Chapter 21 #3
She heard him cross the room and come to a stop behind her.
She closed her eyes as he fussed with her hair, drawing it back over her shoulders and arranging it so it hung down her back.
It occurred to her at that moment that she had made a grave tactical error.
She should have left her suitcase in his hands and bolted for her hotel the moment she’d seen him.
Why she’d thought she could make it through an entire twenty-four hours with him was beyond her—no matter what sorts of prying questions he’d promised to answer.
What she wanted to do was turn, go into his arms, and beg him to ditch his life and come live at Moraig’s with her.
What she needed to do was push past him and run out the door.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t bring herself to do either.
“I did manage to have a very brief conversation with Patrick earlier,” he said slowly. “Actually, it wasn’t much of a conversation. He merely cursed me, then gave me a letter to read.”
Sunny dragged herself away from her unproductive thoughts. Conversation was good. It would take her mind off her miserable life. “A letter?” she echoed absently. “I didn’t leave you a letter.”
“’Twasn’t from you,” he said. “It was from Moraig to Jamie. Patrick thought I might find it . . . instructive.”
His fingers trailing through her hair were tremendously distracting.
She felt the tension start to drain from her, which was probably a very bad thing.
She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes to try to stop them from burning.
“What did Moraig have to say to Jamie? Was she telling him how to make a little potion to ward off hexes from any future witches?”
“Nay,” he said quietly. “She told him what had happened to her one particularly stormy spring evening eight years ago.”
Sunny heard the words, but it took a moment before they registered. And once they did, she felt her heart stop. Literally. It took her a moment before she could breathe again.
“Really,” she said, though there wasn’t much sound to her words.
“Aye,” he said. “It seems that a half-dead Highland lad burst through her door and went sprawling at her feet. His skull was half crushed and there was a dirk sticking out of his back. He was conscious long enough to identify himself and to ask about what was apparently most important to him, which was the safety of a certain lass he’d been traveling with. ”
She swayed dangerously. Cameron kept his hands on her shoulders, which was handy as it was all that was keeping her upright.
“I imagine you can guess who the lad was.”
She nodded.
“Care to know the name of the lass?”
By that point, she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. She could only stand there and shake.
“Her name was Sunshine.”
A sob escaped her before she could stop it.
He turned her around and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her so tightly she could hardly catch her breath.
She didn’t care. She threw her arms around him in return and hung on.
She knew she was making noises that should have frightened him—they were scaring the hell out of her—but he didn’t seem to care.
She wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t made an unsettling noise or two of his own.
She fell apart completely, weeping until her breath was coming in gasps, and she thought she might be ill.
She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, how many times had she caught Moraig simply looking at her with a grave smile, as if she’d known something Sunny didn’t? Sunny had always thought it was just the wise, earth-mother sort of look she favored everyone with. Now, she knew better.
You’ll want my house after I’m gone, lass.
Sunny had always assumed that was because Moraig had thought she would need a good place to dry her herbs. She had never once suspected it would be for a far more crucial reason.
And now Cameron knew. She wept a bit more for that reason alone. She wasn’t the only one carrying his past, or his secret, or their past together. Even if he never remembered anything, at least someone else had proved to him that he’d known her.
The relief she felt was overwhelming.
She had no idea how much longer she stood there, fighting to get control of herself.
Cameron had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of patience.
He made a soothing noise or two, hummed snatches of things she didn’t know, then finally just stroked her hair with one hand and held her close with the other.
She felt as if she’d come home.
Only it was a home she couldn’t have.
She finally gulped in a decent breath. “I’ve ruined your shirt.”
“Patrick ruined my shirt. I think you’ve just washed it for me.”
She managed something that might have passed for a laugh if she hadn’t been in such pain.
She dragged her sleeve across her face and wished for a Kleenex.
Cameron kept his arm around her and reached for one.
She took it, then mopped up as best she could.
He pulled her close again and pressed her head against his shoulder.
He said nothing else, but Sunny felt him taking slow, even breaths.
Maybe that was his way to keep from falling apart as she had.
“I want to know everything,” he said finally. He fumbled for her tissues, used them on his own face, then leaned over to throw them away. He looked down at her, his eyes very red. “Everything. ”
She took a deep breath. “All right. Let me go wash my face first.”
“But you’ll return.”
She closed her eyes briefly, then nodded.
He released her as reluctantly as she might have wished for. “Then I’ll be waiting for you.”
She walked away from him while she still could. Those were the words she wanted, but the timing was all wrong. And there was no way to make it right.
She escaped into the bedroom and shut the door behind her, then looked around until she spied the bathroom. Once that door was safely shut and locked, she walked over and sat down on the edge of the tub where she wouldn’t have to look at herself in the mirror.
She could hardly believe what had just happened. Cameron knew. She’d waited so long, wanted it so desperately—now that she had it, she didn’t know what to do.
She also wondered absently why it was Moraig hadn’t volunteered any of that pertinent information.
Then again, what could she have said? Sunny, dearie, you’re going to go back in time and fall in love with the medieval laird of clan Cameron and then you’re going to lose him.
She would have run the other way because just thinking about it would have broken her heart.
A bit like what was happening to her anyway.
She splashed water on her face, then left the bathroom and went to flop down on the bed.
She wasn’t sure if this was better or worse, but she suspected it wasn’t better.
She never should have agreed to anything with Cameron, but apparently she had left all sense back in Scotland on Moraig MacLeod’s threshold where she’d also left her heart.
The thought of being with him for even twenty-four hours, being in his arms, watching him smile at her, heaven help her even having him pull her close and kiss her .
. . it would just finish off what the past almost two months had left of her.
She forced herself to take the same deep, even sort of breaths Cameron had taken in the living room. It took quite a while before she felt herself begin to relax. After a bit of time spent in that marginally happy place, she began to look at things a little differently.
You want answers; I want you.
He’d said that, but maybe it applied just as much to her. She wanted him, if only for a single, glorious evening. It would give her memories enough to last her for years—because she was absolutely certain it would take years before she was over him.
Perhaps he needed memories of his past as much as she needed memories of him at present. And like it or not, she was the only person alive who could give him what he didn’t have. It wasn’t in her nature to deny someone aid when she could render it.
She took another handful of deep, steadying breaths.
She could take the evening, spend it with the man who broke her heart a little every time she looked at him, and make her own set of memories of the Cameron who wore jeans and had a cell phone.
And then she would get up early and go to the airport.
She would walk away because she could not bear to be in the same country with him and know he was married to someone else.
She would give him the evening.
And then she would go.