Secret Garden (27 page)

“I have to keep my tour card,” Colin said quietly. “If at all possible.”

McGuff glanced at him. “Do you want it enough to work with Somer Grinks again?”

There were drawbacks to that. Grinks’s contempt for Colin’s work ethic, for one. The lousy way Grinks had made Colin feel when he gave him those withering looks, for another.

“If you’d like, I’ll arrange for you to have a conversation with him, laddie. And I don’t do this lightly,” McGuff warned. “Did you know Grinks sits on the board of your American Association? If anyone has sway in easing the path and bending the rules for special cases, it’s him.”

“I didn’t know that.” Colin looked at McGuff gratefully. “I’ll think about it—thanks.”

“Never mind, lad. I’m doing it because you’re my friend and you’ve shown me your character. Now, let’s get you fixed up and then brought home to your castle. There’s somebody there who’s been asking for you.”

* * *

R
HIANNON WAITED FOR
Colin in the great room before the stone fireplace. She was watched over by the full contingent of minders: Jessie, Malcolm, Isabel and Kristin, while Paul bustled in and out of the kitchen ferrying sandwich trays and biscuits.

Rhiannon’s instincts had been to wait alone, retreating to the quiet of her private world, but a desire to show her family that she was fine—not in need of their solicitousness—had overtaken her and now, here she was.

Isabel and Kristin sat on a corner couch, quietly browsing a stack of Isabel’s bridal magazines and commenting on dresses. Malcolm said nothing, just sat beside Rhiannon drumming his fingers on his leg, absently watching a football match on the wide screen, looking concerned, while Jessie sat knitting in a chair by the window. Rhiannon simply kept an eye on the front drive, as well.

They’d been waiting for hours. They were rather a subdued lot, likely on her account, Rhiannon supposed.

Today’s incident horrified her still.

The thing that most shamed her was that she’d run from Colin. She felt terrible about that. He’d been writhing in pain, and in her panic, she’d been unable to consider staying and helping him—she’d just reacted and bolted from a sense of her own terror. In all her past years of panic attacks, she’d never experienced anything quite like this before.

She hoped Colin came back to them, but she wasn’t sure he would. He had a plane ticket home for Texas, scheduled to leave on Monday from Edinburgh. She wouldn’t blame him if he picked up his things from the cottage and then drove straight to an airport hotel.

Molly laid her golden retriever’s head on Rhiannon’s lap and gazed mournfully up at her. Their family pets always seemed to pick up on her mood.

“Poor Molly,” Rhiannon murmured, ruffling her fur. “And you did so well today, staying obediently on your leash before all those people.” Rhiannon had done well, too. Better than she’d expected.

But it hadn’t been enough.

Tears threatened to break through, so she hurriedly brushed them away and then glanced around. She’d been discreet enough that no one had noticed. At least their silence enabled her to pretend she was inside her secret garden. She could close her eyes and quietly move through today’s events moment by moment, remembering how she’d felt at each step of the way. Maybe then she could find an answer, because it was unacceptable that her reaction could be so out of hand that it directly resulted in injury to another.

Especially to
him
.

She swallowed, the tears threatening again. No one else lifted her day like Colin.

More than anything, she’d wanted to be with him. She’d wanted to go where he did, to physically express her love for the man she deeply cared about the same way any other woman would.

The problem was, she hadn’t thought it through well enough before the passion overtook her today. Rushed away by her hormones and emotions, she’d blithely agreed to hop into that car without really thinking about the ramifications of crossing that boundary line.

Tires sounded on gravel outside, and everyone looked to the window.

Jacob stepped out of the driver’s side of the car and then assisted Colin from the passenger’s seat. He wore a medical boot on his left foot and walked with the aid of crutches.

Rhiannon’s heart sank. She’d been nurturing the hope that he would miraculously be without injury.

Jacob carried Colin’s sporran, boot and
sgian-dubh
into the great room for him. Both men still wore their kilts, as did Malcolm.

Colin’s eyes widened when he saw them all sitting there with her. He seemed shocked by the small crowd of people waiting for him. He gazed questioningly at Rhiannon, and she gave him a tentative smile.

“Are you all right, Colin?” Malcolm spoke first. “What’s the diagnosis?”

