Fractured Crystal: Sapphires and Submission Page 3

  While the air was fresh and a little more breezy than she expected (indeed, without the humidity of those clouds hanging low over the earth, it was even a little cooler than the day before), nonetheless after half an hour walking or so Kris felt the blood rising beneath her skin, warming her plentifully as she strode away from Dalrigh. She had no particular expectations of where to go, simply cutting away across the moorland that lay behind the string of houses beside the road and across from the small centre of the village. She did not mind where she went today, so long as she was alone.

  Before her rose the long, slow ridge of a low hill which provided her with plenty enough of a challenge. Her trainers were just sufficient to traverse the springy undergrowth, and she took a particular delight in the feeling of the wind blowing across her face, something in the tang of her scent bringing her back to life with promises of the sea that lay only a few miles to the west.

  As she ascended to the top of the hill, she looked out and her heart was now completely filled with pleasure as she gazed westwards, able clearly now to see the horizon of the sea, a darker blue against the sky, a few bright clouds scudding along the heavens. Northwards the land continued to rise, the greens, browns and yellows of the heather lush and rolling across the earth, while much further to the East rose the more massive peaks of the Highlands, causing her heart to stop for a few moments while she took in their sublime beauty.

  Kris had no idea how long she had been standing on that ridge, simply watching, observing. Nor, for the first time in a long period of her life, did she care. For that morning only, if little more, she was simply content to watch the world and let all her other problems fade away. By the time that she began to descend the ridge and return to Dalrigh, she felt happier than for many months, even years.

  That pleasant contentment was only slightly disturbed as she neared Dalrigh when she saw the Land Rover that she had noticed the day before driving away from the cottage. It belonged, she was pretty sure, to Daniel Logan, and she wondered what on earth he was doing here. Of course, there was no real reason why he shouldn’t be driving along that road, but the speed of the vehicle indicated that it had not long pulled away when she first noticed it. Had he seen her and decided to drive away? She had a suspicion that this was an awkward man, but among her anxieties about what that meant she detected a sliver of anticipation, excitement even.

  Whatever the precise state of her emotions, it was clear that Kris had none of the sense of tranquillity that would enable her to follow through with her plan to begin drawing again that afternoon. Her phone had suitably charged while out, but Google was proving to be a useless source of information, mainly because she had little more to go on than a name but also because the signal here was, unsurprisingly, rather erratic. She shrugged: it had occurred to her in any case that the postmistress, shopkeeper and general wise woman of the village, Mary, would provide her with more knowledge than any electronic network, however global, could ever promise.

  “Well, Daniel Logan you say!” Mary drew up her not insubstantial bust with a shuffle of both arms in a fashion that Kris found more than a little amusing, though she refrained from letting her smirk show. “I can’t say I know at all why he would have been down at Dalrigh, that’s for sure, but he certainly took a good, long look at you yesterday. And it was the Land Rover you say?”

  Kris nodded. “I’ve no idea why he would have been near the cottage either, and I just wondered if there was anything about him that you knew.”

  Mary’s eyes narrowed as she squinted at Kris, perhaps weighing up how much to reveal immediately. “Oh,” she said after a while, her Scottish accent lovely to Kris’s ears. “There’s not much that I know about him really.” Although her words expressed caution, there was something about Mary’s tone that told Kris she was about to be inundated with gossip, supposition and innuendo—all of which was much better than nothing to her.

  “Isn’t he from the village then?” Kris asked, a small prompt to begin the conversation.

  “Oh no, not at all. Why, I bet he’s less Scot’s than you, a lovely girl that you are with that beautiful complexion.”

  Kris blushed a little at this. “A gift from my mother,” she said. “Irish though, unfortunately.”

  “Nothing unfortunate about that! At least you’re a Celt, and that’s what matters Ms...” Mary let the rest of the sentence hang in the air.

  “Avelar,” Kris offered. “Not very Irish either. My father was Portuguese—or, at least, his original family were.”

