Читать книгу Off Kilter - Donna Kauffman - Страница 9

Tessa finished lacing up her hiking boots and tugged the legs of her jeans down over them, before quietly letting herself out the back door of the croft.

The sun hadn’t quite made its way over the horizon yet, and the rock-strewn meadows that bordered Kira’s property were still drifted over with a thick, morning fog. She could barely make out the fuzzy bodies of sheep clustered just beyond the closest stone wall, much less those farther out. The occasional grumbling bleat was the only sound in the otherwise quiet dawn.

The weight of her favorite, standard issue, classic Nikon F-301, circa 1985, was a familiar comfort hanging around her neck, one she wasn’t taking for granted on the peaceful September morning. Pulling her fleece jacket a bit closer, she zipped it up against the morning chill and set out through the side gate, across the rear field, heading toward the stacked stone wall in the distance. She planned to take the herding trail she knew led well beyond it, circling the base of the sole mountain peak to be found at that end of the small island. Beyond it lay the singletrack north road that eventually looped around the entire island, but her destination was the rocky shoreline on the far side of the north track.

She couldn’t make out the mountain at all; the fog was too thick. Actually, Ben Cruinish was more a very large hill than a real mountain. Nothing like the towering twin peaks that formed the stunning skyscape at the western end of the island. The flaxseed crops that were the basis of the baskets woven on the island were grown in the protected valley between them. The easternmost tip, where Kira’s croft was situated, was more meadow and stream, populated by sheep-rearing crofters and the fishermen who plied their trade off the northern coast, out past the Sound of Ailles in the waters of the Atlantic.

The rhythms of island life might seem slow, even rustic, but the islanders were methodical in accomplishing the daily tasks required to subsist off the land and sea. Their work ethic was positive and hopeful, something she’d witnessed in places with far, far less to be positive or hopeful about. The people didn’t seem to take for granted the natural bounty they had available to them. They took deep pride in the traditional artistry of their intricately woven baskets, their single export and source of income.

She’d traveled enough, seen enough, to have an honest respect for cultural traditions, and marveled at how they persevered the world over, through centuries of strife and constant challenge. The people on Kinloch had every right to be proud of their heritage, and how it had not only kept them a viable, thriving community within their homeland, but had grown into a commodity being traded in a global marketplace, where people around the world enjoyed the fruits of their very creative labors.

But it wasn’t Kira’s wildly imaginative waxed linen baskets or the quiet calm of island life that were the focus of Tessa’s thoughts. She’d woken again, with adrenaline pumping through her so hard she’d been shaking, nauseous with it, her skin hot and flushed, the bed linens damp from sweat. For the fifth night in a row, her unconscious mind had dragged her through the harrowing journey it kept insisting she take when she finally, exhausted, had closed her eyes and prayed for uninterrupted sleep.

Since arriving on Kinloch, she’d been safely tucked away in Kira’s croft, quite consciously secure in the knowledge that no bombs would be dropped, burning the roof over her head, or leveling the buildings around her; that no vicious, virus-carrying insects would be feasting on her flesh; no night-marauding animals—two legged or four—would be hunting for her. Nor was there even a remote threat that anyone would storm the cottage, looking to roust her from her sleep and drag her off to a cell somewhere, to question her endlessly about her reasons for being in the village in the first place.

No. None of those things would ever happen to her there.

But tell that to her subconscious. All of those things had happened to her in other places. Often enough that it felt perfectly normal for her to sleep with a knife under her pillow, a net over her bed, and a fire extinguisher within easy reach—which could also double as a Louisville Slugger when necessary.

She’d spent the past nine months trying to figure out how to come to terms with the tricks her mind had started playing on her, while still maintaining a full assignment load. She understood it was a form of post-traumatic stress, and was smart enough to know she couldn’t just ignore it, outrun it, or out think it. Extensive counseling had helped her understand it and why it was happening, and even change the way she thought about it and dealt with it. But counseling hadn’t stopped it from happening.

Mostly because it was still happening … for real.

