Off Kilter. Donna Kauffman

pick at least one of your island heathens for their pretty boy collection, then they’re either blind, or lack a pulse.”

      Kira laughed. “They’re not all heathens, ye ken.” Then she pretended to think about that. “Wait, yes they are.” She sat down again and nibbled some chocolate crunch while she watched Tessa click open her editing software and begin working on a select few shots. “What I meant, earlier,” she went on, her voice a soft comfort as the silence stretched companionably, “was you don’t have to worry that I’m going to pry.”

      Tessa sent her a sharp sideways glance, feeling a little caught off guard. She’d let her defenses down and had no immediate response that wouldn’t either be a flat-out lie or simply confirm what Kira was already suspecting. “What do you think of this one?” she asked instead, and shifted her laptop monitor to cut the glare.

      She held Kira’s gaze as steadily as she could, and felt like a jerk for not finding a better way to acknowledge her friend’s support. But she simply couldn’t go there. Not yet.

      Kira held Tessa’s gaze only a beat longer, long enough to confirm that she knew something wasn’t right with her friend, then mercifully turned her attention to the monitor. “Ranald?” She glanced at Tessa, then back to the screen. “Really?”

      Tessa frowned and switched instinctively back into professional mode. Lately that had been a special hell all its own, but, at the moment, it felt like the haven it had always been for her in the past. She narrowed her gaze and critically studied the photograph. “What’s wrong with it?”

      “It? I’m not talking about the composition. I’m talking about Ranald. He’s …” She scrunched up her nose and shook her head.

      “What’s wrong with him?”

      “‘Tis simply no’ right, Tessa, for a man to have that much hair.” She shuddered. “Everywhere.”

      Nonplussed, Tessa looked at the picture once again. “This is the sexiest Highlanders calendar. Highlanders aren’t the waxed and shiny types. Leastwise not the ones I’ve met so far. I was going for rugged mountain man.” Again, her thoughts went, unbidden, to Roan. He was neither waxed nor shiny. In fact, he had hair in the exact right amount, in the exact right places. Damn the man and his perfect perfection.

      “Aye, Ranald is rugged, if by rugged you mean ‘has been covered by a rug.’”

      Tessa spurted a little laugh at that, even as her eyes widened. “Listen to you.”

      Kira’s cheeks grew pink and she glanced down, suddenly looking self-conscious. “I know it, I’m being evil. It’s no’ right of me.”

      “Actually, I was about to clap my hands together and say ‘finally!’ Welcome to the land of us normal mortals. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say anything that could be construed as less than kind and sweet. It’s downright annoying, that kind of karmic perfection.”

      “And a fat lo’ of good it did me, eh?” Kira quipped. To her credit, there was barely a flicker of pain behind the self-deprecating smile. But Tessa hadn’t missed it.

      She turned around in her chair and jutted out her chin toward Kira. “Go ahead,” she offered. “Pop me one. Right in the kisser. I deserve it, you know.”

      “What on earth are ye goin’ on about now?”

      “Punch me. Hit me. Whatever. Just inflict some pain and we’ll both feel loads better.”

      Kira looked properly horrified, and Tessa laughed. It was the closest she’d felt to normal in a very long time.

      “What’s funny about that?” Kira asked, looking more worried and concerned than since Tessa had shown up on her doorstep a week ago.

      “You haven’t changed so much after all. Don’t worry. But you can still hit me if the mood strikes.”

      Kira frowned and took up another piece of crunch. “I dinnae know what’s gotten into you, my closest, dearest friend,” she said as she munched, “but if you want me to pretend that I’m no’ aware there’s something deep and dark lurkin’ about in there—which I’m willin’ to do if it’ll help ye heal—then at least try not to act like a loon.”

      Tessa’s laughter subsided. Normal time was over. She opened her mouth, shut it again, then sighed. Heavily. “I’m not in the best place at the moment, you’re right about that. But I don’t want to—can’t—talk about it. I … I just needed to be away from some things for a bit.” And connected to other things … like her only family. “I’m certain I’ll work through things on my own.” That was an out and out lie. She was certain of no such thing. No such thing at all. But she didn’t want Kira to worry. More than she already was, anyway.

      Tessa stood up and walked over to her friend, tugging her arm free from where she’d wrapped it around her middle. “I wasn’t here for you, when things ended with Thomas,” she said, never more sober and serious. “And I hate that, more than you might ever believe. I’ve been such a lousy friend. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hurt for you, and wish I was a better person, a better friend. I don’t know how you’re really feeling. You seem good, you sound better than good. But I don’t truly know. So, I just want to say, I’m here now, and if you need anything, I’m willing. Whatever it is. Whatever helps.”

      “Weaving.”

      “What?”

      “Weaving. It helps. I think it healed me. Mostly, anyway.” Kira looked up and Tessa saw, for the first time, the toll of what the last eighteen months had taken on her sweet, gentle-natured friend.

      “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

      “I am, too.” Kira took a breath, regrouped, and squared her slender shoulders. “I came back here to hide, lick my wounds, feel sorry for myself. But instead, I found the thing I should never have left behind.”

      “The baskets?”

      Kira nodded. “I thought it was so sentimental and backward, marking me as some kind of uneducated Highlander. Outlander. You remember, when I came to London, how I was so enthralled with everything it had to offer? Big city, big moments, everything that was a world away from”—she stepped back and gestured to the tiny croft that had once been her grandmother’s home, and home to her mother before her, albeit in an even more antiquated form—“this.”

      “It’s not a bad thing to dream, to explore,” Tessa said. “To want something different than what you have.”

      “I know. Truly, I do. I know I was fortunate to have the life I led in London. Perhaps I had to do that, to better respect where I came from. When I came back here … I didnae intend to stay. I just wanted time away, to reset myself. The weaving …” She looked over to the studio that had been added onto the croft sometime close to a century before. “I couldn’t sleep. At first. It’s so quiet here. I’d forgotten how quiet. It almost drove me mad. But … I couldn’t go back. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to. So many memories.” She hugged herself again. “Many of them so good. So beautifully, wonderfully good. It was torture, in its purest form. Seeing where we’d lived, where we’d laughed. Where we’d loved. So fully and completely. Me, an idiot, apparently, believing in the fairy tale, because it was all I ever wanted.”

      “Kira—”

      She held up her hand. “But in the quiet of the night, with too many memories and no’ enough sleep, I started with a basket. Mostly to give my mind a focus, and get it mercifully off the rest.”

      “And it helped.” Developing film was much the same for Tessa. For all the photos she took of death and destruction, she’d taken equally as many of beauty, of life. Most of those didn’t make it into the newspapers or the magazines, but on many a long, very long night, bringing them to life had kept her sane. “I understand that, Kira. Maybe more than you know.”

      She nodded. “I believe it saved me. No’ at first, perhaps.