No Mark Upon Her

proper repayment. I’m going to get in the bath.”
    He’d set to it as she trudged up the stairs. He even whistled a little, tunelessly, pleased that he’d already worked out where things were in the tidy kitchen, and that he’d picked up essentials at the shops the previous afternoon.
    When he’d served two plates and filled the teapot, he glanced at the dogs, lying side by side in the kitchen doorway, watching him intently. “Don’t even think about it, mates,” he said, and then, erring on the side of caution, he stuck the plates in the warming oven. Tosh, he trusted. Finn, he wasn’t so sure about.
    Going to the bottom of the stairs, he called Tavie. When she didn’t answer, he trotted up, thinking she hadn’t heard him over the sound of the taps or maybe the hairdryer.
    Just as he reached the top landing, Tavie walked out of the bathroom, naked except for a towel wrapped loosely round her waist. Her fair hair was dark from the damp and stood up in spikes where she’d toweled it.
    “I just—” He swallowed. “Sorry. I didn’t—breakfast is ready.”
    “Right. I’m just coming.”
    “Okay. Good.” He turned and nearly slid back down the stairs, but not before he’d seen the blush travel down her throat to her chest and then to the swell of her small breasts.
    She came down a moment later, clad in a sweatshirt and baggy tracksuit bottoms. They ate, and if Tavie felt awkward she didn’t show it. Kieran mostly kept his eyes on his plate and tried not to think about the slender body beneath the concealing clothes.
    “I’ll take the dogs for a good run, why don’t I?” he’d said when they were finished. Tavie, who had cleaned her plate with astonishing speed, was nodding over her second cup of tea.
    “Good idea.”
    “You go to bed. I mean, get some rest.” He could have slapped himself for sounding like an idiot. “Afterwards, I’m going to see what I can do at the shed. I’ll take them with me.”
    Tavie opened sleepy blue eyes. “Don’t stay after dark. Remember what the superintendent said.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said cheekily.
    “Oh, shut up,” she’d told him again, and staggered upstairs to bed, but he’d seen a hint of a smile.
    The picture of Tavie in her towel had stayed with him as he swept and hammered through the afternoon. He’d felt guilty for being aroused, as if he were betraying Becca, and weird about thinking of Tavie in that way. But Tavie hadn’t seemed to mind—in fact, it occurred to him that she could easily have put on a dressing gown if she’d been worried about her modesty. Surely she hadn’t meant for him to—no. He scolded himself for being stupid.
    And as for Becca—he couldn’t let himself go there, not yet. He couldn’t separate the memories of lying with her, touching her, from the image of her face below the weir. When he tried, it made him feel sick and disoriented.
    Shaking his head, he tipped the last scoop of rubbish from the dustpan into the big bin he kept in his work area. The bin was, miraculously, undamaged. He’d cleared up a good deal of the mess, but ferrying the bags across to the mainland and disposing of them would be a job for another day. At least he’d got the windows covered and could shut up the shop and his tools. But it was getting late, and he didn’t want Tavie to worry.
    Locking up, he greeted the dogs, who’d lain in a warm hollow in the grass, waiting patiently for him while they watched the comings and goings on the river.
    As he looked round, he realized why it had seemed as though the afternoon was fading unexpectedly fast. The clouds had come in, heavy in the west, bringing an early dusk. Kieran shuddered, dreading the onset of bad weather.
    But to his relief, he realized that his head felt clear. Maybe this one was not going to be bad.
    He rowed across with the dogs and tied up the skiff, then walked along the path, turning up his collar against the wind. The dogs frisked beside him, rambunctious with the cold, so when he reached Mill Meadows, he pulled a couple of tennis balls from the pocket of his anorak and let the dogs off lead for a few minutes of happy ball chasing.
    He hadn’t dared ask Tavie if she’d changed her mind about taking him off the SAR team, and only now did he realize how much he would miss it. And Finn—Finn, like Tosh, was born to work, and it would be cruel to deprive him. That, thought Kieran, was an argument that might sway Tavie in his favor.
    Clipping the dogs on