Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
IAIN
The last fifteen minutes had given him whiplash – as was common now when in the presence of Maisie Moss. This whole damn trip had been puzzling. First for how he’d been the victim of yet another meddling scheme, and second for the fact that continuous proximity in an enclosed space to the woman who simultaneously drove him up the wall and made him feel like he could scale mountains had made him confront feelings he’d never expected to be dealing with again.
Last night had been as close to magic as he’d ever believed in. Between the stars and how pretty Maisie had looked beneath them, to how her clean, strawberry scent still clung to his coat, he’d accepted that he didn’t want to be her friend.
When she’d helped him text that photographer couple, he didn’t want to be her friend.
When she’d confessed to him her vulnerable truth, he didn’t want to be her friend.
When she’d made him feel like he had a scrap of worth, as their heads laid on their pillows and their eyes had held in darkness, he didn’t want to be her friend.
He’d thought that there had been a – moment wasn’t strong enough of a word. There’d been a connection last night, a thread that had weaved between them when she’d said that he hadn’t ever disappointed her. Waking up with her cheek on his chest and her leg slung over his was the straw that broke his back in terms of accepting that his plan to keep her at arm’s length wasn’t going to work anymore.
He’d taken Ted out to stretch his legs and work some energy out of both their systems, accidentally finding himself circling the same trail twice before he’d come back to the cabin to find everything in order, yet Maisie had gone.
He’d showered to take the edge off it all. Continuous movement to distract from his thoughts . He just didn’t anticipate Maisie coming back one minute after he’d stepped into the steaming cubicle.
He wasn’t bothered that she’d seen him half naked; he’d worked damn hard in the fields and rugby pitches to get this body, and he’d never shied away from taking off his clothes; what bothered him was that she’d run away, because what the hell was that reaction supposed to mean?
God knows he had no shred of vanity to assume he was any woman’s type, but none had ever run off as though they’d been repelled by the mere sight of him.
She’d stolen his bloody dog, too.
Iain found the breakfast Maisie must have initially gone to get and made up two plates, leaving her toast uncooked for whenever she decided to come back, then waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
By ten-thirty, he’d gotten concerned.
They were going to miss the walk they’d booked onto, which had thankfully been delayed to let the worst of the rain pass, and as far as he was aware Maisie still hadn’t eaten. He tried to text her, but no message went through. Not even one tick beside his increasingly irate ‘Where are you?’ texts. Knowing her, she could’ve struck up a conversation with a tour guide or be booking them in for more activities at the information centre.
Maisie was never late for anything at all. In fact, she was chronically early. And she’d stolen his dog nearly an hour ago. They should’ve been back by now.
“Maisie, Maisie,” Iain uttered her name as he grabbed the brown, heavy-duty coat that he always wore.
The rain hammered down upon the canvas rooftop of the awning as he stood outside on the deck, grimacing at the weather despite being purebred Welsh. If he got to the information centre and found that she’d been waiting out the rain there without so much as a cursory call, then he’d be miffed. He’d want to rip her clothes off and teach her a lesson about leaving him like she did, too.
Two feelings that shouldn’t coexist.
He jogged over to the information centre, but of course, she wasn’t there. The woman at the reception desk didn’t bat an eye at the rain sluicing off of him, puddling on the floor as she informed him Maisie hadn’t been here at all.
“Where else could she have possibly gone?” he demanded to know.
“Have you tried the canteen? Or the indoor activities centre?” The receptionist tried to be helpful.
Those prefab buildings were another ten minutes’ walk away towards the car park, and given that his keys jangled in his pocket, Maisie hadn’t attempted to steal his car either.
Iain stood out under yet more awning and watched the slanted rain pour down to the ground. His phone still had no call or text from her, and his signal only showed one bar. His concern turned more to worry with each second, his leg jittering as his tell. He didn’t ever get like this – not about anything. His life fell apart around him without much of his attention, and yet losing sight of Maisie Moss is what sent his pulse to one hundred.
Sighing out his angst, he took one step out into the rain, ready to get soaked again on his way back to the cabin, when a bark made him stop.
A dog’s bark that was definitely Ted’s.
“Ted!” Iain spun in circles.
His boy came running out from the forest. Filthy and … alone.
He dropped to a crouch beside Ted’s ball of energy. “Where’s Maisie? Where is she?”
Ted bit on his sleeve and tugged him.
“Go find.” He used his command for when he hid treats or toys around the house, hoping that the principle would translate.
The rain had turned stone-chip paths soggy underfoot, making running behind Ted in clunky walking boots ten times harder. Iain was already worried, but winding through the forest towards the farthest edge of the campsite’s grounds tripled that feeling. If Ted led him right and Maisie was out here somewhere, even he didn’t know where they were, then what the hell had she been playing at?
“Ted,” he called when the dog got a little too far ahead of him along the trail.
His dog barked, and Iain followed the sound until he found Ted stopped at Maisie’s lifted foot, her elbow using a tree as a prop. She had mud all down her side below the waist as if she’d used the forest as a slide.
“Maisie!” The panic in his voice echoed through the trees, hands flying to the zip of his coat.
“I’m okay … I think,” she tried to shout, her chattering teeth obstructing her volume. “I slipped.”
Which would explain the mud, but all Iain focussed on as he skidded to a halt beside her was the ghostly paleness of her skin and the wet, browned curls of her hair clinging to her. All of her was soaked – her leggings, her t-shirt.
He ripped off his coat and put it around her shoulders. Maisie’s arms instinctively moved within the sleeves and his went to hold her up.
