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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The next morning, Madeleine promised herself not to make it weird.

She was back at the farmhouse with Jonathan, and he was making breakfast. They were going to talk.

Never mind her dream.

Madeleine was going to focus on what mattered today, and she was going to be normal.

The breakfast itself, however, wasn’t normal for her.

Even after leaving the Daughters of Grace, Madeleine kept her breakfast light: cereal or yogurt, maybe some fruit.

She wasn’t ready for what Jonathan called his “fry-up.”

“There you are,” he said triumphantly, placing before her a heaping plate of food.

“A proper Scottish breakfast. These are my best tattie scones, made from potatoes. Baked beans, fried tomatoes, and black pudding.”

Madeleine tried not to sound apprehensive as she looked at the round, dark slices of meat.

“Black pudding?”

“Oh yes. It’s made of…” Jonathan seemed to hesitate.

“It’s a type of sausage. This’ll give you energy for the day and no mistake.”

“Thanks,” Madeleine said weakly, hoping it wouldn’t also give her a stomachache.

He poured her a full cup of coffee and sat down, snapping his napkin out before dropping it in his lap.

“Tuck in.”

Not yet.

Madeleine crossed herself and bent her head in prayer.

Jonathan didn’t seem like the religious type, so she kept her voice soft as she said grace.

Then, without looking up, she began to cut into the tattie scone.

“Thank you so much for breakfast.”

After a pause, Jonathan said, “Ah, it’s no trouble.”

They gave each other awkward smiles and then looked down at their plates.

Madeleine concentrated on her food and the clattering of utensils that suddenly seemed too loud.

She took a bite of the tattie scone and said in a low voice, “This is delicious. Where’s H?ra this morning?”

Hopefully far away.

Far enough that Madeleine wouldn’t see her today and think about that dream she wasn’t thinking about already.

“Out in the fields. She, er, doesn’t care for a fry-up. And she likes an early start. She’ll be back soon.”

Madeleine’s stomach flipped over, and it wasn’t entirely to do with the bite of black pudding she’d just taken.

Said pudding was thick and chewy, and she gulped it down as soon as she could, knowing it’d sit like a brick in her stomach.

It had been generous of Jonathan to cook for her, though.

“This must have taken a lot of work.”

“Work? Nah. Running a farm, that’s work. Sue, I mean Nurse Kilbright, says I’ve got to watch my diet. Thanks for the excuse to have some proper food.”

Before Madeleine could reply, the back door opened, and the woman who’d haunted her dreams last night strode into the kitchen.

H?ra’s long, black hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail.

Her face was flushed from the air, and today she wore a windbreaker.

Jeans—men’s jeans, Madeleine could tell—covered her long legs, ending in muddy work boots.

She couldn’t have looked less like Madeleine’s ladylike French professor with her pencil skirts and silk blouses.

Her eyes immediately speared Madeleine as if she, not the food on the plates, was breakfast. Madeleine’s mouth went dry.

“Finally,” H?ra said.

“What?” Madeleine managed.

“I was wondering when you’d get here.” She leaned on her elbow against the doorframe, an insouciant pose that made Madeleine’s heart literally skip a beat.

“When will you be ready to go?”

“Good morning, lass,” Jonathan said pointedly.

“It’s nice to see a guest, isn’t it?”

“So it is,” H?ra replied, never taking her eyes from Madeleine.

Madeleine couldn’t help returning the favor.

“Um. Hello.”

“It looks as if you’re just starting.” H?ra’s gaze flitted over the breakfast. “How much time will you need?”

“As much as she needs,” Jonathan said in exasperation.

“She came here to talk. Let her have breakfast. There’s no hurry, is there?”

H?ra took hold of the third chair, pulled it out with a scraping noise, and sat next to Madeleine.

She lounged against the back of the chair and spread her legs.

Their knees bumped. Madeleine almost choked on her sip of coffee.

“Did you sleep well?” H?ra asked.

Madeleine would not blush.

H?ra couldn’t possibly know about her dream, and it was going to stay that way.

“I’m still adjusting to the time change. But I slept well enough. Thanks. You?”

She could have kicked herself for the question.

What next? Asking, Did you dream about having sex with me, too?

“I rested,” H?ra said.

She darted a quick glance at Jonathan, and when she spoke to Madeleine again, her words sounded a little rehearsed: “Thank you for asking. And you, Jonathan? Did you sleep well?”

Jonathan rubbed a hand over his forehead and chuckled ruefully.

“Aye. We’re a rested group. Well done.”

“Yes.” H?ra gave Madeleine a pleased smile.

