Skin Deep (6 page)

Who was this Garland? She was definitely human, but he had no idea that humans were capable of magic like this. He had thought that all their energy had been turned to harnessing the physical world so that they were incapable of even feeling magic. The fairy-folk—the Sidhe—had turned in the other direction, and were so wrapped in magic that they had mostly left the physical plane. His people, the selkies, occupied a place in the middle, embracing both the physical and magical worlds.

So was she a human who had somehow retained or re-learned magic? And if she was…

It had felt almost like his grandmother’s magic. Wearing this skin he could probably march into Mahtahdou’s hall—the hall that had once been the selkies’—and Mahtahdou would be unable to touch him. It was the first time since Grandmother’s death that he’d felt really safe.

Safe. He closed his eyes and relaxed into the soft platform. How strange that humans liked to sleep on something so high instead of on a proper bed on the floor. Weren’t they afraid of falling off? Once again he stroked the fabric of his—what had she called it? Robe? With this, he was probably even safe from that.

Chapter 4

R
ob arrived at six with a large pot of beef stroganoff and a bottle of dry red Spanish wine. Garland felt awkward greeting him; the instant intimacy forged between them this morning had faded. And she’d forgotten what it was like to be on a date: the butterflies in the stomach, the worry that she might say something dumb out of sheer nerves.

She put a pot of water on the stove to boil for noodles and watched Rob open the wine. He moved with a different rhythm from Derek, who’d never seemed to feel at home in his own skin. She’d often had the feeling that Derek was playing to an enormous, unseen audience, his smallest gesture or action just so, as if he were waiting for applause. Rob, on the other hand, moved with an easy grace that she found beguiling.

She smiled her thanks when he handed her a glass. He’d changed out of the slightly scruffy sweats he’d arrived in this morning and was wearing a navy blue cashmere sweater and khaki pants. Yum. She couldn’t help wondering if he’d somehow divined that she was a sucker for a man in a cashmere sweater.

“So.” Rob nodded toward the stairs. “How’re our patients?”

“The little boy is still asleep. Alasdair slept a good part of the day as well. I gave him toast and tea just before you came.” She chuckled and shook her head. “It was the weirdest thing—almost as if he’d never had toast before, or had forgotten what it tasted like. He told me very seriously that it tasted like the air off the land in summer, when the sun shines on it and warms the grasses.”

Rob smiled too but didn’t appear very amused. “I don’t like the sound of that. Memories of basic things like taste and smell don’t typically get lost in trauma-related amnesia. I have to wonder if his injuries aren’t worse than I’d thought.”

“He also made me eat some too—not because he thought it was poisoned or anything. He just said that he did not eat while others watched hungry. I tried to explain that I’d be eating later, but he just looked stern, so I ate it. He’s—I don’t know. I don’t get the feeling there’s much wrong with him physically, apart from those awful cuts. Mostly he seems…sad. Like he’s missing something.” Like somebody who’d lost something precious, something he’d never be able to regain. Had she worn a similar expression when she’d first learned that Derek was cheating on her?

Rob picked up his bag. “The stroganoff needs about fifteen minutes to warm up. That’ll give me a chance to check on them. Coming?”

Alasdair pulled himself up, wincing, when they came in. Garland saw the wariness in his eyes fade as he saw her enter behind Rob. Why was he so anxious? Rob had been more than gentle with him that morning. He responded in monosyllables to Rob’s questions and let him examine and re-bandage his wounds, then watched closely while Rob surveyed Conn.

“Has he even moved?” he asked, frowning.

She came round the other side of the bed and knelt next to it. “No. Not that I’ve noticed. He did wet the bed, though I don’t think he stirred while I cleaned him up.”

“That’s a good sign—at least he doesn’t seem to be dehydrated—though I’m sorry you had to do that.” He pulled out his flashlight and peeled back one of the child’s eyelids. “I don’t think he’s concussed,” he murmured. “But sleeping this long—”

“It is good that he sleeps,” Alasdair said from his bed. “Would it be better for him to be awake and in pain?”

