She pulled her feet up so that she was lost under the quilt and put her head on his arm, turning to look at him. “My Jock.”
“Your Jock?”
“Well, if you can nickname me, and take care of pesky things like psycho ex-fiancés, I’m thinking I can dub you My Jock.”
“Not very creative,” he said, reaching out to play with the ends of her hair.
“Well, the other contender was Pain-in-my-ass Jock.”
“And yet when you say them, they somehow sound remarkably the same.”
She laughed a small laugh, but it was a smile all the same.
For several minutes they just looked at each other. She licked her lips and said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being you. For helping me.” One side of her mouth kicked up in a smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “For being my friend, and for giving me a safe place to go.”
“Kait—”
“No, I have a few friends here, but no one who could help me stand up against him or his family. Not that that is the reason . . . What I’m trying to say is . . .”
He ran his fingers along the side of her head, tucking strands of hair behind her ear. “You don’t have—”
“Yes, I do. I didn’t want anything, with anyone. I just wanted to get rid of Landon and I can’t seem to do that. You didn’t have to help me, you didn’t have to offer me a safe place to go, and even if you had, you didn’t have to get involved.” She took a deep breath. “I know it’s rash and stupid and fast, but you managed to sneak in when we danced, when you told him at the cars that treasures should be cherished, when you didn’t demand anything this weekend and just let me be. A few days ago, you were just a dream, a nice dream I could keep close when things got crazy and bad and—”
“I’m no dream, Kaitlyn.”
She nodded. “I know, I don’t know how to say what I want to say and it’s getting all mixed up.”
“You like me, I like you. You’re important to me and there is not a long list of people who are truly important to me. I’d still have helped you even if you hadn’t ended up in my bed.”
“I know.” She touched his hand against her cheek. This time she kissed his palm. “You are that type of man.”
“I know, I’m a knight in shining armor. I was just waiting on my damsel.”
“I don’t know that I’d go that far. Until Landon, I would never have thought myself some damsel, now I don’t have a place to live, I don’t have a job, and I’ve no idea what to do.”
Jock smiled at her. “Well, I have a few things to wrap up and check on, but I bet I could come up with a few things for us to do.”
She smiled again, her bruised lips and face still enraging him. “Oh, I’ve no doubt.”
“See, a knight.”
She shook her head. “I need a job.”
He started to say something, then decided against it.
“Good idea. I’m not sure I’d want to hear what you had to say on that one.”
He held up his hands. “I was only going to suggest you wait until things settle down. You’ve got a place here for as long as you need it.”
“I don’t do charity, Jock. I just don’t. Please don’t argue. I’ll pay you back for staying here.”
Again he started to argue, then thought better of it. Let her think what she wanted. If it made her feel better to give him part of a paycheck, he’d put it in an account for her. Less arguing that way.
“Whatever you need, though, I do want to make it clear I neither want, nor expect, nor need you to pay me back for anything. I’d really rather you not, but I know it’s more what you’d prefer rather than what I’d prefer.” He leaned closer and pulled her gently toward him and kissed her gently on the lips. “Right now, focus on you and resting. Please.”
“Fine, then tomorrow I’ll go look for a job. ER nurses are always in demand. Most don’t like the chaos,” she muttered. “I’ll look up and see what hospitals are here, where I can afford to live, and then get hired.”
He thought of the area near the hospitals. She was not getting a place near the hospitals.
“You need to reapply to med school,” he told her.
Her eyes jerked to his. “What?”
“Med school. January. Get your application and references back in,” he told her.
“We’ll see. Right now that seems huge, big, I don’t know—”
“You know you want it, you can do it. Don’t let him take that away from you.” He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. He was tired, but there was so much to do. He needed to rearrange his meetings later this week for New York. Push them back a couple of weeks.
“You are not like most men.”
“Glad you’re figuring that out. Makes my job easier.”
“Really? Well, never let it be said I was easy.”
“We’re meant to be together, Kaitie.” He grinned at her. “And if anyone ever calls you easy, they don’t know what they’re talking about and I’d have to kick their ass.”
She laughed. “Jock.”