Several months into counseling, she’d heeded the counselor’s advice and taken a brief, five-week sabbatical. She’d made huge, confidence-building strides. But back in the field, one bomb had gone off, and everything had come screaming right back with it. No amount of employing all the techniques she’d learned would stave the terror off. Not as long as the bombs kept exploding. And people kept dying. The counselors and therapists who’d helped her had all said the same thing: find a new career. You can’t handle this one any longer if you want to stay healthy.

She’d rejected that diagnosis. Out of hand. She’d tried alternative methods, including hypnosis and acupuncture, among other more off-the-wall therapies. Those who knew her would have been boggled at the things she’d experimented with. Even she was surprised by the lengths she’d gone to. But she’d have tried anything if she could find a way to manage her disorder effectively so she could stay in the field and continue her work. Photojournalism was what she did. It was who she was. She couldn’t contemplate an alternative.

But it had finally gotten so bad that she wasn’t functioning, wasn’t sleeping … and she sure as hell wasn’t doing her job effectively. In fact, for the six weeks prior to coming to Kinloch, she’d missed deadlines and struggled to complete her assignments, with no hope left that things were going to improve—unless she made some additional changes. Deep down, she knew there was only one additional change left to make.

Feeling more lost than she’d ever been, not knowing where else to turn, she’d finally decided to take the “vacation” everyone who worked with her had been gently, and not-so-gently, suggesting. She’d come to Kinloch, to Kira. She’d come, initially telling herself a break from the road would give her time to find a realistic solution that would allow her to heal, while continuing in the only profession she’d ever known, or ever wanted. As she’d debarked from the island ferry and been engulfed in Kira’s tight hug, she’d already known that for the lie it was. There was no realistic solution—other than walking away.

She knew that. So what she was really doing there, was hiding—taking a vacation from the inevitability of the truth. Only, in the wee, shaky hours of another restless, terror-filled night, she’d decided that wasn’t exactly working, either.

Sometime around three-thirty that morning, she’d found herself going back over some of the calendar prints she’d taken. Her eye focused on the scenery … and not the kind that had to do with bulging muscles and artfully placed swaths of plaid. There was beauty on Kinloch—natural, staggering amounts of it, no matter the direction in which she’d pointed her camera. But there was also a history there. While the fields were no longer strewn with the carnage of this battle or that blight, what grew was a direct result of what had come from the survival of those brutal challenges.

That had gotten her to thinking … about the travesties she’d spent her professional career recording, exposing to the world the atrocities suffered by so many, often in places of equally staggering beauty and bounty. It had always struck her as so needless, so … reckless. All of her work, her determination … had done absolutely nothing to stop it from happening again. And again. With an infinity of agains yet to occur.

Similar madness and mayhem had happened right on these shores, on the very ground where she was walking at the moment. She juxtaposed the savagery of the past … with the bucolic scenery of Kinloch as it was today. There were ruins of an ancient abbey just off shore, and the towering fortress of a castle, slowly crumbling, yet still standing boldly as a symbol to the clansmen and women who made their home there—direct descendants of the men and women who’d laid those very stones, whose very blood had been shed beneath her feet in order to preserve it and all it stood for, and what it would continue to stand for.

A thread of an idea was born of that.

She couldn’t stop the madness or the mayhem, either in the world or inside her head. Maybe it was that very helplessness that had eventually taken such a heavy toll on her psyche. So … if she couldn’t continue to subject herself to the ravages of war … perhaps she could turn her attentions to what happened after. What had those wars eventually wrought for the people who’d fought in them?

Maybe it was time to train her lens on the other side of the equation.

Smokescreen? Cop out? She wasn’t really sure. It was only a shadow of an idea … and she was aware she might simply be fooling herself into thinking there was merit to it, or substance in it worth pursuing. She was trudging over rocky soil at dawn, dodging sheep, and heading to the shore to take pictures of the abbey … and the tower … and later, the castle. From there, she wasn’t certain. She had research to do. And, if the wisp of an idea took on substance, there would be interviews to schedule.

