Читать книгу Secret Garden - Cathryn Parry - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

TWO DAYS LATER, Colin sat beside Mack on the large, comfortable seats of Doc Masters’s private plane, and prepared for takeoff.

Back in the conference room at Sunny Times Golf Academy, the plan had seemed simple. Fly in. Meet Jessie and Jamie. Go to the funeral and collect his check, then fly home.

But now... Wednesday morning was when Doc needed to leave for his charity tournament, so Colin would be arriving four full days before Sunday’s funeral. That meant spending more time in his grandparents’ company than Colin wanted. To make matters worse, he’d finally sucked it up and emailed his grandmother. She’d responded immediately with the address of a restaurant where she wanted to meet at six o’clock local time, after he landed.

He had no idea what he was going to say. Whatever happened, he was determined not to let it get to him. He wouldn’t care too much about it. Keep everything light.

The flight attendant stopped by, bringing Colin a drink from the bar service. Colin drank it gratefully and, without asking, she promptly brought another one. He finished that one, too. Colin wasn’t a big drinker—he was an athlete first—but the comfortable, mellow glow that the alcohol gave him helped dull the edge of his anger. He was even able to tolerate Doc and his small, sarcastic digs.

He didn’t even mind too much when Doc sprang on them that they were making a detour to Iceland to pick up somebody’s wife or girlfriend—this wasn’t exactly clear to Colin. All he knew was that it added more than an hour to their flight time.

Then, once they did finally land in Scotland at the small Highland airport, there was a short delay before they could disembark. Something about their plane’s manifest needed to be straightened out before they could clear customs, and that made the delay that much longer.

By the time the pilots finished the formalities, it was a few minutes past the time Colin was supposed to meet his grandparents.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us to St. Andrews?” Doc Masters asked Colin as he reached for his bag.

Colin would have given anything to head off to the famous golf course. But it wasn’t possible with his schedule, and frankly, he was glad to get a break from Doc. “Thanks, but if you don’t mind, I’ll just hook a ride back with you on Sunday night.”

“I’m sorry about your father,” Doc’s wife said.

Colin thought about being truthful, telling her that he hadn’t really known his father well, but what was the point? So he just nodded silently and went through the motions of grabbing his stuff and disembarking from the plane.

Once out on the tarmac, standing beside their pile of luggage, Colin realized this was the first time he’d been on Scottish soil since he was eight. All he kept thinking about was the way he’d felt that day. He’d been just a little kid, and he’d been scared and upset and ashamed. His whole world had blown apart, and his grandparents had sided with his father against them.

At least, that was what his mom had always said. To contact them and maybe find out otherwise had always seemed disloyal. So Colin had avoided it.

Given the choice, he would still rather avoid it. No doubt about it, he didn’t see how this reunion could possibly be pleasant, for any of them. They had a lot of old, bad feelings to deal with.

“Where to?” Mack asked.

“I booked a hotel for us,” Colin said. “But first, I need to meet my grandparents at a restaurant in town.”

“Okay. You mind if I tag along?”

“Mind? Hell no.” Colin was just grateful that Mack was willing to be a buffer for him.

Colin dug the address out of his wallet, and they flagged a cab. The driver was an old-timer and Mack shot the breeze with him, especially once the old-timer saw Colin’s golf clubs. Colin signed his autograph, but didn’t say much otherwise. It wasn’t like him, but he was starting to feel kind of distracted and crappy.

Honestly, would he even recognize his grandparents? All those years with no contact had dulled his memory. Yes, his grandmother had tried to get in touch with him and maybe he shouldn’t have ignored her. But when he was young and vulnerable, he’d always thought that his grandparents could have picked up a phone or hopped on a plane to see him, and they hadn’t. So he was determined not to feel guilty if he couldn’t identify them right away.

He and Mack finally found the restaurant—they were late because of the diversion and the holdup at the airport—and the server at the counter told them they’d missed Jamie and Jessie by a half hour.

“They left me?” Colin asked, incredulous. “They couldn’t just eat dinner and wait an extra few minutes to see their grandson?”

The server looked apologetic. She gave them a slip of paper that Jessie had left, with their home address and telephone number written in neat script.