  “Very interesting, very interesting,” Mary told her, her eyes weighing up Kris as this additional information was offered into the balance. After a few seconds computing the extra data, the older woman had obviously decided that whatever exoticism Kris’s background brought into this small place from the outside, at least there wasn’t much Englishness involved and that made everything all right.

  “So, what was I saying? Oh, yes. That Daniel Logan. Well, there were Logans who lived her a long time ago, but they went off before the war, and he only returned to buy the croft over at Comrie four years ago. The place had been falling down—fairly deserted even by our quiet standards, don’t you know.” Mary laughed at her own joke and Kris politely smiled. “Anyway, though there was a little work done on it to make it habitable, I believe that he’s been doing it up himself. He only spends a little time here, and makes no effort to befriend anyone. We were all curious about him at first...”

  Mary’s eyes glistened as she looked at Kris. “Perhaps we’re still curious. You get a lot of... eccentric types coming up here, buying up old properties and indulging themselves in Lord knows what.”

  Kris herself remained very curious. “Comrie, you say?” she asked, maintaining as negligent a tone as she could.

  “That’s right. You follow the road out of the village for a mile, perhaps a little more, then there’s a track that leads to your left, between the two hills that you’ll see. If I remember rightly, Comrie’s five miles beyond that.”

  Giving her thanks, Kris left the shop and walked back to Dalrigh. It was stupid, of course, but she found herself thinking more and more about Daniel Logan. She couldn’t explain it, but there was something about the way he had looked at her with those slightly peculiar eyes of his: she had never, she realised, ever been observed so intently as he had done the previous day.

  Back at the cottage, she mooned around the kitchen for half an hour or so, making herself a drink and pondering what to do. It did occur to her that driving out to the home of a stranger in the middle of nowhere—a man who could turn out to be a psychopath—was probably the most stupid thing she had ever considered. Yet the intelligence in his gaze had been searching for something in her face, of that she was sure, and she was also certain that he was even more curious about her than she was of him. Oh well, she thought: it had been too long since she had been reckless—she had her phone and the afternoon was bound to end up in nothing more than disappointment.

  The journey to the track that led to Comrie was brief and exactly as Mary had explained. Kris turned her Toyota into the narrow drive, worrying about her suspension within minutes as the rutted track bounced and dipped beneath her. She had to drive slowly, and as the heather-clad hills rose up on either side of her she wondered if she was on the right path at all.

  When she turned a corner, however, she knew she had arrived at Comrie. It was not so much the croft itself—actually two small cottages that had been knocked together, smoke rising from the chimney in one corner—as the fact that outside she recognised the tall, lean figure of Daniel Logan, his back to the road as he lifted an axe to chop wood, the Land Rover parked not far away.

  Kris felt a peculiar thrill inside her as she stopped the car and looked down at him. He was perhaps some five hundred yards from her and she had been driving so carefully and quietly that he had not heard her. Part of her mind was wheeling through scenes from movies such as Deliverance and Straw Dogs as she watched the axe-wielding m
an splitting logs that fell in clean blocks beneath his blows, but more than that she was admiring the muscles of his shoulders and his arms as he lifted the blade above his head once more.

  As she drove forward, the dirt and pebbles crackling beneath the tyres of the Toyota, the man below her finally heard the car and turned. His face was frowning as he lowered the long shaft of the axe, watching her as she came to a standstill at last behind the Land Rover. Seeing his face again, Kris’s stomach churned in a fashion she couldn’t explain—just as she couldn’t explain what she was doing being here in the first place.

  When she opened the door and climbed out of the car, he stood staring at her. He had not said anything yet, but while his brow was creased in a frown, the faint scars on his face visible, his eyes did not display any clear animosity. Kris tried to keep her gaze on his face, averting her eyes from the broad, full chest and clearly defined pectoral and abdominal muscles. Instead, she noted that he did not appear quite as old as she had first imagined—perhaps late thirties rather than in his forties, his true age disguised by his beard.

  “I’m sorry...” she faltered, not knowing what to say.

