Chapter 22 #2
“Your men tried to drown me, you apparently rescued me, then once I was conscious again you threw me out of your bed and told me to go home.”
“Surely not,” he interrupted, grateful for something less somber to discuss. “I can’t imagine I was daft enough to cast you from my bed once I’d gotten you into it.”
“Shocking, isn’t it? From what I understand, you also did the honors of cutting my clothes from me yourself, though you promised you hadn’t looked as you’d done so.”
“I’m sure I lied,” he said without hesitation.
She laughed a little. “I imagine you did.”
He was so pleased to see her relaxed and smiling, he was almost happy for how he was being forced to wring it from her. The very thought that she had been in his past was overwhelming. That he couldn’t remember a bloody thing about it was devastating in the extreme.
“You then watched over me while I was the very popular MacLeod witch in your village,” she continued, “kept me fed, and reminded me at every opportunity that you were going to marry Gilly come hell or high water, but you’d be happy to bed me any time I was interested.”
“I’m simply astonished you weren’t willing to take me up on the offer,” he said with mock surprise.
She smiled. “I’ll bet you—” She frowned suddenly. “Why would you think I wouldn’t?”
“Because as I was talking to your sister about where you’d gone, I asked her for a few things you might like to talk about. She suggested we discuss your thoughts on abstinence before marriage—thoughts she said you’d apparently already given me in another time and place.”
Sunny’s face was suddenly quite red. “I’m going to kill her.” He smiled. “It’s terrible having to tell the same man something like that twice, isn’t it?”
“You know, you’re about to find yourself out in the hall.”
He laughed. “I’m teasing you, Sunshine—nay, don’t pull away.” He tugged on her. “Come you here and finish your tale. Tell me why I didn’t have the good sense to keep you safe in the hall.”
“Because you said it was too dangerous—and you were right. You were convinced Giric was trying to kill you. I actually watched you make your cousin Brice taste your food. He flatly refused to drink the wine.”
He had to take a deep breath. “I always suspected that Giric had poisoned my father, so I suppose he was simply continuing on with what had worked before.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
Cameron shrugged. “’Tis in the past. I was the only one who thought so, unfortunately.
By the time he’d killed his own father the same way a handful of years later, he had already turned half the clan against me and it didn’t matter what I had believed.
The only reason I was able to hold that bloody group together was because Breac and Sim were behind me, guarding my back.
” He paused. “I suppose once they were gone, there was no reason to stay, was there?”
She looked at him solemnly. “That’s exactly what you told me.”
He sighed deeply. “Then how did we leave? I’m assuming we had time to actually make the decision to come to the future.”
“We discussed it in your bedroom one night after you’d fought off about a dozen men single-handedly and kept me alive.
I don’t think you thought you had any choice but to leave.
As it was, we had to cut our way out your front gates and even then Giric followed us all the way to Moraig’s.
You fought him in the forest near her house.
You pushed me inside the door, something hit me on the back of the head—I think he threw a rock at me—and then I fainted.
When I came to in Moraig’s house, it was the right time but I was alone.
The next time I saw you was in Jamie’s hall.
” She paused. “That’s why I threw myself at you, because I was so happy to see you alive. ”
He reached up and smoothed her hair back from her face. “And I was fool enough not to recognize you.”
She was quiet for a moment or two. “I will admit it was one of the more difficult moments of my life.”
He closed his eyes. It all made sense now, the look of relief she’d worn, as if she expected him to be just as glad to see her as she was him. “I’m sorry, Sunshine.”
“It doesn’t matter. This helps, though.” She took a deep breath. “It’s your turn again. What happened to you after you fell through Moraig’s door? After you asked about me,” she added softly.
“I fainted as well, apparently,” he said, “then woke in hospital, wondering what in the hell had happened to me. Actually, I thought I was in hell, especially with Moraig and Alistair both peering down at me as I lay there strapped to the bed and pumped full of sedatives.”
“That had to have been terrifying,” she murmured.
“That’s one way to describe it,” he said dryly. He paused. “The rest is all rubbish. Learning to fit in, taking over Alistair’s business, being damned grateful for it all.”
