Pitch Imperfect (26 page)

Anjuli launched herself into the unpredictable sea. “Will you marry me?”

Rob’s stood so still she wondered if he’d heard her, then his eyes glinted and he seemed to come to a decision. He opened his mouth, shut it, then turned his back and walked out of the pub. The heavy wood, banging against the frame, was identical to the echoes in her dream.

The sound of rejection.

* * *

The black Honda behind her was getting on Anjuli’s nerves, flashing its lights as if that would make a difference to her speed. The driver tailgated her as she meandered on the serpentine road towards Heaverlock Castle. Forty miles an hour was the fastest Ash’s car could manage these days, and Anjuli was in no mood to stop in a ditch just so Mr. Impatient could hurtle down the road at breakneck speed. So he could like it or...pass her with irate beeps and a gesture his mother would be ashamed of.

By the time she reached the tourist signpost to Heaverlock Castle it was 9:00 p.m. and the late summer sun was beginning its descent. Swathes of violet and red streaked across the sky, promising another glorious sunset. How could it look so brilliant when her world seemed bleak and colourless? Tears overflowed Anjuli’s eyes and oh, did they burn. She didn’t blink them away or wipe her face. Let the streams scour her skin; let them sink in and scar her cheeks with indelible proof of her regret.

Oh
,
Christ.
One small song had released the drama queen.

Hadn’t she once compared herself to Scarlett O’Hara? Well, just like Rhett Butler in
Gone with the Wind
, Rob had walked out after she’d finally declared her love. The End. Because unlike Scarlett O’Hara there would be no happy-ever-after sequel for
her
. For her there would be disbelief and desolation that stretched for miles. Was this how Rob had felt when she’d left him at the altar? As if the ground underneath his feet had opened and there was nothing he could do but fall straight into hell?

Heaverlock Castle looked purple in the sunset and as always, the inaccessible parapet drew her eyes. Silent. Enduring. Inviting her to swallow the pain as she had so many times before. Anjuli stopped the car and narrowed her eyes at the parapet. A different sort of desire rose in her gut.

Purpose.

She was sick of silence and tired of sorrow; bone weary of unachievable dreams. If Rob thought she would give up on him then she would prove him wrong. She would fight his indifference the same way he had fought his cancer. With bravery. Persistence. The refusal to surrender.

Anjuli drove over the bridge and instead of continuing to Castle Manor, she left the car at the castle. Barefoot, she sprinted across the prickly grass, down and up the castle moat and along the south wall, stopping just shy of the entrance to the inner courtyard. She stared at the dark grey stone, focusing on every crack and depression at eye level. A lone ant made its leisurely way across the cracks and she let it pass unharmed. One must not pound on defenceless creatures.

Semi-ruined castles, however, are fair game.

Anjuli beat her fists against the wall just like she had in her dreams, ordering the stone to let her in. Instant physical pain spread from her palm to her elbows but she didn’t stop, wishing she had boots on so she could aim a few kicks also. She knew it was childish; she knew it looked crazy, but living in isolation had certain advantages, and yelling at a castle was one of them.

Finished with her attack, she turned around—and almost jumped out of her skin. Rob was standing about five feet behind her, watching her with a wary yet amused look on his face.

“You could use the entrance,” he suggested.

Flustered, she wiped her hands on her dress. “It’s more fun this way.”

“It’s demented and hard to watch.”

“Well, you could have told me you were there.”

“I was afraid you’d prefer a softer target.”

Wordlessly, Anjuli stared at him. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t stand here and pretend he hadn’t just turned down her marriage proposal in front of the entire village. Poetic justice at its finest.

Why had he come?

Oh. It must be the money she owed him. Of course, he wanted to know when he’d get paid. Don’t give me your heart, just give me your cash. Or maybe he’d come to inspect the fire damage and see if buying Castle Manor was still worth his while. Every ounce of common sense told her to cut her losses and sell him the house. Ah, well, since when was common sense one of her stronger traits? At some point a woman’s got to accept her deficiencies and work with what she has.

Anjuli did some quick thinking. She had another asset she could sell besides her manor, now that she knew she still possessed it. Only a few weeks ago singing for her supper would have seemed impossible. The idea still made her queasy, but maybe, just maybe, she could perform again if it meant keeping her manor.

