Interloper at Glencoe Read online

  “For what?”

  His trews were still open, and though he was fully recovered from his excitement he unfastened the remaining button. “Sunday dinner with the parental units tomorrow night. It’s going to be about as much fun as listening to your brother rag on me all evening.” He kicked off his brogues, and stripped himself of his stockings, trews, and drawers. “Let’s go swimming,” he said.

  “In the pond?”

  He grinned and chuckled. “Yeah. Let’s go jump into the cement pond. Get your suit on.” Then he disappeared into the bedroom, and Beth rose from the floor to follow. He donned a pair of blue drawers that covered even less of him than did the tiny suit he’d bought for her. Then he helped her into that suit and took some towels from the cabinet near the bedroom door.

  Out by the pool, the man Beth had met the other day was lying beside it, appearing asleep, his near-naked skin gleaming with sweat. The sun was low in the sky, and shadows were deepening all over the stone courtyard. Beth felt a slight chill, wearing only this very tiny bit of cloth. She wondered why the fellow wasn’t in the pool, and couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to simply lie outside to sleep. How long had he been there? The man looked up as they approached, and put his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. “Hi, Nick,” he greeted.

  “Hey, Randy.”

  Beth blinked. She leaned close to Nick’s ear and whispered, “That is his name?”

  “Sure.”

  “Truly?”

  “Yeah. Short for Randolph, probably. Why?”

  “Och.” Now she felt a fool. “No reason.”

  The bright blue pond glistened in the sun, and as she and Nick approached the narrow end of it she saw that the water itself wasn’t blue. At this end of the pool it appeared quite clear.

  “It’s not blue.” It was something of a relief to learn she wouldn’t be turned blue by colored water.

  “No, it’s the sides that are blue.”

  “I see. Why do they not call it a bath?”

  Nick tossed their towels onto a long chair near the pool edge then descended the steps with her to stand at the pale-colored shallow end. “Because... we’re not Romans?” He chuckled at his own joke. “I guess because a bath is for getting clean when you’re dirty. This is for exercise and fun, and theoretically you’re already clean when you get in. Nobody wants to swim in a pool where other people have bathed to get clean.”

  “I see.” She stepped down with him, and found the water cold enough to make her gasp. “Och, the air is still warm, but the water is terribly cold!”

  “It’s still spring. Once it gets to be summer, it won’t be so bad.”

  “The River Coe can be monstrous cold, but it has never surprised me for it.” She took up a handful of the water and smelled it. “It doesnae smell very clean.”

  “Chlorine. It’s a chemical that kills bacteria.”

  More bacteria. “Your people seem terribly afraid of the bacteria evil.”

  “It can kill. Getting rid of it keeps people from getting diseases from others.”

  “Indeed?” This was intriguing news. “Bacterias take disease from one and give it to another?”

  Nick’s face tightened on one side as he thought about it, then he said, “No, not really. It’s the bacteria itself that causes the disease. Or virus. Chlorine kills that sort of thing.” He sank into the water and lay back on the surface, his hands swishing back and forth, then rolled over and swam to the other end of the pool. Like a fish, almost, his movements were smooth. Effortless. At the opposite end, he went under, pushed off from the side, and shot back across to Beth. Passing her, he reached out to tickle the back of her knee, then surfaced and stood.

  “You ready?” He shook wet hair from his eyes and grinned when she wiped his splashes from her face.

  “To do that? Never.” Her hands moved back and forth just under the surface. “I’ll keep my feet on the bottom, thank you.”

  “Come on, let me teach you to float, at least.”

  “I can float well enough.”

  “Then you can swim.” He lay on his back to float again and said, “You just move your arms and legs like this.” He demonstrated, taking a back stroke toward the other end again, then rolled and dove beneath the surface. In the middle he popped back up and shook the water from his face. “See?” His arms moved slowly, treading the water.

  “I prefer to stay here.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “Aye.”

  That made him laugh. “Well, at least you’re not afraid to admit it. Come on.” He continued to the opposite edge, to tread water there. “Come to me; I won’t let you drown.”

