Even In Darkness (Between) (19 page)

Neither one of them made eye contact with me as they passed, which was just as good since I wanted to launch myself at them and beat them both to a bloody pulp.

Dad slowed to indicate that we’d reached Aiden’s room and my heart kicked up a notch at the thought of seeing him again. Excitement and nervousness had me
fidgeting with the tie of my bathrobe just so my hands would have something to do.

Mark MacKinnon, the twins’ father,
appeared in the doorway and greeted my dad with a handshake. His eyebrows rose when he saw me. “Lindsey! I hadn’t heard you were awake. How are you feeling?”

“
Fine, thanks,” I murmured, craning my neck to try and see around him, but all I saw was a drab green curtain and the shoes of several people standing in a semicircle inside of it.

“I just finished speaking with the mayor. Got him out of his bed on Christmas morn,” he said to my father, apparently oblivious to my straining need to catch a glimpse of Aiden. “He assures me they’ve dropped this crazy passport business and that Aiden is free to stay as long as he’d like. All hospital charges will be borne by the police force for their brutality
and inhumane treatment of my family and guests.” His face darkened and he shook his head. “After we nearly lost Joanne, it’s the least they can do.”

My eyes snapped back to hi
m at those words. “Nearly? You mean she’s alive?”

“Aye,
she was revived not long after you and Aiden went over—” He made an inarticulate gesture with his hands. “Well, after your accident, I mean.”

“That’s great news.”
Relief added an adrenaline rush to the already unbearable state of stress and excitement inside me so that I was bouncing on my heels. “Can I see him? Aiden?”

“Of course!
So sorry,” Mark said as he ushered me into the room and peeled away the curtain. Aiden was standing beside his bed, with his head turned away from me as Ian helped him on with his bathrobe. When he shrugged into it and faced me, everything around us seemed to blur around the edges and go silent like I’d slipped on noise-cancelling headphones. Neither one of us moved. Or breathed. We simply stared, drinking each other in.

His eyes swept over me in a quick check for damage, and finding none, he gave me a dimpled smile that melted me clear down to my slippers. Seeing Aiden back in his own body made it hard for me to believe that I’d ever been fooled by Eagan. He fit in his own skin like Eagan never had. His presence was a physical thing, strong and immutable, and now that it was back, I realized
why I’d felt such an undeniable pull toward the captain.

He was mine. And my soul would recognize him even in darkness.

Then, like a switch had been flipped, the sound of people’s voices and movements came rushing into our bubble, and Aiden was crossing the space between us with long, graceful strides. His arms encircled me—so familiar, so right—and I sank into his embrace. His mouth came over mine with an urgency I felt to my bones and I answered him, slipping my hands into his robe and letting them slide down his naked back behind his hospital gown until they reached the swell of his cheeks. The connection between us was fierce, electric, and uncontrollable. Aiden’s hands moved to frame my face as he deepened the kiss. My dad made an uncomfortable cough behind me.

Sarah chuckled and said in her southern drawl like honey butter, “Let’s give the newlyweds a minute to get reacquainted, shall we?” Then they all filed out and left us alone.
With one eye, I noticed that Aiden had a private room all to himself and when his hand moved to cup my breast, a sharp spike of need had me pressing him back against the bed. I’d never done it in a hospital bed before, but it felt like it had been forever since we’d—

A sudden realization made me jerk away from him so fast that I sucked liquid into my lungs and started coughing in painful spasms.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

“
Chérie?”
he asked, one hand on my shoulder as I struggled to suck in a breath.

My eyes stung with tears, but it was less from the co
ughing fit than from the realization that I’d done the unthinkable.

I’d slept with Eagan.

And I might be carrying his baby.

Chapter 21

Mom heard my coughing fit and rushed in, saving me from having to look Aiden in the eye. I mumbled to her that I wasn’t feeling well all of a sudden and that I thought I should lie down. Aiden’s hand lingered on my arm as she led me away and I left without a backward glance. Earlier, I’d been frustrated and annoyed at the idea of having to stay overnight for observation, but now it felt like a Godsend. I needed some time alone to process what had happened.

What had I done to us?

I wanted to run away, as far away as I could get, so that I wouldn’t ever have to tell him, so I wouldn’t ever to have to hurt him that way. The thought of telling him about Eagan—and about the baby—made me want to vomit.

I couldn’t do it.

So instead I hid
. That first night, I hid in my hospital room. When the doctor released us to go home, I hid behind a plastered-on smile. When Mom forced us all into a belated Christmas gift exchange, I hid behind the curtain of my hair as I looked down at the gifts on my lap. That afternoon, when I would have had time alone with Aiden, I hid behind the pretense of being tired and took a nap instead of facing him. And that night, as we all sat down to a nice meal together—Ian, Sarah, Mark, Joanne, the twins, my parents, Aiden and me—I hid behind conversation with everyone else but him.