Colin’s forehead was throbbing. He knew he might be overreacting, but given their history, it was understandable. He stared at her address in disbelief. His grandmother expected him to stay with them, it appeared.

Or maybe Daisie Lee had given her that impression. Colin hadn’t really talked with his grandmother about the sleeping arrangements—he’d just exchanged that one email about his estimated time of arrival, because frankly, it was all the contact he’d been able to take for the moment. He was filled with resentment, it seemed, and this wasn’t like him. He hated feeling this way.

He was also sobering up.

“Are you going to phone them?” Mack asked.

“Not yet.” Colin needed to calm down first. He was a mellow guy, laid-back. That was his reputation. That was what kept him sane.

“Let’s sit here, get a drink first,” Colin said. There was a pub attached to the restaurant, so they headed over to check it out. A three-person group was performing. Guitar, vocals, drums. Celtic music—they were pretty good.

Colin and Mack found chairs at a table. Before Colin knew it, two local women gravitated toward them. Mack talked with them—Colin was too busy getting his mind comfortably numb again to interact much. One song flowed into another. One beer flowed into another.

Somewhere along the line Colin noticed that one of the women was sitting on Mack’s lap. By now, there was lots of laughter. He kept forgetting the names of the people they were talking to—the faces started to blend. Mack was getting friendlier with the two women... Bonnie and Clyde...that was what Mack was calling them. Colin was clear that Bonnie was the tall redhead currently sitting in Mack’s lap, and the other woman wasn’t really named Clyde, but Clara or Cassandra...something along those lines. Still, Mack coined them Bonnie and Clyde, which the two ladies thought was hilarious.

Mack was wearing his cowboy boots, and the more he drank, the more pronounced his Texas drawl became. Bonnie especially seemed to like that.

After the pub closed, the party moved to a local house. Even though it was well after midnight, Colin didn’t feel tired at all. His body clock was seven hours behind the local time. Mack took the front seat of Bonnie’s car, and Colin crowded in the back. Colin wasn’t going to end up with either of the women—that would be stupid for someone with his profile, and he wasn’t stupid, he was just prolonging the inevitable pain of meeting his grandparents.

In the back of his mind, he knew he had to deal with a potential confrontation that he just wasn’t ready to face.

He also felt sick, and sad, and he didn’t want to be. His father was dead and he was too late to do anything about it. This wasn’t a jam Colin could talk his way out of. A problem he could smooth over with a laugh and a joke. He was here, in Scotland, and he needed to somehow get beyond the anger.

Because he wasn’t a kid being manipulated or dragged around any longer. Those days were over. It was years ago that he’d overheard his parents arguing on that last trip to Scotland. Overheard his father telling his mother that it just wasn’t worth it. His mother screaming back, “What about your son, isn’t that reason enough?” His father answering, “No, that’s not enough. It’s not enough!”

All those years, deep down, Colin had spent feeling guilty and ashamed, as if it were his fault. Anger, because rationally, he knew it wasn’t his fault. He’d felt sad, for his mom and for him, too, because their lives had changed so drastically.

Or maybe he was slowly making up his mind to decide to get over it. To forgive his grandparents for not reaching out earlier—and himself for reaching out only now, when it was too late. Maybe he should just start the weekend with a fresh slate. Colin still wasn’t sure, though. Mack obviously sensed his inner turmoil, and seemed to be steering clear of Colin’s mood, or of any discussion regarding it.

“Do you want us to drop you off at the hotel?” Mack asked him finally. “Because I’m gonna stay over with Bonnie. She said she’s got a couch you can stay on, too, if you want. When we wake up, I’ll help you call your grandparents. How about if we just arrange a time to meet them before the funeral on Sunday? Will that work?”

It was the coward’s way out, and it was tempting. Colin could avoid the whole three-day wait this way and then meet them at the funeral.

But now that he was sobering again, something bothered him. Avoiding his grandparents sounded too much like running away from the problem. Colin wasn’t irresponsible. He didn’t want to be like his father.

Especially not like his father.

“No,” Colin said, “I need to talk with Jamie and Jessie. I’ll head over there now. They always were early risers.” Hopefully, they still were.