  “No, ye willnae, but I’d rather not have the embarrassment of having to be saved.”

  A rather sad look crossed his face, and it appeared to Beth to be nearly disappointment. But he smiled again and said in a softer voice, “Just try.”

  Now she felt guilty for disappointing him, and said, “Very well.” She squatted into the water to her neck, gasping at the cold, and put her hands in front of her along the surface. Her aim on Nick, she pushed off from the floor of the shallows toward him. But not hard enough. Her momentum failed only halfway to him.

  “Paddle,” he said. “Kick your feet.”

  She did so, and progressed a few more feet before he reached out to grab her upper arm and draw her to him. One arm went around her waist and the other held the cement rim of the pool, and he held her against himself. His shoulders were steady as she clung to them, and he was like a tree in the river, holding her up.

  “You did it. You swam.”

  “I thrashed about, and you caught me.”

  “Are you embarrassed?” His voice was soft again, low and intimate.

  “No.” His arm around her was comforting, and her body pressed against his was glad for it. Glad for the warmth of him in the cold water, and for the strength of him to hold her up. She kissed his mouth, and the warmth grew. He drew her closer, and she discovered the water was not so cold as to keep him from growing hard. Breaths broke against her cheek. Her leg rose to encircle his waist, and he took his mouth from hers.

  “Oh... I’m in trouble now.” It was a whisper close to her ear. She took the lobe of his ear between her teeth and tugged on it. He groaned and kissed her again. It was sweet to torture him this way, knowing he would stay in the pool, unsatisfied, until his interest in her waned again. She knew he was far too shy to let his neighbor Randy see him like this. He pressed himself to her hard. “Oh, man, I’ve got to stop this.”

  She giggled.

  “No, seriously, we’ve got to quit. Twice in one day—in one hour; it’s killing me.” Nevertheless, he pressed himself to her. She pressed back, and he sighed.

  “I’ll fetch you a towel to wrap around yourself.”

  He grinned. “Right. Like that’s going to fool anyone.”

  “The sooner to be inside and behind the closed door, not caring anymore about what anyone out here might see or think.”

  For the briefest of moments he considered that, then he said. “Right. Get me a towel.” He hefted her to the edge of the pool and helped her climb it, then shot across to the shallow end while she hurried to the long chair for their towels and brought one to him. Without hesitation he took it from her as he climbed the steps, and wrapped it around his waist. They retreated to the apartment, where he closed the door then pulled the curtains shut. Beth was already helping him off with his drawers, which dropped easily to the floor. Four quick yanks on the ties of her suit, and it joined his drawers. She drew him onto the bench he called a “sofa,” and he knelt between her thighs to become a tangle of wet skin, dripping hair, cooled parts and parts warming to delicious heat. After the cold pool, his mouth was almost unbearably hot on her nipples. Then he sat back, bent to her, and placed that mouth where she’d thought no man would ever want to kiss. Her mouth dropped open, her back arched of its own accord, and she gasped.

  “Och! A Neacail!”

 
; He chuckled, and played some more. Beth was torn between asking him to stop and begging him not to stop, for it was too wonderful to bear. One foot against his shoulder, she trembled to push him away, but couldn’t make herself do it. Every corner of her set to tingling, and every touch of his tongue sent waves through her. She whimpered with it, then the shuddering began and she surrendered to it until she was nearly senseless.

  Immediately when it passed, Nick rose up to enter her and the ecstasy began again. He moved against the parts of her most sensitive, made even more tender by his attention. Steady. Relentless. Faster. Harder. He held her around the waist and lifted her to him, bowed over her and his face against her breast. Taken entirely by Nick and the things he was doing to her, she uttered a cry that surely was heard by the man lounging outside. Now Nick did not chuckle, for he was seized by his own pleasure. Muscles tense, breaths breaking hard against her skin, he was all around her and all through her. He erupted in a deep growl and slammed himself into her, then lay still, gasping. Without leaving her, arms around her waist, he held her to him as he sat back on his heels, and curled himself over her to press his face to her belly as he hugged her. His chest heaved for breath, and it was warm against her side.