It shouldn’t excite her, that burgeoning idea of hers. It should terrify her. But her fingers were itching to get to work. And she hadn’t felt like that in a very, very long time. Longer than she would have ever admitted—even to herself.

She scrambled over the second stone wall, navigated through another herd of mingling, black-faced sheep, then headed west around the base of Cruinish, toward the north track. The shoreline was still a mile off, but the distance melted away as the hike gave her time to think, to plot, to plan.

Kinloch wouldn’t be the most interesting place to document a history of then and now, but it was where she was, away from everything, and everyone who worked with her. No one would ever have to know if it turned out to be a ridiculous folly.

Deep in thought, feeling physically weary, but mentally energized by the new plan, she jumped a shallow gully that ran alongside the north track. She’d barely scrambled to the side of the road, slipping a little as she tried to gain purchase on the stretch of loose dirt and rocks between her and the pavement, when a single headlight pierced the fog, followed by the blare of a horn. The motorbike was right on her, leaving her no time to leap out of the way. Then came the sound of skidding tires, as it left the road on the far side and slid sideways in the soft dirt before depositing its rider into the bordering gully just beyond.

“Oh my God.” Tessa managed to right herself without falling back into the gully behind her, then ran across the narrow track. “Are you okay?” She had to shout over the sound of the motor that was still humming on the bike, but was more interested to find out if the driver was injured. “Are you hurt? Should I go for help?”

She gingerly skidded down the steep side of the gully, then hopped across the mud-and-water-filled trench at the bottom, slogging through the muck on the other side as she made her way to where the rider was presently rolling to his back, groaning. Well, swearing, actually, she realized, as she got closer.

“Just wait a second, I’ll help you.”

It wasn’t until she was almost on top of him that the heavy mists, still thickly banked down in the gully, parted enough so she could see him more clearly. “You,” she said, stopping short, the hand she’d been extending freezing in mid-reach.

“Christ, I should have known.” Roan sat up, ignoring her half-hearted gesture to help pull him up, then made a face as the muck oozed in around the waistband of his trousers when he shifted backward to reposition his booted feet. “Brilliant. Bloody brilliant.”

“Here,” she said, resolutely sticking her hand out. “Let me help.”

He eyed the hand as if she was shoving a snake at him.

“Look, I get that we’re not best buddies, but I’m not an ogre who takes pleasure from the misery of others.”

“Could have fooled me,” he muttered, as he pushed himself up. He climbed from muck to bank, then up to the side of the road where his bike still lay, the motor spinning.

“No, please,” she said flatly, “I can climb back up on my own.” She hopped the gully again, and found a rocky section that made climbing back to the roadside a bit easier.

He wasn’t paying any attention to her, but was crouching over his motorbike, which was now silent.

“Will it run?” she asked, walking toward him, despite the urge to simply turn around and keep on walking toward her original destination.

“Run, yes. Roll, I’m no’ so certain.”

She skimmed her gaze over the frame, and noted that one of the wheels did look a bit … warped. “That’s not so good.”

“No, it’s not. And I have an appointment at”—he glanced at his watch from habit, no doubt, only to swear under his breath again as his shirt cuff slid back to reveal the timepiece was covered in thick gunk, with a few choice pieces of gully debris sticking to it as well—“doesnae matter much now, anyway.” He straightened and moved the bike so it was well off the road.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, though she wasn’t certain why she was still engaging him in any form of conversation. He was clearly unhurt, and just as clearly not remotely caring whether she stayed or left. It was just … she didn’t feel right walking away from the scene of an accident. Especially one she was at least partly responsible for.

“Walk into town. Borrow Graham’s truck, pick up my bike, take it to Magnus’s shop.” He finally glanced at her. “What on earth were you about, wandering out here in the wee hours of dawn? The sun’s no’ even fully up yet.”