In the end, Bonnie drove him to his grandparents’ cottage. She went slowly and carefully, weaving her way down a single-lane Scottish country road and playing Fleetwood Mac on the stereo—old stuff Colin hadn’t heard since he was a kid. “You Make Loving Fun.” None of it fit with the fact that he was the estranged grandson returning to Scotland for the funeral of a father he hadn’t heard from in twenty-some years.

Colin pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. The sun was streaking over the horizon. The digital clock on Bonnie’s dash told him it was six o’clock in the morning.

“Jamie always liked to get up while it was still dark,” Colin said, to no one in particular. Snatches of memory were coming back to him. From what little he remembered of his grandfather, he was set in his ways and brooked no nonsense.

“Would you mind turning down the music?” Colin asked as Bonnie pulled up beside the whitewashed cottage. Now that he was here, he felt completely sober. They were out in the middle of nowhere, in the Highlands. Somehow he had to get along with his grandparents for four more days. Then he could leave.

With the music subdued, Bonnie and Mack climbed out and hauled Colin’s two bags to the dewy grass in front of his grandparents’ cottage. The zippered bag holding his golf clubs made muffled clanking noises. Colin glanced at the cottage, studying it. It looked so much smaller than it had in his memories.

He’d never felt more alone than when he stood on the roadside in the silent, cool morning, his belongings dumped on the pavement.

“You gonna be okay?” Mack asked.

“I doubt it,” he said drolly.

Mack laughed. Colin smiled. They hadn’t said a damn serious thing all night anyway—even though his father had died and he was here for his funeral. Why should they start now?

His grandfather stood on the porch with his hands on his hips, watching everything. Fittingly, it had started to rain. There was no more delaying the confrontation, and Colin felt as if he’d reached rock bottom. In his heart, he was ready to consider that maybe it was both their faults that nobody had kept in touch.

Not just his fault. Not just his grandparents’ fault. Just one big, snowballed mess that they might begin to melt together with a face-to-face conversation.

He took off his wet cap and turned to the grandfather he hadn’t seen or heard from since he was an eight-year-old boy. He didn’t know how to begin, except to say, “Granddad?”

“Where the devil have you been?” his grandfather thundered in return.

Colin wiped his hand on his pants. So much for the triumphant celebration of the prodigal grandson returning to the fold. He shrugged in a what can we do? pose and gave his grandfather a wayward smile that usually worked for him. “You know how plane travel is.”

“No, I don’t.” His grandfather’s answering scowl sent chills through Colin. “And don’t you have a mobile phone?” he demanded.

“Ah...somewhere. I hope.” Colin patted the side pocket of his cargo pants. Yeah, the hard plastic lump was there. “Sorry. I should’ve called to warn you I was running late last night.”

His grandfather glared harder. Maybe Colin should give him the benefit of the doubt. Colin’s father had been this man’s—Jamie’s—son. Jamie was no doubt grieving his son’s death.

“I should leave you out here in the rain,” Jamie said. “Let it soak some sense into you.”

The illusion of being greeted with open arms was pretty much shattered. The rain spit harder. Colin rubbed his arms, but his grandfather wasn’t inviting him inside. On the contrary, he seemed to be guarding the door.

“Wait here,” Jamie said. He disappeared inside the cottage, shutting the door behind him.

While Colin waited for his grandfather to reappear, he searched his mind to remember something good from his childhood...a common, shared happy memory. But the only night that was coming back with any clarity was the last one. New Year’s Eve. The day his mother had confronted his father with his infidelity and he’d finally snapped, washing his hands of them. There had never even been a formal goodbye, just a general loading up of a small suitcase and then a car roaring away from the side of the dirt driveway.

Colin remembered crying. He remembered feeling powerless. And then he remembered running to the castle across the field, and later, crouching on the staircase beside the only person who had seen through him—who had cared to see through him—who had made him feel that somebody saw his pain and understood it.

Jamie reappeared on the doorstep, quietly closing the front door behind him.

“How’s Rhiannon?” Colin asked, before Jamie could say anything.

“Rhiannon?” His grandfather’s face turned red. “What do you care about her for?” he snapped, stalking toward Colin’s position on the grass like a gnarled, stooped-over boxer.

“She was a good friend when I was a kid,” Colin said. “I’d really like to see her again.”