She nodded, but said nothing. She merely traced his palm with her thumb absently, over and over again. Cameron put his hand on her feet, wincing at the chill of them. He pulled them into his lap and covered them with his free hand.
“I wish Moraig had said something,” he said finally. “You would think she could have seen her way clear to remind me about what I’d said, wouldn’t you?”
“To what end?” she asked. “Eight years ago I had just graduated from med school and was living in Paris, cooking all sorts of fleshy dishes that offended my vegetarian sensibilities. Can you imagine what would have happened if you had walked into my kitchen and told me that you’d known me 650 years in the past? ”
“Would you have thrown a saucepan at me?” he asked.
“I probably would have thrown myself at you,” she said, “but it would have completely messed up the fabric of time, as Jamie would say. Madelyn might not have met Patrick, then they wouldn’t have had Hope .
. .” She shook her head. “It wouldn’t have worked.
” She looked up at him. “But I would have given you my phone number.”
He smiled. “I would have used it. Repeatedly.”
She met his gaze for a moment, then tried to disentangle her fingers from his. “I bet they have great room service here. Let me go find out.”
He wrapped his arm around her knees and refused to let go of her hand. “Don’t run, Sunshine.”
"I’m a Phillips,” she managed. "’Tis what we do.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Is that true?”
She attempted a smile, but failed. “No, it’s just me who runs. In this case, I think it’s a good idea because it doesn’t matter what century we’re in, the reality is I’m still the witch down in the village and you’re still the laird up the way who’s going to marry a woman he doesn’t love.”
He took a deep breath. “Is that how it was?”
“That, my laird, is how it was.”
He sighed deeply, released her hand, then put his arms around her and drew her close. “Sunshine, I’m so sorry. I’m so bloody sorry.”
She shook her head, then put her arm around his neck and held on to him as if she didn’t particularly want to let him go.
He closed his eyes and swore, silently. There were things she hadn’t told him, he imagined, things about Gilly, things about his clan, things about his feelings for her.
He didn’t need to hear anything about the last because he could imagine quite well what he’d felt.
It was, he suspected, exactly what he felt at present.
He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up.
Her eyes were very red, but no tears spilled down her cheeks.
He leaned forward and kissed her cheeks, one by one, then pulled back just far enough to look at her.
She was wearing the same expression she had in his solar, the one full of miserable hope, as if she couldn’t decide if she wanted him or wanted him gone.
He chose the former and bent his head—just in time to hear a knock on the door.
“Damn it,” he said in disbelief. “What next?”
“Don’t ask.”
He sighed deeply and pulled away. “I imagine ’tis my assistant, Emily. She’s brought you a gown and shoes that hopefully fit.”
“Why?”
He paused. “I was hoping you would come to the theater with me tonight.”
She blinked. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“I think we might be a little past that, Sunny.”
She scowled at him. “Call it what you want. You still have this unwholesome habit of pulling me into things I can’t get out of easily.”
“But you’ll come with me anyway?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He took her face in his hands and looked at her seriously. “Aye, but please don’t say nay. And don’t think for a moment that I’m going to forget the precise point where we were interrupted. Twice today, as it happens.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed convulsively. “Glad to know your short-term memory’s okay.”
“My short-term memory is perfect,” he said as he rose and walked to the door. He supposed he had no right to kiss her, but he would—after he’d wooed her properly first.
Well, as much as he could whilst not being free to do so.
He opened the door to find Emily standing there, her arms full of bags and the porter behind her carrying more. She was, as usual, a whirlwind of grace, elegance, and organization. She swept into the chamber, dismissed the porter, then looked at Cameron in shock.
“What happened to you? Another mugging?”
“Another what?” Sunny said, climbing to her feet.
Cameron shot Emily a look of warning. “It was nothing.” He walked back over to take Sunny’s hand. “Emily, this is Sunshine. Sunshine, Emily.”
Emily frowned at him as she shoved his clothes into his arms, then she turned to Sunny. Once she found out Sunny could speak her tongue, she swept her off into the bedroom in a cloud of sweet perfume and rapid-fire French.
Apparently, his aid was not necessary.
He showered and changed in the other bedroom’s loo, then came back out and started to pace. Usually, he thought better that way. At the moment, he was doing his damndest not to think. The if onlys were going to do him in otherwise.