The Charm Stone (26 page)

I hope the shells are up to your standards. I still dinna see the need to keep them lying about. Maybe now ye can leave the rest alone.

And then it was signed,
Yours, Connal.

Yours.

Is that what he truly felt? Or did he only think so because his gods told him so? And why should she care? She went to fold the note, but stopped and read his words again. She smiled.
Not exactly a love note, Josie.
And yet her heart dipped a little anyway.

This thing between them-whatever the hell it was-should feel wrong. Or at the very least dangerous. She'd fantasized about this being a highland fling. Only he wasn't anything so simple as that. She was messing with things, elements of nature, or whatever, that she didn't really understand. She should end it, completely. In fact, if she were smart, she'd leave the island on the next ferry, surf lessons or no surf lessons.

Did she honestly think she could keep pretending this was simply a slightly unusual vacation? Pretend that because she'd fallen in love with the people here, that the rest would somehow magically turn out okay? Because whatever she did or didn't believe about Connal's gods and his bargain with them, much less her role in all of it, the fact remained he wasn't mortal. And really, who in the hell knew what would happen to her if she kept fooling around?

She put the note on the sink by the candles, then pulled the lever for the plug so the water would drain.

She needed to think… and figure out what she was going to do. And the best place to do that was
out on the water, or walking next to it. Since she was going to surf later when Maeve got here, she opted for walking. Besides, she was just distracted enough that she'd probably end up on the rocks if she took her board out now.

She grabbed her sketch pad and stuck a few pencils in her pocket, thinking if walking didn't do the trick, maybe she'd find a quiet spot and let her mind drift while her hand moved across the paper.

And yet, even as she left the house and started off down the shore, she had the feeling that her tried-and-true methods of dealing with her problems weren't going to help her today. But then, she'd never quite faced problems like the ones she was dealing with now.

Connal stood in the tower and watched her retreating figure. Something was wrong. Hadn't she liked his gestures? Dammit, he wasn't good at this sort of thing, but he'd made the effort, hadn't he? And what exactly was he trying to do?

Go to her.

He shouldn't have left her alone, but he'd been confused by the things she'd made him feel yesterday. He'd needed the time to think. And then today she'd been gone and he hadn't been able to get her out of his mind. He'd found himself wanting to do something for her, show her… what?

He swore and spun away from the window. This was all getting far too complicated for him.

Go to her.
But it was clear she wanted to be alone. She'd taken the drawing pad with her.

His body heated as he recalled the sketches she'd made of him… and how it had made him feel. She was quite talented, but it wasn't pride in her skills he'd felt. No, it had been something far more primal.

What had she been thinking as the ink spilled from her pen, taking the form of his face, his body? She'd drawn the tower, too, only as it had been during the storm. Raging waters, windswept beaches, lightning splitting the dark skies. Aye, she drew with passion. Just as she did everything else.

His body tightened further and he swore as he spun away from the window. This shouldn't be so damn hard. He should know what to do.

Go to her.

A
s always, she felt him before she saw him. She flipped her sketch pad shut, not that there was anything to hide. Her pencil hadn't made one move across the paper. Her thoughts were just as stuck.

“Hello,” she said, keeping her gaze out to sea.

He didn't say anything for several long, tension-filled moments. She was just about to look up at him, when he said, “Can I sit wi’ ye?”

Surprised that he'd asked, she still managed a shrug. “It's a public beach. At least, I think it is. You can do whatever you like.” Feigning indifference was difficult enough when she'd spent the past hour thinking of nothing else but him. But when he sat down next to her, his body radiating that energy it always seemed to give off, well, it took all her remaining willpower to keep her gaze calm and unaffected when her own body was anything but.

He didn't say anything for several minutes, just studied the water. Until finally he heaved an impatient sigh, and blurted out, “So, what exactly did I do wrong? I thought ye'd be pleased with the bath I drew for ye. I was only trying to show you—” He broke off and swore under his breath. “Never mind, I dinna ken what I was trying to do.”

“You didn't do anything wrong,” she said quietly.

“Then why did ye leave?” He motioned to her pad. “Yer not even drawing.”

She turned to look at him finally, and as always, looking at him made her insides jump. Only this time her heart was doing a little leap of its own, as well. He looked too damn good. Strong, sexy… and endearingly confused. But rather than get angry and stomp off, he was here, trying to figure things out. And isn't that what she wanted, too?

“You looked at my sketches. They weren't public property.”

“Ah, so that's it then. I suppose I should apologize for intruding. But I won't.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Won't you?”

He shook his head, the wind whipping his long hair back from his face. “Nay. I was only looking for paper to leave a note, but once I saw what you'd drawn, I couldn't put it back down.” He paused, looking more intently at her in that way he had, the way that made her feel like she was the only one in his universe. “It was a part of you, and I find myself drawn to learning all I can about you. This was a part I didn't know.”

“And now you think you know me?” She was gripping her pencil so hard she thought it would snap. “Because you looked at a few drawings.”

“I didna say that. Perhaps it was but a tiny peekinside yer mind, to how ye see the world. And me.”

She couldn't contain the little shiver that raced over her. “And how do you think I see you?”

“Like a man. A lover.” There was a touch of awe in the words, and he looked at her again. “Your lover.”

The shudder of pleasure was stronger this time and she told herself it was a good damn thing it was the wrong time of the month. “You are both of those things,” she said, if a bit shakily.

“Aye, but if asked to describe myself, those are the last two things I'd have applied. I am laird first, last, and always. Never something as simple as a man, never something as selfish as a lover.”