Maybe it was crazy, but he wanted to know why she hadn’t written him when she’d promised. He’d waited to hear from her, and nothing had come. Maybe if she had, things would have been different.

No, he couldn’t blame any of this on her. “I’ll look her up tomorrow,” he mused. He gave Jamie a smile. “Do you know if she still lives around here?”

His grandfather’s eyes narrowed. “You leave her alone. She’s not interested in seeing the likes of you.”

“How do you know that?”

Jamie seemed to be fighting to keep himself from blowing up. He hadn’t been all that warm and cuddly when Colin knew him, and the years had only seemed to make him crankier. He wagged his finger at Colin. “Because she’s married and has five wee bairns. Her...husband would right kill you. Or at least break your arms. Then how would you play your golf?”

Colin pushed his irritation away because he didn’t want to be angry anymore. He’d liked Rhiannon a lot. He remembered her as a skinny girl with pigtails and a soft, shy voice. What had made her special to him had been her spirit. Her fierce, sweet, independent spirit.

Maybe it was disappointing to hear that she was married, but he could still check in with her. Maybe she would go with him to the funeral. She’d known his father, too.

And then the sadness of it all hit him in a crushing wave. His whole body feeling shaky, he drew a ragged breath. “I’m here because my father is dead.” His voice sounded small and pained, like a boy’s.

Where had that come from?

His grandfather got even more furious. “Aye, you should feel bad about it!” he shouted.

Colin felt his mouth dropping open.

“Did you even think once about your grandmother?” Jamie said in a more hushed tone, making a guilty, backward glance at the closed cottage door. “About the pain this brings her? Despite everything, she sat up all night waiting to see you. Waiting, and crying. Now she’s asleep, tired of waiting for you lot.”

His grandfather waved a gnarled hand, and Colin felt ashamed. “Now you can wait for her to wake up and take you in. She asked me to drive her to the store yesterday, because she wants to cook your favorites for breakfast. And she will! But until she’s awake and in her kitchen, you’ll just find a hotel. I’ll not let you in to see her, smelling like a brewery. Sleep it off and get yourself clean. Maybe then you can think to yourself about what you’ve done tonight.”

Think to himself? That was all Colin had been doing. That was his problem.

But the ancient door to the cottage closed again, and Colin was left alone, in the elements, with a canvas bag containing funeral clothes, fast getting soggy, and his ever-present set of golf clubs.

Colin hadn’t really thought about why he’d brought his clubs. It was more a reflex or a habit. Something he always lugged around with him because he wanted to. He liked golf. He liked the feeling of competence it gave him, especially since he’d gained his tour card. Made him feel valued and accepted.

He tucked the golf clubs into a dry spot under the overhang to the roof. Behind the cottage was a long, rolling field. The Highlands. Paradise of his childhood summers.

The landscape looked the same, held all the promise that he’d remembered. He’d used to range over this land, racing with sticks aloft—pretend swords—in the company of Rhiannon MacDowall.

Shaking his head, smiling again—at last—he grabbed a fairway wood and a handful of practice balls from his golf bag. Traipsing through the squishy grass, he headed for the rolling field beyond. It smelled like rain and heather and fresh, wide-open air.

He remembered this place in his bones. This feeling of peace. The mist rose off the grass even as the rain came down. It was so quiet it seemed holy. Not another soul was awake with him.

He dropped the practice balls and lined up his stance so he was facing a copse in the distance. That way had been Rhiannon’s castle.

Winding up, he hit a ball with a solid whack. It reverberated through him, centering him.

Calming him.

* * *

THE FIRST THING Rhiannon MacDowall did every morning when she awoke was to visit her garden in an effort to center herself and reconnect with a feeling of peace.

Afterward, she climbed the stairs to her art studio with the view over her family’s property. This was the same terrain Rhiannon had been taking comfort from for most of her life. On an easel beside her was her latest landscape painting, done in oils and nearly completed. Her uncle was coming to collect it in a week; one of his wealthy friends had commissioned it.

Art was what she did with her life. She loved it. It calmed her.

She tilted her head and observed the large canvas.

I want to add a cottage to it.

The thought stunned her because it was so different from her usual style. But it felt right.

