All The Time You Need (32 page)

“That’s not an answer.”

Another series of blinks, followed by a heavy sigh. “Then I give up, Ann. What is it that you want me to say?”

With a vision of Alex swimming just behind her eyes, and a pain that felt as fresh as it had when she’d placed the stone heart into the bench, she had no desire to drag out this conversation. It was always best to rip the bandage off quickly. Less pain all around that way.

“Let me make this easy for you by turning the questions around as if you’d asked them of me. Do I really want to marry you? Do I love you? No, I really don’t. I came home early to call off the wedding.”

Annie let her hand slip away from Peter’s, and he started the engine, maneuvering the car from the parking garage and onto the highway in complete silence.

They were within minutes of Annie’s home before he finally spoke.

“Oh, man, Ann, your mother is going to be so pissed.”

That thought had crossed Annie’s mind more than once in the last day and a half.

“Why do you think I wanted you to pick me up at that airport? I wanted you there as backup when I told her.” She might not love Peter, but she did consider him a friend. “And then we have to break the news to your mother, too.”

The glare he sent her direction told her he hadn’t considered that prospect yet.

“From all the cars up there, it looks like the whole damn family is here,” he muttered as he turned the car into the long drive leading up to Annie’s house. “Aw, Christ. There’s my mom’s car.”

Probably wouldn’t be the best time to confess to him that she’d called home and asked her brother to have everyone waiting when she returned. But, in line with her new pull-the-bandage-off-quickly
plan of action, breaking the news to everyone at once was the best she could think to do. This would all be over soon.

“Wait a second,” she said as Peter opened his door to get out.

She reached into her purse, pulled out the engagement ring Peter had given her and handed it back to him. Finding it in the bag Lissa had given her had only confirmed that she was doing the right thing.

Peter stared at the ring for a moment before taking it and slipping it into his pocket.

By the time it occurred to Annie that she hadn’t even asked him how he felt about her decision, they were walking through the front door and she was swarmed by both their mothers.

“I’m so pleased that you finally came to your good senses and came home to help get ready for the big day,” her mother said, her expression conveying all the self-assured victory she worked so hard to keep out of her voice.

“She’s come to her senses, all right,” Peter said from behind her. “And thank God one of us did.”

Maybe he wasn’t too upset with her after all.

“Your timing is just right,” her mother continued. “We were planning to get together this week anyway, to make final adjustments to the candle and flower arrangements.”

“Beth and I still have some issues with one another about which family members are doing what,” Peter’s mom added, her laugh seeming almost an afterthought.

With a glance back to Peter, Annie faced her family and prepared to give them the news. Her brother leaned against the wall near the passageway to the kitchen, apparently planning a quick exit if necessary. Both Peter’s sisters waited on the sofa, looking uncomfortable and bored. Even Annie’s quiet cousin Emily had been drawn into the process, though she apparently tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible, huddled on the window seat, clutching a big pillow in front of her like a shield.

Annie drew in a deep breath and exhaled, straightening her back and pasting a smile on her face. “I decided—”

“We decided,” Peter interrupted, stepping up beside her and placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Right,” she said, giving her ex-fianc
é
a grateful smile. “We decided that marriage isn’t the right thing for us. I’m really sorry for all the trouble you’ve all gone to, but the wedding is off.”

Her family’s response was pretty much exactly what Annie had expected. A laughing dismissal of their ridiculous case of nerves followed by lots of shouting and tears from both the mothers when they realized she was serious and that there was no changing her mind. All followed by threats of how their fathers would react when they got here.

None of it mattered now. Annie had done what she’d come to do, and now all she wanted was to escape to her room and sleep.

Ignoring the high-pitched cacophony behind her, she headed up the stairs and down the hall to the room she’d called her own her whole life. Inside, she closed the door and leaned against it, eyes closed, waiting for the solace she’d always felt here to fill her. When it didn’t come, she crossed to her bed and sat down on the edge.

How silly of her. Of course there was no relief, no solace here for her now. She’d put away her childhood when she’d decided it was time to deal with the world as any adult should. This place wasn’t home anymore. Home was over four thousand miles away.

And she couldn’t wait to go back.

A timid knock at the door brought her to her feet. She ignored her first instinct–to run–and prepared herself for whatever she was about to confront.

“Come in.”

The door opened and her cousin Emily peeked her head inside.

“I thought I’d see how you’re doing after…well, after all that down there.” Emily nodded toward the door as if that explained what she meant. “Believe me, I know what you’re going through. I just thought you might need someone to talk to.”

Shy, quiet Emily had always been Annie’s favorite cousin, though she was a couple of years younger than Annie. But not even that favored status would allow the young woman to understand how Annie really felt. No one knew the hollowed-out emptiness eating away at her.

Apparently, the expression she wore conveyed what she was thinking.

“Okay, so maybe I don’t know exactly what you’re going through,” Emily acknowledged as she crossed the room, her arms crossed protectively under her breasts. “I haven’t been maneuvered into getting engaged to someone I don’t really want to marry. Not yet, anyway. But my mom is your mom’s sister, and they’re both cut from identical material. I do know that the pressure to be perfect, to conform to whatever their idea of perfect is, never ends.”

Of all the people in the world who could even come close to understanding, her cousin was probably the best one.

“Thanks, Emmie,” Annie said, reaching out to take her cousin’s hand to lead her to the window seat. “I appreciate your concern. I’m completely exhausted, but I’m okay. At least, I will be in a couple of days when I go back to Scotland.”

