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Add it to the list of his wonderful qualities: he could make taking care of a drunk woman look romantic.
“I saw a little store just down here,” he said.
The cool night air came as a relief after the stifling pub, and I gulped it in. The sky hadn’t yet darkened fully, leaving the street in a hazy evening glow. The light didn’t stop me from stumbling just a teensy bit as we walked, though.
Maybe more than a teensy bit.
Duncan kept a firm grip on my waist to keep me upright. Every few feet, the ground pitched beneath me, and I clung to him harder. I didn’t want to think too much about the poor impression I was making here, but I couldn’t have walked back to the lodge by myself if I’d had the whole night to do it.
We made a quick pitstop at the corner store, and then he led me down to the bay’s edge until he found access to the shore. Smooth rocks littered the beach, and I had a hard time keeping my footing. I picked across them like I was moving over a frozen lake, afraid I’d go down any minute. The air was cooler, though, and punched a small hole through the whisky haze that enveloped me.
“Let’s sit you down.” He helped me lower onto a rock right on the waterline. “Take off your shoes and socks.”
Too far gone to question his instructions, I tugged at my laces, slipped off my shoes, and pulled off my socks, baring my feet in the fading light. I frowned at the chips in my turquoise nail polish. A pedicure hadn’t seemed like a necessity for the trip. My shoes were supposed to stay firmly on my feet my whole visit here.
That was probably a metaphor for something.
“Put them in the water,” he coaxed.
I dipped one toe and sucked in a breath. He reached over me, took my calves in each hand, and pressed my feet all the way into the water.
“That’s freezing!” I screeched.
“I know,” he said, still holding my legs. “It will help.”
I didn’t know how dunking my feet in ice water would help sober me up. Right then, all I knew was that his hands were on my legs. Their warmth edged off the cold that already crept up from my feet. He turned to face me, so close I couldn’t think of anything but our kiss. His eyes dropped to my mouth as though he was thinking about it, too.
Instead of moving in closer, he eased away from me like a perfect gentleman. I must have been too drunk to kiss. I wasn’t sure I agreed with that one, but I wasn’t so far gone I would beg.
Yet.
He let go of my legs and rummaged around in his plastic shop bag to present me with a gigantic jug of bottled water. “This will help, too.”
Then he shook out two tablets from a little container. “And these. Paracetamol for your head.”
Even with my feet dipped in the freezing Portree Bay and a steady stream of water to heroically battle it out with the whisky I’d consumed, my brain still didn’t feel attached to my body. At least the worst of it was in my head and not my stomach.
Please stay in my head and not my stomach.
“I’m sorry to put you through all this.”
“Don’t be. I should have done a better job looking out for you. Never should have got you that second.” He smiled, and in my weakened state, the affection in his eyes just about knocked me over. “I’ve been funneling whisky to a novice.”
“Maybe this was part of your plan.”
“My plan wouldn’t have been so circuitous.” He had my legs in his hands again, pulling my feet from the water and into his lap where they left dark wet patches on his jeans.
I wiggled my toes to check that I still could. They moved, even if I couldn’t feel them much.
“Don’t want you to get too cold.” He rubbed my feet between his hands, getting the blood moving through them.
As methods of sobering up went, this one wasn’t so bad.
When my feet were sufficiently warmed, he opened a bottle of orange liquid. “Have one of these.”
“What’s this?Irn-Bru? Those aren’t even words.”
“Drink up. It’s juice. Fizzy drink. What do you call it? Soda-pop.”
