Second Chances: A Romance Writers of America Collection (Stark World 2.50)

"Please don't ever walk home alone on nights like this. If it's late, I will get you a taxi, and I will ride with you." His voice strained as he controlled the words. I felt his breath on my lips and caught the heady scent of his body beneath his unbuttoned shirt. I wanted to kiss the smooth plane of skin beneath his collarbone. My eyes flew to his, and without thinking, I licked my lips.

Oh, God. Cairn's eyes darkened with something I hadn't seen before. His hands, firm and heavy, still gripped my hips.

"Do you understand?"

Unable to speak, I nodded. But like a movie reel coming to its end, I watched the distance between our mouths close in slow motion until the taxi driver's voice stopped us centimeters apart.

"Mate, do you want to pay, or do you want to go?"

Cairn took a frustrated inhalation and released me. When I turned back, he was leaning against the car, his hands in his pockets, mouth parted ever so slightly, as if he intended to call after me.

I didn't sleep well after that.

As another week passed, the single thread linking me to family in Scotland unraveled. My great-great-grandfather was as real as sun and stone in the United States, but Cairn and I learned that in Scotland, he was a ghost. His past, like my future, seemed as intangible as the mist.

What I failed to learn about my family, however, I made up for with Cairn. He told me about his life in Edinburgh, his schooling at Glasgow, and what he loved and hated about his work. I learned that he didn't like pickles but had a thing for flavored mustards (I teased him plenty about that). He told me about being an only child until his parents had Brian and Ansley, and then still convinced there was more good to be done in the world, adopted Lizzie.

When he talked about Lizzie, his eyes clouded, and chinks appeared in his commanding facade. Over the past two weeks, her condition had deteriorated. The Brightwells tried to keep things at home cheerful, but her bubbly personality started to dull with her pain. It was unbearable to witness.

If I had known my family would die, I would have moved God, man, and mountain to stop it. Instead, waiting for them at the restaurant, w

atching the ice melt in my glass, I had gotten a phone call. I was told they were dead, and just like that, the life I had known evaporated.

Sometimes I wondered when Cairn would get the same phone call, and my heart broke.

I prayed for a different call to come.

"TELL ME AGAIN ABOUT Texas," Ansley said. She sat next to me on the floral couch. Brian stretched across the floor, absorbed in a book. Cairn sat with his father by the fire and observed me as had become the norm. He hadn't tried to kiss me again, but a strong sexual current constantly swirled around us. It was difficult to ignore.

"Actually, I have a different story to tell."

"Did you get a break in your research?" Eleanor asked in a small and tired voice from one of the overstuffed chairs, where she rubbed tiny circles across a sleeping Lizzie's back.

"No." I studied the faces of those I'd come to love before pulling a folded paper from my pocket. "Something better." I spoke to Cairn.

"After you told me about Lizzie, I got tested. I'm a match." Something started to work in his eyes. Disbelief, maybe? And hope? And something else, something I hadn't seen in a long time.

Eleanor cocked her head, and Max let out a strangled sound. I kept my eyes on Cairn.

"I'm going to be her stem cell donor."

Eleanor started to cry.

The rest of the words rushed out. "I got good feedback on my results. I'm going to start the meds to stimulate my stem cell production on Monday. It won't take long for me to be, uh, ready for the procedure, and when my levels are good, I can donate."

By now Eleanor was weeping, as were Brian and Ansley. Lizzie woke and, upon seeing everyone else cry, burst into tears. Max pulled her into his lap.

I examined my notes, blurry through my own tears.

"Um--" I faltered. I glanced at Cairn again, who sat immobile with a hand over his mouth. Tears shimmered in his eyes, eyes filled with so much emotion I could barely breathe.

"This is going to work," I managed. "This is going to work. I know it."

Cairn got up from his chair and went to his mother, who was now folded over Brian at her feet. He put a hand on her shoulder and leaned down to say something in her ear, his eyes fixed on me.

I rose to give the family privacy, but Ansley jumped up, wrapping her arms around me. I turned and hugged her as tightly as I could.

"I knew you came here for a reason," she squeaked in my ear, her wet cheeks pressed against mine. The same thought had crossed my mind many times since landing in Edinburgh. My hope of finding my own family had brought me to this family, who through some marvelous twist of fate needed me.