The Gloaming Hour #4
Together, they did. Always a breeze, it rustled through the sawgrass and cat tails, the sound dry and crackly, and so familiar, and with it was carried the pungent scent of the sea.
The brackish water below the dock slapped against the pilings, and it reminded Kylie of how much she loved the Vernon, her granny’s house, and the life she’d left behind.
And beside her walked a man who had been born in Scotland more than 250 years before and then suddenly thrust into another century, another time.
Her time. It completely and wholly amazed her.
And he’d been here the whole time. Waiting.
For her.
Never in his live days had Rory been as fulfilled as he was with the modern girl who trustingly walked beside him now.
Even with his invisible self, she completed him.
He’d waited so long for her to return, with hopes of her finally being able to see him.
She had, and now, he never wanted to let her go.
He’d always suspected that would happen.
How difficult it had been to restrain himself – just as it was now, as they walked the dock to the river.
It had been centuries since he’d had physical contact with another human being, and even in his previous life, his last two years had been naught but warring.
But with Kylie, and her soft skin, pleasing voice, and arousing scent?
He’d wanted to kiss her powerfully bad, and almost had.
Where his restraint had come from, he didna know. God must have flung it down upon him.
She’d wanted him to kiss her. Even he, a flimsy apparition out of his own time for more than two centuries, could feel it. Their attraction was like another living thing, palpable on the air around them.
He wanted her even now.
The thought of someone touching her, cutting her, as that fool in Atlanta had done, made his insides boil with fury. Had he been alive, he would have hunted the man down and killed him. Slowly.
“You’re very quiet,” Kylie said as they reached the dock house.
Rory glanced down, and covered her hand with his. “I’ve just ne’er disliked the night as much as I do right now,” he said. And Christ, he meant it. He didna want to leave her side. Her physical side.
“That makes two of us,” Kylie said.
Then before Rory knew it, she lifted a hand to his cheek, scrubbed his jaw with the verra soft pads of her fingertips.
“It’s just so hard for me to believe that you’re so very real,” she said, almost a whisper.
Rory stood dead still as he allowed Kylie to explore his features.
She lightly grazed his ears, the bridge of his nose, his brows.
When she hesitantly slid a finger across his bottom lip, he nearly came undone.
He gathered all his strength though and remained steady.
It proved to be the most difficult task in all his life – or time-warp life.
“What was it like,” she asked, pulling him down to the dock to sit, “the war?” Idly, she lightly fingered the brass buttons on his jacket, the cuffs of his sleeves, the leather of his boots. The hilt of his sword.
He swallowed.
“’Twas sheer hell,” Rory said. “Men much younger than myself – mere boys – took to arms and fought for this country.” He shook his head.
“So many years have passed, and I believe most have forgotten. Those who fought have all died, and their closest relatives have died, as well. The stories have become lost.”
Kylie leaned against his shoulder, and Rory thought he’d fall straight into the Vernon. “Not everyone has forgotten,” she said softly.
Without warning, she slid her hand to his, pulled off his glove, and inspected his hand. Her slight fingers traced his larger, calloused ones, the thick veins that ran atop it, and the scraped knuckles.
And in the very next instant, the gloaming was over.
Rory’s physical body faded with the twilight.
And Kylie simply sat there in the near-darkness, quiet except for her harsh breathing. She swore.
Rory laughed, and watched her. “Dunna fret, lass,” he said, although ’twas exactly what he was doing, truth be told. “Tomorrow will bring another gloaming hour. And we shall spend it together.”
Rory fascinated her beyond belief, and before she even realized it, he’d put her at ease – made her forget Atlanta and the attack, made her forget the ugly scars it’d left her with. Only the present mattered.
Every day, Kylie spent her time on the verandah, or in the dock house, pouring over the Georgia volumes in search of Rory’s fate.
Name after name, event after event flashed before her, yet nothing turned up regarding the Berkshire or its captives.
Although she couldn’t see him, he remained by her side and helped her, talked with her.
Yet when the gloaming approached, the volumes were set aside and he appeared – as in the flesh as any mortal man – and they’d spend that precious window of time devouring each other’s company. Somehow, he’d taught her to feel again.
Sweet Christ, ’twas painful awaiting the gloaming.
For over 200 years, he’d searched for someone who would simply listen, and no’ run screaming in terror at the sight of an out-of-century man appearing before them, and invisible the next.
Now that he’d found such a person, he didna want tae give her up.
Her verra presence soothed him, and he craved time by her side.
Surprisingly, he’d behaved hi’self. ’Til now.