“Why is it selfish to love?” She waved a hand when his eyes darkened, ignoring that sudden rush it gave her to imagine, even for a blink of time, that she would ever hear words of love from him. When he looked at her like that, it was all too easy to- “Surely your people didn't expect all your devotion to belong to them alone or that you didn't deserve any personal pleasure. Your father did, your grandfather, and his father loved.”

Now Connal looked away, that dark look of passion that had filled his eyes at the mention of the word love going flat and empty. “I was no’ as fortunate as them, to have the luxury of a life that could include both commitment to my people, and to a family.”

She thought about that, tried to imagine what it would feel like to carry such an immense burden, and couldn't. “Maybe you should have anyway,” she ventured carefully. “Maybe it would have symbolized hope to your people, that you'd found happiness.”

He sighed then, the deep, almost-anguished sigh of a man who'd spent too many years analyzing his every action. “That's what I was doing by sending the stone out.” He looked down at his hands, then back up at her. “ 'Twas no’ only my people I had to please, Josie, but the gods as well.”

Josie shook her head. “I'm sorry. I know you believe that with your whole heart. I guess I just don't believe in that higher purpose or plan. Not like you do anyway. I think we're supposed to make our own destiny, that we have some hand in our fate.”

“My brothers thought that and almost destroyed us all.” He picked up a broken piece of shell and
skipped it across the water. “Beliefs might be different now. But I can only act on what I believe in, what I know to be true as I see it.”

“And maybe,” she said, very softly, “what was meant to be was that your clan didn't survive. What if that was supposed to be their fate, their destiny? And yet, you didn't accept that. You fought it just like you think I'm fighting it now.” She sighed. “I guess I'm just confused.”

He picked up another shell, then tossed it back down and shifted so he faced her fully. “So am I.”

“About which thing?”

“The bargain I made. The destiny I tried to thwart. Maybe it wasna meant to be. Maybe you are right and this is all some sort of grand entertainment, a celestial play for the gods, with me cast as the fool.”

“You don't really believe that.”

He took her hand in his, looking at it as he ran his wide fingers over her slender ones. “No, I don't.” He tipped his gaze up to hers. “Because I look at you and I know that I did the right thing in bargaining, that my belief in the stone was right. Perhaps things do happen as they do for a reason, Josie. Perhaps the stone was lost at sea because you were the only one intended for me… and it had to wait for ye, as did I.”

Her heart began to thunder like the pounding of heavy surf. “Connal, I—”

He turned her hand over and lifted it to his lips, placing a heartbreakingly gentle kiss in the center of her palm, then curling her fingers inward as if to hold on to the promise of it. “I know ye dinna feel as I do,” he said, “and I canna force you. Nor can I blame ye.” He let go of her hand and she felt such a sense of loss, of abandonment, that she had to fight the urge to clutch at him again.

“But I do feel… something,” she said. “I just can't
make the giant leap from what I feel, whatever that is, to bearing a child. It's too—” She waved a hand helplessly.

“I know that. Which is why I came to ye.”

Stunned by the admission, she could only look at him.

“I have been focused only on the outcome, as you pointed out, forcing the destiny I've bargained for, waited for, on us both, with little thought to anything else. But, lately, I… I find myself thinking about my own wants and needs. And I find myself wondering about your wants and needs, too.” He paused and looked away, then blew out a shaky breath before looking her directly in the eye. “So I've decided that the only way to deal with this is to have faith in the Fates’ grand design. The stone brought ye here. If I'm to trust its choice, I have to trust it all the way and stop pushing. Ye'd think one thing I'd have learned after three hundred years is patience, but this is no’ easy for me.” He sighed heavily. “In fact, 'tis the most difficult thing I've ever done. But if the rest is meant to be, it will come to pass. Pushing harder willna make it so.”

“Meaning what?”

He lifted a shoulder, but his eyes betrayed the tension he felt. “Meaning I will leave ye alone to take those pills as ye wish. Or the ferry, if that is yer plan. I willna stop you from leaving.”

“Even if it means that you waited all this time for nothing?”

His expression filled with some emotion she couldn't describe. The corners of his mouth curved just a bit. “I already know I didna wait for nothing,” he said quietly.

Josie didn't know what to say. Much less what to feel.

“I'll leave ye to yer drawings,” he said then, and started to get to his feet.

She grabbed at his arm. “Wait, wait.”

He slid her hand from his arm and stood anyway, looking down at her with the late-afternoon sun at his back. “Ye know where to find me if ye want me.” And in the next blink, she was staring at the sun and nothing more.

Josie squinted and looked away. “Damn. Damn, damn, damn.” She slid the sketch pad to the sand beside her and dropped her head to her hands, raking her fingers through her hair as she tried to make sense of everything that had just happened.

He'd come to set her free. Let her off the hook. “Say good-bye,” she whispered. Her heart clutched at the mere thought of never seeing him again, and yet she knew he wouldn't appear to her now unless she purposely sought him out.

Did she want to?

Hell yes, she wanted to, she thought. And that wasn't only her body talking. She felt like she'd finally begun to know him, dammit, and she wasn't ready to walk away yet.

Which meant what? Pursuing him now, unless she was intending to fulfill his desire to have an heir, was unfair to him. And possibly her as well, since she'd likely only come to want him more… but not necessarily the rest of the package deal. So he'd done the right thing, cut them both loose of this bargain. He was letting Fate guide its own course. If he lost everything, so be it.

Which really pissed her off. Dammit, she wanted him to fight for what he wanted.
Her?
No, she thought immediately. The baby was what he was fighting for. Wasn't it? But that was what he thought he was
supposed
to be fighting for. What she meant
was that he should be fighting for what
he
truly wanted, for his own heart, his own needs, the hell with the clan and his supposed obligations to them.