Chapter 23 #2
There wasn’t even as much hope for them as there might have been in 1375.
At least in the past he’d had reason to flee what his life as lord of the manor demanded and run to the future with her.
There was no deus ex machina to rescue them now from the reality of his wedding a month from then.
Not unless he was willing to simply walk away from it—and given that he hadn’t said a single thing all day that indicated he might be willing to do that, she suspected he wouldn’t.
He took her hand. “Sunny?”
She found her fingers tangled with his, but it brought her no comfort. She tried to smile, but failed miserably. “Cameron, I can’t do this anymore.”
He released her hand and put his arm around her shoulders. “All right. Let us find a bit of privacy and we’ll discuss the future. ”
What future? she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t bring herself to.
She simply walked with him where he wanted to go.
He sat down on a bench against the wall, then pulled her down next to him.
Sunny looked at her hand between his hands that had kept her alive and pushed her back into the safety of her time, and wished she had the right to hold on to them forever.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder.
She would never get over him. It didn’t matter what sort of good advice she would get from well-meaning friends and relatives, she would never ever have another day pass that she didn’t think about him.
She felt him kiss her hair, then rest his cheek against her head.
“For eight years, from the moment I woke in hospital, I’ve felt .
. . empty,” he said quietly. “I looked all over the world for something to ease that—in treasure halls of medieval fortresses, boardrooms of the rich and powerful, lands I never dreamed existed in my youth. And then I walked down the stairs of James MacLeod’s ancestral home and found what I’d been looking for all along. ”
She lifted her head. “What was that?”
“You,” he said simply. “I touched you and my life turned upside down—nay, ’twas even sooner than that. I touched you the first time in front of Tavish Fergusson’s store. Do you remember? ”
She nodded. “You helped me up after Penelope ran over me.”
“Did you know me?”
“No. It wasn’t until the next night that you pulled me back to your time.”
“And yet I knew you somehow,” he mused. “’Tis odd how time folds back on itself. Odd and cruel.”
She looked down at their hands intertwined together. “Time gates are fickle, Cameron. Jamie would be the first to tell you that.”
“I didn’t know,” he said roughly. “I didn’t know, Sunny. If I had, I never would have . . .”
Sunny nodded, though it just about killed her to do so. What had she expected? For him to completely change his life because he’d started to recognize her? He needed a woman of wealth and rank who could help him socially—
"Sunny.”
She looked at him, but couldn’t see him. Her eyes were so full of tears, she couldn’t see anything. She was really going to have to do serious work when she got back to Seattle. Yoga several hours a day. Lots of tea. Maybe even a parasite cleanse. She was definitely out of balance.
“Sunny, look at me.”
“I can’t see you,” she said with a half sob.
He stood and pulled her up to her feet. He put his arm around her shoulders and led her over to the shelter of a building. “I have a compelling reason to stay engaged to her.”
“I’m not asking you to dump her, Cameron. It’s all right.”
“It isn’t.” He cursed succinctly, then pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. “It isn’t, but I can’t change things now.”
Sunny stood in his arms and felt the beginning of the end start to settle in her heart. Hadn’t she known it that morning? He would marry where he had to, for whatever reason he had to, and she would have to get on with her life.
She had to get out of the country before being there did her in—for good this time.
“Take me back to the hotel,” she said, pulling out of his arms.
“Sunny, please don’t go—”
“And just what will I stay for, Cameron? A man I can never have? Who will never share my bed? Never give me children? Never take me out in public without looking over his shoulder?”
He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it and dragged both his hands through his hair this time. “There are things I can’t tell you, Sunshine—”
“If you’re going to marry her, then you’ve told me everything I need to know.
” She took a step backward, then very carefully wiped the tears out from under her eyes.
She wasn’t all that sure her mascara was waterproof and even if it was, she wasn’t sure it could handle what she was putting it through.
“I didn’t bring any money,” she said flatly. “Can I borrow enough for the Tube?”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Sunshine—”
“Tube fare, my lord,” she said briskly. “Either that or give me my bus ticket. It’s a little far to walk.”
He was silent for another very long moment, then he let out his breath slowly. “Let me see you back. We’ll talk.”
Her first instinct was to tell him no, but it occurred to her that it might be very good for her.
It would remind her in very physical terms how completely out of her reach he was.
She would memorize how it felt to stand next to him and know that she had no right to take his hand, or put her arms around him, or pull his head down and kiss him until he groaned.
But she had no intentions of talking to him again.
She walked with him back out of the Tower, stood silently as he hailed a cab, and wished she’d never agreed to the day. It had only made things several orders of magnitude worse. High school math coming in handy yet again. She shouldn’t have been surprised.
It was a very uncomfortable cab ride. Sunny sat next to Cameron and was excruciatingly aware of every breath he took. But she couldn’t touch him. If she had, she would have bawled like a baby.
He didn’t move. He merely sat next to her silently, watching her.
The cab pulled up in front of the Ritz not nearly soon enough to suit her, but since she was on the verge of escaping her torment, she wasn’t going to complain.
“Thank you,” she said, reaching for her door.
He caught her by the arm. “Your ticket is flexible,” he said. “You can cancel it almost up to the flight.”
She looked at him to tell him that wouldn’t be necessary, but the absolute misery on his face, a misery that so fully mirrored her own, stopped her from saying anything.
“I don’t want you to go,” he said a low voice. “I thought I could watch you walk away, but I was wrong. If you could just trust me—”
She was so desperately torn, she thought she might tear in two in truth this time. She closed her eyes.
