She set off along the cliff path at a brisk pace, with Fiona bouncing happily ahead of her. The storm was moving in fast, and the first drops of rain were falling as she entered her cottage.
She set the basket on the kitchen table and tossed the bone to Fiona, who fell on it gleefully. After filling the dog’s dish with water, she crossed the front room to gaze out the wide window. The light was fading fast, but she could still see the rising waves crashing along the narrow beach.
She loved storms. If she could study with Sophie Macleod, perhaps she might learn how to capture the power and majesty of nature’s fury as well as Sophie did.
Signy bit her lip, thinking how much she’d miss Thorsay when she moved to London. The city had a river, but it wasn’t on the sea. It also had masses of people greater than she could really imagine. Yet much as she loved her home, she also yearned to see a wider world. To meet people who were complete strangers and who had no expectations of her. She doubted that she would make a career out of selfishness, but she loved the idea of being free to put her own desires first.
Which would be easier if she didn’t desire Ramsay. During her days of traveling with him, she’d found herself increasingly tempted to drag him to the nearest bed, or even a midden if it was clean and grassy. There she could explore that lean, strong body while he explored hers with equal thoroughness. He aroused heated thoughts she’d never had before. It was exciting to imagine him as her husband....
But if she succumbed to that desire, she’d be trapped on Thorsay forever. Best to go now while she still could. The future—she’d worry about that later.
She turned determinedly from the window and prepared her supper. After a week of riding around Mainland and talking to hordes of people, she wastired. She enjoyed a leisurely meal, then decided to go to bed early. Chores could wait till the morning. “Come sleep with me, Fiona?”
The dog didn’t need a second invitation. She jumped onto the bed and curled up by her mistress’s ankles. Signy smiled as she wondered if Skellig House had a bed large enough for her, Ramsay, Fiona, and Odin. Probably not, a further reason for her to leave. He’d find some other strong, opinionated Thorsayian woman to share his life and his bed.
Which was a thought that didn’t please Signy at all. She sighed and relaxed her body muscle by muscle, then fell asleep to sounds of the wind and the waves. Thorsay in all its stormy glory.
* * *
After Ramsay finished dinner, he retired to his room, but the power of the rising storm was too electrifying to allow rest. His room had a window on the sea, and since Skellig House was on a bluff well above it, he was high enough to see the waves in all their magnificence.
He didn’t think he’d ever seen waves as high and powerful. Was this like the devil storm that had done so much damage to Thorsay? He hoped not; he had enough other problems to worry about.
He should try to get some sleep because the morning would arrive with a full share of problems, but he was still too restless to relax. Succumbing to the allure of the storm, he went downstairs to the closet that held foul weather gear and donned his waterproof boots and oilcloth coat. Then he went outside to enjoy nature’s fury.
* * *
Signy was jarred awake by the sounds of shattering glass and rushing water. After an instant of disorientation, she realized that her beautiful front window must have been destroyed. She lurched from the bed. Broken glass. Her feet needed protection, so she shoved them into the light slippers she wore around the house before racing into the front room. Fiona was already there, whining as water washed around her paws.
Faint light from outside was enough to show the catastrophic damage. Something long and dark lay across the lower windowsill. A tree trunk thrown through the window by the waves?
There was water everywhere, and as she watched, another huge wave hurled itself against her house. Signy gave a low moan as she saw her easel wash away. The paints and materials on the table had vanished. The water was ankle deep and rising with every monster wave.
“Fiona! Outside!” she said sharply. A scrabbling of claws indicated that Fiona was using the small dog door at the back of the house.
Another wave crashed through the remains of the window, and the water rushed around Signy knee-high. She realized with anguish that there was nothing she could do here. She must escape while she could.
As she swung around to the back door, she heard a deep, ominous sound overhead. A groan, a crack.
And then . . . blackness.
* * *
Ramsay collected a bottle of his grandfather’s favorite whisky, then went outside to the bench in the sheltered alcove on the side of the house where his grandfather had died. Most of the wind was blocked, so it was a comfortable place to watch the churning waves. He uncorked the bottle and raised it in a toast. “To you, Duncan Ramsay, a legend here in the land you loved so well. I hope you’re enjoying Valhalla!”
He could almost hear the old man laughing in his ear. With a smile, Ramsay took a deep swallow, then corked the bottle and gazed over the sea. He still had much to learn about his islands, but he already had a deep connection to this land of his fathers. That connection had been latent inside him for all his traveling years, so deeply buried he didn’t realize it was there until he returned home.
Home.He pictured himself living in Skellig House with Signy, sleeping and making love and arguing as they raised tall stubborn children with Viking blood in their veins. He couldn’t imagine another woman as his wife, yet if she never returned, he’d have to try.
He took another swallow of whisky, his gaze on the hypnotic swirl and crash of the waves. Signy, his goddess of the sea. In Thorsay everything came down to the sea. . . .
His reverie was broken by a frantic bark as a furry body emerged from the rain and cannoned into him. “Fiona, are you afraid of storms?” he asked as he tried to pat her comfortingly.
She rose onto her hind legs and barked frantically in his face.
Signy!Sea Cottage was lower than Skellig House—could she be in danger?
“Take me to Signy!” he ordered as he leaped to his feet and rounded the house to the cliff path that led to Sea Cottage, while Fiona bounded ahead of him.
