Chapter 28
Kendrick
Damn. He counted down the days like never before. Since Aileana had come back into his life, it was harder than hell to be away from her. Duncan had been trying to keep him occupied with his crazy antics on their downtime. It had helped some, but the bond was so strong that she was always in his head. His body was in agony wanting her. He could feel her thoughts, even all the way out on the drilling platform. She still fought the pull her body and mind had with his; she couldn’t understand the demand for what it was. He could feel her need for him. The Selkie magic of their joining was too strong for either of them to fight.
Duncan met up with Kendrick for supper. They grabbed a table and sat down to their meal, and the conversation turned to Duncan’s plans for his time off at the end of the week.
“So, Duncan, what plans do ye have for yer holiday?”
“One of my friends, which I met on a motorcycle tour of California on Route 1, the Pacific Coast Highway last year, invited me to spend the month at his beach home. I will also have the use of his Harleys. His business has taken him out of the country. I couldn’t pass up such a sweet deal.”
“That is a sweet deal! How did ye manage to fall into that?”
“Mutual love of Harleys and the road cemented the friendship, and a love of partying and fast women didnae hurt either. Especially since I also promised him the use of mah cottage and bike if he made it over to Scotland.” He laughed.
“Not too bad a deal.”
“Truthfully, it would have been better if he’d been in town. The man is a party animal. He said he would leave a list of spots I should hit up,” Duncan said.
“If I hadn’t reconnected with Aileana, I would have been up for a trip. Now I cannae wait until we’re in the same room again.” He chuckled.
“Damn, bro, ye got it bad!” Duncan laughed.
“Laugh all ye want, Duncan, it will happen to ye someday,” he said with a grin.
“Not me, I just want to ride them hard and move on to the next beautiful woman. This way I will see what the Pacific coast has to offer in the way of hot women. Ye know what they say about California girls…And I’ll have a change of scenery far from Scotland.”
“So it will only be ye going to California?” Kendrick asked.
“Nay, I convinced Torin to join me on the trip. Torin and I plan to tear up the town! We will hit as many nightclubs as possible.”
“At least Torin will be someone to try and keep ye from getting into too much trouble. What area of California is yer friend’s home?”
“It’s on the beach in an area call Venice. The name of the street is called Ocean Front Walk. I don’t think I could get any closer to the water. Jim, mah friend, that owns the house emailed me some pictures of the house. It is a huge multilevel bachelor’s wet dream,” he said with a gleam in his eye.
“When do ye leave for this slice of heaven?” Kendrick laughed.
“I fly out the Monday after we get off the rig. I just need to throw my clothes in a duffel bag, cash my paycheck, and pack mah passport—done!” He grinned.
His brother was a total horn dog as Aileana would say; he could just imagine what kind of trouble he would get into. Thinking along those lines, he didn’t think he should mention Duncan’s travel plans to Aileana. She would tell him, since her family lived in Southern California, that Duncan should drop by, and introduce himself. That would not be a good idea at all, seeing as Aileana had an unattached younger sister at home.
He knew Duncan had one thing on his mind, and it involved nothing in the way of playing polite with the fairer sex. Duncan was known for a great deal of fooling around, of the hot and nasty variety. Kendrick didn’t want to be aiding and abetting anyone’s broken heart. Duncan had left plenty of women with broken hearts along his path of debauchery. Kendrick didn’t want one of those devastated hearts to be Aileana’s younger sister.
This was his last work shift before he was off the rig for the next month. Kendrick wanted to plan something special for Boxing Day with Aileana. This would be her first Yule in the Scottish Highlands. She had experienced plenty of summers in the Highlands but never a holiday after August. Their short days in the winter made it perfect for each and every one of the indoor games he planned to enjoy with her. In the Highlands, they only averaged seven hours of daylight in December, which he was sure made for lots of Scottish births in September.
When they spoke last evening, Aileana invited him to her grandmother’s home for Yule dinner. It would be a treat to have Yule dinner at Skye’s cottage. Skye was known in the village as one of the best cooks and bakers the village had.
Kendrick was still was thinking about the gift he planned to purchase for Aileana and was also busy making her a special gift of carved walnut. He’d decided on carving a gift that held a special meaning to both of them. It was a carving of a seal with a woman leaning against its body. The woman head was resting on the seal’s neck with her long hair splayed across the body.
At the start of his last shift for the month, he met Duncan on the drilling platform. Overnight, the weather changed and they were at the start of a storm. The sky looked dark and angry with the promise of the worst to come.
Kendrick’s work assignment was to direct the crane operator with the off-loading of containers from the supply vessel to the drilling rig. Significant swells were causing various problems for the supply vessel, which made it harder for the vessel to get close enough to the rig. The captain of the vessel wanted to give it a try before the weather took a turn for the worst.
