“Did you see the lovely messages left for me?” she asked angrily. “Here we are, supposedly civilised, and yet people insist on remembering past grievances. They can’t forgive and live in the present, or...” She gave him a look more layered than the deepest foundation. “Accept that it’s over. Finished. Time to move on as friends.”
Rob pushed back his chair and stood. “Isolating yourself will no’ solve your problems.”
“Says the man who lives in the middle of a forest,” she said drily.
“Aye, but I’m no’ alone,” he said. “And I can protect myself.”
She looked affronted. “I do not need protecting, and certainly not from random kids spraying graffiti. Besides, I’ve got Reiver. What more could a woman need?”
Stubborn lass, but he wanted to kiss her anyway, convince her she needed him. He stared at her lips. “I think a woman could need much more.”
She froze, then lowered her eyes to his unfinished coffee. “Not to your taste?”
Rob pulled on his shirt. Much as he wanted to stay, if he didn’t meet the Hendersons for a congratulatory completion dinner they would be disappointed. “I’ve got a dinner date in forty-five minutes.”
Anjuli followed him to the door. “With Sarah?”
He stopped, hand on the doorknob. Her chin was set, eyes flashing. “Would you rather it was with you?”
“No!”
“Sure about that?”
“Oh, no you don’t,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “I’m not phoning or texting you for sex, ever. I only asked about your date so you can pass on a message.”
“Really,” he drawled.
“Of course. Please tell Sarah now that the restoration has progressed she can come by any time to take her pictures, no need to ring first, but there will be no interview. I...I hope you have a lovely dinner.”
“I’m no’ going—” Why should he explain himself? “You can tell Sarah about the pictures at the ceilidh.”
She crossed her arms. “Fine.”
No, it bloody hell wasn’t.
Chapter Eleven
Anjuli pounded the heather as she ran towards Heaverlock Castle. It was her day off, and the ceilidh was in the evening. She’d risen early and done a longer circuit than her usual twenty-five-minute run, getting up early and jogging two and a half miles to the Iron Age hillfort towards Halton. Once there, she’d laid white roses for Jamie on the highest mound. It had been his favourite spot, where he’d most liked to write his poetry. Black hair shaggy, brown eyes serious. Today his white roses would be joined by a single pink bud.
Since Chloe’s death she’d had a recurring, traumatic nightmare, but last night it had suddenly changed. The first part was the same: as she ran down the sepia corridors of an abandoned Victorian hospital, she’d heard the loud cries of a baby. It was the infant she never found, no matter how many wards she rushed through or how many empty cots she frantically searched. But this time she’d bypassed the wards and done no frantic searching. Instead, she’d run out of the hospital into the late evening sun.
Chunks of pine lay stacked before her, piled higher than her head, a silver birch tree growing on top. She’d clambered over and on the other side found a dried-up hedge maze, interspersed with dead rose bushes. In the dream, she’d pushed her way through clawlike branches and thorny stems until she was at the centre of the maze. Panting with exhaustion, she’d rested on a bench in front of a single rose bush with one pink bud. She smelled it and it turned into a sparrow, and flew away.
Anjuli swore as she ran. She didn’t need Dr. Coren to interpret her dream; the meaning was obvious. It meant loss. Letting go. Acceptance. Blah, blah, and all that pat psychobabble she hated. She hit a large section of bracken, hammering into it the way each of the supposed stages of grief had hammered their way into her. Shock and denial, pain and guilt and loneliness and—the list went on and on. Why did they say there were only seven, all neatly tied up with definable characteristics? Hers certainly weren’t.
She knew it was maudlin, useless even, but she’d woken up with an uncontrollable desire to take a pink rose to the Iron Age hillfort for Chloe.
And a request.
If there was a God, if there was an afterlife and a happy forever after, then she hoped that Jamie would find Chloe and take care of her. Of course, she had once asked God to perform a miracle and it hadn’t happened. But was it too much to ask that Chloe be cared for by Jamie until she could do it herself?
Anjuli stopped at the bottom of the hill and grasped her knees, breathing in short, sharp gasps. What an idiot she was. She’d had her chance and blown it. Why did she think she’d be given another opportunity after she died? With a burst of energy, she ran the rest of the way to the castle and across the moat, only stopping once she’d reached the low, square entrance.