Page 20 of A Scot in the Storm
The climb from the rocks toward the castle was treacherous even in fair weather. Tonight the sea was vicious.
Rory kept one hand firmly around Abigail’s wrist while they picked their way along the slick path.
Her strange boots slipped twice.
“Mind yer footing.”
“I’m trying.”
“What are those things on your feet?”
“They’re hiking boots.”
“Hiking.”
Another odd word he filed away.
The next wave hit without warning. A wall of seawater exploded across the path waist-high.
Abigail cried out as she lost her footing. Rory felt her hand slip from his, saw her body twist sideways toward the drop. For one terrible heartbeat another pair of dark eyes flashed through his mind.
Murtagh.
Wet fingers slipping through his grasp.
Not again. He lunged hard enough to wrench his shoulder as his hand closed around Abigail’s wrist. The momentum slammed her against him, the force nearly throwing them both into the surf.
Rory planted his boots and hauled her upright with every ounce of strength he possessed as she collided against his chest, breathless and shaking.
He could feel the frantic beat of her heart through the soaked layers between them.
The wave receded as they remained exactly where they were. Too close.
Rory became abruptly aware of the softness of her pressed against him, of lavender beneath the rain and seawater, and of the way her fingers had closed tightly in the front of his shirt while he held her upright above the surf.
Abigail looked up slowly at him, rain clinging to her lashes. For one suspended moment the world narrowed to the two of them standing above a black raging sea.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Rory swallowed once.
“Aye,” he said roughly. “Well. Try no’ to fall off the cliff again. I’ve had a difficult few days.”
To his astonishment, she laughed. A real laugh this time, brief and breathless and still edged with shock, yet unexpectedly warm in the middle of the storm. And somehow that small sound in the middle of the storm unsettled him more than the lightning had.
He kept hold of her wrist the rest of the way to the castle.
Inside the workers’ hall, conversation died instantly.
The peat fire crackled loudly in the silence as every man in the room turned to stare.
Abigail stopped just inside the doorway. Rory felt the change in her immediately. Not weakness, nor quite fear, but a strangestillness. The sort of stillness he had seen in sailors moments after surviving battle, when the body had not yet decided whether it belonged among the living.
The workers’ hall glowed gold with firelight after the violence of the storm outside. Samhain bonfires still burned faintly somewhere down the coast, their smoke threading through the storm in brief sharp traces whenever the wind shifted.
Wet wool steamed near the hearth. A kettle hung over the flames, sending up the scent of tea, peat smoke, and onion broth. Men in rough work shirts and heavy boots sat crowded shoulder to shoulder at the long tables with cups of whisky in their hands.
The room felt warm and painfully alive after the violence outside. And Abigail stood still, face pale, looking at all of it as though she had never seen such a room before.