“Heading to the shore,” she answered, not that it was any business of his. But he didn’t look so smug with his ridiculously perfect dimple filled with gully mud. And that made him slightly less annoying to her. “I’d give you a lift, but as you can see”— she gestured to her feet—“I’m sorry though, for making you crash. I didn’t see the headlight until it was too late.”

There was a beat, then he said, “Not to worry. Worse things could have resulted.” He scraped the mud from his face and combed his gunked-up hair back from his face.

It was all kinds of wrong that looking like something from the La Brea Tar Pits made him seem much more rugged. She could imagine how smug he must have been when he realized she’d chosen him, and only him, as their best chance at getting into the Highlander calendar. It probably annoyed the hell out of the village charmer to look anything other than his GQ best.

“You might want to consider a shower first, before borrowing a truck,” she said. “Just a thought.”

He glanced down at himself, then surprised her with a smile and a short laugh. “I’d like to think Graham is a good enough friend no’ to mind a bit of mud.” He plucked a twig and a clump of muck from the pocket of his khakis. “But perhaps ye have a point.”

She refused to become one of the charmed. It would be a lot easier if he’d stop smiling. A gunk-filled dimple only diluted his charm so much.

He turned and looked back up the track from the direction he’d come, then the other way, which led into the village proper.

She had no idea where he lived, but she assumed they were closer to town than to his home. She couldn’t have said what prodded her to offer an alternative. Surely it was her guilty conscience talking. “Kira’s place is probably closest,” she said. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you cleaned up there. She’ll be up and in her studio by now.”

To her further surprise, she could have sworn he blanched. Just a little. Right before all the good humor left his face. “Uh, thanks. But, ah, no. I’m—I’ll be fine. Good.”

She folded her arms. “Really.” He was stuttering—which made the otherwise cocksure man she’d had the displeasure of being saddled with earlier in the week seem almost … endearing.

“Yes,” he said, gathering himself rather quickly. “Quite. You—carry on with what you were doing, then. And I’ll—”

“Walk into town. Looking like a creature from the black lagoon. Perhaps I’ll join you on the hike in. Maybe snap a few pictures as we go along. Could be amusing. Who knows, maybe you’ll actually like those.”

“What do ye mean?”

“Well, from what I hear, you couldn’t be bothered to even glance at the ones I took of you last week. Pretty sure of your appeal”—she shrugged and gave him a frank onceover—“with reason, I suppose. I guess we should all own our assets.”

He took a step closer, real irritation on his face. “You’re so smug, thinking you have me pegged. But you have no idea, in the least, who I am, or what motivates me to do anything I choose to do.”

“Me, smug?”

“Aye. But then, I’ve read your resume and I guess, likewise, you have reason to be. Owning your assets and all that. I’ll just say that while your career impresses me—mightily, in fact—I dinnae know how it is you’ve done all ye’ve done.”

“Because I’m a woman, you mean?”

He looked honestly confused. “What does gender have to do with pointing a camera at something? No, I was speaking of yer attitude about the rest of us poor blokes.”

It was her turn to be confused. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Your people skills leave a lot to be desired, lass. Although, I suppose, anyone who has seen all of the things that you have, wouldn’t be expected to have much softness left.”

He hadn’t said the last part unkindly, which was why it undid her. Or that’s what she told herself, anyway. It was easier to think of him as an opinionated, uninformed, too-good-looking-for-his-own-good jackass. “Why on earth would you take the time to look at my career highlights?”

“I just insult you and you’re only concerned that I peeked at yer curriculum vitae?”

“You didn’t insult me. You just spoke the truth. You’re probably right—too right—about my people skills. But given your lack of enthusiasm regarding my involvement with this project in general, and you in particular, it just struck me as odd that you’d spend any amount of time digging up information on me.”

“No’ so difficult. You’re quite Google-able. I looked you up because we’re trustin’ yer judgment on something that might seem trivial to you, but could bring us a great deal of help.”

“Kira explained,” she said. “And I get that the … ah … added exposure could potentially be a boon for your basket sales. And probably boost tourism. I just hope you’re not banking all your marketing on a Hunks of the Highlands calendar.”

