Created By

irwinwe

Rate this Story

Embed

The wind blew the snow flakes into my face with bitter ferocity, howling its mischievous melody as the white powder ubiquitously engulfed me.  If my coat had possessed a hood, perhaps I would have fared a bit better.  But it did not, and thus my entire persona, I'm sure, looked somewhat akin to a drowned rat, with mascara running and everything of the like.  I reached the road and decided I'd call a taxi, as I did not wish to walk any further in this inclement December weather.  It's not that I was incapable, but just that I didn't want to catch my death trying.  I held my hand out for a taxi, and then laughed out loud, quite sarcastically, at my efforts.  They seemed very futile; if I could barely see my coat-sleeve in front of me through the white haze, I doubted that a taxi could see it any better from quite a few feet away.  Abruptly a dark shadow came to stand beside me, and the snow lessoned its fury.  I looked up to see that I was standing beneath a black umbrella, and quickly glanced to my right to see Iain holding it above me, appropriately dressed in his dark overcoat and fogged glasses, and snow-covered red scarf.  

"Halo" he said, and then he grinned extensively at me, as if to find humor in our present situation.  He found humor in everything.  His cheeks held a glow and his eyes were bright as a child's on Christmas, and his charismatic vibrancy easily sifted into my own state of mind, taking me away from the quandary of wetness in which I had been drowning before I had run into him.  I grinned back, and then started to laugh.  

"Thank you" I said, pointing up at the umbrella, "you always seem to show up at the right time, Mr. Ross, do you have special abilities to read people's minds?"

"Och aye" he responded, his ego happily nursed by my comment, "didna ye know I'm a psychic?"  He winked.  A moment of silence loitered about us, but to me it sounded like buzzing fly that invisibly circumnavigates an earlobe, halfway driving a person insane.  He stared at me boldly and darkly, his lips slightly parted, knowing what he wanted.  I didn't know whether to shiver or laugh, so I exhaled audibly.  His audacity confused me; was it gallant or was it just plain suggestive?  If it had been the former, I would certainly have shivered.  

Without precedent he began grinning again, and then laughing.  I lifted my left brow at him, wondering what about me he was finding endearingly funny now.  "Your mascara is running" he said as he handed the umbrella to me.  I took it, and he blew heat into his hands.

I rolled my eyes.  "I know...kinda sucks when your coat doesn't really have a hood and you can't avoid the..." before I could finish my sentence he reached up softly, and with his thumbs, wiped away the mascara that was smeared below my lower lashes.  His thumbs were warm from his breath, and they lingered on my skin a while before their master withdrew them.  "...can't avoid the blizzard" I finished, after I swallowed.  

I had always wondered if Iain Ross was being genuine.  I could never tell, as he seemed like such a stereotypical ladies' man.  But then again, if he had been best friends with Kane MacAllister, a man who despised spurious people, then he could not have been all bad.  He had certainly won, until just recently, Kane's good graces.  

Iain looked down at me without saying a word, and there was no hidden secret in his smokey eyes, only admission proving that what Kane had said about him liking me was true.  I was flattered by it, but I couldn't return his expression.  It wasn't that I didn't feel attraction towards him.  Anyone would have felt attraction towards Iain.  I was just wary of him.  Three women in my family had been cheated on by husbands who looked just like Iain Ross, and who possessed the same entrancing magnetism.  Before she met my father, my mother was one of them.  I may have been wrong about Iain and his intentions, but I certainly did not want to join the list that so many before me had already joined.  So I remained distant, my chameleon eyes surely remaining an indecipherable color: green, blue, and gray.  My remoteness reminded me of Kane.  Once again, I was able to draw a connection between us.  However, it was a shame that I had drawn that connection while looking into another man's eyes, as he told me he liked me on wisps of haze and smoke.  

Just then the taxi, miraculously, pulled up to where we stood, and it broke our trance.  Iain took the umbrella from my hand and held it over me as I crawled into the back seat, and then he followed me inside and shut the door. 

"Can I take ye to get some tea?" he asked, seizing opportunities where he could, "I need to ask ye something." 

I shook my head in the affirmative, and then Iain told the driver where to go.

***

I ordered my tea hot, with milk and raw sugar, the way i'd become accustomed to having it in Scotland.  The tea cottage was a very quaint place, and the fumes of fresh baked shortbread swirled beneath my nose as the little serving ladies cheerily delivered to the tables around us.  They were all plump and pink-cheeked, with grey hair and warm smiles, their friendliness adversely proportional to the bitter weather outside the windows.

"Will tha' be all for ye then?" asked one of the ladies as she brought out our tea.  I smiled, just because it overjoyed me to hear her thick brogue.  In my mind, the quintessential server was one who spoke with the celtic brogue that I found so heart-lilting.  

Iain looked at me and squinted his eyes. "No ma'am" he answered, grinning a bit, "I think the ledy will 'ave some shortbread."

The servant lady looked overjoyed, and as she hurried off to cut another few slices of the wonderful treat, I grinned at Iain.

"Psychic" he reminded me, and I nodded in smiling agreement, taking a sip of tea.  I could feel the hot liquid slide all the way down my throat and into my belly, and it warmed my entire being.  I closed my eyes and savored the feeling, and when I opened them I found Iain watching me.  It was that bold, determined look again, the one where he was seeing me from overtop the rim of his glasses while reading the paper, and I felt a sensation similar to the one I had experienced when I swallowed the tea.  A sensation just as warm, but faster in movement and lower in destination.  

"Ellen I 'ave to ask ye something" he started.

I raised my brows.  "What's that?"

