Needed By The Highlander - Rebecca Preston Page 0,10

breathed in the whole Loch, just about, and it had frozen up your insides.”

It was a vivid image. She fought the urge to cough. “Is that right?”

“I’m Eamon,” the boy said now, clearly satisfied that they knew each other well enough for introductions. “Eamon Grant.”

“My name’s Helen Washington.” She suppressed a cough. “Eamon, are your parents around?”

“Mama’s dead,” he said abruptly, in that frighteningly cold way children had of talking about tragedies.

Helen shut her eyes for a moment, not sure what to say. “I’m very sorry, Eamon.”

“You look like her,” he said, peering at her curiously. “She had brown hair too. But hers was long, much longer than yours.”

But just as she was struggling for what to say — how did you talk to a child you’d just met about the death of his mother? — the door swung open again, and she and the boy were no longer alone. There was an enormous man in the doorway — he was tall and lean, with a pair of bright blue eyes and an unmistakable resemblance to the little boy who was now leaning against the side of Helen’s bed. She stared up at him, a little shocked by this larger-than-life figure in tartan.

“Eamon, you little terror,” the man scolded the boy, his voice deep and rich with the same rather delightful Scottish accent the boy spoke with. “I told you not to bother our guest.”

“You told me not to wake her up,” Eamon corrected him imperiously, bouncing on his toes with the force of his conviction. “I made sure I didn’t. She was already awake when I came in. Wasn’t you! Wasn’t you, Helen, tell him —”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “He didn’t wake me up, that’s true.” She coughed again, trying to suppress the urge to lapse into a fit, and the tall man frowned with unmistakable worry on his face as he shooed the boy, gently but firmly, out of the room and back into whatever halls lay beyond the wooden door. Then he turned to Helen.

“Sorry about him. A more curious creature never roamed God’s green earth. My name’s Niall Grant. You’re safe in my chambers. How are you feeling?”

Helen took a breath, feeling the urge to cough recede a little. “Honestly, I’ve felt better. My chest feels like it’s been in a vice for a week and I’m barely strong enough to sit up, let alone get out of bed. How long have I been here?”

Niall was frowning down at her. He pulled the rocking chair from the wall over closer to the bed and took a seat in it, lowering himself a little closer to her level. Yes, up close her suspicions were confirmed — he was a very handsome man. A little older than her, perhaps, but that had never been a problem when it came to the kinds of men she was attracted to… not that she’d ever acted on any of those attractions. “About ten days, all told. We were growing worried you’d never wake up.”

“Well, here I am,” she said. “Ten days? God. I’ve got to call my father, he’ll be worried sick. Was my phone on me when you found me?”

Niall was looking at her blankly. “Your what?”

“My phone — it should’ve been in the pocket of the jeans I was wearing. Unless it fell out in the crash… God, the crash, I didn’t even ask. What happened?”

“I don’t know about any crash,” Niall said, still frowning at her for all the world as though she was speaking another language. “All I know is that we pulled you out of the Loch ten days ago and barely saved your life from drowning.”

Helen frowned. His accent was thick — did all Scottish people call lakes lochs? And where had a lake come into it? She’d crashed into a river, not a lake. But there were more pressing questions. “What about the man who was in the vehicle with me? Did he survive?”

“Man? Vehicle? Lass, I think you’re a little confused,” Niall said gently, reaching out to pat her shoulder through the quilt. “I tell you what — you get a little more rest and I’ll fetch the healer to check on you.”

She frowned as he left the room, feeling torn between relief at being alone again (he was right — she was desperate for a little more rest) and frustration at not having learned hardly anything about where she was and what had happened. Resolving to get more information out of