“No! There’s nothing you can say that I want to hear. It would all be lies, anyway. Besides, I don’t want you. I never did. Not really. What would I want with a big, ragged, long-haired… Well, I don’t want you. That’s all.”
She pulled out a lighter, like the ones he’d seen people use, on the moor, flicked her thumb, and produced a flame.
“What are ye doin’, lass?” Reginald held up a hand. “Just take it easy.” Sawdust and shavings covered a portion of the floor, and everything in here was made of old, dry wood.
“This is what I think of yourtribute, to Lauren.” She held the flame under the edge of the wood. It singed, but dinnae catch fire.
“Deidre! Put out the flame.” He tried sounding more forceful since cajoling dinnae seem to work. “Look around ye, lass. Ye dinnae want tae destroy Phoebe’s property. She cares about ye. ’Twould break her heart.”
The tears were gone, and rage filled her eyes. “No one, cares about me!”
When the wood wouldnae catch, she threw it at him, grabbed the old rag it had been wrapped in, from her pocket, and lit it. It flared so fast she cried out and flung it away from her. When it landed on the big sheet covering the workbench, the whole thing was ablaze in seconds, sending flames high above the bench.
Through the smoke and fire, Reginald heard her horrified cry and saw her shadowy shape, race out the door. He couldnae worry about her now. He grasped the corner of the covering and yanked it from the worktable, singing his hands and lighting last night’s shavings and sawdust on fire, as it hit the floor and licked up the table legs.
He tried to get past the flames, to drag it outside, but the space was too small. All he could do was try to stomp the fire out. When he noticed the shovel, he used it to pound out the flames and try to crowd the covering into a smaller and smaller bundle to keep the fire from the table and walls.
The smoke clogged his throat, seared his lungs and darkened the interior of the shed until the sun from the window couldnae penetrate.
After what seemed forever, but ’twas likely only minutes, he had the flames out enough, and the cloth wadded enough, he managed to toss it outside, with the shovel.
“Reggie!” Lauren called, running from the house with Julia and Phoebe right behind her. “We smelled smoke. What happened?” She stopped near what was left of the smoldering, covering then moved toward him as the other’s caught up. “Are you hurt? Oh, Reggie, your hands!”
She reached for them, but he pulled them back, looking frantically from one of the women, to the other. “Where’s Deidre?”
They looked at each other, each of them shrugging, in turn.
“We haven’t seen her since she ran out, at breakfast,” Phoebe commented. “Why?” She took another horrified look at the smoldering pile and the smoke coming through the door. “Did she do this?”
“No!” Reginald replied, looking around for some sign of Deidre. “It was me. I was…careless. I’ll…make it up to you.”
Where was that fool lass?She’d be out of her head with fear after this. No’ that she’d been thinkin’ clearly before. But she could be a danger to herself, at this point.
“Reggie?” Lauren began. “What can we—”
Just then, far down the valley, on the trail he’d taken with Lauren to the crag, he saw a flash of movement. ’Twas brief enough he couldnae be sure ’twas even her. But he had naught else to go on. And no time to explain the despair he’d seen in Deidre’s eyes.
He ran, as fast as he could, but his lungs wouldnae cooperate. He hadnae gone far when he had to stop, put his blistered hands to his thighs and cough until he thought he’d ripped apart what lungs he had left.
’Twas a pattern, he followed, over and over, all the way to the crag.
He dinnae see her. No’ on the trail, or high on the gravesite hill. Nor near the waterfall. He must have misjudged her direction. He listened, but couldnae hear anything over the sound of cascading water.
“Deidre!” he called, spurring another coughing fit. “Answer, me lass. Ye’re no’ in any trouble. Just come back. I told them I started the fire. I’ll no’ tell them different. I swear it!”
Mayhap she’d gone to hide in the trees by the old croft. Or, to the copse in the meadow, where he’d tried to sleep.
Walking to the edge of the crag, where the water tumbled for hundreds of feet, he scoured the rocks and narrow ledges, below.
Only a daft fool, would go down there.
And then he saw her. The daft fool with the broken heart, who’d somehow broken off a piece of his when he’d seen past the anger in her eyes, to the wounded child, inside.
She was hunched on a tiny ledge, with only a big, slick boulder above her, and a sheer drop-off below.
How the bloody hell was he going to get her out of there?
Chapter Fifteen