“McGuff’s specialist said it’s deep bruising, essentially.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ll be fine,” Colin said curtly. “Thanks, though.”

Jacob set down the clothing items that Colin had had to jettison, and then he took out his own car keys. “Malcolm, Kristin, Isabel—let’s get going.”

Isabel gave Rhiannon a smile of support. “We’ll see you later,” she murmured. “Take care.” Kristin scooted off the couch, too, and the two women and Jacob said goodbye to them and then immediately headed off. Malcolm hesitated.

“Are you all right?” Malcolm asked Rhiannon. “Really?”

“Yes,” she said, “please do go. Stop worrying about me.”

For once, her brother obeyed her.

That left Jessie in the room with them. Colin’s nana picked up her knitting and gave him a pat on his broad shoulders. “I’ll go have a wee cuppie with Paul in the kitchen. We’ll talk later.”

“Thanks, Nana,” Colin said.

Now the two of them were completely alone. The room was so silent Rhiannon heard the grandfather clock ticking. Colin remained standing.

“I’m sorry I did that to you,” he said in a low voice.

“What? No!” She walked over to him, but he didn’t seem to be welcoming her as usual, so at the last moment she decided to just lean against the back of the couch she’d been sitting on, her fingers gripping the edges. “I’m the one who’s sorry,” Rhiannon said. “You did nothing wrong. I did, when I ran from you.”

A line appeared in his forehead. “Is that because you thought I was kidnapping you?”

“No!” She gave him a look of horror. “I wish I’d acted like that when I was kidnapped. Colin, do you realize how many years I’ve berated myself because I couldn’t scream or run from danger?”

He made the closest noise to a laugh that she’d heard since he came into the room. “You sure screamed well today, Rhiannon. Ran the hundred meter dash in close to ten seconds, too.”

“Yes,” she said lightly, “but don’t be signing me up for the Olympics yet.”

His smile faded away. They both knew there was no dancing around the subject. They had to address it.

“Rhiannon, I made a mistake inviting you into that car. You told me from the beginning what the rules were, and I should’ve followed them.”

“Actually I’d changed my mind about that.” She fingered his
sgian-dubh
on the table. “I
was
trying to leave the property with you on purpose. You and I did have a whopping success at the gathering today, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, we were doing pretty good until it all blew up, weren’t we?”

Put that way, it sounded pathetic, even to her. When it came down to it, the way she lived her life wasn’t normal or compatible to a man like him. He was a public person; he traveled, he competed, he enjoyed his life on a much bigger canvas than she did.

She’d wanted to share some of that canvas. She’d been willing to at least try, in a small way, to mesh with the realities of his life.

“My plan was to ask you to go on tour with me,” he said. “Just to the first tournament in New York, just to have you there. You know?”

He’d wanted to take their relationship that far? She hadn’t realized he felt so strongly about her, too. Rhiannon put her hand to her heart.

But Colin’s smile faded as he studied his foot in the cast. “I have to withdraw from the New York Cup, Rhiannon.”

Her heart cried for him. “There’ll be another tournament when you’re healed, won’t there?”

“Of course.” He gave her one of his brilliant smiles, as if everything were fine when they both knew that it wasn’t. “My team is looking at the schedule for September.”

“So...would you still like to try to be with me?” She held her breath, hanging on his answer. Something about him seemed reluctant, as if he was leery to trust her again.

“Rhiannon, can we sit down a minute? I need to ask you about something.”

“Okay.” Her heart pounding, she took the smaller couch, where Kristin and Isabel had been looking at bridal dresses. Colin hobbled over on his crutches, and setting them down, took the seat at cross angles to her, their bare knees touching.

But he wasn’t paying attention to that right now. He was looking at her very seriously. Was that sorrow in his eyes?

“Were you molested by the kidnappers?” he asked in a low voice.

“What? Colin, who said that about me?”

“I’m sorry to ask. But I want to be clear about what happened so I know the truth of what you went through.” His face was serious.

“Does that make a difference to you?” she asked.

“Yeah, I need to understand everything because I don’t want to hurt you again. The honesty of it is what makes the most difference. It’s important to me that I hear this stuff from you, not other people.”

