Off Kilter (7 page)

She’d rejected that diagnosis. Out of hand. She’d tried alternative
methods, including hypnosis and acupuncture, among other more off-the-wall therapies. Those who knew her would have been boggled at the things she’d experimented with. Even she was surprised by the lengths she’d gone to. But she’d have tried anything if she could find a way to manage her disorder effectively so she could stay in the field and continue her work. Photojournalism was what she did. It was who she was. She couldn’t contemplate an alternative.

But it had finally gotten so bad that she wasn’t functioning, wasn’t sleeping … and she sure as hell wasn’t doing her job effectively. In fact, for the six weeks prior to coming to Kinloch, she’d missed deadlines and struggled to complete her assignments, with no hope left that things were going to improve—unless she made some additional changes. Deep down, she knew there was only one additional change left to make.

Feeling more lost than she’d ever been, not knowing where else to turn, she’d finally decided to take the “vacation” everyone who worked with her had been gently, and not-so-gently, suggesting. She’d come to Kinloch, to Kira. She’d come, initially telling herself a break from the road would give her time to find a realistic solution that would allow her to heal, while continuing in the only profession she’d ever known, or ever wanted. As she’d debarked from the island ferry and been engulfed in Kira’s tight hug, she’d already known that for the lie it was. There was no realistic solution—other than walking away.

She knew that. So what she was really doing there, was hiding—taking a vacation from the inevitability of the truth. Only, in the wee, shaky hours of another restless, terror-filled night, she’d decided that wasn’t exactly working, either.

Sometime around three-thirty that morning, she’d found herself going back over some of the calendar prints she’d taken. Her eye focused on the scenery … and not the kind that had to do with bulging muscles and artfully placed swaths of plaid. There was beauty on Kinloch—natural, staggering amounts of it, no matter the direction in which she’d pointed her camera.
But there was also a history there. While the fields were no longer strewn with the carnage of this battle or that blight, what grew was a direct result of what had come from the survival of those brutal challenges.

That had gotten her to thinking … about the travesties she’d spent her professional career recording, exposing to the world the atrocities suffered by so many, often in places of equally staggering beauty and bounty. It had always struck her as so needless, so … reckless. All of her work, her determination … had done absolutely nothing to stop it from happening again. And again. With an infinity of agains yet to occur.

Similar madness and mayhem had happened right on these shores, on the very ground where she was walking at the moment. She juxtaposed the savagery of the past … with the bucolic scenery of Kinloch as it was today. There were ruins of an ancient abbey just off shore, and the towering fortress of a castle, slowly crumbling, yet still standing boldly as a symbol to the clansmen and women who made their home there—direct descendants of the men and women who’d laid those very stones, whose very blood had been shed beneath her feet in order to preserve it and all it stood for, and what it would continue to stand for.

A thread of an idea was born of that.

She couldn’t stop the madness or the mayhem, either in the world or inside her head. Maybe it was that very helplessness that had eventually taken such a heavy toll on her psyche. So … if she couldn’t continue to subject herself to the ravages of war … perhaps she could turn her attentions to what happened after. What had those wars eventually wrought for the people who’d fought in them?

Maybe it was time to train her lens on the other side of the equation.

Smokescreen? Cop out? She wasn’t really sure. It was only a shadow of an idea … and she was aware she might simply be fooling herself into thinking there was merit to it, or substance in it worth pursuing. She was trudging over rocky soil at dawn,
dodging sheep, and heading to the shore to take pictures of the abbey … and the tower … and later, the castle. From there, she wasn’t certain. She had research to do. And, if the wisp of an idea took on substance, there would be interviews to schedule.

It shouldn’t excite her, that burgeoning idea of hers. It should terrify her. But her fingers were itching to get to work. And she hadn’t felt like that in a very, very long time. Longer than she would have ever admitted—even to herself.

She scrambled over the second stone wall, navigated through another herd of mingling, black-faced sheep, then headed west around the base of Cruinish, toward the north track. The shoreline was still a mile off, but the distance melted away as the hike gave her time to think, to plot, to plan.

