Off Kilter (31 page)

“Were they related to you?”

“All of the McAuleys are related here in some manner, but this was a distant cousin at best. Much older, and fairly reclusive. He lived about a kilometer west of here and was a crofter. He’d let this place fall into complete disrepair when the hunting lodge didn’t take off.”

“With your handling tourism, did you ever think of trying to make it into a bed and breakfast or something?”

“I wasn’t interested in being a business owner. But the concept
called to me personally and I thought it would be a good project.”

“Because you’re not busy enough.”

He grinned briefly at that. “Actually, I did briefly consider converting the section with the stables into a weaving school. Knock down some of the walls and turn them into studio classrooms.”

She paused in her stroll around the room and looked back at him. “Really? That sounds … kind of wonderful, actually. What happened?”

He shrugged. “Like I said, I didn’t want to run a business. I already had one or two or ten other things that I did. I talked up the idea, but no one wanted to step forward and take it on.”

She thought that was kind of a shame, and couldn’t help wondering if someone with Kira’s vision and determination, and education, wouldn’t have been perfect for such a thing. Of course, Kira hadn’t lived here then, but still … She tucked that thought away in the back of her mind. “So, what did you do with the stalls? The building looks like it wraps around the back.”

“It does.” He pointed to a set of heavy double doors across the main room from the kitchen. “Those connect to the back hall, which is what used to be the center aisle of the stables. I had to completely gut most of it out to the exterior stone, and rework the interior entirely. The stone itself was easy to steam out and scrub clean, disinfect, but the rest, including the original stable doors, were replaced or removed.”

“Right.” She made a face. “Not the odor you really want to live with.”

“No, no’ really. It took three years to get it all right.”

“Years? To fumigate?”

“And renovate. It was a process. But I can guarantee you’d never know that horses used to stand where I now spend each night.”

“Your bedroom is back there? Where did you sleep for the three years it took to get that all done?”

He gestured to the couch—which was … functional, but didn’t exactly leave him room to stretch out.

“I don’t require four star lodgings, either,” he said with a wink.

They shared a smile at that. She wandered over to the fireplace, which was almost as tall as she was and long enough to fit his entire couch into. “Who did the pen and ink drawings?” Over the mantel were several framed prints, all depicting scenes of island life. “They’re all from here, aren’t they?”

“Aye. I dinnae know the history of them. They’re initialed, but no’ signed. I found them stored in one of the stables that had been converted to a small office and storage space—a very rustic office. There were trunks in there, and crates full of mostly useless things. I really liked the viewpoint of whoever it was that drew them.”

“I do, too. None of them are placid or even bucolic. I’m not sure how he made a simple pen and ink drawing look so … tempestuous.” She turned to look at him. “Imagine what he could have done with pictures of the cliffs.”

“Aye,” he said, and smiled. “Imagine.”

And, just like that, tension eased in and filled the room between them. Not the difficult or strained kind. The kind that made her thoughts drift back to the double doors … and the bedroom that was beyond them. She hadn’t gotten the sense he’d taken her there with lovemaking in mind, nor, when they’d left the cliffs, had she been in any shape whatsoever to think about that.

But, standing in his space, where he lived, something he’d made into a home literally with his own two hands … her thoughts weren’t entirely on the mortifying catharsis she’d had, also in his own two hands.

He hadn’t made her feel badly about it, had, in fact, done quite the opposite—which was nothing short of a miracle in her book. He’d said many things that had given her much to think about, not the least of which were his feelings for her. She
needed some time to regain control of herself, of her emotions, before thinking about what came next with the two of them.

But, she felt that he was way too far across the room. And the idea that the bed where he slept was just beyond those doors was admittedly tantalizing.

“I could give you a tour,” he said, following her gaze.

She wondered what he might have seen in her face, but he didn’t give any indication that he’d read in her expression anything other than continued curiosity for his home.

“Or,” he offered, when she didn’t immediately reply, “you could make yourself comfortable while I go see what I can put together for an early supper.”

