Any remaining cares of why Dad okayed a new fairness option blew away with the North Sea wind.As they should.Initial reports indicated O’Shay Shirts was set for record profits.
What didn’t blow away was the memory of Michael’s kiss and how easily she returned to that moment in the secret passageway.She felt his hand around her waist as they danced under the LED stars wrapped around the beams of the Belly of the Beast.
A few more days and she might rid herself of her feelings for him, but he messaged her Sunday night about a trek up to Wenthelen Chapel to find some forgotten documents.
Michael: We might find evidence for or against Fickle.I’ll go alone if you don’t care to hike up the side of a mountain.I’m leaving at six a.m.
Scottie: I’ll meet you in the Grand Foyer.
No way was he making that trip without her.She ignored the twist of excitement at seeing him again.
The car ride up was comfortably quiet with Michael filling her in on his father’s discoveries and what they could expect from the chapel.
“It might be a heap of stone, rotting wood, and broken glass for all we know.”
He was easy to be with as always, but there was a cool distance about him.They stopped at the one and only outfitters at the base of the mountains for food and water, ruck sacks, hiking shoes and poles for Scottie, head lamps—“Do we really need these?”—a machete and shovel, matches and socks.
The climb began easily enough but as the late morning sun hit its peak, she was hot and tired, climbing through an overgrown trail with Michael in the lead, his arms taut as he swung the giant machete through brambles and branches.
“Hey, Cross,” she called, reaching for a low branch, minding where she planted her foot.“Go ahead and confess.Hamish Fickle paid you large sums of money to kill me.”
She paused to rest against a tree, adjusting her heavy rucksack.The climb had started at about a twenty-five-degree angle but increased around each bend.
“We’re off to solve the Fickle mystery as you requested.Carry on, Lady Royal.”
“Michael?”He paused to look down at her, his expression serious.She smiled, dismissing what she wanted to say.That in another world, under different circumstances, she’d fall madly in love with him.But they weren’t in that world.They were in this world, under these circumstances.“Thanks for helping me do this.”
“Of course.”He faced forward again, the muscles in his shoulders shifting as he sliced another vine out of their path.“Take care on the rocks.They’re slippery.”
She leaned on her trekking poles and planted her next step.“Do you think this will give us any clues to the Fickle mystery?”
“I have minimal hopes, Lady Royal.But it’s a good place to start.”
They climbed higher as Michael cut a path around the hill.When they broke into a small clearing where the sunlight fell through the trees, she said, “Can we stop for a second?”
Leaning on a sizeable rock, she took a long drink from the very fancy water bottle the saleswoman sold them.
“All this gear and we’ve not crossed one stream or powered on our headlights,” she said.
“We might need the torch on our way down.Or even in the chapel.”Michael bent to move a large rock and when he did, a river of smaller rocks cascaded downhill.“Scottie, stand clear.”
She tried—by leaping to the next boulder, but it was still slick with morning dew and moss.She stumbled backward, her right foot landing on the rolling stones.Arms flailing, she caught herself on a cut vine as her left foot slipped into a crevice between the rocks and thick, bulging tree roots.
“Michael, wait, I’m stuck.”She tried to ease free from the trap as the last of the rolling pieces collected in the wedge.
“Scottie, are you all right?”He dropped his rucksack and machete, and his professional distance, and landed belly down by her leg.
“Oh man, it hurts.”Scottie tried to work her leg from the trap.
“Be still, lass.”Michael’s strong hands gripped her calf, then slid down to her ankle, checking for broken bones or cuts.Then in masculine silence, he cleared the rocks holding her captive, one-by-one, tossing them into the forest.Perspiration collected on his smooth forehead and high cheeks, and the muscles in his arms strained against his shirt sleeve.“Can you move your foot, love?”
“I think…a little.”Scottie breathed against the pain as Michael slid his hand down to her ankle, still unable to free her foot.
“There’s a large rock in the way.It’s wedged but with wiggle room.”He unhooked the shovel from his rucksack “Our fulcrum.”Our.She liked hearing the plural pronoun.It meant they were a team again.“When I tell you, move, carefully, and breathe through the pain.”
With that, Michael leaned against the shovel’s handle, his whole body taut.
“Move, Scottie.”
