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Mairi was sound asleep when someone gently shook her awake. She batted at them to make them go away. It was too light in the room. “Pull the curtains,” she said.
“Rusty, wake up. The rescue effort has turned up.”
Keir? She buried her nose in his neck and inhaled. Definitely Keir, and this wasn’t her bed. She shifted, wincing as pain spiked from her behind. With it came the memory of the night before. And with that came the unwelcome realization that they were still on the cliff.
“I can’t believe I fell asleep,” she grumbled against his throat.
“I can’t believe we didn’t fall off the cliff while we were sleeping.”
He had a point. She opened her eyes and was instantly blinded by the sun glinting off the water.
“Mairi! Keir!” someone called out above them.
“That’s Donna,” Mairi said. She’d recognize Donna’s voice anywhere. None of her other sisters sounded that hysterical.
“Aye, we’re being rescued.” Keir brushed the hair back from her face and looked down at her. “Good morning, gorgeous.”
She looked up at him, and it was as though the world just faded away. Her stomach tightened. Her heart ached. She’d missed him so much. When he’d disappeared from her life, it had felt as though a part of her had been ripped away along with him. Even now, after all this time, the wound he’d left behind that night was still raw and open. All she’d managed to do was bandage over it, but nothing had healed. Nothing had changed. Why did she have to let him close to her again? Now she felt as though the bandage had been ripped off and the wound was exposed to the air. And it hurt again. Just when she’d thought the pain was gone for good.
She shook her head and dismissed her thoughts. Mentally rebandaging the wound, so she could pretend again that it wasn’t there. “We should call back to her.”
He nodded. “You ready? It’ll be louder if we both do it together.”
“What will we shout?”
He shrugged. “‘Help’ seems appropriate.”
“An oldy but a goody. On three?”
“One, two, three, help!” They roared together, waited a beat and then shouted it again. Repeatedly.
“Mairi!” Donna called, sounding a lot closer now. “How on earth did you get down there?”
Mairi looked up to see her sister peering over the bluff. Along with every one of her fake boyfriends and Sean. Having everyone stare at them made Mairi uncomfortably conscious of the fact she was sitting in Keir’s lap. As though Keir knew she was getting ready to bolt, his arms tightened around her.
“We fell,” Keir shouted. “Do you think someone could get us out of here?”
“What did he say?” an American boyfriend said. “Did they fall or were they pushed?”
Mairi groaned. If they got started, they could debate this for hours.
“Does it matter?” she shouted. “Somebody get us up from here.”
There was scrambling, and some of the faces disappeared. She could hear shouting. It didn’t sound organized.
“This is going to take forever,” Mairi said. “There isn’t a leader among them. I wish Agnes were here. She’d have them organized and us up the cliff by now.”
“Mairi,” Donna shouted, “are you hurt?”
“We’re fine. Nothing broken.”
“Get back from the edge, woman,” came a deep Scottish voice above them. “Do you want to end up down there with them?”
“What are you doing here?” Donna sounded a little hysterical.
“You called to tell me you weren’t coming in to work until you found your sister. Where the hell do you think I’d be?” There was a pause. “You lot, put down the felt-tip pens and get over here.”
There was silence, and then a booming “Now!”
“Who’s that?” Keir shot Mairi a look.
“Donna’s boss.”
“Duncan Stewart is here? I thought he was a hermit.”
“Recluse. Bad-tempered recluse. But he’ll sort them out. Bossy is his middle name.”
Mairi tuned out the noise above them and focused on the man sitting under her. “Quite an adventure, eh?”
His lips twitched, and his eyes darkened. “Not the kind we’d planned to have, but not a bad effort.”
Mairi felt a pang at the memory of all the plans they’d made together. Dreams woven late at night as though they’d been telling each other secrets.
“Mairi, you okay?” His voice was gentle and made her feel vulnerable. Something she just couldn’t bear.
She squared her shoulders and pretended that those plans had meant nothing to her. “Definitely not as good as the plan to walk the Inca Trail.”
“Or as exotic as the plan to ride the Orient Express.”
“Or as dangerous as swimming with sharks off the coast of Australia.”
“Or as fun as joining a nudist retreat in Alaska.”
They grinned at each other, but it felt sad. These were the plans they’d made together, the dreams they’d had as a couple. They were going to travel the world and blog about it, hopefully making enough money from the blog to carry on travelling indefinitely.
“It can still happen,” Keir whispered. “We can still do it.”
For a moment, a burst of hope seared through her, and then reality hit. How could she rely on him when it was just the two of them in some far-off country? She hadn’t been able to rely on him in Scotland, when she was surrounded by family and had people she could fall back on. No, there would be no travelling with Keir.
Gingerly, she climbed off his lap. “I’m not into that anymore,” she lied.
“I saw the guidebooks on your nightstand,” Keir said.
Mairi focused on the water beneath them. “Thanks for reminding me. They’ve been sitting there for months, waiting for me to drop them off at the secondhand shop. I really should get that done.”