She could understand that. Important people in his life had kept things from him. Things that had eventually blown up and hurt him deeply, like the funeral. Colin had lived with deception for too long.

But her refusal to speak about all the details of her kidnapping wasn’t about being deceptive. Her silence was about keeping control of her emotions, about keeping a grip on her sanity and not frightening herself. If she didn’t talk about what had happened, then she could forget about it, lock it away and convince herself that everything was okay.

“Honestly I wasn’t molested. I wasn’t even physically hurt.” She indicated the medical boot on his foot. “You were injured today more than I ever was.”

His mouth twisted. “What about the ropes they found attached to the wall of the cell?”

“I’m sorry you heard about that. It wasn’t as bad as you’re probably thinking. They tied me up the first night, but when they realized I was too scared to run, they didn’t do it again.”

“Did you ever talk about it with anyone?” he asked.

She smiled sadly at Colin. It was true that some women worked with therapists, wrote down their stories, sometimes even went on speaking tours as a way of regaining their power over their abusers. She had the utmost respect for these women, but they weren’t her. “It just isn’t my way to talk to anyone, Colin. I am who I am.”

“Sometimes I wonder about that,” Colin said quietly. “I don’t want to push you, but wouldn’t it be good for you to look into a professional treatment program for your agoraphobia?”

She stiffened. “I went through that when I was young. I know their techniques.”

“If you’re sure...”

“I am, Colin.”

“Okay.” He nodded. Blew out a breath. “Well, I’m glad your kidnappers are dead,” he muttered.

“Don’t say that.” She stared at her hands. “To Malcolm those three men were monsters. To me...honestly...” She looked up at Colin, because the only reason she was speaking so frankly was for his sake. She wanted to
try
to be there for him—give him what he needed from her.

Tears welled in her eyes. “The truth is that I felt sorry for them. The youngest one especially. He wasn’t...cut out for what the other two had drawn him into. I listened to them at night through the door, and...”

She shook her head. “I prefer to leave it to rest. I always knew that I would tell the policeman’s son what he said about him before he died, and I did—I told Jacob Ross when he came to me last year. That was a promise I made to myself long ago. But as for the rest of it...”

She sighed. “The main thing that bothered me, Colin, was that I lost control and panicked. Because of my fear, I didn’t speak out or run when we could have. Maybe that’s why keeping my emotions steady and calm is so important to me. I find calm here, on the estate. But it’s not working for me anymore, because I want to be with you. More than anything, I don’t want to lose what we found this week. I want to bring it further. That’s what I was trying to do by getting in that car with you.”

She gazed at him, pleading and feeling desperate, laying her heart out on the table for him.

The way she saw it, she had two choices. Stay the way she was, safe in her castle and free from fear, or try again to leave so she could build a life with him on his terms. The love she was feeling for him was something she didn’t want to risk losing.

Rhiannon took a deep breath. She’d been thinking about this, and it was a big step for her. “You helped me to be lady of the estate, and I still want that, someday, but my mother is coming back in a few weeks. So before she returns, I’d like to take the natural progression and venture off the property. I’d like to try to leave the estate again with you, Colin. Without a car this time.”

His jaw dropped.

“If you could help me try one more time, if you could be patient with me again, and let me do it consciously, out of love, then that would mean a lot to me.”

“I can be patient.”

“So...you’ll stay in Scotland a while longer, then?”

“Yes. McGuff’s specialist thinks it will take two weeks to recover enough that I can play again. Until then, I’ll stay here. But after that, I’m spending a month in boot camp with a swing coach, and then some training practice, before I head back to the tour.”

“Sounds like you’ll be busy,” she said wistfully.

“I travel, Rhiannon. It’s the reality of my life.”

She didn’t know if she could ever live like that. It was too much for her to even contemplate that lifestyle right now.

Colin saw her reluctance. He nudged her. “The boot camp I’m going to is at a quiet, peaceful location in the Arizona desert near Sedona. Rhiannon, it’s a painter’s paradise. We could find a private cabin near the golf course where you wouldn’t be bothered by outside people. If you could make it there...if I could arrange a private flight for you out of Inverness, I think you’d love it. Really love it.”