She turned her attention to a narrow stone patio she saw through the windows in the rear wall. The sun was further west than she’d realized. They must have lain on that blanket pad a lot longer than she’d thought. “Supper sounds good. But I can help. Just because I turned into a raving lunatic back there, doesn’t mean I’m completely helpless. Really, I—”

“Tessa, I told ye. I willnae accept apologies.” He said it firmly, but kindly.

It made her feel better, put her more at ease, post breakdown.

He smiled—which didn’t hurt his cause. “But if helping would be a better thing for ye at the moment, how are your chopping skills? I have a vegetable plot out back, and half a roasted chicken. I could make potatoes.”

“You garden?”

“Most of us do. How else wo uld we have vegetables?”

“True,” she said, and had to laugh at herself. She’d spent enough time in underdeveloped or besieged countries to know that many, many people didn’t have a corner grocer to run to when they got low on green peppers and corn. She supposed she’d found more creature comforts on Kinloch than she’d been used to in some time, so she tended to forget the existence there, though comfortable, was still a bit rustic.

“I can chop,” she said, and followed him into the kitchen.

He kept on moving through the narrow alley-shaped area to a door she hadn’t noticed, situated in the back corner. He pushed open the door, having to use a bit of force. “Damp air from the ocean warps everything. I’ve re-sanded and reworked the floors in the main room I don’t know how many times and they’re still not entirely right.”

“I thought they were beautiful.”

“Thank you,” he said, sounding quite pleased.

“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling. He was quite cute, too. She followed him through the doorway. “Where are we going?”

“Vegetables?”

“Oh!” she said. “We’re picking them fresh.”

He looked at her, and she laughed. It felt almost as cathartic as her tears. That she laughed far more easily still stunned her a little. That she had so much to laugh about stunned her even more. She wondered if he realized how much he’d enriched her life in so short a time. But that made her think about his other declaration, about falling for her, which she’d already firmly filed in the “think about it later” file. No way could she tackle that now.

“You’d think I still lived back in that manor house,” she said.

He’d crouched down and pulled out what looked like some big orange beets from the tilled soil. “Where
do
you live?”

She’d crouched next to him so she could take them from him or pull some herself, but paused. “What?”

He glanced sideways at her. “Live. Do you have a home? A place you go to between assignments?”

“I’m never between assignments.”

He rotated on the balls of his feet so he was facing her. “Are you saying you have no home? Where … do you keep your stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“Okay,” he said, clearly trying to readjust his thinking. “So ye have no stuff, but ye have clothing, and, I’m guessing, a fair
amount of photo equipment. Surely you dinnae travel with all of it.”

She lifted a shoulder.

“Ye do? Really?”

“It’s not that much. It all packs in these big, fiberglass trunks. I’m used to lugging or shipping them around. If I’m on a quick assignment, I just stash the trunks somewhere local, but if I know I’ll be located somewhere for a period of time, I’ll lease a place, set up a dark room, get Internet connection.” She shrugged again. “It’s easier than you think.”

“For you, maybe.” He continued to gaze at her, looking a little amazed. She found she didn’t mind that. It didn’t make her feel like a freak. It made her feel kind of … unique. Special, maybe. At least that’s how he seemed to take it.

She smiled in the face of his complete disconcertment. It was a testament to how far they’d come that she was amused by his reaction rather than defensive. “For me, definitely. It’s funny that you have no problem accepting that I’m completely screwed up over the things I’ve seen, but you can’t wrap your head around the fact that I have a vagabond lifestyle. Where would I live, anyway? What would be the point of having a fixed location?”

“Where were you just before this? You said you’d been trying to get help to deal with how everything was starting to come down on you. Where did you stay?”

She rocked back on her heels, then pushed to a stand. She was surprised that she wanted to explain. He still wasn’t entirely aware of whom he was involving himself with, despite his declaration of deep feelings. Nor, apparently, looking at her immediate surroundings, did she really know him.

“A hotel. I looked up the best doctors and that’s where I went. Lodging wasn’t all that hard.”

“More than one,” he said, not making it a question. “Doctor.”