Guilt and pain twisted around my throat, choking me like a vine on a sapling. Tears threatened every time I made the briefest eye contact with him because I knew he didn’t deserve the way I was treating him, but I didn’t know what else to do.

The clink of silverware and the soft chatter of dinnertime conversation hummed around me as I played with the food on my plate. I interacted just enough to avoid raising suspicions, but my nerves frayed more and more with each passing minute until I was gripping my fork with white knuckles.

I was making myself insane.

Just tell him
, my inner voice chided, but I slapped it away, remembering all too keenly how it felt to walk in on Aiden and the hell transporter, how my entire world ceased at the sight of another woman in our bed. I didn’t want to put him through that.

But what about the baby?
my stupid conscience persisted.
You can’t hide that forever.

The mashed potatoes I’d forced myself to eat
sat like a lead ball in my gut. Nausea swept over me and I clamped my jaw down hard to fight my way through it without letting anyone see.

Then, softly, sweetly, I felt the touch of Aiden’s mind against my own, as
king for permission to come in.

When I was five, we had this long-haired grey and white cat whose eyes were ringed with dark grey circles
. She looked like she was wearing eyeglasses, like an old schoolteacher, so my dad named her Enid after a teacher he’d had growing up. Enid loved me. Whenever I was still for more than ten seconds, she would climb up on my lap and nudge my hand with her head, asking me to pet her. It worked every time. Even if I was in the middle of a tantrum or sick with the flu, whenever Enid nudged me with her soft, furry head, asking me to love her, my spirits lifted. Aiden’s mind stroked the edges of my own just like that.

Not assuming. Not demanding.
Just asking for love.

It was my undoing.

Our eyes met across the table. The concern on his face unraveled any control I had left. Tears welled and spilled over.

Coughing, I dropped my napkin on my plate and stood up, quickly apologizing
and explaining that I didn’t feel well. The scrape of Aiden’s chair against the hardwood floor told me that he’d stood when I did, but I refused to look at him. I fled the room like it was on fire.

When I finally reached our bedroom, I curled into
a ball and sobbed into my pillow so that no one else would hear. Hard, animal cries of agony spilled out of my chest, leaving me weak and exhausted.

I’d never felt so alone.

Hopeless.

Afraid.

Sometime hours later, the bed sagged to one side and I woke to find Aiden sitting beside me. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at me or try to get me to look at him. He just sat next to me, staring straight ahead, his face an ocean of calm. I sat up and rested against the headboard, mimicking his pose.
The silvery blue glow of moonlight illuminated the room, spilling across the bed. I let my hand fall open to catch a moonbeam. It pooled in my palm and trickled over my fingers like water from a faerie spring. I closed my eyes and made a wish.

Silence wrapped around us li
ke a soft summer breeze. Somehow, by not looking at one another, not speaking, and not trying so hard to force the issue, I was able to breathe again. Just Aiden’s presence at my side—undemanding and strong—was enough to bring me back from the brink of total despair. The vines that were choking me began to loosen their hold.

Aiden’s fingertips traced the moon’s path across my palm like a whisper.
Up one finger and slowly down another, healing me, drawing me out of my head and into my body. The lightest touch of his skin against mine focused all my energy on the exact point where we connected, where nothing else mattered but the heat of him, the scent of him, the nearness of him.

I started to open my mouth to say I was sorry, but he gently shook his head and continued drawing circles on my skin.
Over the tip of my thumb, across the heel of my palm. Figure eights along the faint blue veins on my wrist. I inhaled deeply, held my breath, then just let go. The fear and doubt that had been strangling me fell away bit by bit, leaving behind a fragile peace. It felt like I was stepping out onto a barely frozen lake, the ice crystals crunching and unsteady under my feet, but still supporting my weight.

Flexing my fingers, I took hold of Aiden’s hand and brought it to my lips. He didn’t resist, but he also didn’t turn to look at me, probably afraid to break the spell and have me slip back into the darkness again.

“Aiden,” I started, my voice wavering. I waited for him to turn, but he didn’t. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe it was seeing his face, the confusion and worry in his eyes, that had stolen my strength before. There was nothing to be gained by waiting, so I just said it, hating myself for having to speak the words.

“I slept with him.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Aiden didn’t move at all. Not a flinch, not a wince, no stiffening of his shoulders or tensing of his jaw. He was utter stillness while I waited for a reaction, unable to draw breath.

Finally, he sighed and nodded, his gaze dropping to where our linked hands rested between us.

“I know.”

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. “What
do you mean?”

His head gave a sad shake. “Callison told me.
Couldn’t wait to tell me, in fact. ‘Banging up against the door, making as much racket as a couple of cats trapped in a box’ were his exact words, if I recall.”

Pulling my hand free from his, I covered my face in shame, wanting
to crawl under the bed and pretend he couldn’t see me. “So you’ve known all this time and you never said anything?”

He shrugged helplessly. “What could I say? What can I say even now?
Only that...now you know.”

Unable to help myself, I turned and faced him. “Know what?”