Rather than be insulted, he laughed. “No, it sounded ridiculous to me, too, at first. But when it comes to the welfare of this island and every last person on it, I’m willing to do whatever it takes. It’s the only reason I agreed to gettin’ Kira to ask you to man the camera, or stand in front of it myself. I needed to know who I was trustin’ to make what might turn out to be an important decision. But did I need to see the photos of my smiling, idiotic face? No. I didn’t look at any of them, no offense meant to you. I looked at your history, and I trusted you with the choice.”

Strangely enough, she believed him even though it didn’t jibe with who she thought he was. “Me and Katie McAuley, you mean.

“What?” she asked, when he looked surprised. “I know you asked her to double check my choices. Do you honestly think anything stays secret around here? I haven’t met a single soul other than you since setting out on this hike, but I’m fairly certain someone could probably tell you the color underwear I have on right now.”

Bad example, she thought immediately, when his gaze drifted over her. There’d been nothing remotely lascivious about it. More a casual cataloging. Like he’d done with her career highlights—which annoyed her, but for all the wrong reasons. Surely she didn’t care what he thought of her? As a photographer, or as a woman.

“We’re a tightly knit group. We rely on each other,” he said as his gaze returned to hers. “It’s like that on a wee island. Has to be.”

“I understand that, but correct me if I’m wrong—in the grand scheme of things, you’ve only known Katie McAuley slightly longer than you’ve known me.”

“Aye, ‘tis true. But … it’s different with Katie. Spend any time with her, and it’s like ye’ve known her yer whole life. Everyone here feels it.”

“Good people skills, then,” she said dryly, and earned a smile.

“Something like that. We’re all close, but we’re not close-minded. We have our differences here, but we’re accepting of new people, new ideas. We’d never have survived otherwise. We respect and hold each other in high esteem, or we certainly try to.”

“Yes, I believe I witnessed a whole raft of that esteem the other day, while you were undressing for me.”

She’d meant the comment to be amusing, but perhaps her delivery was even rustier than she’d thought. He folded his arms and rocked back a little on his heels. How it was that all the mud and muck made him look sexy, she had no idea. She had a lot of personal experience with mud and muck and there was usually nothing remotely attractive about it.

“What was it that put you off me?” he asked, sounding surprisingly sincere, like it really mattered.

“Is it so hard for you to take, having one less woman giggling and blushing when she’s around you?”

He grinned. “I’m a likable guy. What can I say? Except to you.”

She smiled briefly. “You’ll get over the loss, I’m sure. Since you seem to have pretty much the same impression of me, I can’t imagine why my thoughts on you matter one way or the other.”

He lifted a shoulder, continued to regard her with that dimple-flashing, half smile of his. “I don’t know that they do. Although I admit I’d be interested to know if you’ve got a giggle in you.” He just laughed when she rolled her eyes. “Mostly, I’m … curious. It’s no’ an ego thing. You’re right, it’s healthy enough, with or without your admiration of my manly bits.”

She couldn’t help it, she laughed. More like a snort. But still. Dammit. “Yes, well, given I chose your manly bits exclusively as potential daydream fodder for women everywhere from ages sixteen to sixty, I’m fairly certain your ego is fully intact, if not additionally inflated. If you do make the calendar, your throngs of admirers will merely grow to an international level. World domination is surely only a centerfold away after that.”

She paused because he was frowning. “What?” she asked. “Don’t try to tell me you’re not going to eat that up. You’re a red-blooded man who is quite well aware of his charms.”

“Aye. Believe it or not, I’d rather my charms, as you call them, weren’t put on display for the masses. The idea of hanging on walls in places ye dinnae even know of, being ogled by God only knows who … that’s a wee bit odd to contemplate, now isn’t it?”

“Are you honestly telling me this was some kind of sacrifice for you?”

“Did I, at any point, look like I was having a good time? Was I encouraging you in any way, other than to mercifully get it over with as soon as possible?”

“You loved playing the crowd and—”

“I was trying to get them to leave!”

