In the moment, he wanted to hold her against him to warm himself. More than that, he couldn’t say. Their tentative truce would at least allow them both to live. For the moment, he reckoned that was enough.
Oh, but there was one wee detail that must immediately be dealt with…
He slippedthrough the door and closed it at his back. Thankfully, the fickle lass hadn’t changed her mind yet again, so there was no attack coming, though he’d half expected it.
She sat on the bed, legs crossed, with her teeth worrying her lip.
“I’ve a wee predicament,” he admitted.
She smiled. “Me too. You go first.”
“I am frozen through. And ye?”
“I’m starving.”
“Right, then. If ye’ll help me with mine. I’ll tend to yers.”
Her eyes widened. “You want me to help you get warm?”
“Nay. I need ye to put m’ nose back where it came from afore my face thaws again.”
“Oh.” She jumped to her feet. “I don’t know how to do that. You might need a doctor to?—”
“A simple thing. Ye put yer hands to either side and shove it back to the mids. To rectify it later would require violence and a stronger stomach than ye might possess.”
She nodded. “You might want to sit on the bed, then, in case you pass out.”
“Just promise that, if I do, ye willnae tie me to the bed again.”
She laughed lightly, and the sound of it eased his pain a wee bit. “Okay. I promise.”
He sat carefully so as not to change the pressure in his head. She grabbed one of the pots, slipped into her boots, and stepped outside for only a moment, then returned with a heaping supply of the clean white stuff.
“Grand,” he said, though the sight of it brought a shiver. “Be quick about it, so I can warm myself again.”
She nodded and stepped between his knees. He looked up into her face and rested his hands on her hips to steady them both. She looked down, ignored his swollen eyes, and nudged his chin from side to side while studying his nose.
“Wow. It really is off bubble.” She pressed her three long fingers against the sides of his bridge, which hurt like the devil, even through the cold.
“Off bubble, ye said?”
“A carpenter’s term.” She shoved with a great deal of strength and relocated his nose for the second time that morning. “My dad was a carpenter,” she said, though Cian barely heard a word due to pealing bells and prickly stars attacking his face and brain. “Easy now. Just lie back and close your eyes. I’m going to cover you up, then I’ll ice it again.”
“Take this.” He found his collar, fumbled beneath it, and pulled out the key he kept on a tether around his neck. “To the trunk.”
Just before he allowed his consciousness to slip, he heard her poor attempt at consolation as she lay the heavy-laden cloth onto his face once more.
“Don’t worry, Mr. MacInnis. It might not all be centered, but I think it’s close.”
With his nosetwice the size it was, his eyes still quite swollen, and his mouth hanging open, Kee-un MacInnis snored. It wasn’t loud and abrasive, like Nick’s sometimes was. More like, even in his sleep, the man was being careful not to wake himself.
I tried to ignore the guilt, but I couldn’t ignore a heavy kettle of water sitting on my chest, and it felt a lot like that. I found a few Tylenol in my little first aid kit, but I chose not to wake himup for it. Instead, I took the key and went exploring. In the night, I’d looked for that key in every box, in the vegetable baskets, and on every shelf and inside the dishes.
I worried about the logs remaining in the wood basket and knew I would have to go gather more before dark. ButafterI learned all I could about this man who lived so far off the grid. Maybe something in the trunk would tell me why.
He was definitely paranoid and thought some man he called The Traveler was after him. But with his strong Scottish brogue and the fact that he threw in words I assume were Gaelic, I couldn’t be sure about anything I’d heard, especially when he’d been upset.
He hadn’t liked me joking about time travel, even though he lived like he was from another century. But anyone who had grown up in that tiny valley would have been a little backwards too, wouldn’t they? Maybe he’d assumed I’d been making fun of him.
