Page 49 of Kindling
“I was worried sick!” he snapped, and then recoiled, an ache building behind his eyes. He wished he didn’t always imagine the worst. He might have been thirty-three, but he felt like a kid lost in the supermarket far too often.
Cam’s face morphed into worry, the mirth quickly wiped from her features. “Fraser…”
“What’s wrong?” Harper’s voice echoed in the otherwise empty café, calm and oblivious to the storm raging inside him.
“What’s wrong is that I thought you were lost, or hurt.” He paced towards her, anger replacing his anxiety without warning. “You didn’t come back with Dot.”
She regarded him with bewilderment. “I wanted to stay a while longer. There was a nice view.”
“In this weather?” He jabbed a finger at the rivulets running down the windows. The loch heaved outside, leaves whistling through the wind as though pulled along by strings. “You could have slipped up there!”
“I wasn’t on my own.”
“Jesus.” Fraser shook his head, nausea bubbling inside him. Of all the strange, unwelcome feelings he’d had for Harper, this was the one he hated most. This was why he’d put distance between them. This was why he didn’t do relationships.
“Fraser…” Harper stood up. Took a tentative step towards him.
“Why didn’t you pick up your phone?”
She pulled it from her pocket and checked the screen. “No signal. The Wi-Fi must be down. Sorry. I didn’t know. But I was fine. Icanmanage a day without you, you know.” Her own words were barbed now.
He was in no mood to fight with her. If anything, he wanted to drag her home and kiss her until the tempest inside him settled. Until there were no more doubts that she was safe. Until he could feel her blood pumping, heart beating, and this close encounter with his worst fears became nothing more than a distant memory.
He tore off his coat and draped it over the back of the nearest chair before sagging into the one at her table. He glared at the back of her rose-gold laptop until she sat down opposite, clearly unsettled.
“You’re still drenched,” he pointed out, pinching one of her damp curls between his fingers.
She shrugged. “I was too cold for a shower in the cabin, and I couldn’t find any firewood. Thought I’d dry off here. It’s warmer.”
“I bought you a heater,” he prompted.
She clucked her tongue. “Okay, fine. I was scared the flimsy walls were going to come down in this wind, but that doesn’t make me a damsel in distress!”
He wanted to laugh but couldn’t find it in him. Now the fear was gone, the anger subdued, he felt hollowed out. His insides were a shipwreck.
Why? Why had this –she– affected him so much?Because she’s my guest, he tried to reason with himself, but that didn’t feel like a good enough explanation for such a ridiculous reaction.
“The walls aren’t flimsy.” When he took her hand, she shivered. “I have a perfectly functioning hot shower in my house.”
“Well, I know you’re upset, but there’s no need to brag.” She shut her laptop abruptly.
He scoffed. “You are an eejit, Harper. That was anoffer, not a brag.”
Narrowing her eyes, she leaned forwards. He hated that, even now, in all her stubbornness, she was perfect, baby hairs sticking to her temples and her cheeks an endearing rosy pink. A beauty spot kissed her jaw, just under her double-pierced right earlobe. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? Why hadn’t he already kissed it?
“An offer,” she repeated as though suspicious of some hidden clause. “Does this come as a perk for all your cabin guests?”
“Only the obnoxious ones.”
She rolled her eyes and stood up, burying her laptop and notebook in her oversized shoulder bag. “You didn’t even ask me how my hike was.”
“I know how it was. Wet, windy, and dangerous.”
“Cam, your brother is a wrongun,” she called over his head.
Cam chuckled. “Only when he cares, believe it or not. That means you have to forgive him.”
He couldn’t help but admire his sister for recognising this truth. For better or worse.