“I could give him something for the pain. Did he take any of the meds I left you?” He jerked his head back at Alasdair.

“No. He said that if it hurt, it meant he was still alive.”

Rob grunted. Garland didn’t comment further. Derek had kept a supply of prescription-strength ibuprofen around, in case of grievous injury like, say, a hangnail. It was refreshing to deal with someone a little less hypochondriacal.

Rob worked in silence after that, changing the bandages on Conn’s wounds and treating the smaller ones with more topical antibiotic. She was again struck by the graceful economy of his movements. He loved being a doctor and healing people, didn’t he? It was clear in his smallest action. There were people like him who were born to heal others. She looked back at Conn. It seemed that there might also be people out there who were born to hurt others.

The boy shifted and frowned, as if he had caught her thought.

“Easy, there,” Rob murmured, pausing and glancing at his face. She reached out and took the boy’s hand. He sighed and relaxed.

Rob pressed his lips together and went back to work.

* * *

Garland had set the table in the dining room and built a fire in the fireplace there as well. The light gleamed on the cherry dining table and the antique brass candlesticks, and she reflected on how cozy it was as they sat down to dinner. Derek had never wanted to eat in here when they were alone. He’d preferred a tray in front of the TV so he could watch the financial talking heads on CNBC. She’d usually ended up in the kitchen by herself, reading.

The stroganoff was delicious. Wow. A compassionate, caring doctor who made house calls, wore cashmere sweaters, and was a wonderful cook to boot. Was Rob Mowbray too good to be true?

He topped off their wineglasses. “Did Captain Howe call?”

“Not yet. I guess that means there weren’t any leads from the Coast Guard.”

“No.” Rob frowned down at his plate. “Did his behavior seem strange to you this morning?”

So she hadn’t imagined that. “Yes, very. He couldn’t seem to get out of here fast enough, once he’d seen Aragorn. And did—”

“Once he’d seen who?” Rob’s fork, heaped with stroganoff, stopped in mid-air.

Drat. So much for not saying stupid things. “Oh, I, uh…Alasdair sort of reminds me of Viggo Mortensen in
Lord of the Rings
, so I…you know…” She tried to shrug nonchalantly.

Rob’s fork continued to his mouth, and he chewed in silence.

“Anyway, did you hear Captain Howe swear under his breath when you were talking about Alasdair? I wonder…” She paused and took a sip of wine, choosing her words carefully. “I wonder if maybe he knows him from somewhere, and wasn’t happy to hear he’s around. I’ve never heard any rumors about the Mattaquason police, but…” She let the rest of the sentence hang, for him to pick up if he chose.

Rob shook his head. “I thought of that. But I haven’t heard any rumors either. As police departments go, ours seems to be fairly honest. Something personal, maybe?”

“Maybe. But then shouldn’t he have said something if he knew them? Unless where he knew him from is something—”

“Something an officer of the law shouldn’t be mixed up in,” Rob finished for her. “In which case, we’d best not get involved and move this guy and his kid out of here as quickly as possible.”

“But I can’t just toss them out! What if Howe—”

“All the more reason to get them out and not get involved, then.”

“Then you do think there’s something going on?”

Rob sighed. “I have no idea, Garland. I’m still fairly new here myself. Two years in a town like Mattaquason don’t make you an old-timer. Twenty years aren’t enough, sometimes. All I’m saying is if there is something unsavory going on, I don’t want you getting caught in it unawares.”

“My friend Kathy Hayes was here this morning.” Garland pursued a piece of mushroom around her nearly empty plate and speared it. “She said more or less the same thing but I got the feeling that she was hiding something too. She threatened to call Captain Howe and force him to bring them to the hospital.” She shook her head impatiently. “I wish we knew who they are.”

“That would make things easier, wouldn’t it?” Rob commented dryly as they carried their plates into the kitchen.

They washed their few dishes in companionable silence then went to sit in front of the great room fireplace with brandies and a plate of exquisite truffles from the Candy Castle in downtown Mattaquason. “I cheated,” Rob had said with a grin. “Their chocolate is light-years better than anything I could come up with for dessert.”

