Daniel passed Kate on his way upstairs. She stopped, holding her cardigan closed at the neck with her long, tapered fingers. Her brow knitted under thick red bangs, and worry lines pulled at her chapped lips. “She’s with MacKenna. I’m just after some soda water. She started throwing up, and I think she’ll need the liquid once she’s finished.”
He patted her arm, muttered, “Ta,” and took the remaining steps two at a time.
The door to Room Twelve was closed partway. He pushed against the wood and entered. James sat in a chair on the far side of the bed, hunched over a laptop open on the white down duvet. He sat up abruptly at Daniel’s entrance, his eyes wide, his mouth pinched. He eased the laptop closed, but his hand rested proprietarily on the cover.
“Daniel.”
“MacKenna.” He wondered if that stricken look was concern for his colleague, if perhaps this man had feelings for Annie that were something like his own.
Their terse greeting was punctuated by the sound of the sink running in the bathroom. The sounds of a toilet flushing followed, and moments later Annie opened the door, clutching a white terrycloth towel.
Her skin was as pale as parchment and mottled with faint pink. With her hair pulled back and her face scrubbed clean, she looked not much older than Catriona. The green silk blouse was gone, and she wore a cream camisole. Daniel took in the patches of blue and yellow on Annie’s shoulder, shaken by the sight of the vivid bruises. He felt her pain.
“So, here you are. Both of you. My humiliation is complete.” Her voice was shaky as she enunciated each syllable. Even if she’d emptied out her stomach, the poison still coursed through her blood. Tomorrow would be rough.
Placing both hands on the armrests of a chair by the bed, Annie lowered herself gingerly. She sat rigidly, as if hanging on to the shards of her shattered dignity. The unspoken thoughts of three people slammed into each other and caromed off the walls, filling the small space with jangling silence.
“I’ll be fine,” Annie said into the space between the two men. “There’s no reason for you to stay.”
There was a soft tap on the door, and Kate poked her head inside. The door opened wider, and she entered with a large bottle of Ballygowan sparkling water.
“I’ll just leave this here for you, Annie. Clean glasses are in the wee cabinet.”
“Thank you, Kate,” Annie replied.
James, now standing with his arms crossed and his feet set wide apart, responded with a slight twitch of his shoulders and eyebrows that Daniel took as a shrug. “I’ll give you a call in the morning, Annie. Good luck,” he said as he skirted around the bed. He turned sideways past Daniel and Kate and left the room without another word. Daniel noticed he’d left behind the laptop.
“Is there anything else I can get for you, love?” Kate asked.
“I’m good. Please tell your husband how sorry I am. I’ll tell him myself in the morning, but I want him to know I’m aware of what an ass I was. I’m sorry I brought my mess into such a fine place.”
“Ah, you’re grand, Annie.” Kate waved her away, brushing a hand through the air. “That was nothing compared to a Saturday night in August, with the Australians outshouting the Irish and the Brazilians trying to hug everyone. I’m just glad those golfers are leaving tomorrow. They’ve wandered in drunk every night.” She sighed. “Get some rest.”
Annie closed her eyes and gave a tiny nod, almost a breath. Kate held open the door, offering Daniel a small smile of what he hoped was approval. With one last glance at Annie, Kate closed the door quietly behind her.
Daniel moved to the window and watched as the four Americans spilled into the street, breaking the peace of the village with their hard, flat voices. They piled through the doors of the Fish Platter a few storefronts in the other direction, and silence fell again into place.
Moments later James MacKenna walked out the hotel’s front doors. He crossed the street and climbed into his Mercedes but left the door open. His face, illuminated by the interior light, was turned toward the hotel, his gaze to the second floor. Daniel read the turmoil in his unguarded expression, the anger in his clenched jaw. He spoke something unintelligible into the night, slammed his door, and reversed into the street.
Daniel turned back at the sound of Annie blowing her nose. She exhaled a shuddering sigh. “I feel ancient. About as old as that Hag on the hill.” She tried for a smile. Her skin was nearly translucent in the low light. “Thank you. I know what you’re trying to do, and I’m grateful that you came to my rescue once again. But I’m too tired to sort through all of this now. I’m not the woman you thought I was.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
She dropped her head against the high back of the wing chair. “I met Paul at breakfast this morning. He works for a firm in Las Vegas that facilitates corporate mergers. He’s involved in all of this. He knows James, James’s father. I’m certain he’s part of a scheme to help Eire-Evergreen channel its profits offshore. As soon as my head clears I’ll be able to explain it, but right now … ” She waved a hand in front of her face.
Daniel nodded his understanding but hoped she’d keep talking.
“I thought if I could get him to loosen up a little bit … oh, the irony.” She dropped her face into her hands, and a low moan, barely more than a breath, filtered softly between her fingers. “I’m the one who loosened up, thanks to a whiskey, or three. Maybe I did get him to talk, but at what price?” She rested her hands in her lap and smiled weakly, her feline green eyes huge in her white face. “Why are you here?”
“Forgive yourself for the relapse, Annie. There is no shame in being vulnerable.”
Annie curled her legs under her and clutched her ankles, shrinking into the chair. “Tonight I remembered that nothing feels as good as being high,” she whispered, her eyes closed again, her face contorted in pain. “It’s as if rehab never happened. All these months of being clean, wiped away—”
“That’s shite. Utter, complete shite.”
Annie looked up, startled. But he wasn’t willing to listen to her wallow any longer. “You didn’t go into that bar tonight to get drunk. I don’t believe that for a second.” He jabbed a finger toward her, his voice rising along with his frustration.
“You convinced yourself, yet?”
“We both know something happened on that mountain.” Their kiss flashed in his mind. It wasn’t the something that he meant, but he was helpless not to recall. “Some kind of healing. Your eyes carried a light I’ve never seen before. I knew then you’d make it, wherever your life carried you.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks, and she swiped at them with the back of her hand, her eyes shining even though the fragile skin beneath them was smudged faint blue with fatigue. Daniel wanted nothing more than to scoop her up and cradle her. “I can stay. Tonight. Here. With you.”
She blinked, and her body went still. Daniel was sure the thudding of blood in his ears could be heard outside. He’d gone too far. But it was too late to take it back.
“You could.”
The thudding quickened.
“But you won’t. Go home, Daniel. Good luck.”