“What about second chances?” she asked frantically. “You said we all deserved them!”
“And ye gave them theirs,” he said firmly. “The younger lad and his wife will have a future now. Ye ha’ given their bairns a chance at life.”
“What of Connor?” Emmy grasped at reasons. “What of his second chance?”
“He is free of his anger,” Donell reasoned. “His life will go forward without malice.”
Emmy looked away at last and stared out the window at the ferry. “But what about love? Will he go forward without love?”
“He needed love given without regret.” His soft statement drew her gaze back to his.
“It was,” she responded automatically.
“Was it?” he taunted and when she still hesitated, said, “A little more time, I think.”
Scowling fiercely, Emmy dug into her tote and retrieved her return ticket for the ferry, shouldered the bag and departed, stopping by Donell as she passed the driver’s seat. “It was a cruel thing you did, Donell. I don’t even care how you did it anymore, but you can’t mess with people’s lives like that!”
“Let me know when ye figure out what ye really want, lass.”
The sun was reflecting brightly off the water as Emmy walked up the ramp, through the terminal and out onto the huge ferry which was starting to board. She headed to the glassed-in viewing area on the right side of the ferry so she could watch for Duart on the trip back to Oban. Catching sight of a sign, she stopped at the refreshment kiosk and ordered a Diet Coke. As she sat, she sucked in the soda and savored the burn of the carbonation as it went down. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back against the seat. The mechanics deep within the ferry churned to life and began to pull itself into the sound.
Her feelings on what had just happened were chaotic and confused. She was glad she was here, but she wanted to go back. She wanted Connor. Emmy’s chest tightened and ached and she absently rubbed the pain with her palm. Connor, Connor…she would never see him again, she realized and the pain grew. God, it wasn’t right! She had never dreamed of loving someone with this depth of feeling, much less having it happen so quickly. Why him? Why had this happened? What was she going to do? The questions had no answers.
The urge to open her eyes overwhelmed Emmy at that moment. She opened them to find Duart before her. The sun was setting low behind it leaving it little more than a dark silhouette against the orange skies. “Oh, my God,” she whispered against the ache blossoming in her core. “Connor…” Emmy was so painfully stunned, so deeply heartbroken, in that moment that she could not even cry at what she had found and lost. It wasn’t until she was lying in bed at her hotel that night the anguish came and the tears could not be contained from flowing.
Chapter 45
Baltimore, Maryland
December 2010
“Dr. MacKenzie?”
Emmy turned away from the window of her office to find one of the practice’s nurses standing in her doorway. “Yes, Joy?”
“Dr. Lane would like to see you in her office.”
The look on the woman’s face said immediately and Emmy nodded. “I will go right away. Thank you.”
Emmy had been back for almost two months. Fifty-seven days to be exact. Fifty-seven days where she realized that her life was not as perfect as she had thought. Not without someone to share it with. In the three days after leaving Duart, Emmy had rented a car and taken the ferry over to Mull on her own. The first day she had just sat on her rock overlooking the sound trying to answer the question that seemed to mean so much. What did she want? Apparently her confusion had been enough to make it impossible to find Donell for, try as she might, she had been unable to find him in the days that followed.
The current occupants of the castle had not yet returned to their residence, so there was no one there to let her in not that she would have expected them to. She had sat outside the keep in the car for hours…wishing, hoping. She wanted to go back. She wanted to be with Connor.
“I figured it out, Donell!” she had shouted over the sound. “I know what I want, so get your ass over here and give it to me!”
But Donell was nowhere to be found.
It seemed he doubted her sincerity.
Finally, her life had invaded. Voicemail reminders from her new boss had compelled Emmy back to London and back on her scheduled flight to BWI. Two days later she had taken her position as the newest OB/GYN at the Harbor Women’s Clinic in Baltimore. She had been given a caseload of patients and had already delivered two babies since starting, both in the shining new maternity ward at Johns Hopkins.
Her friends had encouraged her to go out with them to their favorite restaurants and even up to a show in New York, but as the weeks had passed, they called less and less. Emmy was very aware that she was not the lighthearted company she once had been and frankly she didn’t blame them for giving her the cold shoulder.
Why couldn’t she be happy again? She asked herself. Other than Connor and his family she hadn’t liked it there. There were none of the luxuries she wanted...no, needed to live comfortably there! No technology, no movies, no cars! Emmy had spent a whole night recently making a list of everything she had disliked about the past and it had been grievously long. Insanely long. So why did she miss it so much? She had everything here she had ever wanted. The job, the house, the friends. What else could she want? Surely all of this was better than an ancient castle