Rodric, the crane operator, gave the signal he was ready. The crane turned and came around to extend out over the drilling platform. Rodric then extended the boom out over the sea, lining up the boom perpendicular to the supply vessel. If anyone could make this difficult task happen smoothly, it was Rodric. He had over ten years as the crane operator on offshore rigs. He had a steady hand and an accurate eye for loading and off-loading. Rodric was a mountain of a man, with a good heart and a quick wit, someone Kendrick admired and called a friend.
The wind whipped the rain down so hard it felt like needles as it hit Kendrick’s skin. They were practically finished transferring the containers. They only had two more containers to off-load and they would be done. The container hanging from the crane started to move erratically on its path to the rig.
“Rodric, what’s going on up there?’ Kendrick spoke into the radio he held. “Rodric, come in!” There was no answer on the other end of the communication line. The crate was coming down fast—too fast. It swung in an uncontrolled arc. Kendrick was nearly out of the path of the swinging container when it caught him sideways and slammed him into the platform substructure. He just missed getting smashed between two of the containers, but his head bounced off the steel post. Kendrick saw a blast of light before he lost consciousness.
The next thing he realized, he lay in a hospital bed on shore. The first face he saw was Aileana’s. Her eyes were puffy and she seemed beat. Her clothes appeared rumpled and her hair was twisted into a haphazard knot on top of her head. She became aware of him watching her and presented him a smile that lit up the room.
“This is not how I planned our first time together in a month,” he croaked. His mouth and throat were parched. “But it is a pleasant way waking to yer beautiful face.” Kendrick tried to reach the tray table near the bed for the glass of water with a straw. He grimaced as his shoulder and back protested the movement.
“Here, let me get that for you. Try not to move around too much.” He took a few swallows of the cool water, which soothed his dry throat.
“What happened and how long have I been here?” he asked.
“You’ve been in the hospital two days now. From what Duncan told me, you were slammed up against a part of the platform structure. You were nearly crushed when the container that was being transferred from the supply ship started to fall, swung wide and caught you.”
“I remember trying to raise Rodric on the com line, but he didn’t answer.”
“Rodric had a heart attack and passed out at the controls.”
“Is…is he all right?” he asked, afraid to know.
“They were able to get the medic to him in time to save him. They had to restart his heart. He’s already received heart surgery to fix a blocked artery.”
In walked Duncan and he came over to the side of the bed.
“Hey, bro, I always said yer’re hard-headed, this just proves mah point. Glad to see ye proved me correct.” He laughed.
“Glad I kin keep ye amused, Duncan,” he said with a smile.
"Well, I’ll let you boys catch up, I’m leaving. I think I will go on home, take a shower and catch a nap. Kendrick, I will be back tonight. Duncan, play nice with your older brother, okay?”
Aileana gave Kendrick a quick kiss that promised more to come later when they didn’t have an annoying brother watching.
“Duncan, thanks fur being here fur me.”
“I haven’t left since they brought ye in. But I had to wait to catch the helicopter that brought the men off their rotation. I told Màthair and Athair aboot the accident. They were relieved to hear ye would be all right, and I was at the hospital with ye,” he told Kendrick as he settled into the chair next to the bed.
“Were ye able to clear mah locker out and bring mah duffel bag back?”
“Yes, I had time since I had to wait for the next ride off the platform. I saw the wood carving yer’re working on. It’s going to be spectacular when yer’re finished. Besides a familiar looking seal, the woman appears an awful lot like a certain fiery redhead ye have been keeping company with.” He chuckled.
“Has the doctor said how long I have to stay?”
“Ye only have to stay twenty-four hours after you regain consciousness so this time tomorrow yer’re free. Since yer on the mend, I will go check on Rodric and see how he’s feeling. He will be glad to hear yer awake and doing much better. Then, I will remake my airline reservation and get myself some California sunshine and wild women.”
“Thanks, Duncan, fur, everything, I hope I didn’t screw-up yer plans too much.”
“Everything is good, just a couple days different on the arrival date. I know ye would be there for me if I needed ye. I will see ye next month back on the rig.” As he headed out the door of Kendrick’s room, he turned and said, “I have a lot of lassies to make happy in California.”
The next day he spoke with his parents over the phone to assure them his brains were still in working order. The headache wasn’t too bad and the soreness in his body had started to fade. Thank the powers that be for the Selkies’ ability to heal quickly. That was a close call, and he was damn lucky not to have been killed or crippled. There would be no coming back from death or a crippling injury, Selkie magic or not.
He needed to get out of this hospital. Kendrick didn’t want to spend a moment more of his time off without Aileana. He needed to accomplish quite a lot before Yule. He had big plans and high hopes for making that stubborn woman his.
He could have made her his so much easier by using Selkie magic, but he didn’t want to use magic on the woman he knew was his life mate. He didn’t want to wonder for the rest of his life if Aileana only became his life mate because of the magic. He needed her to come to him on her own, and only under the power of their love for each other. If she could come to that conclusion on her own, perhaps she needed a wee bit more incentive to be his life mate.