“Well, can’t have anyone insulting my girl.” He pulled her into the crook of his arm and settled more into the couch. He covered a yawn with his other hand.
“Your girl?” she asked him as she settled on him.
He wrapped his arms around her and the quilt. “My girl. She’s funny, and sassy. This ER nurse who’s a real spitfire and she’s going to be a doctor because my girl goes after what she wants and doesn’t let anything stand in her way.”
She was silent for a minute. Softly she asked, “That’s the way you see me?”
“This from the woman who said I was her knight?”
“Actually, you said that.”
“Good thing we both see things in the same vein.”
“Blind, they say—” She stilled for a minute and he wondered what she’d have said if she’d finished. She took a deep careful breath and reached a hand out from under her quilt to lace her fingers with his.
“So they say,” he answered.
They said love was blind. He was okay with that, glad she was in his arms, safe in his place, where he’d do whatever he had to to keep her that way.
Chapter 9
Two weeks later
Jock had surprised her with a trip to Ireland a few days after Landon’s assault. He’d taken her shopping first because he didn’t want her meeting her grandmother with hardly any clothing. She had only half won that argument. He could take her shopping but she was only going to get a few things.
Grammy loved him. Maive O’Reilly knew her granddaughter and trusted her judgment, so she’d stated. The two had just . . . hit it off. They talked and laughed and time with Grammy was like it always was, perfect, even with Jock. Now, though, they’d gone to visit her maternal grandmother, Patricia Gibbons, in Dublin, which Kaitlyn could have honestly done without. Grandmother ridiculed and criticized Kaitlyn, which was nothing new to her.
To Jock, though, that was a different story.
“If you can’t be happy your granddaughter is here to see you, we’ll be more than happy to leave,” he told Grandmother.
Grandmother had always scared Kaitlyn, truth be told. The woman had dark black hair, because she still dyed it, and wore it in a topknot. She rarely smiled and nothing was ever good enough.
“You should be thinking of your future, not playing at being a doctor. You’ll never get a husband worth a damn if you go that route, Kaitlyn,” Grandmother said. “The men will only marry you so you can support them. Which, if you would be the woman you were meant to be, rather than some modern-wishing-you-were-a-man version of a woman, that wouldn’t happen.”
“Good thing she’ll be marrying me then,” Jock broke in. He’d grown angrier and angrier, though he’d tried to control it. Kaitlyn knew this because the skin across his face had gotten tighter and tighter, the muscles in his square jaw bunching. He normally was laid back, but he’d grown restless and now he was pacing.
“I seriously doubt that,” Grandmother sniffed as she stared up at Jock, who slowly prowled the room.
The perfect room, with its breakables and pretties Kaitlyn had never been allowed to touch.
Then her dark eyes settled back on Kaitlyn. “You’ve played enough, dear. It’s time you grow up, be the woman you’re meant to be and find a suitable husband.”
“Who might that be?” she asked her.
“Someone who can appreciate your standing,” she said.
“What a crock of—”
“Jock,” Kaitlyn interrupted.
He walked—more like stalked—over to the woman and shook his head. “No wonder.”
Then he turned to Kaitlyn and held his hand out. “Let’s go.”
“Kaitlyn isn’t leaving with you,” her grandmother said, as if she was some schoolgirl, not a woman who’d been on her own for years.
“Jock.”
He held his hand out. “You don’t need this in your life. If she changes her tune, fine, but I’m not standing here silently while she belittles you. I don’t care if she is your grandmother.”
She smiled up at him, the tightness in her chest easing. She’d always been tense when she’d had to go stay with the woman.
“Come with me, Kaitie,” he said softly.
She placed her hand in his. “We have a few things to discuss, I think.”
He winked at her.
As they made their way to the entry, her grandmother’s vitriol following them, she felt light and carefree for the first time ever in that house.
“If you leave with him, let alone marry the man, do
not
come back here.” Those dark eyes bore into hers.
“Grandmother.”
“You’re just like your mother. So many plans, so many opportunities dashed aside, and for what? Some idea to be more. For some man?” She shook her head. “Mark my words. You marry him, you’ll come to regret it. And you”—she turned to Jock—“you’ll have heartache, and if you last long enough to have children, they’ll fight to find happiness and peace in this world,” the woman hissed.
