Page 21 of Boats, Moats, & Root Beer Floats

“Comfy?” I asked softly.

“Mmhm,” the rug pile answered.

“Good girl.”

I petted the top—I thought it was still the top and hoped I got it right—and turned my attention to the fire. That had burned down in the day I hadn’t spent in the room, though some of the larger logs were still tiny embers. I used a handful of kindling and pinecones and prayed they wouldn’t be the explosive popping sort.

Once that was going and the grill was back in place, I poured two glasses of whiskey from the bottle near my desk, and offered one to the rug nest.

A slim hand emerged. “Thank you, Covin,” she whispered, all tired and cuddly and so damn tempting.

“You’re welcome.” I forced the words out through a tight throat and sipped my whiskey, appreciating the burn for more than one reason.

Placing my glass by the mantle while she cradled hers, I fussed with the remaining garlands, spreading them across the tower room until it was filled with a veritable jungle.

“Is there family at home to benefit from your decorating talents?” Lindy’s voice faded with every branch I pinned above my desk.

The tack I was intent on shoving into a thin branch stuck me instead. “Ow. Fuck.” I drew the stabbed digit into my mouth and sucked on it, trying not to fall off my desk at the same time. Lindy peered up at me through her fluffy hidey hole. Even with the pang that clenched my heart as both sight and memory collided a smile broke across my face. “You’re too cute.”

“Sure. So. family?”

I sighed. She wasn’t going to let this go, and I knew it. Pinning the last of the garland and holly in place, I perched my ass on the desk and looked at her. “I used to. Beautiful wife, nursery painted and ready to go. Twin girls on the way. The room was blue on one side, bright, not sky blue. You would have loved it. Yellow on the other.” My throat closed, and I was done.

Lindy watched and sipped her whiskey. Waited, for once, like she knew what was coming dammit.

And me, like a fool, couldn’t stop fucking talking.

“I had it all. Family, career. Hell, I even stopped working. Dropped the job that could have ruined it all. I just…stopped. I was ready to become a home dad. Look after my wife and kids. And one day, one normal, usual day…I lost everything. One hemorrhage. That was it. Gone.” My voice grew hoarse.

The blanket nest shifted. Lindy didn’t say anything, just held out one corner. I fell off the desk, tears I’d held at bay for far too long, hadn’t ever been able shed even then, just closed off from the world, those tears made an appearance as I lay on my back under a corner of a borrowed blanket with Lindy’s warmth on one side and the fire on the other.

Shadows chased each other across the rafters as the room darkened. We didn’t speak, didn’t need to talk, or say unnecessary words. All the words were done. Like me. That wasone of the reasons I hid away here, after all. Tried to find a new part of me, despite that I lost Sarah and my girls over a decade ago. That hurt would never go away. And I thought that hiding in books at the top of Scotland might help.

Maybe it did, just not in the way I expected.

By the time I blinked my way out of my memory pit I dug myself into the sky outside my tower window was filled with black velvet and studded with white diamond stars in a clear, frigid night. The remnants of my earlier fire burned low. Lindy slept at my side, her face free of lines, the only time she was completely at peace. Her face reflected warmth in the fire’s failing light.

I tossed a heavy wood round past the grill onto the fire, and hoped it didn’t miss. The log landed decently and after a few moments it started smoking.

“Don’t move,” Lindy muttered, winding her fingers across my stomach.

I found her hand in mine, linking our hands together. Some part of me insisted I should feel guilty, that this was a betrayal of the highest order, but my heart told me that Lindy would respect the old part of my life…

While a fraction, a tiny fraction of my logical mind screamed from the depths I banished it to that this would end in heartbreak because we were holidaymakers who met halfway around the world and wouldn’t be leaving together.

Ignoring all sense whatsoever I slipped my arm around her narrow shoulders, pulling her into me and kissed the top of her head. “Sleep, Lindy.”

She mewled softly into my shoulder. Her warmth spread across my body like a blanket, letting me share her peace. It took me a moment to realize just how much stress she carried with her, too. I’d told her my story, but I hadn’t learned hers in return. Not yet.

I made a mental note to ask in the morning but brain function failed me after that. I slipped with her into an unconscious realm where memories danced together, blending with the laugh of a woman I barely knew and the face of a sad boy with a name I couldn’t remember.

I woke with a screaming back to the chatter of a pretty artist conversing with a ghost who answered in salmon-tin language and remembered why I was too old to sleep on the floor.

“This was not a good idea,” I groused, pushing myself up onto my elbows.

Lindy shoved her mass of hair off her face and turned a sunny smile to me. “Best sleep I’ve had in ages.” She poked my chest. “You snore like a bear, Dustman. Ever had that checked?”

“Never had a reason to.”

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