He grunted at himself in disgust.
Her hands immediately vibrated on the keyboard as if they were tied to his voice and responded to his every sound.
The thought troubled him.
Turning away from her with abrupt determination, he focused on the billowing clouds riding the horizon. He pinned his gaze on the roiling waves of the loch he owned. He pushed every thought out of his head other than the one that mattered.
Just like that, as it always did, the story came roaring into his head and heart, and his soul settled into what he was meant to do.
The click of her fingers on the keys mingled with his spoken words as another hour flew by.
A thrill of triumph ran through him. The story was his best so far. Surprisingly. He had to admit, even over his male pride, he’d been afraid six months ago. Six months ago, when duty had called and he’d had to come back to this obscene estate his wife had chosen and his mother had loved. Back to being caged by family obligations. Back to being alone.
He’d been afraid of losing Tre. Afraid that without Tre, he wouldn’t be able to write.
“Don’t be a dobber,” Tremaine Lamont had stated in his thick Scots accent when Cam had expressed a bit of his unease. “You’ll be fine on your own. I’m just the typist.”
It had taken him six months to find another story and find enough courage to advertise for a transcriber. But the first three hadn’t lasted more than a week among them, and none of the words he’d spoken to them had been right, anyway.
Not until now.
Not until the mouse.
Unlike Tre, she never interrupted or gave suggestions. She merely typed and then left. Yet something about her quiet, her stillness, something about her presence brought the story out of him in a way that had never happened with Tre.
The thought struck him as disloyal, so he tucked it into the bottom of his mind.
He still missed Tre.
Or maybe, if he were completely truthful, he missed the life he’d had with his best friend and partner. The traveling to the Middle East or the depths of Africa. The adrenaline rush as they escaped danger. The excitement of running into another godforsaken town in a war zone and finding the next story. He with his trusty tape recorder and Tre with his ever-present camera.
They’d been a team.
Then, six months ago, they hadn’t been.
“No, no,” Tre had said, his head shaking. “Not for me. Ye know that.”
Not for him, the staying in one place, and living a normal, boring life. Not for Tre, and although he’d been stuck here for months, not for Cam, either. He’d been so sure of that fact, and so sure of his failure after months of trying, that before Jennet Douglas had appeared, he’d begun the search for a school.
A boarding school.
Sure, he’d struggled with the guilt, yet finally, he’d come to the conclusion nothing he was doing made a difference in the boy’s life. Why not admit it and cut all ties other than the required?
The lure of going back to Tre, to his real life, was too hard to ignore.
But now? Now he didn’t know.
Because this little mouse seemed to have the ability to pull something out of him and his story he’d never experienced before. That thought made him close his mouth and glare at the ugly garden he owned and despised.
“Are we done?” Her accent was crystal clear, utterly aristocratic, it pulled a reluctant smile out of him. His father would have loved the mouse.
“Aye, we’re done.”
Instead of clicking off the computer and leaving without another word, she sat, staring at him with those eyes.
Those eyes.
Her eyes were deep set and rounded, with a thick layer of lashes. The color wasn’t blue as he’d first pegged them. He’d been around her enough now to describe them as a dark grey, like the mists rising off his loch in the morning, right before the sun rose in the sky.
Her eyes were the only interesting thing about her.
Something moved in those eyes. Something that made him uncomfortable. “What?”
She took a quick breath and after their first meeting, he knew this meant she was flustered about something. “I have a question.”
“All right.” After he’d told his story for several hours, he generally felt drained and needed to get out of this house and walk for miles. Still, the deviation from her usual pattern made his brain come to life again with curiosity. “Go ahead. What’s your question?”
“There’s crying. Every night,” she blurted.
A hard fist of anxiety landed right in the middle of his solar plexus. Along with it, came the overwhelming sense of frustration that never left him. “It’s nothing.”
The delicate line of her fair brows creased her forehead. “I’m telling you I hear it clearly. There’s no question—”