“I’m not selling,” she said.

Rob’s eyebrows danced upwards. “And the fire damage? Even with the loan, the repairs will be expensive if your insurance doesn’t pay out.”

She glanced toward the house. “I’ve come into some unexpected funds.”

“A debt repaid?”

From Rob’s tight expression he must be thinking of Brendan, but Anjuli pictured Mac’s sad face as she’d handed her the cheque. “I guess you could call it that.”

Neither of them spoke, as if breaking the silence would somehow destroy the tenuous calm between them. Rob looked toward the bridge and out over the manor. “Ben told me Angus Buchanan is being charged with the theft. I’m glad.”

“He’ll probably say it was my fault for flaunting my Englishness in his country.”

“Angus is an ignorant git.”

Why were they talking about things that had no meaning? Would he say nothing about her public declaration of love or her proposal? She wanted to breach the distance between them with a kiss, force him to talk to her, but maybe
she
had to be the patient one this time. The one who waited. She had a lot to answer for and there was so much wrong with her no number of counselling sessions or self-help books would help, but perhaps, in time, Rob would allow her to make up for it.

“I’ll guess it’s time for a dramatic exit,” Anjuli said, and forced herself to walk away.

Rob stopped her, swamping her hand in his palm. “I was waiting for you.” He turned her hand over, tsking at the angry red marks where the stone had dug into her skin. “Do you love me, lass?”

His eyes were bright with the raw, naked intensity she remembered, an emotion he’d once lavished on her and which she had discarded so stupidly. “So much it hurts. God knows I didn’t want to love you—I didn’t want to feel that sort of fear ever again—but it seems that I can’t stop. I’m messed up and sometimes that means I do stupid, crazy things. And I’m so afraid I’ll lose you it makes me ill.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze. “You’re going to worry about me, no matter what,” he said gruffly. “And I’m going to do the same about you. Why do you think I flew back after the fire?”

“I thought you didn’t care that I could have died,” she said, voice small.

Rob drew her into his chest and kissed her hair, her cheek and finally her lips. “I wanted you to ask me back home.”

Anjuli inhaled deeply, taking into her the scent of windswept moors and of the stone she had just pummelled with her fists. Strong. Enduring.

“You walked away at the pub,” she said, hearing again the door bang shut behind him.

He looked chagrined. “I didn’t trust myself to stay. The villagers of Heaverlock would be shocked to witness the next development in our relationship.”

She peeked up at him. “We have a relationship?”

“I told you you’d be my wife and I meant it. I went home to get something. I knew you would come here.” He reached into his pocket and took out a large padlock key. “I was going to give you this the day I saw you with Damien.”

Bemused, Anjuli stared at the old-fashioned key. Some men give you flowers; others jewels or clothing. Books, even. Rob used to be the dinner-and-soft-music type, but maybe he was now a hardware sort of man.

“Err, thanks, I’ve always wanted a rusty old key.”

Rob lifted Anjuli into his arms. He ignored her surprised squeak and carried her into the castle.

“What are you doing? Have you gone crazy? Put me down. Be careful...oh God, I’m not looking.”

He chuckled, the only answer she heard other than his steady breathing as he traversed the courtyard, then walked up the precarious steps to the north tower. She knew better than to squirm, lest he lose his balance and they tumble to their deaths. His feet were steady, his arms tight, and she found herself wishing there were more than fifty-six steps to her favorite spot. When they got there he set her down in front of the keep-out sign.

He looked pleased at her bemused astonishment. “Your parapet awaits, my lady,” he said, pointing to the key.

For a moment Anjuli couldn’t speak, her heart thudding from the climb and from anticipation. “How?” she said, shaking her head in delighted disbelief.

Rob shrugged. “I restored an old tower for Historic Scotland and met the curator for Heaverlock.”

Anjuli stared at the blasted, hated keep-out sign. Finally, after years of wondering, she was going to step behind the barrier and see the top of Heaverlock Castle. She took his hand and they went through the narrow doorway together.