Jock stepped in front of her. “That’s enough. I’d say it’s been a pleasure, but I don’t lie.” He turned then, took Kaitlyn’s hand and led her from the house, their coats slung over his arm. He didn’t say a word as they got into the car, though she did remind him to drive on the proper side of the road—after she’d smiled when he immediately went to the left side of the car.
He muttered and cursed under his breath as they left the city and drove along the coast. Back to Grammy’s village. There were stops along the way and he pulled off on one unexpectedly.
“Jock?”
“I need to walk. Walk with me?” he asked her.
She opened her door, grabbed her jacket and pulled it on as he shut the door. The bluffs were high here, not too high, but high enough she didn’t want to fall off of them. The wind blew over the water, across the ribbon of beach below and up the sides of the cliffs.
She closed her eyes and breathed deep. Jock walked down the way, following a path.
What was wrong with him? Then he turned back and waited for her.
“Has that woman always been like that?” he asked, frowning.
That woman
. She grinned as a memory she’d forgotten danced in her mind. Her parents arguing about going to Ireland for the holidays.
I love you, Maddie, but we are not spending our time away with that woman.
It had been a few months before the crash. Her father had been talking about Grandmother. They had spent a few hours there for two afternoons, but stayed over in a hotel.
“Why are you smiling?” he snapped, his hands on his hips.
“I just remembered my father used to refer to Grandmother exactly the same way you just did.” She laughed, then looked out over the water. “He would have liked you, I think.” Then she nodded. “He would have. Mom would have simply because you make me laugh.”
He didn’t say anything for a while. “Does it bother you to be here? I never thought of that. You just kept saying you wanted to go home, so I thought . . . That is . . . Hell, I should have asked you rather than surprising you.”
“Jock.” She put her hand on his chest and rubbed. “I love it here. Granted, I don’t want to live here forever. I lived here for the last few years before I headed to nursing school. I like America. I was raised in New York, and though this is a lovely place, I’d smother here in the long run. No, it doesn’t bother me to be here.” She tilted her head. “I’m sorry you had to see Grandmother like that. Sometimes she’s not so bad. When I have to visit her, I do it in short bursts now that I’m older.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t have the right to ask, yet. Or maybe never, as she is your grandmother, but I don’t want you going to visit her alone.”
She rolled her eyes. “My Jock, always so protective. I have to visit her when I come over. She’s Grandmother.”
“I should wait until tomorrow. I thought things would be different. I had no idea she was so . . . so . . . toxic.” He looked out over the water.
She waited.
“I talked to Grammy one afternoon when she came to the village and I walked her back home.” He took a deep breath. “She’s one amazing woman, very perceptive.”
“Hmmm. Grammy is, yes.” All she’d said to Kaitlyn since they’d arrived, while Jock was in the village hotel, was that she liked him. Grammy liked Jock, liked that he made Kaitlyn laugh, liked how he was protective, liked that he respected her, and that he riled her so. Grammy loved the way he looked at her.
She hadn’t noticed, other than he always seemed to give her his undivided attention.
“Kaitie lass,” he said, pulling her attention back to him.
“Yes?”
He shook his head and held her hand. “Do you know the first thing that came to my mind when I saw you across the ballroom at that stupid gala?”
She smiled. “No.”
“I saw your hair, and your gown, and I remember thinking that’s the woman I’m going to marry. Yet, something about you seemed off. The dress, the way you were with him. I wanted to see you smile. Make you laugh. I damned well wanted you away from that bastard.”
She took a deep breath. “Jock.”
“Shh. I know. I know what you just ended. I know how confused things have been for you lately. I know you need time, and I’ll give you that. But I want you to know where I stand, what I see for us, what I want for us, for you.”
She’d thought he’d been scared, but the determination in his cobalt eyes was mixed with sadness. “I don’t know if I should have told you, or if that would scare you considering everything. I want you, and it’s my way to simply tell people what I expect, what I want. And obtain it. With you, I have to be more careful. That’s fine, but—”
“Jock, sometimes you talk too much.” She leaned up and wrapped her arms around his neck. She pressed her lips to his, but he didn’t kiss her back.
