Morna's Legacy 04 - Love Beyond Measure (7 page)

I watched him wrestle with my question, his face contorting as he lifted his brow and shifted his lower lip in between his teeth. As always, he didn’t want to lie, but he knew I wouldn’t like the truth either.

Instead, he rolled off the edge of the bed and silently walked over to my side, reaching up on his tip-toes to turn off the light. Enveloped in darkness, he crawled over me and onto the bed, slipping under the sheets on his side.

“I just got real sleepy, Mom. Goodnight. Angels on your pillow.”

I rolled my eyes in the darkness, leaning over to kiss him on the forehead. “Angels on yours too, Coop. It was a little bit of both, huh?”

Silence followed my question for a minute or two, and then his voice, soft and sweet in its confession, answered. “Yep, maybe a little.”

*

I woke early, hoping to get a jump on looking through all the photographs I’d taken the day before and perhaps, get a little writing done on the article. Coop always rose early so it came as no surprise to find his half of the bed empty when I woke.

When he outgrew his crib several years ago, I moved him into his own room with a “big boy” bed. I made it my goal to figure out just what time he seemed to wake up each morning by setting my alarm at a different time each day—continually setting it earlier and earlier if I woke to find him already awake the day before. It didn’t matter what time I set it, Coop’s internal clock was determined to beat it. I would walk into his room every morning to find him playing with his toys. Eventually, I’d given up the effort and settled for rising by six each morning so that even if he woke earlier, he wouldn’t be unsupervised for very long.

I knew he wouldn’t have gone far and suspected he’d made his way downstairs to the kitchen, hoping to lend a helping hand with the breakfast preparations. Still, Cooper’s idea of helping wasn’t always viewed the same way by others. Deciding to forgo a shower for the moment, I brushed my hair and teeth, pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and left in search of my son.

I heard him before I saw him, giggling at the deep Scottish voice making a gurgled, horrible sound that I could only assume was an attempt at a dinosaur noise. Sure enough, as I descended the stairs, I saw Eoghanan sprawled out on his left side next to Cooper on the floor of the living room.

Each held a dinosaur—Cooper a small one with wings, Eoghanan a large t-rex. While Cooper had the advantage by keeping his dinosaur in the air, Eoghanan had his creature jumping to unimaginable heights for the short stubbiness of the dinosaur’s legs. It sent Cooper into a fit of laughter each time.

“You’re cheating.” He said it smiling, not bothered by Eoghanan’s imaginative dinosaur play. “That dinosaur couldn’t jump like that.”

“How do ye know that, lad? Have ye seen a dinosaur?”

By this point I’d reached the bottom of the stairs, but I stayed where they couldn’t see me for a moment, not wishing to interrupt their conversation. Perhaps I knew where my son’s penchant for eavesdropping came from, after all.

“No. Have
you
?” Cooper asked the question with such genuine curiosity that it left me baffled. Of course, Eoghanan had never seen a dinosaur, and Cooper knew it.

“No, lad. I havena traveled that far back. No at all.”

For the life of me, I couldn’t begin to imagine what they were talking about. Out of the loop and frustrated with my lack of understanding at their conversation, I decided to make my presence known.

“Good morning. Please tell me that you were awake when Coop found you.” I looked sympathetically at Eoghanan as I neared, sitting down on the edge of the couch next to them.

“Aye, I was. I doona sleep verra much.” Eoghanan shifted so that he could stand from his place on the floor, looking rather pleased with himself as he did so. “Ah, it feels nice to be able to move more freely. That dinna hurt me at all.”

“Good, I’m so glad.” I placed my hand on his back in a sort of congratulations. The warmth that shot through my fingers at the touch sent a jolt through my body. I enjoyed the unfamiliar feeling, but I felt him shiver a bit beneath my hand, and I jerked away awkwardly, worried that I’d made him uncomfortable. I had a tendency to be that way with people—to touch them in comfort or understanding. I supposed it was the mom in me.

Quickly, I bent to lift Cooper up into my arms to break the tension. After a good long hug, he pulled away, jerking his head toward the kitchen.