They sat on the blue and white couch where Conn had lain earlier that day, not touching but not far apart. Garland curled her legs under her and stared out the sliding doors into the night, too relaxed to get up and pull the curtains shut. She was here. All the months of emotional upheaval and wrangling with lawyers over the petty details of the dissolution of her and Derek’s marriage were over. She was ready to get on with the rest of her life.

“Tired?” Rob’s voice was low and lazy. She looked up and saw that he was watching her reflection in the glass door.

“A bit. I was just thinking that it’s been a long few months.” She leaned her head back. “And now I’m here.”

“And now you’re here,” Rob agreed. “Getting mixed up in Lord-knows-what when you ought to be taking a breather.”

She smiled. “But I like Lord-knows-what. I wasn’t able to get mixed up in it back in Chestnut Hill. Being the perfect corporate wife didn’t leave much time for it.”

“‘Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.’” He held the plate of truffles out to her. She took one and bit into it, then took a sip of her cognac. The dark chocolate and brandy melted together on her tongue in a decadent blend.

“What about you?” she asked when the chocolate orgasm in her mouth faded. “Have you been less careful than you should have about wishing for things?”

“Not at all. I’m quite content with getting what I wished for.” He raised one eyebrow at her suggestively, then laughed. “And not just right this minute.”

“Behold, that rarest of creatures—a truly happy man.”

“Well, yeah, I guess I am.” He paused, staring into the fire, and stretched his arm out along the back of the couch, close to her head. “As long as I can remember, I wanted to be a doctor like one of my uncles. And I wanted to live by the ocean some day. My dad’s a Patrick O’Brian fanatic, so I grew up reading about Captain Aubrey and Mr. Maturin. And the Captain Drinkwater novels. For a boy from Iowa, there wasn’t anything more romantic than the thought of the deep blue sea. I actually thought about joining the navy, but decided that living next to it, rather than on it, was a better bet for an ex-farm boy.”

“Farm boy? Really?”

The grin came back. “Okay, so I’m exaggerating a little. We did have a small flock of chickens in the backyard, though. And I belonged to 4-H in junior high. Does that count? I got my undergraduate degree in Indiana, went to med school in New York—all gradually heading eastward, toward the sea. I can’t get much more east than Cape Cod, so I guess I’m finally where I want to be.”

The humor in his voice ebbed, and his face grew thoughtful. “It was funny. When I first came here to look the town over, it was like I was coming home. I’d been missing the ocean all my life, without ever having seen it. Some people go to church on Sundays. I walk on the beach.”

He began to toy absent-mindedly with a lock of her hair as he gazed into the fire. Garland held her breath as little electric shivers of pleasure ran over her scalp and down her back.

“Do you have a boat, so you can do more than walk?” she managed to say, after a moment.

“No. I’ve been too busy getting established in town. Summer’s the crazy season here, as you know. No time for learning how to handle a boat. I’m not only taking care of my regular patients during prime boating season, but the summer folks too. Like the people who go barefoot at Amy Nickerson’s cocktail parties and get splinters.” He grinned.

Garland felt herself blush. “I had to take my shoes off that night. They were giving me blisters. Tell you what, Doctor Mowbray. If you’ll promise not to tease me about that, I’ll teach you how to sail this summer.”

“It’s a deal. But I wasn’t teasing you. I couldn’t help being glad that you got that splinter, even if saying so bends my Hippocratic Oath a little.” He looked away. “You have no idea how disappointed I was that evening when your husband came up looking like thunder after I’d bandaged your foot with one of Amy’s linen napkins. Only then did I realize that you were
Mrs.
Durrell. I’d been about two seconds from suggesting we blow off the party and go out for dinner when he arrived.”

A warm glow spread through her. “Really?”

“Napkin-wrapped foot and all. So you see, I do get what I wish for. Eventually. Anyway, digging a splinter out of your foot was a great way to meet you without all the usual horrible small talk that I had to go through with everyone else. You did me a favor. So do I still get sailing lessons after that confession?”