She thought about that for a moment, and realized he had a point.

He walked closer to her, until she could see his green eyes quite clearly through all the muck still splattering his face and neck. It must have been the contrast with all that mud that made them seem so … mesmerizing.

“You don’t know what to think about me, do you? Because you already had your mind made up on what kind of man I was before we even got started. I’d have expected you, of all people, with your background, to be more open-minded, to get the facts first. At the very least, consider that simply because I’m male and might enjoy charming a smile or two from folks I’ve spent my entire life around, doesn’t necessarily mean my ego and identity are linked directly and only to what’s under my kilt.”

“I was just—”

“Being condescending, patronizing, and a wee bit narrow-minded. After seeing your work—I did look at a fair share of it—that mentality doesn’t seem to fit. But what do I know? Maybe you’re great behind the camera, but face to face with people …” He shrugged, then turned around and started toward his bent-up motorbike, apparently done with the conversation. And with her.

“You’re right.”

He stopped, and turned back to look at her.

Why … why was she prolonging the conversation? She held his gaze with equanimity, then finally sighed, and felt the starch go out of her just a little. What the hell was wrong with her, anyway? Well, besides the obvious. “I have seen a lot. More, maybe, than anyone should. And … I’ve developed some very strong ideas and opinions. About a lot of things. And … people, as well. I’m not shy about expressing them.”

He held her gaze with seeming ease, but rather than looking disgusted with her—which would have been understandable, because she was a little disgusted with herself at the moment—he appeared … amused. “So,” he said, a flicker of that devilish twinkle sparking into his eyes. “How is that working out for ye?”

He was relentless with the charm. And it was working. A smile hovered at the corners of her mouth. “Well, at the moment, I’m here shooting photos for a Highlander hotties calendar. Not to be patronizing or condescending, but that’s not my usual caliber of assignment.”

He nodded. “I thought you were here on vacation.”

“I did the shoot as a favor for a friend, true,” she said, purposely not responding directly to his comment. “But … I didn’t need to be pompous about it. Or take my frustration out on you.”

“You were frustrated because you deemed shooting those photos to be that far beneath you? Even as a simple favor? Were you afraid to have word leak out? Your name attached to them? Now who has the unhealthy ego?”

“No, of course not. I stand by all my work. Though it’s not something I’d have ever imagined myself doing, I was happy to help Kira. I’m frustrated because I can’t—” She managed to cut herself off just in time. She waved a hand, striving for the insouciance she used to have, but had lost over the past year. Actually, longer ago than that, if she were honest. She felt the sting of Roan’s casual observations once again. The sting of truth.

“Because you can’t relax and enjoy time off?”

“Something like that.”

“I imagine there are always stories that need telling somewhere. That kind of urgency must be hard to turn away from.”

His insight caught her off guard. She wouldn’t have pegged him as a man who bothered to notice much beyond his own charming influence on others. Clearly her powers of observation had completely failed her where he was concerned. She was seeing what she wanted to see—which was the worst possible thing. But then … that was what she did. She just hadn’t realized it was who she’d become.

Instead of blowing him off with some smartass answer, she decided his sincerity at least warranted an honest response. It bothered her, more than a little, that she had to work at it. And not because it was him. She hadn’t been able to talk to Kira, either.

“Let’s just say that I haven’t taken a vacation in a while. Perhaps I should have been better about scheduling them into my assignments.” That was about as much as she was willing to share. His savoir faire with the opposite sex might make him seem somewhat superficial on the surface, but she was quite aware there were greater depths to him than she’d anticipated. She didn’t want to encourage any more of his curiosity. To that end, she lifted the camera from where it hung around her neck, and continued before he could say anything else. “So, if you’re sure you don’t need or want my help with the bike, or”—she made a general gesture in the direction of his mud-coated self—“I guess I’ll get back to what I was doing.”

“Which was?”

“Taking vacation photos,” she said dryly. “For fun.”

He flashed a grin and the dimple winked out through the drying muck. “You know anything about that? Fun, I mean.”