“Morna asked if I wanted to go work some sheep today.”

I smiled at his statement, not sure if I was more pleased at how excited he seemed over some sheep or at prospect of having at least part of the day to look through my photos and write.

“Sheep, huh? Do you want to go?”

He thought my question ridiculous. I could tell from how his eyes bulged when I asked it, and he twisted free from my arms so that he could pull my hand back toward the staircase.

“Of course I want to go! I need to go put on some sheep working clothes, Mom. Let’s go.”

For being such a small kid, he did a fair job of pulling me across the floor. Shaking his hand free, I waved him ahead of me. “Go on, Coop. I’m right behind you.”

Rubbing the sleepy from my eyes, I trudged up the stairs after him, watching as he stripped his pajama top even before reaching the bedroom door.

I worked consistently throughout the morning, zoned into the screen of my laptop, clicking through photos and sporadically trying to get a start on the article, only deciding to take a break after the growl of my stomach became too loud to ignore.

As I made my way down the hallway, I created a mental task list, running through all of the places still left to explore and photograph, hoping I could remember them long enough to write them all down after grabbing a bite to eat. Midway down my mental list, as I passed the last door before the staircase, a deep scream inside Eoghanan’s room made me shriek as I jumped as high as Cooper’s t-rex.

“Grace?” Eoghanan’s voice from somewhere inside the room calmed me immediately. I’d not realized that he’d stayed behind.

Cracked slightly, I stepped forward to push his bedroom door open, one hand on my rapidly beating heart in an attempt to slow it. I didn’t find him in the main room, but I could hear him grumbling something from inside the bathroom and moved toward the sound of his voice.

“Eoghanan. Are you okay? Why did you scream?”

Unthinkingly, I stepped into the center of the room, giving me a direct view into the bathroom and a wide, gorgeous shot of Eoghanan’s bare rear-end.

“Oh…gosh. So sorry.” I jerked around quickly. My bare toe caught on the corner of the bed, sending me sprawling onto the floor, arms and legs spread wide.

Eoghanan laughed loudly. Although I kept myself on the floor, folding in one arm to shield my eyes, I could imagine his body shaking from the effort of it. As I listened to him step forward to help, I held up my other hand to stop him. “Wait. Go get a towel or something.”

With the only injured party being my big toe, I pushed myself up to stand and turned right into Eoghanan’s approaching chest as he grabbed both my arms to steady me. With hesitation, I glanced downward and exhaled loudly in relief at finding him wrapped in a towel.

I didn’t need to see him naked again. I’d not been on a date since before Cooper was born…or made for that matter, and the sight of that too perfect body left me quite hot and bothered.

“What was yer name again, lass? I doona think it can be Grace. ’Tis no verra fitting.”

I laughed. He couldn’t have been more right. “Yeah, it never has been very fitting. Why did you scream? And who showers with the door open?”

Reluctantly, I tore my gaze away from his chiseled chest and looked up to see his face contorting with embarrassment.

“I dinna expect ye to walk into me bedchamber, and I dinna scream. I doona scream, lass.”

I rolled my eyes—typical man. “That was a scream if I’ve ever heard one.”

“No,” he released me, but reached up and thumbed my nose gently with his thumb and the corner of his forefinger. The gesture was playful, and I smiled as he moved back toward the bathroom. “Will ye help me with these beastly…,” he hesitated, “ye call them knobs, aye?”

I nodded, my brows pulled in. He baffled me. How could a grown man, seemingly containing all his mental faculties, know so little?

I needn’t say anything for him to see how odd I thought the question. “I told ye, lass. I dinna grow up amongst such things. I nearly melted me skin off trying to run the water.”

“Alright.” I stepped into the cramped bathroom with him, reaching down past him to fiddle with the shower knobs. “Just exactly where did you grow up? Did you wear a butt-flap and swing from the trees while being raised by monkeys?” He certainly had the physique to be a type of
Tarzan.

Eoghanan shook his head, testing the water temperature with his fingers. “No, I doona think I’ve ever seen a monkey. Thank ye, the water feels much better.”

