Chapter 22
Cameron glanced at the bedroom door, but it was still shut.
He felt, briefly, as if he were back in Moraig’s house, sitting in front of the fire, waiting for Sunny to come out of the bathroom after he’d bedded down on her floor, and wondering what it was he’d done to make her run from him at every opportunity.
He understood, now.
He looked at his watch and was surprised to find that twenty minutes had gone by.
It had given him time to talk to Emily, who had braved the maddening crowds at Harrods to buy Sunny an evening gown, make reservations for two at a very discreet French restaurant that never called the photographers to alert them he was dining there, and pace about the chamber a score of times before finding himself standing in front of an exquisite bouquet of flowers Emily must have requested.
He was half tempted to go see if Sunny had lain down and fallen asleep, but he forbore. Perhaps she was mulling over what he’d told her. The saints only knew he could stand to do the same.
He couldn’t quite bring himself to, though.
It was torment enough to think he’d fallen in love with her, hopelessly, unreasonably, impossibly in love with her during the past few weeks.
It was made profoundly worse by the thought that he’d loved her before, forgotten her, then been perfectly capable of having her again well before he’d found himself thrown together with someone he didn’t love.
If only Moraig had said something. If only James MacLeod, damn him to hell and back, had seen fit to give him that letter a year ago after Moraig’s death instead of waiting until now.
In Jamie’s defense—not that Cameron was particularly interested in defending him at present, but he was trying to be fair— perhaps he’d been waiting for Sunny to travel back in time before he made any sort of move.
After all, it had been a sudden thing, Jamie’s enthusiasm about the leisure centre and his absolute insistence that they have their meeting .
. . when? Five weeks ago? Almost a fortnight after Sunny had returned, just after she’d been able to rise from her bed and come to the keep.
He rubbed his hands over his face and blew out his breath. Perhaps Jamie had done the best he could. After all, it wasn’t his fault that things had gone awry. It was no one’s fault, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Nor did deciding what to do now.
He’d had the drive to Inverness to accustom himself to the idea that he’d not only known Sunny, he’d apparently loved her in the past. He’d considered on the flight south what he might do with that knowledge, then decided that he would talk to her, apologize for the grief he’d caused her, then get her safely and with a minimum of fuss onto her flight back to the States.
Until he solved his current problem, he wasn’t free to ask anything of her.
That had seemed a very reasonable, if not painful, way to carry on for the present.
Now, he wasn’t so sure.
The bedroom door opened, interrupting his dismal thoughts. Sunny didn’t look any less teary-eyed than she had twenty minutes earlier, but he supposed he didn’t, either. He crossed the room to her, stopped, then held open his arms.
She hesitated only slightly before she walked into his embrace. He wrapped his arms around her and held her in silence.
He realized suddenly that Sunny was shaking. He had no plaid to wrap around her, so he merely drew her closer and tried to warm her with his body.
“Cold?” he asked.
“I think I’m in shock,” she said, her teeth chattering.
He pulled back and realized she was serious.
He swept her up in his arms before she could protest, carried her over to the couch, then set her down so he could call for a cup of herbal tea.
He went and rummaged about in her bedchamber for an extra blanket, which he wrapped around her just before her tea arrived.
He sat next to her and watched her as she drank.
Her hands were trembling badly.
He finally rescued her cup, set it on the coffee table, then pulled her close to him where he could put his arms around her.
“Better?” he asked.
She nodded. “A bit. Thank you.”
He rested his cheek against her hair and wondered if she knew when she was speaking Gaelic and when she wasn’t.
Patrick had told him at one point that Sunny had spoken it all her life because her father had taught it to her.
He supposed it had served her well in medieval Scotland.
Just the thought of her having braved the dangers of that particular time period was enough to give him the chills.
“So,” he said finally, “who first in this unprecedented spewing of secrets?”
“You,” she said, her voice rough from weeping. “I know it makes you uncomfortable and that’ll make me feel better.”
He smiled against her hair. “You are a vile wench.”
“Yet here you are.”
“Aye,” he agreed, “here I am.”
