“WAIT!” He set out after her. The fool! He wascertain that there were no more buildings on the island. Cold andwet as she already was and without any kind of shelter, she wouldsurely catch her death staying the night out in this weather.
Reaching the top of the hill where he’d seen herlast, he stared in frustration at the wild and dark terrain aroundhim. The sound of the storm was matched only by the loud crashingof the surf in the distance. The sleet was stinging his face and hecould see very little. He had no idea where she had disappearedto.
“By St. Andrew, I told you I meant no harm,” heshouted into the night.
Still, he was not ready to give up, even though hecouldn’t see much beyond his next step. The ground was shiny fromthe rain. Jumping down from a ledge of a stone, Colin pushedon.
She had to be a daughter to the reclusive husbandand wife he’d heard about. But he recalled hearing that they wereso old, and she was so young. And then there was the mending hefound in the room—the young child’s dress and cap. His curiositywas definitely piqued.
He had no fear of getting lost. He could see thelight of his fire reflecting on the walls of the priory buildings.What he needed to be careful of, though, were the bluffs to thewest. One missed step there, and he’d drop forty feet into the surfand the rocks.
And something told him his bonny hostess wouldprobably not pull him out again.
Colin stumbled on a mound of stone and shells.Coming to an abrupt stop, he peered down. Right before him, therewere actually two mounds, side by side. Crouching before them, hecould see a carefully arranged blanket of shells with large smoothstones piled on top.
Graves. Two of them.
Well, at least he knew where the old couple hadended up.
As Tess worked her way out along the cliff, the windbuffeting off the rocks nearly knocked her from the narrow ledge ahalf dozen times. Once, inching across a particularly narrow ledge,her foot slipped on an icy spot. Tess clawed desperately at theslippery rocks, managing somehow to stop herself from falling intothe frothy sea. A few moments later she had made it to herdestination, only to realize it was all for naught.
The tide was too high. She’d never seen the water upso far on the cliff face. The waves were crashing in above theopening to her cave. The footpath on the side of the opening wascompletely submerged. It was no good. She couldn’t get in.
If she had been able to get inside, she knew thehoneycomb of caves well. Inside, some of the underground passagesclimbed upward. Even at the highest surges, there were dry placeswhere she could take shelter. She’d be safe.
Desperate to get out of harm’s way, she consideredjumping in the sea and trying to swim in. On many of the lowercaves, she’d seen the seals forever playing their games and ridingthe surf into the caverns.
Tess turned and started clambering back up the rocksthe way she came. She was thankful that her miserable physicalcondition had not affected her state of mind. Banging her headagainst the rocks or having her body drawn out to sea by the tidewas no solution to her predicament. Fighting with the Highlanderhad given her a temporary surge of strength, but as she finallyclimbed up over the ledge, she knew she had nothing more left.
He’d said he meant no harm. But Charlotte had warnedher about the lies, too.
He was bigger. He was stronger. He was quicker.
He was a Highlander.
That alone gave Tess reason enough to distrusthim.
Exhausted, she was barely able to lower herself intoa cleft between two rocks. She was still exposed to the sleet andthe rain, but at least she was protected from the wind.
Colin waited for the first light of dawn to lightenthe sky before going out searching for her again. Other thanfinding the graves, no good had come out of his last attempt. Butthis time he was determined to find and bring her back. It had beendamn cold last night. Hopefully, she was still alive.
The sleeting rain had stopped, but charred grayclouds continued to lock out the sky. The wind, though, seemed tohave picked up even more.
Colin started out in the same direction he’d seenher go the night before. From there, he descended into a valleythat cut the island in half and climbed the next hill. It was thehighest point in the island. Standing on top of it, he now had anunobstructed view of everything, including the two piles of rock ateither end, known as North Ness and South Ness. His eyes scannedthe turbulent sea to the horizon in every direction. There was nosign of a ship anywhere.
The Isle of May was much longer than it was wide.And he had been right the night before. There were no otherbuildings. Very few trees even. No place where a stubborn womancould have taken shelter for the night. But she had to besomewhere.
Colin tried to imagine what he would do in herplace. The answer was simple. He would have stayed put and heardthe stranger out.
Women!
He again focused his thoughts on where she couldpossibly have gone. The east shore consisted of stony slopesdescending gradually to the sea’s edge. A tidal pool here and therehardly offered any place to hide and not much in the way ofshelter. The west shore, on the other hand, offered a possibility.He turned his steps in that direction.
Colin’s hopes rose when he reached the high, ruggedcliffs with their sharp ledges and deep crevices. Peering over thetop, he gazed down the rock face and watched the many sea birdssailing along the line of cliffs, wheeling and sometimes landing onthe ledges. They sometimes would disappear from his view. If theywere nesting here, he guessed that there could be any number ofcaves in these rocks.
He could only hope that she had found some placeprotected from the sleet and the cold during the night.
He started moving northward along the cliffs,looking for a place to climb down safely.