She nodded. “I wanted to be fixed, I wanted to get back to work. I tried … everything.”

“What did they say? Did it help?”

She nodded. “Tremendously. In terms of dealing with the pain, understanding it. There were different doctors, different approaches, but they all agreed on one thing, which was that the only way I’d ever fully get past the horror of what I’d seen was to stop putting myself in the middle of it.”

“For good?”

She lifted a shoulder, then nodded.

“And have you?”

Her lips curved a little. Maybe he did know her, because his tone was decidedly skeptical. “The breakdown sort of made the decision for me. I’ve been getting help for the better part of a year. But I’d start doing better, and I’d take an assignment. I wasn’t completely stupid. I tried to take on things that weren’t, perhaps, as horrifying or challenging. Didn’t matter.”

“The nightmares came back, the terrors?”

“Debilitatingly so. Eventually I knew I had to take a break, a sabbatical. I was doing more harm to my career and to myself than good.”

“Did anybody else know?”

She shook her head. “I mean, clearly I was having burnout issues, everybody saw that. Nobody was particularly surprised. I never took a break. I had no reason to. There were always so many stories to tell.”

“So … when you came here …”

“It was, as you said, a retreat from battle.”

“Did you still think you could go back?”

She shook her head. “I mean, I wanted to believe otherwise, but I knew. Deep down, I knew. I wouldn’t have come here, otherwise.”

He stood, too, and brushed his hands off on his trousers. “And it’s helped? I mean, I know you said you’ve come to some decisions, about work. But … how are you with the rest? Better?”

“I don’t know, Roan. At first, yes. Then the nightmares came back, even here. But … for the past week or so”—her cheeks
warmed and she smiled—“I’ve been a bit preoccupied. The dreams I’ve had have left me disturbed, but in an entirely different, far more interesting way.”

He smiled then, too. And reached up to push a stray tendril from her cheek. “That sounds encouraging.”

“It is,” she said, and felt the real truth of her words. He invigorated her, and, for the first time, she truly felt … healthier. “It’s not over yet, Roan. You need to know that.”

“Are you violent? In your dreams? Is there anything I need to know? Special ways to help you if you’re in one?”

Rather than be put out by his assumption they’d be sleeping together she was touched that his first instinct was to learn, to help, without even the slightest hint of pity. “I sleep alone, but the terrors just seem to victimize me. I didn’t fight in battles, I merely recorded them. So … no, I don’t think so. There are recommended ways to wake me out of them, but I’ve never had reason—had anyone—to try them to see what works. I usually just wake up terrified, heart pounding, drenched in sweat … and it takes a while to come down from that. But I do.”

He stepped closer, and reached for her with his free hand. He took her hand, and tugged her gently, closer, until their bodies bumped. “Will you teach me? I dinnae want to hurt ye. I want to help.”

Her heart, until then, had definitely been teased by the promise of what he might have to offer her. In that moment it swelled, and began to fall—right into his hands. It had been a big day. A landmark day. For her. She nodded, throat tight, and eyes still swollen and tender, stinging a bit with a fresh rush of emotion. She knew, looking at him, that if she was capable of love, true love, he would find a way to bring it out in her. And she wanted him to. She knew it would be swift and fast. Heady and thrilling. Good, and strong.

But there was nothing intimidating or potentially frightening about the sensation. Instead of feeling that she alone was responsible for holding up a wall against a tsunami-strength wave of terrifying emotion, she felt like the thing threatening
her was simply the possibility of being swamped with … well … love. Whatever this welling sense was within her, the warmth and affection and powerful, powerful want … she welcomed it. She was all done ducking out. She was a badass non-hider now. For real.

“I can tell you what they told me,” she said to him, “and explain it in a little more detail, then … if you want, we’ll figure it out from there.”

The look in his eyes changed from one of care and concern, to a darker, more crackling one of desire. She wanted to take the beets from his hands and toss them over her shoulder, then have her way with him right there. But she was smart enough, at least that’s what she told herself, to know it was probably better for them to spend more time talking before … well, before.