“You see? I’ve learned etiquette. No need to fear my rudeness again.”

At least someone could laugh about it now.

The return of H?ra’s rudeness would almost be welcome, as long as it slowed the racing of Madeleine’s heart.

“Um, yes. Your father’s a good cook. Do you cook too?”

A pause.

H?ra and Jonathan looked at each other, and something seemed to pass between them.

“I was raised by another,” H?ra said eventually.

“He was my real father. I think of Jonathan as my friend.”

That sounded like part of a much bigger story.

H?ra must have quite a tale to tell—if that was why Madeleine was here, which it obviously wasn’t.

“Ah. That makes sense.”

“Yes indeed,” Jonathan agreed.

“You could say our biological connection’s irrelevant.”

He’d said they should all be honest with each other.

There were things Madeleine couldn’t say—not yet—but if they were putting cards on the table, why not ask this?

“H?ra, to tell the truth, Harry Duggan at the Merryweather told me you were Jonathan’s daughter before I even met you.”

Jonathan groaned but did not interrupt.

“He said you made Jonathan turn his life around. But I can’t help wondering if that night on the beach didn’t do it as well.” She turned to Jonathan, who was rubbing his forehead again.

“It certainly changed me.”

The question was: had it been for the better?

“There’s no question but it did,” Jonathan said.

“You could say if not for that night, I wouldn’t have taken the lass in at all.”

H?ra nodded, looking unsurprised.

They must have talked about this many times.

“Why did it affect you so much?” Madeleine pressed.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it did. It looks like you’ve done something amazing with your life. But from where I’m standing, that night, you just helped me off the beach while I babbled after hitting my head. You didn’t see what I did—and you’d be perfectly within your rights not to believe I saw anything at all.”

Jonathan exhaled heavily and nodded.

“I would be.”

“I didn’t know what to expect when I found you again… if I found you again. I wasn’t sure you’d remember me.”

“Wouldn’t remember a half-drowned nun I found on the beach? I wasn’t that drunk,” Jonathan objected.

Madeleine sighed. “Sorry. I just didn’t think what happened would affect you like it did me.” Definitely not to the point where he’d sober up and take in a lost daughter.

Madeleine would not look at H?ra again.

Not when that long body lounged so alluringly in the chair.

“ Did you see something? I don’t remember all the events of that night.”

At that, H?ra’s gaze snapped onto Madeleine like teeth.

“You don’t?”

“I had a head injury,” Madeleine reminded her.

Why had H?ra made it sound like an accusation?

“A lot is fuzzy.”

“How much do you remember?” H?ra asked, her voice surprisingly sharp.

A perfect, naked woman’s body pressed against my own.

A kiss like fire.

“It’s surprisingly vague,” Madeleine mumbled, her cheeks hot.

“I woke up on the shore and thought a woman was with me. Then she was gone, and Jonathan showed up.”

“That’s it?” H?ra sounded disbelieving.

“That’s all you remember?”

Why was H?ra looking at her like that?

Surprisingly vague? No joke.

Madeleine only remembered waking up on the shore with a woman who’d then left her behind?

Nothing else? That couldn’t be all.

Why would Madeleine have come all this way for a memory so incomplete?

“What did the woman look like?” H?ra demanded, then wished she hadn’t.

Talk about a risky question.

If Madeleine said, Come to think of it, she looked like you, they could head into territory they weren’t yet ready for.

“I didn’t get a good look at her,” Madeleine said.

“It was dark, and my head hurt. She looked more like a silhouette than anything.”

She sounded a little defensive.

H?ra was better than she’d been before at reading those cues, just as she was better at reading books.

Best to back down for now.

“I see. That makes sense.”

“Does it?” Madeleine looked down at her breakfast and pushed around the black pudding patty with her fork.

“I don’t feel like any of this makes sense. Jonathan, back to my original question…”

Jonathan shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable.

“Why’d it affect me so much, ah, yes.” He glanced at H?ra, as if seeking something, but she had no idea what it was.

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

He meant it literally, H?ra realized.

Jonathan didn’t know what, or how much, to say.

He wouldn’t give up her secret, their secret, until H?ra gave him the go-ahead.

She wasn’t ready to do that yet, and she gave him a minute shake of her head.

“You’re the only link I’ve got to that night,” Madeleine said.

“I don’t know where to get answers, other than from you and that beach.” She gave H?ra a cool glance.

“Which I am going to explore, thank you.”

H?ra’s hackles rose just as surely as if she were Brodie scenting a predator.

“I warned you?—”

“I know what you warned me. Of course I have to go back there, and I’ll go in broad daylight. I’ll be completely safe. I’m sure there will be other people around.”

