Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [32]
Boston, Massachusetts, June 1969
“Brianna?”
“Ha?” She sat bolt upright, heart pounding, the sound of her name ringing in her ear. “Who—wha’?”
“You were asleep. Damn, I knew I’d got the time wrong! Sorry, shall I ring off?”
It was the faint hint of a burr in his voice that belatedly made the scrambled connections of her nervous system fall into place. Phone. Ringing phone. She’d snatched it by reflex, deep in her dream.
“Roger!” The rush of adrenaline from being startled awake was fading, but her heart was still beating fast. “No, don’t hang up! It’s all right, I’m awake.” She scrubbed a hand over her face, trying at once to disentangle the phone cord and straighten the rumpled bedclothes.
“Aye? You’re sure? What time is it there?”
“I don’t know; it’s too dark to see the clock,” she said, still sleep-addled. A reluctant deep chuckle answered her.
“I am sorry; I tried to calculate the time difference, but must’ve got it backward. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“That’s okay, I had to wake up to answer the phone anyway,” she assured him, and laughed.
“Aye. Well …” She could hear the answering smile in his voice, and eased herself back against the pillows, shoving tangles of hair out of her eyes, slowly adjusting to the here and now. The feel of her dream was still with her, more real than the dark-shrouded shapes of her bedroom.
“It’s good to hear your voice, Roger,” she said softly. She was surprised at just how good it was. His voice was far away and yet seemed much more immediate than the far-off whines of sirens, and the whish! of tires on wet pavement outside.
“Yours, too.” He sounded a little shy. “Look—I’ve got the chance of a conference next month, in Boston. I thought of coming, if—damn, there’s no good way to say this. Do you want to see me?”
Her hand squeezed tight on the receiver, and her heart jumped.
“I’m sorry,” he said at once, before she could reply. “That’s putting you on the spot, isn’t it? I—look—just say straight out if you’d rather not.”
“I do. Of course I want to see you!”
“Ah. You don’t mind, then? Only … you didn’t answer my letter. I thought maybe I’d done something—”
“No, you didn’t. I’m sorry. It was just—”
“It’s fine, I didn’t mean—”
Their sentences collided, and they both stopped, stricken with shyness.
“I didn’t want to push—”
“I didn’t mean to be—”
It happened again, and this time he laughed, a low sound of Scottish amusement coming over the vast distance of space and time, comforting as though he’d touched her.
“It’s all right, then,” he said firmly. “I do understand, aye?”
She didn’t answer, but closed her eyes, an indefinable sensation of relief sweeping over her. Roger Wakefield was likely the only person in the world who could understand; what she hadn’t fully realized before was how important that understanding might be.
“I was dreaming,” she said. “When the phone rang.”
“Mmphm?”
“About my father.” Her throat tightened, just a little, whenever she spoke the word. The same thing happened when she said “mother,” too. She could still smell the sun-warmed pines of her dream, and feel the crunch of pine needles under her boots.
“I couldn’t see his face. I was walking with him, in the woods somewhere. I was following him up a trail, and he was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying—I kept hurrying, trying to catch up, so I could hear, but I couldn’t quite manage.”
“But you knew the man was your father?”
“Yes—but maybe I only thought so because of hiking in the mountains. I used to do that with Dad.”
“Did you? I used to do that with my dad, as well. If you come back to Scotland ever, I’ll take ye Munro bagging.”
“You’ll take me what?”
He laughed, and she had a sudden memory of him, brushing back the thick black hair that he didn’t cut often enough, moss-green eyes creased half-shut by his smile. She found she was rubbing the tip of her thumb slowly across her lower lip, and stopped herself. He’d kissed her when they parted.
“A Munro is any Scottish peak more than three thousand feet. There are so many of them, it’s a sport to see how many you