunshine,” he said quietly. “Head wounds aren’t anything to toy with.”
“How would you know?” Madelyn asked promptly.
Cameron paused. “I had one once,” he said finally, “and it took me months to feel myself again.”
“Did you indeed?” Patrick asked, sounding far too interested for his own good. “How long ago was that?”
“Eight years,” he said, sounding as if he were very reluctant to divulge even that much. “I was in hospital for a month. I would have been there longer if Alistair and Moraig hadn’t fetched me out.”
Sunny lifted her head and looked at him blearily. “Moraig MacLeod? You knew her?”
“Aye,” he said. “I assume you did as well, given that you’re living in her house.”
Sunny couldn’t speak. I’ll leave ye my house after I’m gone, Moraig had said to her once. You’ll be wanting it—for reasons ye don’t yet understand.
Sunny felt a cold chill run down her spine.
It wasn’t possible that Moraig had known Cameron—well, of course it was possible.
She’d obviously pulled him out of the hospital.
But it wasn’t possible that Moraig would have known about her having known Cameron.
She’d certainly never said anything about it.
Sunny shoved aside any more speculation. Perhaps old Alistair Cameron had needed help getting Cameron out of the hospital and asked Moraig to come along. Perhaps Moraig had left her house to her because she’d loved her.
Perhaps coming to Scotland had been a terrible mistake.
She felt Cameron’s arm go around her shoulders.
“Let me take you home,” he said. “I’ll go fetch my car—”
“No,” she said, leaping to her feet and swaying violently. She steadied herself, then shoved his coat at him. “I’m staying here tonight.”
“Are you—” Madelyn began in surprise.
Sunny shot her a look that had her biting off the rest of what she’d no doubt intended to say. Patrick was looking at her calculatingly, but he said nothing.
“As you wish,” Cameron said slowly. He put his coat on just as slowly. “I suppose I should be off anyway. Any later and it won’t go well for me.”
Patrick held out his hand. “A pleasure, Cameron. Come back again.”
“I would like that,” Cameron said, shaking Patrick’s hand. “I’ll be in London for the next little while, but perhaps the next time I’m home.” He took Madelyn’s hand and bent over it. “Thank you for the hospitality, my lady.”
Madelyn only smiled. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Lord Robert. Do come back.”
Sunny slunk over to hide behind Patrick and hoped Cameron wouldn’t feel the need to tell her good-bye as well. She realized all too quickly that he had shifted so he could see her.
“Good night, Mistress Sunshine.”
She nodded briskly, but said nothing.
Patrick put his hand on Cameron’s shoulder and walked him to the door. Cameron thanked Patrick again for the meal and the pleasant conversation. Sunny turned and looked at the fire until she heard Patrick shut the door and bolt it.
“Well,” he said brightly, “that was an interesting visit.”
“Wasn’t it though,” Sunny muttered. She looked at Madelyn. “Thanks for the place to crash. See you guys in the morning.”
“Oh, nay,” Patrick said, striding over and blocking her way.
“You’ll not escape so easily, sister. After I made the effort to be polite to a neighboring clansman I would have slain without hesitation in another lifetime, I think I’m entitled to a few answers.”
“I don’t have any answers.”
“I imagine you do,” Patrick said easily. “I’m curious, Sunshine, why Robert Cameron has lived up the hill for years and ’tis only tonight that he decides to grace us with his admittedly charming self.”
“Why don’t you go ask him?” Sunny stalled, eyeing the hallway and wondering if it would be rude to just run toward it before they could catch her.
“I just might.”
She caught her breath as she realized what she was goading him to do. “Please, Patrick,” she said quickly, “please don’t say anything to him.”
“Then spew out a few answers, Sunshine. I find it very odd that you returned home almost three weeks ago from points unknown and undisclosed wearing a pair of Cameron plaids.”
“Highlanders didn’t have set tartan patterns in the Middle Ages, which you know.”
“True, but I saw enough Cameron plaids in my day to be very familiar with the colors they favored.”
“What are you tonight, a lawyer?” Sunny said, with an attempt at lightness.
Patrick only looked at her calculatingly.
Madelyn exchanged a look with her husband, then stepped in front of him. She put her arms around Sunny and hugged her tightly. “Go to bed, sister. Everything will look better in the morning. I have Pop-Tarts.”
“Tempting,” Sunny said, though she didn’t think she could stomach one. She paused, then looked at her brother-in-law. “Thank you for being kind to him.”
“It wasn’t an effort,” Patrick said with a shrug. “Not much of one, at least. I only had to suppress the impulse to reach for my sword half a dozen times instead of a score.”
Sunny nodded then escaped while Madelyn was teasing her husband about his warped view of reality and finding herself reminded that she loved him in spite of it.
Sunny had to shut the guest-room door quickly, so she didn’t have to hear any more.
Usually, their happiness made her smile, but not that night.
She pulled a clean pair of Madelyn’s old pajamas out of the drawer, changed into them, then went to bed without even brushing her teeth. She hadn’t eaten all that much anyway.
She wished she’d had Cameron’s plaid to wrap around her. It helped her sleep. As it was, all she had was a pair of Madelyn’s ducky print pajamas. Not the same at all.
Well, he wasn’t stupid and he hadn’t been lost. He hadn’t been coming to see Patrick; he’d been coming to see her. A man who was engaged to another woman had come to see her. A man who didn’t remember that he’d loved her centuries ago had come to see her.
All the more reason to get out of Scotland before he came to see her again.
She would go home—
She stopped immediately. No, not home. Home was a crooked little house in the Highlands full of herbs and magic and a fire that kept her warm year-round.
Home was a brief walk through silent woods from her sister’s house.
Home was being part of a clan full of souls who loved her because of who she was and what she could do.
Home was also, apparently, thirty miles as the crow flew from a man she loved but who didn’t have a clue why he should love her back.
She knew that if she’d had any sense at all, she would have gone home right then, thrown things into a suitcase, and driven herself to the airport to wait for the first flight to London so she could hop a plane back to Seattle and spare herself any more heartache.
It would demonstrate a distinct lack of sense to remain in Scotland and make a little foray into James MacLeod’s library and see if he had anything on how to help the man you loved regain the memories of you he seemed to have lost.
If she pushed him, would he remember?
Would it do her any good if he did?
Those were questions she could hardly ask herself, much less try to answer.
There were times, she supposed, when the best course of action was to wait and see which way the wind was blowing before doing something drastic.
It worked with healing, sometimes; it worked with a laboring mother, most of the time.
It might work with untenable situations she couldn’t rectify herself.
Yes, maybe for once, she would stay when she wanted to run. Just for a bit longer. Just to see which way the wind would blow.
She hoped she could bear the direction when she discovered it.