Twenty-two broken steps later they emerged at the top of the castle, next to the turret. Circular, empty, except for a few old birds’ nests and dried bracken blown in by the wind. The Elizabethan window frame, so graceful in the otherwise dour fort, felt as cool and smooth as she’d always imagined. Its pointed arch and four square partitions divided the landscape into symmetrical thirds of river, moor and sky.

The wide walkway on the parapet was intact, if strewn with natural debris. Holding her hand, Rob guided her over the stones until they reached the middle of the crenellated wall. She’d been in taller buildings, skyscrapers that had transformed the cities below into tiny blocks of concrete and which had made parks seem like patios. But she’d never felt as high as at that moment, at the top of a crumbling castle, with Rob. Too exhilarated for words.

Rob’s body was outlined in vermilion and she wondered if she, too, appeared as ethereal. “I love you,” he said between kisses. “And I’ll always try to make your dreams come true.”

She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry and she wanted to sing, but most of all she wanted to feel Rob’s lips on hers. How many times had she compared him to a statue in her mind? He was a statue come to life, Greek Adonis or rustic Border Lord, it didn’t matter which. Not when she couldn’t breathe through his kiss, when her happiness was so intense it liquefied her bones. If he didn’t stop kissing her she would become nothing more than a puddle, absorbed into the parapet, another dark stain on the grey stone beneath her feet.

She had once wondered if sorrow could co-exist with joy and now she knew that it could. That pain could cripple you for life if you let it, or it could help you feel joy that much more intensely. She didn’t care whether her thinking was sound or balanced, or if the ache in her breast would ever cease. Maybe she needed her sorrow to give her happiness the respect it was due—and never take it for granted.

Rob kissed the tears on her cheeks, catching the new ones on his lips. As if attuned to the kaleidoscope of feelings rushing through her, he turned her around and pulled her shoulders against his chest. Silently, they looked at the river and the moors, at the distant horizon and colour-streaked sky.

“You’ll always grieve for Chloe,” Rob said, wrapping his arms around her. “Sometimes I wish I had the power to take away your sorrow, make you forget.”

“And sometimes I wish for the same,” she whispered.

“But then it would be as if Chloe had never existed. You would lose your memories and every moment you shared with her would be gone. Would you want that?”

An image of her face, a waft of her scent. “No.”

Rob brushed his lips against the crook of her neck, and then his body tensed. “Will I be enough for you?”

“Too much, I suspect.”

His hands dug into her hips, pressing her against his erection. “I wanted to pound Damien into the ground for touching you.”

“Pound into me instead.”

With a low growl, he whipped her around and carried her into the turret. And then her arms were braceleted above her head, her back against the cool stone as he rolled his hips against her. The expression on his face bordered on savage, sending a frisson of excitement down her spine. In her mind he shackled her hands to the walls and entered her, torso to breast and thigh to thigh.

“Am I your prisoner, Lord Douglas?”

“Aye.” He kissed her lips, nuzzled her jaw and shoulder. “I read Border Lord’s Captive up to Chapter five.”

“That’s their first kiss.”

“I aim to do much better.”

Oh God
. A wave of sensual heat travelled through her body, from her toes to the tips of her fingers and the hair on her scalp. He could do that to her with only a softly voiced sentence; infuse her with lust as vibrant as the streaks in the sky. Passion and longing, love and desire. He coloured her with all of them. Rob released her hands and stepped back, visibly struggling for control.

Thankful for the wall at her back, Anjuli let it take her weight as she watched him remove his clothes. No hesitation, regarding her with a steady look that compelled her to watch his every move. As if she could look away! Rob may not have put her in shackles but she was his prisoner all the same, gaze harnessed to his body. He unbuckled his belt, drawing her eye to the protrusion below it, straining against his zipper. Getting bigger, lengthening before her eyes. He left his shirt open and slowly, deliberately, shrugged off his trousers and boxers. Her lips parted as she filled her vision with his virility.

Rob smiled and his shirt became a flash of grey, blending into the stone. He stood, proud and erect, before her. If she had more control she would force her eyes to stay on the muscled curve of his shoulders or the firm definition in his arms. To rest at the corded muscles in his abdomen, tight as he inhaled. But she’d always been a floozy where Rob was concerned, and her eyes stayed on his erection.