His lip quivered a little as his eyes finally sought mine. “What it feels like to be deceived, to unwittingly hurt the one you love, to never be able to make it right, to never say ‘I’m sorry’ enough to erase what’s done, to feel like you’re dying inside, to be hopeless, helpless, and afraid.”

His words reached into my chest and wrapped around my heart, squeezing me. He knew exactly how I felt, exactly what I was going through. The tension between us dissolved until all that remained was what we were before this madness began.

One.

His mind gave me a gentle nudge again and this time I opened for him. His love poured into me, filling me and carrying away the shame I’d held so tightly.
His longing for forgiveness was a thick, tangible force that cut me straight to the core. Nodding in answer to his unspoken plea, I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him. Both of us were crying and shaking, then smiling and laughing, then kissing again. A storm of desperation swirled around us, a need to be absolved of our sins and loved in spite of them. Aiden broke the kiss and clutched me tightly against him, trembling.

“
Mo chridhe
,” he breathed against my hair, the words like a salve on a burn. Eagan had never called me that and I realized with a blinding fierceness how much I’d missed it.

The thought of Eagan reminded me that we were not through the worst of it,
though. I sagged in his embrace.

“What is it?” he asked,
moving his hands to my cheeks, cradling them and bringing my eyes to meet his. The fragile connection that we’d forged wavered but did not break. Would this snap it completely? Would there be any coming back from this?

“Aiden, I…” God, how could I say it? My mouth felt stuffed with cotton and I couldn’t force the words past my lips, but
he stopped me.

“
Nae. It doesn’t matter. Whatever happened, whatever damage was done, it’s in the past.” With a groan, he released me and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Lindsey, you have no idea what it was like, what he made me. He stripped away every piece of my identity, gutted me like a fish, then sewed me back together and made me pretend I was whole. But I was the furthest thing from whole. He dressed me in an Englishman’s costume, filled my mind with memories that were not my own, imparted skills I had not learned myself, then set me loose to blindly stumble through the dark toward the only source of light: You.”

He let
his head fall back and stared unblinkingly at the ceiling. His hands balled into fists atop his thighs. “I didn’t know you, but I felt your presence like a sunbeam on my skin, like a cool breeze in the heat of summer. As simple as a flower turning its face to the sun, my soul reached for you. But you hated me, absolutely reviled me. And why wouldn’t ye? The monster he made me out to be…” He shook his head. “No, I was. I was a monster. How can I even explain this?” He made an angry growl I knew was not directed at me. “I wanted you with a primitive hunger like a man who hasn’t eaten in days lusts after a crust of bread, like a prisoner longs to see the sky, like a widow’s bones ache for her dead husband.”

His eyes closed
and his whole body shook with remembering. “But for all that, he healed me as well, in a way I would never have foretold. When I took up the whip and lashed at his back—my back—to make him pay for the lives of the men he’d slain, I felt every stroke in my soul. Even though I did not understand it at the time, I slashed myself to pieces on the inside, bleeding out three hundred years of shame and hatred for how I’d failed my family. The destruction of Eilean Donan castle and the deaths of my kin were my fault and I’ve carried that every day since. But on that ship, in willingly taking the beating that I deserved, Eagan absolved me in a way no one ever could.”

“Willingly?”
My voice was no more than a whisper, but it seemed to break the trance he was in. He turned to me with a sad half-smile.

“Aye.
I recognized the look in his eyes when he saw ye, though it pierced me to the marrow of my bones. He loved you, lass, and at the end, all of what he did, he did for you. And how could he not?” Reverently, he reached out and traced the line of my cheekbone with his thumb. “You’re so much more than beautiful. Your spirit is joy, and fire, and strength. When I look at ye, I don’t just see your lovely body, your sparkling green eyes, and your wild, unruly hair.” He wrapped one curl around his finger and let it spring free. “When I look at ye, I see…home.”

His fingers continued past my jaw, over my collarbone, and down my arm. Tingles followed the path of his touch like an electrical current. My heart swelled in my chest at the raw honesty in his eyes. His mind caressed my own and there was no need for words. Everything he felt, all the pain and the love, seared itself onto my soul until I couldn’t stay still any longer. Reaching out, I brought his lips to mine and pulled him close. He covered me with the warmth of his frame, pressing me into the mattress.
His kisses ranged over my skin as he peeled away my nightgown, baring my skin to the moonlight. He shed his own clothes and came back to me. The heat from his skin against mine branded me as his and I’ve never wanted to be anything else. My hands gripped the muscles in his back and I let him know just exactly what I did want. The wicked smile he gave me showed off the dimple in his cheek and suddenly, I laughed.

He pretended to look offended. “Hey, you’re not supposed to laugh at a time
such as this. A man could take it the wrong way.”

I tried to school my features into some semblance of apology, but I couldn’t keep the stupid grin off my face. “I’ve missed you,” I said, earning a bright smile and a kiss in return.

“And I you, my love. Happy Christmas.”