“What do you hope to find there?” Jonathan asked.

“Your angel?”

Madeleine blushed.

A blush meant the blood was getting closer to your skin.

H?ra remembered licking the cut on her forehead, now marked by a scar.

“Yeah,” Jonathan said.

“I remember what you said, all right.”

“Please don’t laugh at me,” Madeleine said softly.

“I wouldn’t. You’d just smacked your head and weren’t thinking straight.”

Madeleine lifted her head.

H?ra watched the proud tilt of her chin with fascination.

Beautiful.

“I still believe it,” she said.

“Or at least, I’m willing to believe it. I didn’t just say that because of a head injury. That might seem silly to you, but angels are part of my faith.”

“No, lassie,” Jonathan said quickly.

“I don’t dismiss you. I’m, ah, willing to believe it could be something supernatural. I don’t know about angels specifically , but who am I to say?”

He glanced at H?ra, who said, “Who indeed. Sist…that is, Madeleine, what do you believe an angel is?”

Knowing full well that Madeleine had thought H?ra was one, H?ra had combed through the Bible to read about them, but there had been less than she’d thought there would be.

If Madeleine had thought H?ra was an angel, what did that mean to her?

Surely H?ra hadn’t reminded her of those silly pictures of people with wings, haloes, and white robes.

As if reciting from an invisible book, Madeleine said, “Catholic doctrine dictates that angels are servants and messengers of God. They’re creatures of pure spirit, not human beings.”

H?ra frowned.

“Then why do they always look like humans in the pictures?” And did Madeleine believe H?ra had been a servant of God while she was lying on top of her, kissing her?

Madeleine chuckled. “Because people relate more to things that are familiar. Scripture actually describes angels as frightening beings of fierce aspect.”

“So the woman who found you had a…fierce aspect?” That was much better.

So much better, in fact, that H?ra settled more back in her chair and grinned at the thought.

Madeleine’s cheeks turned red again for some reason.

For a moment, she looked H?ra up and down.

It had the oddest effect.

Madeleine wasn’t touching her, but somehow, her eyes on H?ra felt like hands.

And not in a displeasing way.

Would Madeleine feel the same if H?ra looked at her like that?

Would they both feel as if they were touching one another?

H?ra’s throat felt thick at the thought.

She had to swallow hard as she let her eyes travel over Madeleine in turn, taking in her dark hair, her high cheekbones, and those incredible eyes.

The slender throat, the shoulders, the?—

“Well then!” Jonathan stood up, and the abrupt movement snapped H?ra out of the haze that had taken her.

He brushed his hands together and looked down at the table.

“H?ra, why don’t you give our guest a proper tour of the farm?”

“What?” Madeleine looked as dazed as H?ra felt.

“Sorry to cut this conversation short, but damned if I didn’t just remember I’ve got to call the abattoir.” When Madeleine opened her mouth, as if to protest, Jonathan added, “We can, er, finish later.”

Now Madeleine looked lost. “But…”

“We’ll talk more. Cross my heart.” Jonathan’s expression softened.

“I dunno if I’ve got anything to say that’ll give you the answers you want, though. I never saw an angel, fierce or otherwise. God’s truth.”

Madeleine dipped her head.

Her shoulders slumped.

H?ra had done this herself when she was very tired or sad, and the gesture made her human heart ache.

Somehow, years ago, Sister Madeleine had called to H?ra through the fathoms, pleading for her protection.

H?ra was fully prepared to shield her from any physical threat.

But how could you protect a human from sadness?

Her body acted without her permission again.

It acted, once again, to seize Madeleine.

But not as it had before.

This time, H?ra watched her own hand reach across the table to take hold of Madeleine’s where it sat next to her plate.

Madeleine’s hand was smaller than her own, warm, and softer than any human skin H?ra had ever touched.

Now H?ra’s face was getting hot.

Heat was, in fact, spreading through her whole body.

How strange.

Madeleine stared at her, eyes wide.

“There’s no need for sorrow.” The words were whispers.

H?ra’s voice inexplicably wanted to be as gentle as if she were coaxing a newborn lamb to its feet.

“We’ll find the answers you seek. I swear it.”

Madeleine looked down toward their joined hands as if she’d never seen anything like them.

“Come with me,” H?ra urged.

Since she couldn’t show Madeleine the sea—at least, not yet—the land would have to do.

“The sun’s coming out for once. It’ll be a beautiful day.”

“Yes.” Madeleine’s voice sounded as thick as H?ra’s had a few moments ago.

Her hand, for a moment, trembled beneath H?ra’s.

“Looks like it will be.”