Her yellow tabby cat hopped off the window ledge. He landed gingerly, shaking his front paws. Poor Colin. She picked him up and hugged him. He was twenty-one, old for a cat.

Her whole world seemed to be changing of late.

Mum and Dad had been gone a week now—rare for them—with eight more weeks to go on their vacation. For the first time Rhiannon could remember, she was living alone in the castle. Just Paul, their longtime butler, Colin the aging cat and her.

Even her brother, Malcolm, was newly married, and her cousin Isabel—now her closest female friend her age—had just sent her a “save the date” notice for an autumn wedding invitation. A wedding that Rhiannon would attend by video monitor, of course. Rhiannon wished Isabel well, but if she were honest, the invitation had set off a tinge of dissatisfaction within her. Maybe a wee bit of envy?

Perfectly natural. But, as always, she would control it until she was content again.

Rhiannon found her camera and grabbed a warm raincoat for her walk outside. The weather was misting a bit and alternating with rain, not atypical for Scotland in early June, so she laced up her waterproof boots and tucked the camera inside her front pocket.

She had the perfect picturesque cottage in mind, and it was on the edge of their two-hundred-acre estate. Usually, Rhiannon worked from memory, but the last time she’d seen the cottage was, well, before she’d become agoraphobic. Just the thought of approaching the boundary lines and the public road to see it was making her pulse race. Making this trip was daring for her. But she was ready for a change, however slight and controlled.

She went downstairs, then across the courtyard to the main castle and the breakfast room. Paul stood at the buffet table, arranging breakfast items as he had done every morning for years going back. He smiled to see her, and she relaxed somewhat.

“Good morning, miss. Would you like some coffee?”

“When I return, please, Paul. I’m going for my walk now.” By habit, she reached for the dog leash, but remembered that her mum’s golden retriever, Molly, was gone, too, boarded at the vet’s, recuperating from minor surgery on her leg.

Rhiannon sighed. She would be walking alone today.

“I’ll pick Molly up later in the day,” Paul remarked kindly.

“Thank you.” They’d been together so long that sometimes she thought Paul could read her mind.

He gestured to the window. “The starlings have left the nest.”

“Have they? They’re late this year.”

“Indeed.” Paul smiled mildly and wiped down their coffee machine. He was getting a bit stooped. She hadn’t noticed until now. He must have been about forty when he came to them after she’d returned home from the hospital. Now he would be in his sixties.

We’re all getting older.

And then what? What would Rhiannon do when Paul finally retired? Rhiannon was thirty. A spinster. An agoraphobic spinster, living alone in a modernized castle. Any supplies she needed, she ordered by phone or internet. But for actual contact with people, she relied on Paul. Or her parents. Even Molly.

Paul glanced at her standing there, holding the leash, and stopped tidying up. “Miss, would you like me to accompany you on your walk today?”

“No. That’s quite all right.” She smiled at Paul. She really did appreciate his presence in her life. “Sooner or later we all have to walk alone.”

Paul blinked. “That’s not necessarily true, miss.”

“You don’t think so?”

Paul politely gazed down at his hands. He was the help, after all, their perfect, English-trained butler. He was paid to be agreeable to her. “I wouldn’t presume to know,” he murmured.

“Well, for today at least, I walk alone.” She patted the camera in her pocket. “I’ll be back in a half hour. If I’m not, send out the hounds.”

The corner of Paul’s mouth twitched. They didn’t have any hounds. Just a playful golden retriever, currently injured.

Rhiannon headed outside, walking her customary path past the walled garden and circling the gravel drive. Up the hill was the guard shack, and from there, all along the boundaries, a stone wall, strengthened with concrete. Surveillance cameras were installed at regular intervals, monitored by the guard on duty.

I am safe, she told herself, breathing deeply. She headed for the path across the open moor. Nature, cruelly, was waking. In bloom everywhere.

The cottage—the guard’s cottage—was at the southern border of their large property—farther away from the castle than she’d dared to walk in years. She wasn’t sure how it would affect her. She concentrated on feeling in control: maintaining her regular breathing, visualizing the peace of her garden, humming to herself.

Still, the closer she came to the cottage, the shakier she felt. She paused, tightening her grip on the camera in her pocket. She wished Molly was with her. At the very least, she wished she’d thought of carrying a large stick.

