“I can smell him. Listen, he moves away.”
The rustling sound died but Lindsey remained where she was, her head on Tavish’s chest. Her eyes began to close. There was something warm and comforting about hearing his heartbeat, slow and steady compared to her own pounding thud.
She was no sooner asleep than she was at home. She stood beside her mother who was tapping her foot, trying to ignore a hammering on the front door.
“Open up,” a gruff voice was shouting. “You can’t hide in there forever.”
“I’m game,” Rhona shouted back. “Let’s see who gets bored first.”
“We’re going to repossess whether you like it or not, Mrs. MacMillan. You have to let us in.”
Another voice beside the first. “You owe us. Open up.”
“Mom,” Lindsey said, reaching out to tap her mom on the shoulder. Her hand passed straight through and her mom became nothing more but mist. The sound of hammering fists on wood continued but fainter, eventually fading into silence.
“Shush, just a bad dream.” Tavish’s voice, quiet, his hand stroking her forehead.
She lay still, no longer sure what was a dream and what was real. His hand was comforting and she yearned for him to kiss her. It made her whole body ache with desire but she said nothing.
She mustn’t allow herself to get too close to him. She had to concentrate. Getting distracted by falling for him was a bad idea. She’d end up staying here if he felt the same and that was what the dream was trying to remind her. She needed to focus on what mattered.
If she fell in love and he felt the same she still had to go home. Otherwise, her mom wouldn’t know where the locket was. The repossession would still go ahead, and she’d be homeless, living on the streets, never knowing what happened to her daughter.
Not that it mattered. He’d shown no signs of wanting to kiss her. She was reading too much into him comforting her as they lay together. He was just trying to calm her fears, that was all.
She rolled away from Tavish, pretending she was still asleep, hearing nothing else from him other than a slight rustle of the leaves that served as his bed.
She had agreed to do this, and she would. She would get the stone to help him, but she would not fall for him. It could never work. He was a loner anyway, used to being on his own.
He might have looked like he was going to kiss her, but she’d hugged him, not the other way around. She’d probably just read too much into things.
The swirling doubt in her mind felt like the mist in the dream. She settled back into an uneasy sleep, hoping to speak to her mother again, tell her she was coming home.
She did not dream for the rest of the night. Seven hundred years in the future Rhona MacMillan awoke in the middle of the night to a strange tingling feeling on her shoulder as if it had just been touched by someone.
She was so sure Lindsey had been standing right there behind her but of course, she wasn’t. She was still on vacation at Loch Tay, hopefully meeting a nice man somewhere and having a great time.
She had quite the story to tell her when she got back. Her boss was in trouble with the tax office. Someone might have rung them to suggest they look into his habit of banking staff tips for himself.
The story had ended up in the paper. Cafe owner under investigation. It might not go anywhere but then again maybe he’d start paying his staff properly.
Rhona settled again. That story could wait until Lindsey got back. For now, let her enjoy herself.