She opened her mouth, fully prepared to shoot back an equally smart-ass answer, but instead just let the whole damn thing go and laughed instead. That’s what he made her feel like doing, and it felt surprisingly good. “I used to have a passing acquaintance with the idea, but possibly it’s been a while.”

“With the kind of work you do, that’s not surprising,” he said, sincere, but not somber about it.

She appreciated that, and felt shamed again for her rather shabby treatment of him. “Perhaps my journey today will reintroduce me to the concept.” Not true, but at least the intent was to be friendly. The last thing she would have told him was that she was technically on assignment … and while she was energized at the idea that she might have discovered the first step toward mental redemption, she would hardly call the day she had planned fun. Terrifying, portentous, intimidating, maybe. The day’s agenda was nobody’s business but her own.

“Maybe,” he replied, but sounded dubious. “Where are you headed?”

“To the shore.”

“Ah, the abbey and the tower?”

“In part.”

“I’m sure you’ll do them better justice than most.”

The compliment—sincere by the sound of it—caught her off guard. “I—thank you.”

He shrugged. “Just because we started off on the wrong foot, doesnae mean we have to stay wrong-footed. Does it?”

There was no charming smile or mischievous twinkle, just a plain, sincerely asked question. So she lifted a shoulder—casually—which belied the sudden pounding of her heart, and said, “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

He laughed.

“What?”

“You’re a tough one, Tessa Vandergriff.”

That stung a little, deserved or not. She was all done being under Roan McAuley’s microscope for the day. “Having seen my work, you’d understand that a softie would never make it out there, doing what I do.”

He walked closer again, almost too close. He studied her for an unnervingly long moment, but she let him, determined not to allow him to get to her. Damn her racing heart. He’d rattled her good, but as soon as she moved on with her day, that moment in time would be forgotten—by her mind if not her body.

“But you’re no’ as much a hard-arse as ye think.”

Rather than bristle, she found herself swallowing a bit stronger than was absolutely necessary. “What makes you say that?”

He lifted his hand toward her. She instinctively flinched away—and hated giving him even that much of a glimpse at just how messed up her instincts were. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Far from it, if his expression was any indication. His eyes widened momentarily, but he let his hand drop rather than push it. “Because you needed this vacation. Or break, or whatever this time here really represents to you. A real hard-arse … the time off wouldn’t have mattered, so why bother?”

“Maybe that’s why I’m frustrated, because it’s precisely a bother.”

“And maybe you just wish you were more a hard-arse than you actually are.”

That was far too dangerously close to the truth she’d been forced to confront the past year. She definitely didn’t appreciate hearing it, ever-so-dismissively, from him. “As you said to me, you have no idea who I am, or what motivates me to do the things I do. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be continuing on with my hike. I hope things work out for you getting into town and getting the bike fixed. I’ll be happy to contribute to the latter, since I was partly responsible. You can leave a message with Kira.”

She walked around him, with no intention of looking back, no matter the provocation.

“I’m glad you did, you know.”

Dammit. She kept on walking, then swore under her breath and stopped. Without turning around, she said, “Did what?”

“Took a break. You picked a good place for it. We’re happy to take ye in, Tessa. You’ll always be welcomed on Kinloch. No matter what.” Amusement entered his voice as he added, “We’ve a thing for misfits.” Then, a beat later, with humor still clear in his tone, he added, “I should know.”

She wanted badly to turn around. How could he think he knew anything about being a misfit? He’d been born and raised in the bosom of a loving, tightly woven community. As far as she could tell, he’d flourished under that umbrella of adoration and support, and seemed quite happy with himself and content in his life, whatever it was he actually did around there. Misfit? She didn’t think so. And she did know. She was an expert on the subject.

She managed to hold her tongue and continued walking. “Good,” she called back, without looking over her shoulder. “Then, one misfit to another, you won’t be insulted if I just walk away now.”

She heard him chuckle. And damn if she wasn’t smiling as she continued on her way.