Chapter 14 Lucy
Lucy
When I woke again, I was alone in the bed.
I cracked open my eyes to see weak sunlight filtering into the grand-sized bedroom.
No idea what time it was, only a sense of having slept deeply in a way that I never normally slept, because I was usually too full of adrenalin and anxiety about upcoming jobs or current ones.
And Jamie had been at the edge of my consciousness. Always.
I diverted my mind from thinking about what would happen when I went back to Dublin.
Jamie and I had eventually gone back down to the kitchen in the dead of night. To check on George – Jamie had let him out to do his business – and to finish eating and drinking some wine.
With only the moonlight outside and the world turned white, it had felt like we were in a cocoon. We’d talked until dawn had broken. About everything and anything.
And then we’d come back to bed and made love again. I made a face at those words, made love, but I couldn’t keep denying it. Seeing Jamie again was just confirming my worst fears. I’d fallen for him three years ago as improbable as that might have sounded.
And now... seeing him here, learning about his brother and his sister and what had happened and with the chemistry between us even more insane than before... I was fathoms deep.
And worse, was the other fact I couldn’t stop hiding from. He’d exposed my romanticism before, and it was happening again. The walls I’d built up – reinforced after Vegas, were crumbling to dust all over again.
I wanted to love and be loved. I wanted to feel like I was someone’s number one priority.
But I feared I was going to be badly hurt.
Because Jamie hadn’t said anything about feelings, and maybe this was just a stop-gap in his vision for his future.
Closure on a past mistake. What would have happened if we’d met in Dublin.
After this he could get on with forging a whole new future here at the castle.
I could see him here with a family. Healing the past and making new, better memories and it almost gave me a physical pain that it wouldn’t be with me.
For someone who’d hitherto studiously avoided the idea of family and children, I was surprised at how visceral it felt to want to share that with Jamie.
Something caught my eye and I saw a piece of paper on the other pillow. I came up on one arm and picked it up. It said one word: Downstairs.
My heart thumped. I got up and saw fresh clothes. Soft and comfortable. His thoughtfulness just made me feel even more raw.
I looked out the window. Snow as far as the eye could see. Several feet of snow. More clouds rolling in over the mountain.
I couldn’t help but feel it was an ominous sign. No matter what happened now, we didn’t have the luxury of sharing a cab to the airport and going our separate ways.