Chapter 25 #3
She suspected she’d just had a big taste of his reality.
She had just finished her tenth silent repeat of don’t run, you’re his refuge when she was distracted by her phone. She answered it absently. “Yes?”
“Are you all right?” Cameron asked tightly.
She was surprised at how comforting just the sound of his voice was. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really.”
She could hear him blow out his breath. “I want you to go back to the hotel—”
“No,” she said firmly. “Cam, I’m sure it was nothing. Just an opportunist.”
“I don’t like it,” he said, sounding as if he didn’t like it at all. “You’ll take Derrick with you for the rest of the morning.”
She hesitated. “Do you trust him?” She realized as the words came out of her mouth that she was starting to sound as paranoid as he did.
“He wouldn’t be standing five feet from you if I didn’t.”
She had to have another drink of water. “All right, but we’re leaving him outside when we hit the lingerie shops.”
Cameron laughed a bit. “Have a little pity on the lad, love. He’ll watch over you well. And don’t forget we have a date at three.”
“I won’t.”
“Be careful, Sunshine.”
“I will be,” she said, meaning it this time. “I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
She hung up, let out the breath she’d been holding, then looked up at Derrick. “He wants you to come with us.”
He was smiling faintly. “Aye.”
“Do you mind?”
“Of course not, especially if I’m left outside any shops where the merchandise might make me blush.”
Emily laughed at him. “He’s thrilled at the thought of escorting two lovely women everywhere for the rest of the morning— especially if food is involved.”
“Too true,” he said, sitting down. “Let’s eat, ladies. I’m starving. ”
Sunny looked at her hands and found that several of her nails were ripped and there was gravel embedded in her palms. She could feel the blood dripping down her knees as well. She wondered if it would soak through her jeans or merely slip down her shins and pool in her shoes.
“You know, Sunshine, I have a charge card Cameron pays off every month for me,” Emily said, leaning in close. Her eyes twinkled. “Let’s hurry and eat, then we’ll see what we can do to it, oui?”
Sunny nodded. All the stress over spending even more of Cameron’s money would be a good distraction.
She curled her fingers into her palms so she wouldn’t have to see what had just happened to her.
Four hours later she stood on a Tube platform and waited for her train. She looked up at the clock and suppressed a curse. She was late and she hadn’t meant to be. It had taken her longer to repair the damage to her hands than she’d expected.
She got on the train when it came and found herself looking around, just to see if there was someone who might be watching her with evil intent. She didn’t find anyone, but she hadn’t noticed anyone that morning, either.
Life, she decided firmly, had been much simpler when all she’d had to worry about had been keeping the fire going in Moraig’s hearth.
“What do you think of Manchester’s chances this year?” said a voice close to her ear.
She looked up with a jerk at the man standing next to her, then realized with a start that it was Derrick. He was wearing a Manchester football jersey, an earring, a moustache, and really dorky glasses. She wouldn’t have recognized him if she hadn’t known the color of his eyes.
She bowed her head and let out a shuddering breath. The relief that coursed through her was so great, she almost had to sit down. It took a moment or two before she could speak. “I don’t think very good,” she said in her best working gal’s accent. “Not that I follow it much, what?”
His eyes widened briefly, then he grinned at her. “Want to discuss it over a pint, ducks?”
“Sure,” she said, because she wasn’t sure she wasn’t supposed to say that.
Derrick went on about the chances of his favorite football club and Sunny did her best to pay attention. When the train stopped, he put her in front of him and kept his hand on her back as they got off. He slung his arm around her shoulders and walked with her up the stairs.
“Let’s take the street instead of the other train to the V and A,” he murmured. “Crowds are good.”
She ran up the stairs with him and walked quickly down the street. “Do you have an overactive imagination, or something else?”
He only smiled and switched sides with her so he was walking closest to the street. “Three lads against you and me in a relatively deserted Tube station isn’t something Cameron would be happy about, so here we are, out in the open. By the way, you’re late.”
“I know,” she said, feeling a little breathless. “Let’s run.”
He obliged her. Sunny ran with him all the way to the V and A, went inside, then had to lean over and catch her breath. Three lads chasing her? She didn’t want to know any more, but she suspected she needed to. She straightened in time to watch Derrick pay for her entrance. He handed her a map.
“You’re on your own now, pet,” he said with a smile.
“Aren’t you coming with me?”
“I imagine Cameron can stretch himself to keep you safe for a bit,” he said dryly. “I’ve work to do outside.”
She didn’t ask what it was, but she imagined it involved three lads she didn’t know. “Well, thank you for getting me here. I’ve never had a bodyguard before.” She paused. “Are you my bodyguard? ”
“I most certainly am,” he said with a grave smile. “Now, be on your way, gel. Himself’s paged me five times in the past ten minutes. I’m going to have to answer soon or he’ll sack me.”
She imagined Cameron wouldn’t be firing the man in front of her anytime soon, but she wasn’t going to argue. “Don’t answer,” she said. “I’ll hurry.”