She let out a deep, shuddering breath, then pulled her feet up onto the couch and hugged her knees. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and tugged the blanket up over her. She leaned her head against his arm and sighed.
“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, “I will believe everything you tell me. And once you’re through with all your secrets, I’ll return the favor by telling you everything I know. They’ll be things only you would believe.”
He cleared his throat again before he gave vent to some sort of emotion that would have completely unmanned him in front of her. “Sunshine, you’re killing me.”
“And I’ve been in hell for quite a while myself, buster, so we’re about even. Here, I’ll help you get started. Your mother insisted you wear a handful of names, but gave your brothers only one each. Start from there.”
He wasn’t a lad given to excessive emotion that didn’t involve being angry enough to use a sword or being terrified enough to run for his life, but he found, to his continued surprise, that Sunny continued to wring emotions from him that he’d hardly suspected he had.
He muttered a few curses to make himself feel more himself, but it didn’t help.
“I think I need a whisky,” he said.
“That didn’t work out so well for you the last time, did it? Just spill your guts, lad. You’ll feel better after you do.”
“And you would know, given how much gut-spilling lobelia you’ve no doubt dispensed over the years.” He took a deep breath. “Very well. I’ll begin at the beginning.”
So he did. He told her of growing up as William mac Cameron’s son, about his parents’ rather tempestuous marriage and his own desire to avoid the same.
He told her about the ridiculous adventures his brother Sim had convinced him to go on, about Breac’s steadiness behind him at all times, about both his brothers’ endless supply of wenches falling over them whilst he frightened any and all sensible maids off with his brusqueness and demanding nature alone.
By that time, she had stopped shaking and was watching him with a small, affectionate smile that had him wishing desperately that he did indeed dare order up something very strong.
But as he knew where that would lead, he continued on with the tale of his father’s murder and Giric’s continual attempts to wrest the chieftainship away from him.
He told her about the battle where Sim had died and Breac had been wounded, and how Giric had told him to ride for the MacLeod witch.
“And that is where my memories end,” he said with a sigh.
“And mine begin,” she said softly. “But I’m afraid you might not enjoy them very much.”
“Will you hold my hand to make me feel better?”
She frowned at him. “Be serious.”
“I was being serious.”
She smiled, then reached up to her shoulder to hold his hand. “I sewed up the scar you have on this arm, you know.”
He wondered when it was he would stop losing his breath around her. “Did you, indeed?”
“I did, indeed. I’ll tell you about it later, if you want me to.
For now, I’ll start where you left off. What you don’t remember is that you did succeed in fetching the MacLeod witch, only it wasn’t the one from your day—who I actually don’t think even existed—it was me.
I knew fairly soon that you were definitely not a friend of Jamie’s come in costume to get me for dinner, but by then it was too late.
The moment you pulled me across my threshold, you had pulled me into the past. At that point, there was really no reason for me not to go with you and try to save your brother.
” She smiled briefly. “You were actually fairly persuasive.”
“Was I charming?” he asked hesitantly.
“Well, let’s see. First you tackled me and knocked the wind from me, then you refused to answer any of my questions about what year I found myself in, and finally you snarled what I wanted to know at me just before you threw me up onto the back of your horse and rode off with me.”
He smiled. “Yet you’re still speaking to me.”
“You made up for it afterward. You were actually rather anxious to get home and I didn’t blame you. I’m afraid there was nothing to be done, though.” She paused. “Breac died under my hands. Well, our hands, actually. I held one hand and you the other as he passed on.”
He wasn’t surprised, but it was still difficult to hear. He looked at her fingers intertwined with his for quite a while before he trusted himself to meet her eyes and not weep.
“Thank you for trying.”
Her eyes were swimming with tears. “He took the blade meant for you, or so you told me later, so you can take some comfort in that. I’m sorry you can’t remember it, though.”
“You’ll have to remember it for both of us, then,” he said quietly.
He took a deep breath and dragged his free hand through his hair.
Perhaps he would ask her for all the grim details later, when he thought he could hear them and not weep.
For the moment, moving on was the best idea. “What happened then?”