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Elspeth took the hat, scarf and mittens that Malcolm had pulled for her out of the cupboard by the door and thanked the Scottish weather gods for the weak sun and clear sky. She waved goodbye to Malcolm and headed out of the door and away from the sun, taking the bridge over the burn, and walking down the gravel path that led to the castle ruins and the loch, her shadow stretching far ahead of her. The sun caught on the face of the old stones, which seemed to glow a warm, creamy grey in the soft light.
She couldn’t see Fraser yet, but much of the ruins was hidden in shadow, so she walked on.
The look on his face when he had argued with his father... It had been like a window into the deepest depths of his hurt. As if every doubt and fear that he had held over the whole of his life had re-emerged at once. She had seen the anger crash over him like a wave, and then seen the fear in his face as a response.
He had not walked out of that room because of the anger. He had been afraid. Of what, though? Of what he might say to his father? Of what he might hear? Or was he simply afraid of the feeling itself, overwhelmed by an emotion he wasn’t equipped to deal with?
Perhaps she would learn something more about him up here, seeing the place he sought out when he needed to be grounded. Even if he wasn’t there she needed to see it, now that Malcolm had told her it meant so much to Fraser. She wanted to know him. To understand him. Because he was the father of her child, she told herself.
But the thought rang false. Like when she glanced at an X-ray and knew there was something wrong before she’d had time to work out what it was.
Her feelings for Fraser had nothing to do with the baby.
She tried to unpick that sensation—the unease of having a thought, a feeling, lurking in her subconscious, just out of reach. If the way she felt about Fraser had nothing to do with him being the father of her child... Then it was him.
As soon as she articulated the thought to herself she knew that it was true.
From the first time that she had seen Fraser at Janet’s wedding she had wanted him. That hadn’t stopped just because of the circumstances that they now found themselves in. She couldn’t stop responding to him, remembering the way that she had responded to his body, just because she knew that a relationship with him would never work. She had feelings for him. She admitted it at last.
But that didn’t mean she was going to act on those feelings. It didn’t mean she was suddenly released from her responsibi
lities and free to be with him. She’d already proved that she couldn’t be in a relationship. Alex had made her choose where her priorities lay, and she had chosen her family. There was no reason the universe would suddenly bend its rules just because she was attracted to Fraser.
The path she was following twisted through a small copse of trees and Elspeth shivered, pulling the hat lower over her ears and the scarf tighter around her neck. When she emerged into the sunshine again she could see a figure up by the ruins, walking slowly along one of the fallen walls, jumping from stone to stone where the grass had grown in—nature reclaiming the site for its own.
She would have known it was Fraser even if Malcolm hadn’t told her he would probably be there. She wondered when she had committed it to memory—the shape of his body, the way he moved, how he carried himself.
Had it been that night, when for hours he had been the silhouette between her and the soft glow of a lamp in the corner? When she had traced the contours of his body with her hands and grasped them with her limbs, imprinting the shape of him on her, the feel of his skin, until she knew just where to touch, how to move to elicit a moan or a groan.
She could bring to mind in a fraction of a second the softness of his hair against her breasts, the roughness of his hands as they skimmed down her arms, making her shiver with anticipation. But as she put one foot in front of the other, bringing her closer and closer to where he sat on a collapsed heap of masonry, she knew that she had to concentrate on the reason they had come up to Ballanross rather than on her own feelings.
Fraser had been so angry back in Malcolm’s study that she had been half expecting to find him pummelling something with his fists. But it looked as if he had walked off the worst of his mood. She knew that she should talk to him about what had just happened, but she didn’t even know where to start. It didn’t matter how much she wanted her baby born into a loving, harmonious family—she didn’t know how to fix this, how to make them a family. She didn’t know how to stop thinking about their night together. She didn’t know how she could live with Fraser in her life without thinking of what might have been between them. Without wondering what it would feel like to be touched by him, kissed by him again.
With her eyes fixed on Fraser, she lost sight of her footing, and before she realised what was happening she had caught her toes on a piece of stone hidden among the grass and toppled forward. She let out a squeak of alarm but managed to right herself with nothing but her pride a little dented. She could only hope that Fraser hadn’t seen her. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to say to him, but this wasn’t exactly the entrance that she wanted to make.
She brushed imaginary dirt from her jacket—she hadn’t been anywhere near hitting the ground—and took a moment to regain her dignity. When she looked up Fraser was just a couple of feet away, standing on the remains of a stone wall, his face grey.
‘What?’ Elspeth asked, feeling the colour drain from her own face as she took in Fraser’s expression.
‘I thought...’
He jumped down from the wall and strode across to her. Before she realised what was happening he had pulled her into his arms. She allowed herself to relax, to breathe him in just for a second, before remembering that she had just been reminding herself that he was off-limits. She pushed him away, and it took some strength, given his vice-like grip around her.
‘Fraser, what are you doing?’
He took a deep breath—composing himself, she guessed.
‘I heard a noise and I looked over and you were falling,’ he said by way of explanation. Taking a step back from her now that she had disentangled herself, he started to look a little sheepish. ‘I started running as soon as I saw, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to get to you before you hit the ground.’
Elspeth drew her eyebrows together. ‘I didn’t hit the ground. It was just a little stumble.’
‘But you could have done.’
The words burst from Fraser with unexpected force, and Elspeth guessed that he still wasn’t quite in control of himself.
She forced herself to be kind, reminding herself that he had come out here full of emotions about his father that he clearly hadn’t been able to handle. Reminding herself as well that he didn’t have the day-to-day experience of being pregnant. Or medical training. She could see from his face that he had been genuinely scared that the baby would be hurt.
She reached out a hand and rubbed his arm in a way that she hoped would come across as comforting, rather than anything more intimate. ‘I’m fine and the baby’s fine. I promise. I’m sorry you were worried.’