He nodded, then walked back out the front door. She took a grip on her rampaging imagination, then ran through exhibits and hallways until she found what she was looking for.
Cameron was leaning over a case with his hands clasped behind his back. He was wearing his Highland laird uniform of boots, jeans, and black jacket. He straightened, looked at the enormous silver watch on his wrist, then sighed.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed his. She saw him reach for his immediately, then start in surprise when he looked at the number. Obviously, he wasn’t expecting it to be her.
“Where are you?” he asked without preamble.
“Lusting after you from about twenty feet away.”
He turned in surprise. The relief on his face was actually quite difficult to watch. He stifled it quickly enough, though, then jammed his hands and his phone in his pockets and walked over to her.
“You’re late.”
“I was picking gravel out of my hands.”
He took her hands in his and turned them over.
He closed his eyes briefly, then pulled her into his arms. Sunny put her arms around his waist under his jacket and held on tightly.
Her teeth chattered and she thought she might just burst into tears.
Catching her breath was a lost cause. All she could do was hold on to him and shake.
“I should have put you on that plane to Seattle myself,” he said grimly.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I think it would have been safer for you,” he said, “but I fear ’tis too late now. I was a damned fool to take you out on the bus, apparently, and even stupider for allowing you to go out with Emily.”
“I didn’t give you much choice about the second.”
He grunted. “You’ve forgotten the extent of my powers of persuasion, obviously.” He sighed and rested his forehead against hers. “I’ll find us somewhere safe for the rest of the day so you’ll have the chance to let me remind you about them.”
“Don’t you have a date tonight?”
He shot her a dark look. “I have dates—if we’re not past that—with you. I have social obligations elsewhere. Tonight I have something that I will get out of as quickly as possible. Then we’ll go hide for the rest of the day.” He drew her over to a corner and pulled his phone out of his pocket.
She listened to him inform Penelope that something had come up and he wouldn’t be in Windsor that night.
It wasn’t difficult to gauge Penelope’s reaction.
She probably could have heard it from across the room.
Cameron’s patience was admirable, which she told him after he hung up and stuck his finger gingerly in his ear.
“Two more,” he said, then made a quick call to invite them both to someone’s house for dinner and a cozy evening in the den. He called Derrick, told him they were on their way, then hung up and put his phone back in his pocket. “Let’s be off. We’ll try the back door.”
“Will they let us out the back door?”
“I imagine they will, when I make a sudden and quite substantial contribution to a museum guard’s pocket.”
“Do you bribe guards often?”
He started to answer, then looked at her and laughed. “Sunny, I find myself doing quite a few things in your company that I don’t normally do—and nay, I’ve never bribed a guard before. We’ll see if it works.”
She found as they were led to and shown out a door she wasn’t sure was used very often that it worked quite well.
She stood in the shadows of that door for a handful of minutes before Cameron pulled her across the sidewalk and over to a sleek black Mercedes that merely slowed down on the street in front of them.
Sunny jumped into the moving car when Cameron opened the door, hoping he would follow her and she wouldn’t find herself driven off to somewhere she wouldn’t like.
She began to understand why Cameron looked over his shoulder so much.
“Yours?” she asked as he pulled the door shut and the car continued on.
“Aye.” He nodded to the man driving. “That’s Rufus. Rufus, this is Sunshine.”
“Aye, she most certainly is, my lord,” Rufus said, looking at her with a smile in the rearview mirror. “Where to?”
“Geoff Segrave’s, if you please. His home, not his office.”
Sunny looked at Cameron. “This feels unpleasantly familiar somehow,” she managed in Gaelic. “All this business of people running around trying to kill you.”
“Only the scenery has changed,” he agreed.
“You don’t have a sword.”
“Nay, but I do have a fairly sharp pocketknife.”
She smiled at his dry tone, then jumped when the front passenger door opened at the next stoplight and a dark-haired man hopped in. The doors were summarily locked and he turned around. The glasses and moustache were gone. Derrick smiled at her, then looked at Cameron and his smile turned grim.
“Three on the Tube. Oliver’s still on the lead lad. The second was waiting for me when I went back outside, but he dashed into a car. I’ll track the plate number if you’ll hand me my laptop. Number three is gone, but I recognized him. Peter’s behind us, watching who’s watching us.”
Cameron pulled a very small laptop out from under the driver’s seat and handed it to Derrick, who turned it on and bent over it.
Sunny felt a little faint. Cameron took her hand and looked at her.
“Surviving?” he asked quietly.
“I’m beginning to think you have terrible secrets.”
“Terrible, but not endless.” He paused. “Thank you for the refuge, Sunny.”
“I think you’re providing one for me just as often.”
He shot her a smile, then turned her hand over and simply traced the parts of her palm that were still intact.
She forced herself to breathe normally. She didn’t run, not anymore. After all, it couldn’t be any worse than medieval Scotland, could it?
She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to that.