Nothing. Just the slow, rhythmic creak of her rocker.
The more she ignores me, the more I refuse to be ignored.
“Actually, you must have a computer.”
The thought clicks, and relief washes through me. Callum wasn’t the one stalking me—it was her.
I shift in my chair. “I bet you’re the one who set upwhatever that was in my hotel room. Were you trying to spy on Janet?”
I glance at Callum. He’s watching me intently. When I raise a brow in question, he just flicks his gaze back to the soup he’s been making, which, as far as I can tell, consists only of water and a couple of potatoes.
He hangs the stockpot in the hearth and stokes the flames.
I frown. This can’t be a real cottage. A dirt floor, no electricity, no running water. Apart from the fireplace, there’s just a table, some chairs, two cots, a few shelves, and one trunk.
Then I notice the alarming array of metal tools.
A slow, sick horror blooms in my chest. I’ve seen enough movies to know what happens in freaky, dirt-floor cabins full of metal tools.
My fingers curl around the arms of my chair, gripping so hard my knuckles ache.
“People are looking for me right now. The American embassy. Scotland Yard. Interpol. All of them.” My voice is steady, but my pulse hammers in my throat.
“But,” I continue, forcing a casual shrug, “if you let me go?—”
“Wheesht,” she grumbles from her rocker. “Shut yer geggy or I’ll shut it for you.”
Callum ladles soup into a bowl and kneels beside me. Up close, he’s all shadows and sharp angles, firelight glinting off his cheekbones.
I lean toward him, lowering my voice. “What’s going on? Why don’t you do something?”
He cuts a quick glance at Donag, who’s begun to snore softly. His jaw tightens. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean, youcan’t?”
But he doesn’t answer. Just drops his gaze, pressing his lips together like he’s said too much already.
Why does it feel like he wants to help, but won’t?
Finally, he glances up, and our eyes meet. A connection arcs between us, charged like the air before a storm. I can tell he feels it, too.
It’s too much. He’s too much.
It’s not that he’s handsome. But he’s notnothandsome, either. It’s more that he’s just so…intense.
This close, I see the bump on his nose where he’s probably broken it. The thin, jagged scar just below his lower lip.
Then there are his eyes. Those strange, stormy eyes.
I have to look away. My gaze snags on the bowl he’s extending. He jiggles it in invitation. “Have some tattie broth. ’Twill help.”
I realize I’m shivering. Not just from the cold.
This isn’t some random guy. This person watched me in my hotel room. I force a breezy smile. “No thanks.”
“You need something warm.”
“Hey,” I say lightly, “you never explained who you are. And I don’t just mean your name.”