  “Are you lost?” His voice was curt but not exactly unkind. Certainly Mary was correct: he was no Scot, but rather spoke in clipped, registered pronunciation. That could have made him a posh lowlander, of course, but from what Kris understood even the most aristocratic of Scots took pleasure in their native accent.

  “No, I...” Kris paused once more. What the hell was she doing here? As her gaze dipped, now this time she could not avert it from his chest. Recognising the direction of her eyes, he grabbed hold of a shirt that had fallen to one side of the wood pile and pulled it over his shoulders, letting the front fall loosely outside his jeans as he buttoned it up. As he did so, he came forward and, again, Kris felt the strange excitement and almost fear inside her as she experienced just how much taller he was than her. What the fuck had she been thinking?

  “The track doesn’t lead on any further,” he said, his voice still measured. “You’ll need to turn round and go back. There’s nothing to see here.”

  Kris lifted up her head and looked at him defiantly. Those eyes—hazel, clear, asymmetrical—held her. The lines across his face—what had happened to him, she wondered. For once her anxieties made her bold.

  “Why were you at Dalrigh this morning?” she asked.

  He opened his mouth—those fine, curved lips—as though to speak and she saw his tongue flicker for a moment. She was aware of his hands, large and strong, just inches away from her shoulders as he slowly crossed them in front of his chest. He did not reply after all, but looked up to where the sun was beginning to descend, squinting a little, the dark curls of his hair moving in a slight breeze that blew from the direction of the sea.

  “Do you want to... do you want to come in for a coffee, Ms...?” It was his turn to pause.

  “Avelar,” she replied. “Kris Avelar. Yes, I’d love to.”

  He nodded, as though in agreement with some private, internal dialogue than with anything that she had said. “I’m Logan,” he told her.

  “Yes, Daniel Logan. I know.”

  This caused him to utter a low laugh, not entirely pleasant. “Even here,” he muttered. “Even here. Well, can’t be helped.” His eyes glittered as he looked at her. “Come on, you better come in.”

  He entered the croft before her, ducking his head as he went in beneath the low doorway, and Kris frankly ogled his backside and the firm line of his thighs beneath his jeans. She felt utterly stupid: these kinds of feelings had not affected her since she was a teenager—what the hell was she doing here? She repeated the latter to herself again and again, but still did not resist the urge to follow Daniel into his cottage.

  Inside was fairly dark, the only light visible from the windows. Though crude, the room was quaint in many ways, and through a doorway Kris could see a kitchen with what appeared to be a fairly modern range installed. Most of the walls were painted, but it was clear that this was still a building in the process of being renovated.

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” Daniel said to her, moving towards the kitchen. “I’m afraid this is my retreat—no mod cons of any sort here.” His voice was becoming more urbane as the diffident roughness he had displayed outside was being rubbed off.

  “Your retreat from what?” Kris asked, but Daniel either did not hear or he chose not to reply. “A lovely place you have here,” she continued as the silence became awkward, but this time he simply laughed, making no response.

  As Daniel moved around the kitchen, preparing a drink, Kris took in the details of what functioned as a living room more closely. There was a sofa, chair and table, but no television (indeed, after a few minutes looking at the walls, she realised there were no sockets of any kind, though a few books were scattered across two shelves). Rather, the room was dominated by a large, open hearth, the grate of which indicated that there had been a fire in there fairly recently, with a single, huge squared log serving as a mantel.

  Light from the window gave the room an almost romantic feel, but as Kris came towards the fire and looked at the picture in a frame, her heart leaped into her mouth.

  The photograph was not particularly large, a snap, showing a short-haired man, clean-shaven and smooth-faced. Despite these changes, she clearly recognised it as Daniel. This was not what made her gasp, however.

  Her head tucked into his shoulder, the woman in the photograph leaned against the taller man lovingly, relaxed and looking directly at the camera. Her black hair was long and it must have been a cold autumn or winter day, as the woman had the collar of her coat pulled up about her neck, partially obscuring her chin. Nonetheless, her smile was broad and her blue eyes honest and open as she happily beamed into the lens.