"Weel...'as anyone told ye about the annual St. Andrews Christmas party?" he asked me, hinting at something, smoothly working his way to some sort of conclusion.

I shook my head no.

"It happens every year on Christmas Eve, and it's verra popular amongst the student body.  A lot of us go.  Kane and I 'ave been going for years."

When he mentioned Kane my eyes averted from his for a moment and I bit my lip.  He reached for my hands, and took them inside his larger ones.  A large vein weaved its way over his knuckle and hand until his sweater sleeve shielded it.  

"I was hoping ye could go" he continued.  

I looked up at him again.

"With me" he added very pointedly, looking at me determinedly in the eyes.   

I parted my lips, and was momentarily shaken.  But I quickly recovered, as I narrowed my eyes at him and the left side of my mouth quirked into its intrigued half-smile.  "Are you asking me on a date, Iain Ross?"

He opened his mouth to speak, eyes darting around momentarily.  He was searching for a response, something I rarely saw him do, as they always came naturally to him.  He found it.  "Isna tha' what this is?" he asked.  I raised both eyebrows in surprise.  I supposed this was a date, kind of.  Well the sneaky little bastard, I thought, and then I laughed, knowing that he had come up with that statement on the fly because he was trying to buy time answering my question.  He laughed with me.  "Yes" he said then, "I'm asking ye on a date."  Then he was serious.  And so was I.

I thought long and hard about accepting his offer.  It was not Iain Ross that had my head in a whirl of passionate confusion.  It was not Iain Ross that supplied the hurricane winds beneath my feet, not letting me touch ground.  Though he was a very appealing man, it was not Iain Ross that I wanted.  It was for Kane MacAllister that my mind, body, and soul screamed, and sang, and sobbed.  They were very different men.  To the world, Iain would have most likely been the best choice.  Women chased after him like puppies in pursuit of the thrown stick, and every man I knew wanted to be his friend.  He was intrepid, a go-getter, admired and loved.  But I had never been a woman to follow society's waves and opinions.  I saw a correlation between Kane and I that was, for me, impossible to overlook.  I wanted the dark, tortured man,  who had loved and lost, and yearned for an equal who could respect him for the intelligent, strong man he was, though through his facade of bitterness the normal person could not detect this desire.  I wished Kane had been the one to ask me on a date.  

Duh, stupid, he's your professor, he can't, one side of my brain reminded me.  Thank you for that, the other side said sarcastically in response.  Then I began to take reality into consideration.  Perhaps I had built Kane into an ivory tower.  Perhaps I was in complete denial that we had a connection.  Iain was wonderful, a great, albeit dangerously attractive, friend, and he had asked me in what seemed like a genuine way to go out with him on a date.  Perhaps I had judged Iain too soon.  It wasn't fair for me to label him as a player and then toss him aside as if he were nothing, not giving him a chance.  He was certainly not nothing.  There was no doubt that I could feel attraction for him.  Maybe I needed to try to trust him, though I feared it.  It was a realistic relationship to pursue, after all.  A relationship with Kane was seemingly not.

Iain was looking at me anxiously, I'm sure wondering why on earth I was taking so long to answer.  But despite his anxiety his eyes were still determined.  I smiled at his fortitude and respected him for it. 

"I'd love to go with you to the Christmas party, Iain" I said finally, meaning it.  I had made my choice.  I would see if I could give up this "soul connection" I had with Kane MacAllister.  Most people didn't even believe in soul mates.  Maybe I was just expecting something too good to be true.

Iain's grey eyes softened as he smiled, and he squeezed my hands.   

***

Later, the taxi arrived at my apartment complex, and Iain opened the door so that I could get out.  "One more thing" he said to me before we parted, "wha' color is your dress, so I can dress to match you?" 

I laughed endearingly, remembering high school dances, when I had always tried to match my dress with my date's tuxedo vest. 

"Red!" I called back to him as I backed away from the taxi, gradually disappearing in the white snow haze.

"I liked red" I heard him say as I climbed the stairs to walk inside the building.  I giggled and shook my head.  Iain Ross.  I could fall for him, couldn't I?  

No, you are not ready for a man like him, I heard the phrase coming from the back of my mind.  What was that supposed to mean?  

I shook my head in dismissal and then my thoughts quickly shifted back to the Christmas party.  I had told him the dress would be red.  The only problem was, I didn't have a red dress.  Come to think of it, I hadn't bought a dress in several years.   I had skirts and blouses,  beautiful pant suits and casual dresses, but I could not remember the last time I'd bought a party dress.  I'm gonna need Rachel's help with this one, I thought to myself as I walked in the door.  

Rachel was coincidentally on her way out as I was coming in.  

"Who was that?" she asked me after we had exchanged delighted salutations.

"He's my...date to the Christmas party" I told her, knowing that I was about to be confronted with a future lawyer's interrogation.

"DATE?  You have a DATE?  Miss head-screwed-on-straighter-than-normal-I-don't-'ave-time-for-men Irvine?  I doona believe it!"  She exclaimed, and then smiled widely, "How did he ask ye?  Wha' did ye tell 'im?  Shite, wha' is his name?  'Ave ye been seeing each other all along and ye just refused to tell me about it?  Doona lie to me, I can see through lies." 

I laughed.  "I need your help picking out a red dress" I told her, avoiding her interrogation.  

She looked down at her watch, then she looked up at me with a scheming expression in her eyes.  "Do ye think my professor will be mad if I miss class one day?"  

We giggled shamelessly, then she grabbed my hand, and underneath her umbrella, we ran out into the snow again. 

***