“I can’t.”
She escaped out of the cab, shut the door, then ran inside the hotel. She ignored the desk manager who tried to see if she needed anything, ran past the elevator, and headed for the stairs. She ran up them, found her room, then flung herself inside it and slammed the door shut behind her.
She sank down to the floor and wept until she was ill.
The next morning, she sat on the floor in much the same place and looked at the things spread out in front of her.
Her suitcase stood to one side, packed to overflowing.
She’d packed the blue dress and the shoes, just because she felt bad about leaving them behind.
She was wearing the pearls under her T-shirt.
She wasn’t sure why. They felt good against her skin, they were small enough to be discreet, and she was sure that an opera strand that long and of that obvious quality had been ridiculously expensive.
It had nothing to do with making her feel like Cameron had draped himself around her.
She forced herself to consider the rest. There was another pile made up of shoe boxes full of shoes that hadn’t fit. A note sat on top of them with the number Emily had given as hers so the porter could call and have her come pick them up.
Flowers sat in an exquisite vase on the table in front of her, flowers that had arrived approximately five minutes after she’d finished throwing up. She’d accepted them, put them down on the table, then forced herself to read the card.
I’m sorry. Cam.
An hour later, a small box had arrived with a wallet inside. Inside the wallet had been ￡2,500 in very useful ￡50 bills and a note that read, Please don’t use this for a cab to the airport.
Half an hour later, another bag had arrived containing a sachet filled with lavender and a box of herbal tea that guaranteed a good night’s sleep.
There had been no card. She supposed by then, he’d given up.
He hadn’t called, though she couldn’t blame him for not bothering. She wouldn’t have answered.
The box she hadn’t yet opened lay in front of her. It had come early that morning. She’d been looking at it for over an hour, unable to bring herself to open it and see what was inside.
Her curiosity finally overcame the absolute, bone-wearying misery she’d been fighting all night. She pulled off the enormous green bow, slid the ribbon off, then opened the lid and looked inside.
There, nestled in white tissue paper, lay a shocking-pink cell phone. Sunny picked it up and looked at it. It was so far from a color she would have chosen that she could hardly believe Cameron had sent it. She found the card and read it.
Sunshine,
This is a satellite phone that will work anywhere in the world. If you need me, call me from Seattle, or from anywhere else on the face of the earth, and I will drop everything and come fetch you.
Love,
Cam
P.S. Please stay. Please trust me and stay.
She put her face in her hands and wept.
I like hearing that name again from someone I love.
She rose finally partly to look for a Kleenex and partly because she had to move. She blew her nose, then paced from one end of the suite to the other, into the bedroom and back out again.
He was going to marry Penelope Ainsworth. No matter what he said, no matter how many times he asked her to stay, the reality of that would slap her in the face each time she cared to look. Even if she took him to her bed, she couldn’t keep him there.
She looked at the card in her hands.
Please trust me and stay.
And just what in the hell was that supposed to mean? Trust him that he would find time to see her on more than just the odd day when he managed to get back to Scotland?
She walked over and picked up her suitcase. She put her hand on the door, but couldn’t open it.
If she got on that plane to Seattle, she would probably never see him again.
She supposed she could just go and see if he came after her, but that seemed a little too juvenile even for her fragile state of mind.
She would walk out of his life and she would never again have the sight of sunlight on his dark hair, never again see the welcoming warmth of his smile, never again tremble at the feel of his mouth on hers.
The thought of simply never seeing him again was so horrendous, it stole her breath.
She put her suitcase down because it was heavy. That led her to thinking about when she’d first seen him the day before and how terrible he’d looked—so terrible that even Emily had noticed.
What had Emily meant about “another” mugging?
She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but she wondered about it now.
Cameron had said he was in a situation he couldn’t get out of, but why not?
If he didn’t love Penelope, why didn’t he just dump her?
He said he had a compelling reason to stay engaged to her, but what in the world was it?
With Gilly, it had been his duty to raise his brother’s children.
But in modern-day Britain surely he had no such duty.
The other thing that had never made sense was why the wedding was so soon. She would have thought that Penelope would have wanted to drag it out as long as possible so she could be photographed as often as possible. Did she need Cameron’s money so desperately or was there more to it than that?
At the very least, she knew that Cameron was dealing with less-than-pleasant people.
She’d seen pictures of Penelope’s brother, Nathan, and his soulless eyes had scared her just from the photograph.
If the people who were supposed to be welcoming Cameron into their family were that nasty, who knew what else he was facing?
It was no wonder he’d been grateful for the refuge.
She looked at what was spread out on the floor for quite some time, then sighed and dragged her hands through her hair.
She shoved Cameron’s note into her pocket, then put the cell in her jacket pocket.
She put the pillow on the chair and the tea on the table.
She took the wallet out of her pocket, looked at it, then put it back in.
Cab fare, indeed.
She stood in the middle of that luxurious suite, surrounded by gifts from a man who had begged her to stay in spite of everything, and felt more miserable than she had in her entire life.
At least she had people she could trust. She suspected Cameron had no one.
And for years, he hadn’t even had anyone to share his deepest secret with.
If she left, he wouldn’t even have that anymore. No wonder he wanted her to stay.
Though she suspected he wanted her for more than just that.
She turned away from that thought, picked up her suitcase, then turned and left the luxury behind her before she could think better of her decision.
She had to go.
She just had to.