  For a moment, Kris thought she could have been looking in a mirror.

  She had not even felt Daniel come up behind her, and when his arm reached over her shoulder and he took the photograph up in his hand she jumped literally, spinning around. Her head came to his chest, the top buttons of his shirt still undone. She could smell his warmth, droplets of sweat clearly visible beneath his collar bone. The hairs of his beard curled around his lips which were held hard as steel, and as his head bent down his eyes were fixed on her intently.

  Father, above her with his belt, her heart beating.

  She saw that he had placed the coffee cups down on the table, and he was merely inches away from her now. His large frame intervened between her and the door. She could not move, couldn’t breathe easily.

  The first strap across her buttocks. The pain. The pain and... something more.

  Daniel was looking down at her with a look she could not decipher, his face in shadows as he stood there, looming over her. His own breathing was a little faster now, and it was as though the room had become suddenly silent—all she could hear was her own heart thudding, pumping in her chest.

  “Please, please don’t hurt me,” she whispered.

  At this, Daniel drew back a step, just one, his frown now creased even further, his eyes full of surprise. And it was to her surprise that Kris didn’t leap up at that moment, run to the door, out of the room of this crazy man—for that was surely what he was, with his scars and axe-wielding ways.

  “What?” Daniel’s voice was incredulous when he finally spoke.

  “Please...” now Kris faltered, unsure what to say next. “Don’t...” The words would not come.

  Carefully, silently, Daniel placed the photograph he held face down on the table. When he turned back to her, his eyes were hard and flinty.

  “I think you better go,” were his only words.

  Chapter Four

  Kris felt utterly stupid as she ran out to the car. She fumbled and crunched the gears as she turned the Toyota round, but her departure from Comrie was not observed by the taciturn stranger who refused to leave the croft.

  Her mind was churning, turning, falling over itself as she drove back,
her heart beating and her stomach fluttering. What had she been thinking? What the fuck was she doing? She barely paid attention to the juddering motion of the car as it leapfrogged along the potholed track, and when she hit the main road she gunned through the gears, driving at full speed towards Dalrigh.

  Anger now dominated her mood. She had almost been crying in the car, cursing herself but she didn’t know why. Why on earth was she over-reacting this way? Why was she so angry? As she slammed the door to the cottage behind her, she stamped around the kitchen, cursing and shouting out loud, but without a clear target for her frustration she directed her anger entirely at herself.

  Climbing the stairs to the bathroom, she stared at herself in the mirror. Long black hair, blue eyes, a face slightly rounder, fuller than the one she had seen in the photograph. “Stupid bitch!” she cursed, her blood raging inside her, but she was uncertain as to whether the words were directed towards the unknown female she had seen before or herself. “Bitch!” she hissed again, and this time she slapped herself, hard across the face.

  That made her feel better. A little. But the relief was only momentary. What the hell was going on in that mind of hers? She felt the familiar prickling, the coldness covering her limbs, the hackles on her neck rising as though in fear—but this time, for some reason, it was not enough to damp down the heat in her blood.

  “Fucking stupid bitch!” she almost screamed at the mirror, slapping herself again.

  Flash of his naked chest, broad, strong. The scene shifted. Arm reaching over her shoulder. Hand closing around the frame of the photograph. His neck when she had turned to face him, just above her head. Curls of his hair over his ears.

  Fuck.

  Stupid bitch, stupid bitch, stupid bitch. As she fell on the toilet, yanking down the fly to her jeans and thrusting her hand inside, between her legs, this was the refrain of abuse that she was locked into, saying nothing more as she masturbated, more furiously than at any time since she had been a teenager. Her orgasm was quick, spasmodic, and brief—but it was enough. She realised, as she rubbed her clitoris with a brutal speed that was fast and efficient, she had not been breathing and when she opened her lungs again, her breasts jerking up as though sucking in air after drowning, the relief was almost complete.