Kinloch wouldn’t be the most interesting place to document a history of then and now, but it was where she was, away from everything, and everyone who worked with her. No one would ever have to know if it turned out to be a ridiculous folly.

Deep in thought, feeling physically weary, but mentally energized by the new plan, she jumped a shallow gully that ran alongside the north track. She’d barely scrambled to the side of the road, slipping a little as she tried to gain purchase on the stretch of loose dirt and rocks between her and the pavement, when a single headlight pierced the fog, followed by the blare of a horn. The motorbike was right on her, leaving her no time to leap out of the way. Then came the sound of skidding tires, as it left the road on the far side and slid sideways in the soft dirt before depositing its rider into the bordering gully just beyond.

“Oh my God.” Tessa managed to right herself without falling back into the gully behind her, then ran across the narrow track. “Are you okay?” She had to shout over the sound of the motor that was still humming on the bike, but was more interested to find out if the driver was injured. “Are you hurt? Should I go for help?”

She gingerly skidded down the steep side of the gully, then hopped across the mud-and-water-filled trench at the bottom, slogging through the muck on the other side as she made her way to where the rider was presently rolling to his back, groaning. Well, swearing, actually, she realized, as she got closer.

“Just wait a second, I’ll help you.”

It wasn’t until she was almost on top of him that the heavy mists, still thickly banked down in the gully, parted enough so she could see him more clearly. “You,” she said, stopping short, the hand she’d been extending freezing in mid-reach.

“Christ, I should have known.” Roan sat up, ignoring her half-hearted gesture to help pull him up, then made a face as the muck oozed in around the waistband of his trousers when he shifted backward to reposition his booted feet. “Brilliant. Bloody brilliant.”

“Here,” she said, resolutely sticking her hand out. “Let me help.”

He eyed the hand as if she was shoving a snake at him.

“Look, I get that we’re not best buddies, but I’m not an ogre who takes pleasure from the misery of others.”

“Could have fooled me,” he muttered, as he pushed himself up. He climbed from muck to bank, then up to the side of the road where his bike still lay, the motor spinning.

“No, please,” she said flatly, “I can climb back up on my own.” She hopped the gully again, and found a rocky section that made climbing back to the roadside a bit easier.

He wasn’t paying any attention to her, but was crouching over his motorbike, which was now silent.

“Will it run?” she asked, walking toward him, despite the urge to simply turn around and keep on walking toward her original destination.

“Run, yes. Roll, I’m no’ so certain.”

She skimmed her gaze over the frame, and noted that one of the wheels did look a bit … warped. “That’s not so good.”

“No, it’s not. And I have an appointment at”—he glanced at his watch from habit, no doubt, only to swear under his breath
again as his shirt cuff slid back to reveal the timepiece was covered in thick gunk, with a few choice pieces of gully debris sticking to it as well—“doesnae matter much now, anyway.” He straightened and moved the bike so it was well off the road.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, though she wasn’t certain why she was still engaging him in any form of conversation. He was clearly unhurt, and just as clearly not remotely caring whether she stayed or left. It was just … she didn’t feel right walking away from the scene of an accident. Especially one she was at least partly responsible for.

“Walk into town. Borrow Graham’s truck, pick up my bike, take it to Magnus’s shop.” He finally glanced at her. “What on earth were you about, wandering out here in the wee hours of dawn? The sun’s no’ even fully up yet.”

“Heading to the shore,” she answered, not that it was any business of his. But he didn’t look so smug with his ridiculously perfect dimple filled with gully mud. And that made him slightly less annoying to her. “I’d give you a lift, but as you can see”— she gestured to her feet—“I’m sorry though, for making you crash. I didn’t see the headlight until it was too late.”

There was a beat, then he said, “Not to worry. Worse things could have resulted.” He scraped the mud from his face and combed his gunked-up hair back from his face.

It was all kinds of wrong that looking like something from the La Brea Tar Pits made him seem much more rugged. She could imagine how smug he must have been when he realized she’d chosen him, and only him, as their best chance at getting into the Highlander calendar. It probably annoyed the hell out of the village charmer to look anything other than his GQ best.