  “Oh, man.”

  This time she knew what he meant, and agreed. She hugged him with her knees and stroked his wet hair, and they lay for a time inside each other’s embrace.

  o0o

  Nick knew he was dreaming. Not a dream, but a nightmare. It had to be. The screams were in the distance, but Beth stood before him, talking to someone in the room. It was the bedroom alcove in Seòras MacDonald’s house. He couldn’t see, but there were two men. Scottish voices, speaking Gaelic.

  But he didn’t know Gaelic. How could he dream in it? There was terror in Beth’s voice. He wanted to hold her, to take her away from that place, but he had no means. Watching was all there was for him, and when she turned to run she blew straight through him as if he weren’t there.

  “Beth!” He turned to watch, though he was certain he didn’t want to see. She didn’t hear. A figure chased her. There was a flash of something shiny in the dimness, and she wept. It was a sword. Nick shouted to her, told her to run. She ran and dodged. She made a desperate leap to her bed, but then it was all over. Three quick thrusts that took only a second. The screaming stopped, and the shadow standing over her gasped for breath.

  The man in the other room said something, and they both left the house. Nick stared into the darkness of the bed, at the even darker shadow there, gasping. Weeping. Gagging at the stench of the blood.

  With a start, he awakened. Tears stood on his eyelids, and he quickly wiped them away, hauling desperate breaths as he looked around his bedroom. A streetlight outside cast the place in grayness, nearly as much light as the household fire in Seòras MacDonald’s hearth. Beth lay next to him, oblivious to his distress, breathing and alive. The weeping nearly began again for his joy and relief.

  Softly, with care, he settled back in next to her and drew her a little closer. For a long time he lay awake, listening to her breathe and treasuring the rise and fall of her chest against his.

  Chapter 13

  Beth wore her new dress for their visit to the house of Nick’s parents on Sunday, and felt horribly underdressed in the flimsy garment. The sleeveless cotton hugged her figure to below her hips and the skirt brushed the tops of her feet, and when she moved it swayed in a way that made Nick stare. Within Nick’s chambers she didn’t mind, for there was nobody but him to see her, and that was perfectly acceptable. For she enjoyed his attention and could only smile when he would reach out to brush a hand over her hip or squeeze a shoulder whenever she came near. But when the door of his parents’ house opened and there stood a man who could be none other than Nick’s father, she suddenly knew Mouliné the elder must be able to see every curve and detail of her form. She crossed her arms just below her breasts to keep them still, for even though the bra held them up it didn’t hold them as securely as her laced woolen bodices had.

  But she blinked when she saw that this man was one of the people in the magic portraits in Nick’s sitting room. Such a relief to learn the pictures were true paintings and not magically trapped people! Nick’s father seemed a distinguished-looking man, terribly handsome, and Beth could see what Nick would look like when he grew to be that age. Dark hair peppered with gray, he nevertheless appeared much younger than he must have been to have a son who was thirty-two. He didn’t seem out of his thirties himself. She might have thought people here married young, but Nick didn’t look his age either, and Beth suspected his father might be quite as old as her own father.

  “Hey!” he said with good cheer that eased her somewhat. Since meeting Nick she’d learned that “hey” was a greeting and not a reference to animal fodder, so she returned the sentiment. “Hey,” she said with a smile.

  “You’re Beth. Come on in, you guys.”

  Nick’s mother, and another young woman Beth assumed to be the sister he’d spoken of, Darlene, came from another room with a wide smile of greeting and offered handshakes. Beth accepted, though it seemed strange and extraordinarily formal to her, and her nervousness made it difficult to keep smiling. Her façade began to slip as Darlene and her mother fell into an exchange about supper which Beth couldn’t follow. Something about “ricotta” and “mozzarella,” “fat grams” and “carbs.” Beth was hopelessly at sea already, so she glanced around as the master of the household led them to another, larger room.