She exhaled slowly. This was the natural fallout from the brutal kidnapping she’d survived as a young girl. Ever since then she had her safe place she felt protected by—her beautiful castle grounds—and she stayed within those boundaries. Walking to the cottage would test her limits.

But she could do it. She visualized the cottage in her mind. Jamie and Jessie lived there, and had since before she’d been born. Jamie was the longtime guardsman for their family. Five days a week, he kept watch from the shack at the top of the drive. He kept a phone with a direct line to Paul in the house. There were cameras all around the property, spaced every few dozen yards. Each year, her father commissioned a security expert to review and renew their protocols and procedures.

It didn’t bother Rhiannon. She was happy in her world, truly. She moved closer to the boundary, more curious than anything. How would her body react to this change in her daily walk?

She heard a roaring noise. The whoosh of a van passing close by on the roadway. Rhiannon froze. A white van had been the vehicle the kidnappers had used to snatch her and her brother. Her breath came in jagged spurts.

She heard a voice; someone was singing. Her pulse racing, she retreated to the edge of a copse. Then there was whistling. A man’s tone. Something else was going on, too, because she heard a whacking noise. She backed away slowly, her breathing heavy. Despite the coolness of the morning, she felt heated. Her heart rate elevated. Her palms perspiring...

This was how a panic attack began. And there was nothing worse to Rhiannon than a panic attack. It was the one thing she had set her life up to avoid. She couldn’t lose control of herself. She couldn’t go back to those days in the hospital.

A cry sputtered out of her, and she turned to flee. But the toe of her rubber boot caught on a root, and she tripped. Her hands splayed on the wet, boggy earth beneath an oak tree.

Get up. Run.

But it was just like when she’d been a girl. Walking along happy, full of plans for the day, so mundane she couldn’t even remember them at this point—much like painting a cottage on a landscape. She’d been caught up in herself, not paying attention to the world and skipping ahead of her older brother.

She’d seen the men—the kidnappers—before Malcolm had. There had been a split second when she could have screamed. Could have warned Malcolm. Could have grabbed his hand and made both of them run away.

But she’d done none of those things. She’d frozen instead.

Because of that, Malcolm had been taken with her, shoved into a white van parked on a busy Edinburgh street, and while she sat still, mute, Malcolm had screamed and fought.

They had beaten him, so badly that he’d lost consciousness. And even then, seeing her brother’s limp, battered body, blood all about his mouth and his nose, made her feel guilty.

She could have prevented it, and she hadn’t. And now it was happening again. No sound would come out of her mouth. Her body was locked in terror. The shaking started. Next came the sweating. At some point, she would pass out.

Wham! Something hard smashed into the ground in front of her, then ricocheted and hit her right hip bone. A muffled squeak came out of her mouth, an “umph!” rather than anything intelligible or powerful.

Is this an attack? Scream. Why can’t you scream? Run!

But instead of yelling or fleeing, Rhiannon groaned and pitched forward. Her elbows slammed into the boggy earth; the camera at her hip hit the ground and she heard something break—the lens perhaps. The camera dug into her freshly bruised hip, sending a dull shooting pain through her. “Oh!” she moaned.

She rolled over and pulled the camera from the flap pocket. It rattled when she moved it. The camera was obviously broken.

“Hello!” a male voice called. “Is anybody there?”

Trembling, Rhiannon pushed to her knees. Run!

“Oh, no, I’m so sorry!” A man came into the clearing, sprinting toward her, waving. He carried a golf club in the other hand. Blinking, she glanced down and saw a golf ball on the ground beside her.

She put her hand to the sore spot. There would be a bruise. But that wasn’t her immediate concern. This man was. Run!

Too late. He was there already. “Are you okay? Wow, let me help you up.”

He reached for her hand, but she shrank back. He wore a gray sweatshirt—her kidnappers had worn hoodie sweatshirts—and his eyes were a pale gray blue beneath his navy blue golf cap. He also wore cargo pants and trainers. She had the impression of confident masculinity.

He pushed back the cap back from his face. Wavy, light brown hair with blond streaks. The scruffy beginnings of a beard. He gave her a boyishly charming, lopsided smile. “I’m really sorry about this.”