“You might want to consider a shower first, before borrowing a truck,” she said. “Just a thought.”

He glanced down at himself, then surprised her with a smile and a short laugh. “I’d like to think Graham is a good enough friend no’ to mind a bit of mud.” He plucked a twig and a clump of muck from the pocket of his khakis. “But perhaps ye have a point.”

She refused to become one of the charmed. It would be a lot easier if he’d stop smiling. A gunk-filled dimple only diluted his charm so much.

He turned and looked back up the track from the direction he’d come, then the other way, which led into the village proper.

She had no idea where he lived, but she assumed they were closer to town than to his home. She couldn’t have said what prodded her to offer an alternative. Surely it was her guilty conscience talking. “Kira’s place is probably closest,” she said. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you cleaned up there. She’ll be up and in her studio by now.”

To her further surprise, she could have sworn he blanched. Just a little. Right before all the good humor left his face. “Uh, thanks. But, ah, no. I’m—I’ll be fine. Good.”

She folded her arms. “Really.” He was stuttering—which made the otherwise cocksure man she’d had the displeasure of being saddled with earlier in the week seem almost … endearing.

“Yes,” he said, gathering himself rather quickly. “Quite. You—carry on with what you were doing, then. And I’ll—”

“Walk into town. Looking like a creature from the black lagoon. Perhaps I’ll join you on the hike in. Maybe snap a few pictures as we go along. Could be amusing. Who knows, maybe you’ll actually like those.”

“What do ye mean?”

“Well, from what I hear, you couldn’t be bothered to even glance at the ones I took of you last week. Pretty sure of your appeal”—she shrugged and gave him a frank onceover—“with reason, I suppose. I guess we should all own our assets.”

He took a step closer, real irritation on his face. “You’re so smug, thinking you have me pegged. But you have no idea, in the least, who I am, or what motivates me to do anything I choose to do.”

“Me, smug?”

“Aye. But then, I’ve read your resume and I guess, likewise,
you have reason to be. Owning your assets and all that. I’ll just say that while your career impresses me—mightily, in fact—I dinnae know how it is you’ve done all ye’ve done.”

“Because I’m a woman, you mean?”

He looked honestly confused. “What does gender have to do with pointing a camera at something? No, I was speaking of yer attitude about the rest of us poor blokes.”

It was her turn to be confused. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Your people skills leave a lot to be desired, lass. Although, I suppose, anyone who has seen all of the things that you have, wouldn’t be expected to have much softness left.”

He hadn’t said the last part unkindly, which was why it undid her. Or that’s what she told herself, anyway. It was easier to think of him as an opinionated, uninformed, too-good-looking-for-his-own-good jackass. “Why on earth would you take the time to look at my career highlights?”

“I just insult you and you’re only concerned that I peeked at yer curriculum vitae?”

“You didn’t insult me. You just spoke the truth. You’re probably right—too right—about my people skills. But given your lack of enthusiasm regarding my involvement with this project in general, and you in particular, it just struck me as odd that you’d spend any amount of time digging up information on me.”

“No’ so difficult. You’re quite Google-able. I looked you up because we’re trustin’ yer judgment on something that might seem trivial to you, but could bring us a great deal of help.”

“Kira explained,” she said. “And I get that the … ah … added exposure could potentially be a boon for your basket sales. And probably boost tourism. I just hope you’re not banking all your marketing on a Hunks of the Highlands calendar.”

Rather than be insulted, he laughed. “No, it sounded ridiculous to me, too, at first. But when it comes to the welfare of this island and every last person on it, I’m willing to do whatever it takes. It’s the only reason I agreed to gettin’ Kira to ask you to
man the camera, or stand in front of it myself. I needed to know who I was trustin’ to make what might turn out to be an important decision. But did I need to see the photos of my smiling, idiotic face? No. I didn’t look at any of them, no offense meant to you. I looked at your history, and I trusted you with the choice.”

Strangely enough, she believed him even though it didn’t jibe with who she thought he was. “Me and Katie McAuley, you mean.