Rain plummeted down on their heads.
“Are you hurt?” Iain demanded. He had no idea what he was going to do if she couldn’t walk back to the cabin. He could lift her but there was too much chance of them both getting injured on this unmarked trail.
“My knee aches,” Maisie said, a hint of a hiss in her voice as she avoided his eyes. “I landed weird.”
Iain’s pulse tapped a rapid beat. He looked between her and the narrow, overgrown trail. Finding out what she’d been doing out here and scolding her for it could wait until they were dry.
He took her arm and put it around his waist. “Lean on me.”
“I’m too much for?—”
“I can carry you just fine.” The rumble in his chest transformed to a growl. “The ground is sodden, and I don’t want to risk dropping us both. So lean on me.”
Fucking rain.
It took half an hour for their cabin to come within sight as they hobbled at Maisie’s pace together.
Iain’s mind ran through all the scenarios for how badly she might have hurt herself. He’d had knee injuries before – a common hazard of rugby. He didn’t think she’d dislocated the joint because she was able to extend her leg and take a step. If she’d ruptured something then she’d be in absolute agony, so he hoped it was just some bruising and a sprain.
His breaths deepened. “You don’t walk an unmarked trail without me again.”
“I only got a little lost?—”
“You had no supplies, no phone signal to contact anyone, were on your own, it’s fucking raining, and you don’t know the land. You went beyond the paths of the campsite, Maisie. Don’t leave without me again.”
Maisie silenced her attitude. Iain was too on edge to hear excuses. It was as if she’d disregarded completely how dangerous wandering down strange, uneven trails – unmarked trails – could be in a rainstorm. If there was one thing positive that he’d taken away from growing up farming a valley between mountains, it was not to underestimate how fast the weather could change.
They took one step at a time up the wooden steps to beneath their cabin’s awning, Maisie’s hand in his as he kept his arm around her waist.
The shirt he wore was … soaked. Over every dip, every muscle – the material clung to him like a wet second skin. His trousers were no better, but at least they were waterproof.
Maisie was worse – she was his only concern.
“Why weren’t you wearing a coat?” he asked in a way that was more demanding than curious.
“I was going to get back before the rain,” she said, limping over to one of the two wooden chairs. “The clouds just came quickly, Ted ran off, we got lost, and then I fell.”
Ran off? Iain’s growing scowl dropped to his dog who simply turned and pointed his arse at him. He couldn’t truly be mad, not when Ted had been the one to find them both.
His hand cut to point at Maisie’s footwear. “Boots off.” There was no chance those things were coming inside, and neither was his dog.
He took Ted by the collar down to the side of the cabin where he grabbed the hose and rinsed him over. The poor boy shivered, but dirt washed from him like rain bounced off of Iain. When Ted was clean, he scooped him up and carried him back to the deck.
One handedly, he took off his own boots outside the cabin door, his fingers staying firmly wrapped around Ted’s collar before he tried to run off into the mud once again.
“Wait for me to come back,” he said to Maisie right before he picked Ted up and carried him inside, depositing him in the bathroom. Grabbing every towel in sight to throw on the bed, Iain shut the door before jogging back to Maisie.
“I told you to wait for me,” he growled as she struggled to bend and pull off a boot caked in mud.
Her big eyes came up and ignored his reprimand. “Where’s Ted?” Her voice shook the same way her body shivered. “Is he okay?”
“He’s in the bathroom.”
Iain took himself to a knee again on the damp decking and took Maisie’s boots off for her as quickly and gently as he could. The last thing she needed was for haste to make her injury worse. Then he helped her up and into the cabin, settling her on the edge of the bed.
The cabin was still warm with the humidity from his shower, but nowhere near warm enough to raise Maisie’s body temperature – Iain didn’t care about his own. He took his sodden coat off her shoulders and slung it by the door to worry about later, passing her one of the towels he’d tossed on the bed.
In an ideal world, he’d stand her up and strip her off and put her in the shower himself, but the standing part was an issue right now.
“Dry,” he said, grabbing another towel to run over his head.
“My hair will be a mess,” Maisie mumbled.
“Your hair is the last thing I’m worried about. Get dry.” He’d be damned if she was getting sick again on his watch.
The rain had turned her curls to dark-brown waves and she scrunched the ends up in the towel, her slowness taunting Iain to grab another and dry her quicker himself. “Could you get me some clothes?” she asked with a sniffle.
Clothes. Clothes. Iain rummaged in her weekend bag, grabbing jogging bottoms and a fleece pullover, both things designed for insulation.
“Here—” He dropped the items beside her, his pulse breaking through the ceiling when he said, “Strip.”
Maisie’s eyebrow formed a perfect curve. “Pardon?”
Iain said what he’d said, and he wouldn’t back down from it. “Your clothes are soaked, and I need to check your knee in case it’s swelling.”
Her affronted expression relaxed as she realised that he was right. Her fingers went to the hem of her t-shirt, but she stopped.
“What?” he said.
Colour came back to her cheeks. “I’m not wearing a bra.”
His gaze dipped and heat warmed the tips of his ears as if he hadn’t noticed how the wet t-shirt moulded to her breasts, hard nipples poking under the material. He definitely had, but the part of his brain that told him to get her safe and dry had shoved that thought aside. She was safe now, and his brain fully recognised the sight in front of him.
The front of his trousers tightened.
He had to get out of here.
“Get changed,” he said. ‘I’ll go and make sure Ted’s clean. If you need me?—”
“I’ll shout.”