He held out a hand to her, but she, embarrassingly, scurried backward like a crab.

“I’m a professional golfer,” he said. “My name’s Colin Walker.”

Colin Walker! She almost laughed hysterically. The boy—now a man—she’d named her cat after, all those years ago.

Of course it would be Colin Walker she’d bumped into. Now, when she looked her worst—wet, muddy and bedraggled. She must have summoned him, she thought—maybe she’d conjured him up. All these thoughts about weddings and wishes for what could never be.

And he was so good-looking it was criminal. Of course she’d watched Colin on the telly; they all had. He’d strolled along the fairways as if he owned them, while his grandmother Jessie sat beside her on the couch in front of the big screen in the castle, near to bursting her buttons with pride.

Shaking, Rhiannon wiped her muddy hands on her trousers. Her right palm had nicked a sharp stone when she fell, and it stung. It was her dominant hand, and now painting might be difficult for a few days.

“At least let me take you into the house and get you a bandage for that cut.” Colin reached for her other hand, but she jerked away. People knew better than to touch her. It made her panic, and she couldn’t let that happen.

“No. Please. I’m fine.” She stood on her own. Likely, the only reason she hadn’t gone into a full-blown panic attack was that she knew who he was. Her heart was pounding with the knowledge.

His head tilted. He noticed her broken camera and picked it up from the ground. “I want to replace this for you.” He tucked it into his pocket. “Do you live around here? I’m only here for a few days, but I’ll order one for you and have it delivered.”

She hugged herself and stepped back. “No, I’d rather you didn’t do that.”

“I need to. I want to, I mean...” His gaze went up and down the length of her. She looked a fright! Her worst clothes, her scraggly, rain-wet hair, muddy boots...

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Jamie would tell him even if she didn’t. She had no choice. “I’m Rhiannon,” she said softly. “You know me.”

“Rhiannon!” Again, those charming, handsome gray-blue eyes went up and down her body. Scrutinized her face. Lingered on her eyes.

She felt herself flushing.

Did he remember her as fondly as she remembered him?

Obviously not, because he threw back his head and laughed at her. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but this hadn’t been it. Pity, perhaps. Quiet respect. Silence.

But never ridicule.

“I can’t believe this!” he said, still laughing at her.

What, that she was a recluse by choice? That the best way to manage her agoraphobia was to cut herself off from the rest of the world?

She’d never wanted him to see her like this. She’d thought that of all people, he would understand.

She’d been wrong.

“What did you expect of me?” she asked quietly.

“Sorry. It’s a long story.” Shaking his head, he leaned toward her...touching her, and she jumped backward as if scalded.

What was he doing? No one touched her. She controlled her space.

“I have to go,” she said.

He caught hold her arm. “Hey, Rhiannon, wait...”

“Stop,” she whispered, staring at his hand on her sleeve. She could feel her heart drumming, feel the panic returning. People didn’t treat her this way. They were respectful of her dignity.

Colin looked at her quizzically, and she drew herself up, groping for her inner peace. Control was the most important thing. “Please.”

He let go of her. “Oh, Rhi, I’m sorry. You’re married, huh? I didn’t mean anything by it. Touching you, I mean.”

Married? What a cruel joke.

“How are your kids?” he asked, drawling at her like a true Texan. “You have a bunch of ’em. Right?”

Something stung at her eyes. Something fierce and unexpected.

How could an agoraphobic ever bring up a child?

A strangled noise came from her throat. A harsh, suppressed sob.

“Rhi?”

Horrified, she shook her head.

Normally, she would be calm about it. Philosophical and gentle and accepting, but today...after her cousin’s wedding news...she was on edge.

“No kids? Figures he lied to me,” he muttered. “Well, me, neither.” Colin talked blithely along as if he hadn’t noticed her discomfort. “No kids. No wife. Just the traveling life.” He glanced down at her. His eyes were so blue. “How about you? Do you travel?”

Colin had no idea. None. It was as if she was seeing her life the way it might have been. The way it could never be.

“Rhi?”

“I’m fine!” she shouted harshly.

His face fell. Utterly fell.

She slapped her hand over her mouth. She turned and fled back to the castle before she did anything worse.