“You’re not staying here?” Emily’s eyes rounded with surprise. “That’s going to go over about as well as your last big announcement.”

Annie chuckled in spite of herself in response to her cousin’s major understatement. “You got that right. But whether it’s something you can understand or not, I need to make this change. I need to be away from all this.”

“Oh, I understand.” Emily’s responding smile was more sad than anything. “Why do you think I jumped at the chance to come here to help your mom out while you were away? No matter what I had to do, being able to escape my mom for a few weeks was totally worth it. Escape has always been my friend.”

“I’m not escaping,” Annie corrected. She’d given up escape as a means of dealing with life. “Escaping only delays the inevitable. Somewhere along the way, you have to confront your problems to change them. I’m just finally making a change.”

“Good for you,” Emily said, giving her a hug before rising to stand. “I’ll let you get some rest now.”

“Thanks for coming up to check on me. I appreciate it.”

At the door, Emily stopped and looked back. “I really am proud of you for taking charge of your life, Annie. I only hope that one of these days I can be brave enough to follow in your footsteps.”

Silence echoed in the room after Emily left, and Annie pulled back the covers to climb into bed, not bothering to change her clothes. A few hours of sleep and she’d be good as new, ready to face all she needed to do to prepare for her big move.

She felt confident about her decisions. Confident about her choice to confront the situation head-on before she made the changes she’d decided upon. Though her broken heart guaranteed that she’d never be completely happy again, at least she now faced a life that would give her contentment.

“Contentment’s good enough,” she muttered defiantly, snuggling down into the soft covers, eagerly anticipating the approaching bliss of sleep.

Though she might settle for simple contentment in real life, sleep allowed her more. Sleep brought dreams, and dreams returned her to the place where she experienced true happiness, safe and secure in the arms of the man she would always love.

Chapter 25

“Go away!” Alex roared in response to the knock at his door, hurling an empty tankard toward the offending noise to punctuate his demand for isolation.

Three days had passed since Annie had left him. Three of the longest, most miserable days of his life.

He’d spent the first determined to stop that which had already happened, tearing apart the arbor, looking for any sign that his Annie wasn’t really gone. He’d spent the second and third here, staring into the cold, empty fireplace in his bedchamber.
Their
bedchamber only three short days ago.

Another knock.

This time he chose to ignore it.

He didn’t want their food. He didn’t want their drink. He certainly didn’t want their company. The only thing he wanted from anybody was to be left alone. Alone with his memories of the woman he’d loved and lost.

If only he hadn’t been so arrogantly sure of himself. If only he’d listened and understood. Three little words. It was all she had wanted from him. Three little words that, in his arrogance, he’d not given her.

I love you.

She’d said the words to him. She’d asked for them in return. And he, great worthless fool that he was, hadn’t been smart enough to understand that those three little words were all that stood between happiness and utter despair.

I love you.

He understood now. He’d gladly shout those words from the mountain-top or the town square in Inverness at high noon on market day if it would bring his Annie back to him. But he was too late. It was beyond his loudest battle cry to reach her ears where she’d gone. Nothing he could do or say could bring her back to him—back from seven hundred years into the future, where the Faeries had taken her.

“I love you,” he whispered into the gloom, and reached for his tankard of ale.

The same tankard that he’d emptied hours earlier. The same tankard he’d pitched across the room. He turned his eyes in that direction in time to see the door open a crack and his sister’s head pop inside, followed by the whole annoying rest of her.

“Good,” she said, a wide smile creasing her face. “I was hoping I’d waited long enough that you were out of things to throw my direction.”

“Go away, Lissa,” he said quietly, suddenly too tired to summon his anger. “I just want to be left alone.”

“Of course you do,” she said, hurrying to where he sat and plopping herself on the hearth next to him. “You want to wallow in yer misery, beating yerself about the head for not telling our Annie that you love her. Am I close to the truth of what yer doing in here?”

He mustered enough energy to glare at his sister. It was the best he could manage right now.

“From the look upon yer face, it appears that I do have the right of it.” She patted his back as she might one of the goats in the stables. “But you’ve no need to continue to fash yerself over the mess you’ve made of things, dear brother. I ken what it is you need to do to set things to rights.”

“If you know so much, why dinna you share this earlier?”

For that matter, why hadn’t she thought to point out to him at some point over the past few weeks that a simple
I love you
would have prevented all his problems?

Lissa shrugged. “Simple enough, that answer. In wasting all my energy being angry with you for driving Annie away, I forgot the one part of Grandda’s story that might be of use to you now.”

Alex fought to tamp down a growing sense of hope. His Grandda’s stories had been just that—stories. Hadn’t they? And yet Annie had come to him just as his Grandda’s love had in those stories. She’d left him in the same way, too.

Hope bloomed, beyond his ability to rein it in.

“I’m willing to try anything. Tell me what to do.”

“It’s the hearts Grandda carved. We’ve both seen them, so you ken them to be real enough, aye? They were still there in Ellen’s time. They had to be in order for her to have gotten the metal heart that Grandda made for her. And we ken that Ellen got it because Annie wore it on a chain around her neck. Just like I wear the one Grandda made for himself on a ribbon around my own neck.”

He’d long known that Lissa wore a trinket of some sort around her neck. He’d seen the ends of the ribbon but had never questioned what lay beneath his sister’s bodice at the ribbon’s end. When she lifted it out for his inspection, his breath caught in his throat.