Pitch Imperfect(101)

He put his hands on her shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze. “You’re going to worry about me, no matter what,” he said gruffly. “And I’m going to do the same about you. Why do you think I flew back after the fire?”

“I thought you didn’t care that I could have died,” she said, voice small.

Rob drew her into his chest and kissed her hair, her cheek and finally her lips. “I wanted you to ask me back home.”

Anjuli inhaled deeply, taking into her the scent of windswept moors and of the stone she had just pummelled with her fists. Strong. Enduring.

“You walked away at the pub,” she said, hearing again the door bang shut behind him.

He looked chagrined. “I didn’t trust myself to stay. The villagers of Heaverlock would be shocked to witness the next development in our relationship.”

She peeked up at him. “We have a relationship?”

“I told you you’d be my wife and I meant it. I went home to get something. I knew you would come here.” He reached into his pocket and took out a large padlock key. “I was going to give you this the day I saw you with Damien.”

Bemused, Anjuli stared at the old-fashioned key. Some men give you flowers; others jewels or clothing. Books, even. Rob used to be the dinner-and-soft-music type, but maybe he was now a hardware sort of man.

“Err, thanks, I’ve always wanted a rusty old key.”

Rob lifted Anjuli into his arms. He ignored her surprised squeak and carried her into the castle.

“What are you doing? Have you gone crazy? Put me down. Be careful...oh God, I’m not looking.”

He chuckled, the only answer she heard other than his steady breathing as he traversed the courtyard, then walked up the precarious steps to the north tower. She knew better than to squirm, lest he lose his balance and they tumble to their deaths. His feet were steady, his arms tight, and she found herself wishing there were more than fifty-six steps to her favorite spot. When they got there he set her down in front of the keep-out sign.

He looked pleased at her bemused astonishment. “Your parapet awaits, my lady,” he said, pointing to the key.

For a moment Anjuli couldn’t speak, her heart thudding from the climb and from anticipation. “How?” she said, shaking her head in delighted disbelief.

Rob shrugged. “I restored an old tower for Historic Scotland and met the curator for Heaverlock.”

Anjuli stared at the blasted, hated keep-out sign. Finally, after years of wondering, she was going to step behind the barrier and see the top of Heaverlock Castle. She took his hand and they went through the narrow doorway together.

Twenty-two broken steps later they emerged at the top of the castle, next to the turret. Circular, empty, except for a few old birds’ nests and dried bracken blown in by the wind. The Elizabethan window frame, so graceful in the otherwise dour fort, felt as cool and smooth as she’d always imagined. Its pointed arch and four square partitions divided the landscape into symmetrical thirds of river, moor and sky.

The wide walkway on the parapet was intact, if strewn with natural debris. Holding her hand, Rob guided her over the stones until they reached the middle of the crenellated wall. She’d been in taller buildings, skyscrapers that had transformed the cities below into tiny blocks of concrete and which had made parks seem like patios. But she’d never felt as high as at that moment, at the top of a crumbling castle, with Rob. Too exhilarated for words.

Rob’s body was outlined in vermilion and she wondered if she, too, appeared as ethereal. “I love you,” he said between kisses. “And I’ll always try to make your dreams come true.”

She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry and she wanted to sing, but most of all she wanted to feel Rob’s lips on hers. How many times had she compared him to a statue in her mind? He was a statue come to life, Greek Adonis or rustic Border Lord, it didn’t matter which. Not when she couldn’t breathe through his kiss, when her happiness was so intense it liquefied her bones. If he didn’t stop kissing her she would become nothing more than a puddle, absorbed into the parapet, another dark stain on the grey stone beneath her feet.

She had once wondered if sorrow could co-exist with joy and now she knew that it could. That pain could cripple you for life if you let it, or it could help you feel joy that much more intensely. She didn’t care whether her thinking was sound or balanced, or if the ache in her breast would ever cease. Maybe she needed her sorrow to give her happiness the respect it was due—and never take it for granted.

Rob kissed the tears on her cheeks, catching the new ones on his lips. As if attuned to the kaleidoscope of feelings rushing through her, he turned her around and pulled her shoulders against his chest. Silently, they looked at the river and the moors, at the distant horizon and colour-streaked sky.