  The house of Nick’s father was enormous by every standard Beth had ever known. Filled with room after room of astonishingly beautiful things, furniture more ornate and deeply cushioned than any she’d ever seen, it was luxury beyond her imagination. Nick had to lean close to her ear and whisper to her to close her mouth, for it had dropped quite open in awe. She whispered in return, “Your father is very rich.”

  He grunted. “Not so much. Better off than most, but still not rolling in it like some people around here.”

  “Rolling in what?”

  “Money.”

  “People here—”

  “No. I meant it figuratively.”

  “I see.”

  “What a lovely dress,” said Nick’s mother to Beth, having finished her talk with Darlene about supper. The woman was frail, skin and bones, and looked as if a stiff wind could blow her over. Her cheeks were pink enough, but it was plain the color was painted on, as was the redness of her mouth. And beneath the paint was skin as dark as a farmer’s, taut against the bones and shiny with age. Beth’s perception of Nick’s family as wealthy faltered, and she knew this woman must be a former whore or beggar plucked from destitution by a generous benefactor, Nick’s father. She wondered whether Mrs. Mouliné was truly Nick’s mother, or if she were a stepmother recently brought to the household. Perhaps even a servant the father had married after the death of his first wife. But in glancing from Nick to the woman, Beth concluded they were mother and son, because his mouth was exactly the same shape as hers and the sister resembled her closely. The riddle of it befuddled Beth, and she stammered when addressed.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “I said, where was it you met our Nick?”

  “He...” Beth glanced at Nick, who opened his mouth to speak, but she said suddenly, “I found him in a faerie ring.”

  A hard silence fell. Mr. Mouliné said, “What, is that a gay thing?”

  “Dad—”

  “She’s Scottish, Dad,” said Darlene. “They have actual faeries over there. You know, with pixie dust and stuff.”

  “Pixie dust?” Beth knew there was no such thing.

  The father said, “I thought she sounded Irish.”

  “Right, like you could tell.”

  “So, you’re saying she is a faerie?”

  Beth wondered why nobody was talking to herself or Nick. But Nick was able to force his way into the conversation and assert to his family she wasn’t a faerie.

  “No, you guy
s, she was making a joke. We met when she was looking at an apartment in my building. She recently moved to L.A. from Scotland.”

  “See, toldya, Dad.” Darlene glowed with victory that she’d correctly identified Beth’s speech. “Not Irish.”

  The mother said, “So, you live in Nick’s building?”

  “Aye,” said Beth, then she turned to Nick. “Is it truly your building?”

  He grinned and chuckled in response, and she knew she’d once again said something she shouldn’t have.

  “You’ve just moved to the U.S.?” Mrs. Mouliné’s voice took on an edge Beth didn’t like. “Do you have your green card yet?”

  Beth frowned. “What could I want with a green card?”

  There was another heavy silence, and Nick actually blanched. Then he said, “You’re being nosy, Mom.”

  “Just making conversation. I wonder what she thinks of our country. I’m sure it’s different from what she’s used to.”

  “Oh, aye. ’Tis a beautiful place. So clean, and everyone here is so rich.” She meant it as a compliment, but a soft groan escaped Nick. It seemed she could say nothing right this evening. Her chest tightened, and she stepped close to take Nick’s hand. This wasn’t going well at all. His hand closed over hers, then tensed as if to keep her under control.

  He said, “The lasagna smells great, Mom.” He drew a deep breath.

  “You visit so seldom, I thought it would be nice to make your favorite.”

  “Black olives?”

  “Of course.”

  Awash in things she hadn’t known about Nick, Beth felt herself slipping away from him and let go of his hand. The tightness in her chest moved to her throat. He’d not mentioned this favorite dish to her, and hadn’t told her of a desire for black olives. She’d never seen an actual olive of any color, and only knew them from the Bible. The word brought images of Jesus preaching under a tree on a hill, and nothing more.

  “What can I get you to drink?” Mr. Mouliné went to a tall table bearing glass cups and bottles.