Whatever he was about to say was lost when a red nylon rope with a harness attached, snaked down the cliff and landed beside them. They looked up in time to see one of the twins—Darius, by the looks of his Coldplay t-shirt and faded jeans—come rappelling down to meet them. He walked down the cliff, releasing his rope a bit at a time, as though he’d done the same thing a thousand times. Once beside them, he stopped, his feet still on the cliff, and grinned.
“Pity I’m not in the running for this marriage thing,” he said. “Because I’ve got a feeling a rescue would take me to the top of the list.”
“Tell her it was my idea,” his twin, Damien, shouted from the top of the bluff.
“You abseil?” Mairi gawked at him.
“Yup, and canoe, ski, play soccer—normal guy stuff. Which I drag my brother along to, because if I didn’t, he’d end up a sad geek cliché by the time he turns thirty.”
“Tell her I can abseil too,” Damien shouted.
Darius cocked an eyebrow and flashed a dazzling grin. “The genius half of this duo can abseil too.”
“No kidding. I would never have known.” Mairi grinned back, and there was a growling sound behind her.
“Are we getting out of here or what?” Keir said.
Darius looked between them as his eyes twinkled. “Oh, it’s like that, is it? Does the Big Bang cast up there know about you two?”
“There’s nothing to know,” Mairi snapped at the same time as Keir said, “Feel free to spread the word.”
“There is no word.” Mairi smacked him on the stomach and then grabbed his shirt, just in case the blow accidentally pushed him over the edge. She let go of him hastily, not wanting him to see what she’d done. From the look in his eye, she was a second too late, which made her exceedingly irritated. “Tell me how to get into this thing,” she said as she reached for the harness.
It was way past time to get out of there and away from the overwhelming scent of testosterone. Plus, she really needed to put some cream on her stings.
“I saved her,” Damien shouted above them.
“You did not, your brother saved her,” Sebastian shouted. “So it doesn’t count. Does it, Mairi?”
“I’m still down here,” she shouted back. “Nobody’s saved me yet.”
“Give me that rope. I’ll haul her up,” Sebastian said.
Mairi groaned. “They’re going to get me killed.”
“Whoever is holding the rope when I get up there is going to feel my fist,” Keir shouted.
There was silence, then Donna’s face appeared over the edge. “It’s okay to come up now. Duncan’s going to pull you up. He says he’s happy to fight you. Just name your time.”
Keir looked at Mairi for an explanation.
“He has a lot of pent-up anger,” she said with a shrug. Then Keir and Darius strapped her into the harness and she let Donna’s boss pull her up to the top of the cliff. Where a crowd of men looked at her like she was part of the second coming.
“I can’t believe you were down there all night,” Sebastian said. “We didn’t hear a thing.”
“This is true, beautiful Mairi,” Amir said. “We would never have left you down there if we had known you were there.”
“Well, you might have known I was there if you lot hadn’t been singing love songs all night long.” She took off the harness and tossed it back over the cliff for Keir.
It was strange. Part of her wanted to peer over the edge and make sure he was safe coming up the cliff. Another part of her was second-guessing sending the harness down to him. Because, honestly, would it really hurt him to spend a couple of days down there?
“It was my idea to use the rappelling equipment to get you,” Damien said.
“Thanks,” Mairi said.
“I can rappel too,” Damien added.
“So I heard.” Mairi glanced at her sister, to see Donna was standing with her hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh.
“I also ski, play soccer, canoe and lift weights,” Damien said. “I not only have a brain, but I also have abs. Look.” He untucked his check shirt from his jeans and lifted it up.
Mairi and Donna gasped. Holy hell, the boy had abs.
“Those cannot be real,” Amir said, and poked Damien in the stomach.
“Can I check too?” Mairi asked as she reached for Damien. The boy had an eight-pack. She didn’t even know that was a real thing.
“No!” An arm wrapped around her waist and hauled her back into a large, grumpy body. “No touching.”
She looked over her shoulder to see Keir glaring at the rest of the men. She wasn’t sure whether to be happy he’d made it up the cliff, or sad that he’d done it before she got her hands on Damien’s abs.
Damien. The twin. She swung her head around to look for his brother. Darius was winding up the harness.
“Hoi, Darius,” Mairi shouted. “Do you have abs too?”
With an evil grin, mostly at Keir, Darius sauntered over to them. He lifted his t-shirt and stood beside his brother. Mairi felt faint. His were even better defined than Damien’s.
“Let me down,” Mairi said.
“Not happening.” Keir swung her around and headed through the makeshift campground toward Arness’ main street and her apartment.
“I’ll check for you,” Donna called. “It’s important that we make sure these boys are identical.”
“No!” Duncan shouted, and Mairi watched him take Donna’s hand and march her to his car. “You need to get to work,” he said as he stuffed her into the passenger seat.
Mairi slumped in Keir’s arms. “You ruined my chance to get my hands on twins.”
“You say that like I should feel bad. Well, newsflash, Rusty, I really don’t.”
With that, he strode past his apprentice working on a car in the garage and kicked open the door that led up to her apartment. All the while, Mairi’s eyes stayed on the twins as she wondered exactly how identical the men were.