He tugged at the corner of his towel, and I knew it was time to take my leave. That, or just jump right in with him. Appealing as the idea was, I thought it not the most ladylike of ideas.

“Good. I’ll leave you to it then.” I stopped walking just as he started to close the bathroom door, my own grumbling stomach reminding me of my manners. “Have you eaten anything in a while? I thought I’d go round up something for myself. I’ll bring you up something, if you’d like.”

I could just see his face in the doorway, and I couldn’t help but think how likely it was that his towel had dropped already. “Aye, I’d love that, lass.”

Smiling, he shut the door to me. Taking a breath to regain some sense of composure, I went down to the kitchen.

*

I spent the entire length of our salted cracker lunch apologizing at regular intervals for our lack of food choices. “You’re going to be starving by dinner. I truly am sorry. It’s as if she cooks her meals with magic. Seriously, I don’t understand it. She’s always cooking, but she has nothing in her cupboards. It’s…” I truly had no word for it, “astonishing.”

“Grace,” he reached out and squeezed my hand, holding it long enough to quicken my pulse. “If ye apologize once more, I willna eat another bite. ’Tis no yer job, nor Morna’s, to see me fed.” Winking, he popped another cracker into his mouth.

I watched him eat, observing him closely. He lifted every cracker with his left hand, leaving his right arm hanging at his side. He did such a good job of compensating with his left arm that I’d not noticed how little he used his right. Still, something about the way he gripped things seemed a little unnatural, and I ventured a guess that he was actually right-handed. “You write with your right hand, don’t you?”

The left corner of his mouth lifted and he shifted to face me. “Aye, and thankfully I still can do so, as long as I doona move me elbow too much. When the sword came down, it cut me deepest right along me shoulder muscle,” he paused, lifting his left hand as he traced one of his fingers along the red line, showing me its path. “Then, it hit me bone and turned, traveling underneath and along me ribs. ’Tis made me right shoulder difficult to move, but Morna says it will heal eventually.”

My eyes bugged nearly out of my head. Whatever I’d imagined as the cause of such an injury, I’d not considered a blade—a piece of machinery perhaps, but not a weapon. “A sword?”

“Aye, a mighty large one.” He took a long look at my face, observing my look of shock. “Doona worry, lass. He’s dead now—the man who did it.”

He said it so dismissively that I couldn’t help but swallow a laugh. He seemed to believe that I wondered more about whether the man who’d assaulted him was dead or alive, than why in hell someone had come at him with a sword in the first place.

Just as I opened my mouth to ask, he spoke again, changing the conversation entirely.

“I’m sorry if I frightened ye. Ye thought yerself alone, aye?”

“Yes, I did, but there’s no need to apologize.”

He nodded in acknowledgement of what I said and blew a long strand of unruly hair out of his face with his lower lip. He did it often, and I found myself wondering if months of being unable to lift his right shoulder had left him less groomed than he’d like.

“Would you…” I hesitated, hoping I wasn’t about to over-step. “Would you like me to cut it for you?” I pointed to the curly strand. “You sometimes act like it gets in your way, or I could at least pull it back?”

He glanced up, his eyes crossing as he made eye contact with the annoying strand. “If ye doona mind, but I wouldna wish to take ye from yer work.”

“Ah,” I waved a hand dismissively. “I’m done with that for now. This seems more urgent.” I reached both hands up, slipping my fingers into his red locks, messing his hair around to get a feel for how it needed to be cut.

I’d cut Cooper’s hair his whole life. Although their shade was different, the texture of their hair was very much the same—curly and, although not frizzy, the shiny curls on both men were not easily ruled, bouncing out of place at their whim. His neck relaxed as I played with his hair, and his eyes closed in pleasure. Men often didn’t get to experience how lovely it felt to have their hair properly messed with.

“If ye insist, I doona have it in me to argue.”

“I do. You’ll feel much better when you get some of this off your neck.” I stood and moved to stand behind him, lifting the hair at the base of his neck. He lay his head back in my hands, and I massaged his scalp as I gathered the strands. “Do you always keep your hair long?”