“I never know quite where I stand with you,” he muttered against her lips.
She smiled. “Good. Keeps you on your toes that way.”
“A handful.”
“Well, I feel it only fair to warn you, I’m only thinking of marrying you because Grandmother is against it and I’ve made it a habit to do whatever it is she doesn’t want me to do. Live with Grammy, move to America, get a job, and in medicine. Become a doctor.”
One dark brow arched over his amazing blue eyes. “Thinking of marrying me? Really? To spite someone? Most women just go after my name and money.”
“Oh, that’s in there too. I’d hate for you to think I was shallow.”
He laughed and pulled her close. “I don’t want to rush you, or—”
“Pressure me, I know. Jock.” She took a deep breath. “Landon scared me. I went along with him, became someone else I didn’t recognize, because he sacred me. When I realized that, and thankfully it was before the ‘I dos,’ I got away.” She looked over his face and played with the ends of his hair. “While I was trying to figure out how to get away from him, how to be me again, I met this . . . annoying man who likes to keep me guessing what he’s going to say next.” She glanced at him from under her lashes. “He made me smile and laugh when I’d forgotten how. Showed me the me I was afraid I’d lost. He’s supportive and kind, if irritating, and he’s never scared me, not once. He’s not capable of that.” She leaned up on tiptoe even as he leaned down a bit. She kissed the side of his mouth and slid to whisper in his ear, “And he’s really great in bed. I figure since he’s actually got a job, I better keep him.”
She felt his inhale as he breathed deep.
“Keep me?”
She nodded.
“You’re proposing to keep me?” he asked, his eyes narrowed on hers.
“I—”
“Don’t think so, Kaitlyn O’Reilly.”
She frowned and pulled back as far as his locked arms would let her.
“I might be forward thinking on many things, but on some I find I’m really old-fashioned. If anyone’s asking to keep any—” He shook his head. “If anyone’s asking, in roundabout ways—Hell.” He took a deep breath, stepped back and held his hand out to her. “Be mine, Kaitie lass. Run away with me. We’ll build a life together. See what God gives us, build on that. Have kids. We’ll split them up between who goes to med school and who runs the hotels.”
She couldn’t hold the grin in. “Have it all planned out, do you?”
“I figure you’ll be busy with med school the next few years. I’ll let you focus on that and plan the rest of it out,” he said, winking at her.
“Yes, because the creating of and bearing of children has only to do with your plans?”
“I have to say, your ideas on the creating of them has been lots of fun so far. Can’t wait to see what you come up with next.”
She laughed outright.
“So?” he asked.
She looked at him, out over the sea, and took his hand.
“I think I should sleep on it. Serious question you pose.”
“So it is.” He laced their fingers together and kissed the back of her hand. “And I did it wrong.”
With that, he dropped to one knee in front of her, let go of her hand and pulled a ring out of his pocket. He held it out and said, “Kaitlyn O’Reilly, will you make me happy and be my wife?”
She could only stare at him, at the ring, a huge emerald surrounded by diamonds. “J-Jock.”
“Or if you just want to run away and live in sin, that works too. But I don’t know if Grammy would approve,” he said.
She laughed and took the ring. He slid it onto her finger. “So that’s a yes?”
Kaitlyn turned her hand one way then the other, smiling as the sun caught and glinted on the emerald. “I don’t know. You want me to run away with you, but I don’t know that you can run very well on your knees.” She looked down at him. “Though I have to say, I do like to see you on your knees before me. Gives me ideas.”
“Woman, you’re going to be the death of me.”
“If either of us goes making love, I’d say we’d die happy.”
He pulled her down with him, so she landed on top of him, and then he rolled so he was lying partially on her. “Kaitie lass.”
She grinned and leaned up to kiss him, wrapping her arms around him once more. “Yes, I’d love to run away with you, but only on one condition.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Anything.”
“I’ll be yours as long as you’ll be mine.”
“Your what? Friend? Lover? Man?”