She clicked off and looked at the others. The apex of her immediate fear had been smoothed over. For now. “That should get Agent Jameson off our backs for a few days, at least.”
It didn’t eliminate the whole issue though.
“And then?” Laird rubbed his lip again in deep thought, telling her he knew it too. As always, though, he was sure to provide the answer.
“Hopefully we’ll be gone by then.”
“We cannae be assured of a positive outcome,” Laird countered. “Nor will it ease the continued threat to Hugh. We need a plan to guarantee he will cause nae other problems. Ever.”
That sounded decidedly final to Scarlett, and not at all the sort of solution she’d been hoping for. Of course, Laird had never been one to back down from a problem. He may have killed for King and country in battle, but he was no murderer and she told him so.
His expression only hardened enough to send a shiver through Scarlett. “I will do what I maun do to protect ye and my wee lassies. And my grandson, for that matter.”
Around the room, to the last, they all heard the promise in those words. Not one of them could doubt he’d meant it.
Emmy
Bandages and quick fixes.
Following Laird’s dire vow—a solution Emmy was a hundred percent behind if that’s what it took to save lives—the apprehensive grip on the tightly banded group had loosened. Laird had Scarlett wrapped in his arms, whispering something… assurances maybe, in her ear.
Assurances that he was ready and willing to kill for them all? To Emmy’s mind, it was the most solid proposal as yet.
Though no one else had outwardly agreed.
Connor, Rhys, and Hugh were pouring themselves glasses of whiskey as if liquor solved everything. Hermione had woken from her nap and was sitting in Claire’s lap flipping through a book.
All of them waiting to hear from Scarlett’s agent whether Jameson had been taken into custody and was out of their hair.
But it was only a temporary fix. A Band-Aid.
In Emmy’s experience, they never worked well or lasted long. To her mind, they needed to evaluate the cause, not the effect. That meant figuring out how this agent had leapt to the conclusion that the men, or even she, had come to this time from another.
It didn’t occur to her to think Connor was wrong in his logic. He was a passionate man, decisive and quick to act, but never rashly. She’d seen the wheels turning in his head while Claire recounted her confrontation with the NSA agent. Plying logic to what she said and extrapolating the only possible conclusion.
No, Emmy trusted her husband’s instincts and agreed Jameson somehow knew most or all of the truth. The real question was why a man as brilliant as Hugh did not agree.
She moved to join the group of men, accepting Rhys’s offer of a drink gratefully. Taking a sip and allowing herself a moment to appreciate the burn of alcohol, Emmy looked up at Hugh. “I’m wondering something.”
“Aye?”
“How can you be so sure this Agent Jameson doesn’t know the others are time travelers like you?”
“Jameson was the NSA liaison to Dr. Fielding at Mark-Davis. They developed the machine as a weapon for the NSA for whatever nefarious purposes they wanted to use it for,” he told them. “Spying, assassination… The files Sorcha’s brother found for us was filled wi’ enough information to blackmail them into leaving me be.”
“How’s that working out for you?” she retorted, then waved the question away. “Obviously, this guy doesn’t care about unofficial investigations any longer, but you didn’t answer my question. How are you so sure Jameson doesn’t think the others came here the same way as you?”
“I’m certain, because the time machine I came through has been destroyed,” Hugh admitted and shrugged as if it were no big deal. The gasps around the room as the others overheard him said differently.
Even Claire gaped at him. “What? How can you know that?”
“Donell told me,” Hugh confessed. Drink in hand, he took a seat on the sofa as they crowded around him. “He was trying to assure me there wouldn’t be another to suffer like me.”
“And you didn’t tell us?” Scarlett stared at him in disbelief as she pulled away from Laird. “Didn’t make sure he stuck around so we could get home? I could use some assurance on the matter given everything that’s going on.”
Hugh smiled softly in her direction. “As long as I’m here, ye get home.”
Laird looked at him doubtfully. “How can ye be certain?”
“Because of the grandfather paradox.” They all looked at Rhys who had been silently listening to this point. “I may hae done some light reading on the subject of time travel of late. I came across a book at the bookseller. It’s a part of the dynamic timeline. Altering events of the past has a definite impact on the future. Hugh wouldnae be here if ye dinnae make it back. Safely, I might add.”
“Precisely,” Hugh agreed with a nod of respect to Rhys. “As long as I’m here wi’ ye, ‘tis proof enough to ken ye make it back to yer own times.”
“At least Scarlett and Laird do,” Connor pointed out. “Yer being here has naught to do wi’ Emmy and me going back.”
“I think that’s something we can worry about later,” Emmy cut in. This whole who knew what was becoming so circular it was difficult to be sure of anything. She flashed her husband an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m troubled about it, too, but isn’t the bigger concern how Agent Jameson could possibly know about us? Especially if he knows it wasn’t his toy that brought you here? He had nothing to do with us coming here. Not like he did Hugh.”
“Now that’s no’ entirely true, lass.”
They all turned to find Donell standing near the window.
“I would love to know how you do that,” Emmy told him as Connor came to her side.
“Are ye saying Jameson did hae a hand in bringing us here?” Connor wanted to know.
Donell shrugged. “No’ directly, but he has made the connection between ye and ye’re all in danger.”
“Tell us what we need to do.” Laird faced Donell. “How do I keep my family safe? This agent is the threat we faced last evening, aye?”
“Aye.” Donell’s face wrinkled up even more. “I’m afraid I dinnae see it coming.”
“Because you’re neither god nor magician.” Emmy quieted under Laird’s quelling look. “I’m just saying, it’s a question I’d dearly love an answer to.”
She couldn’t understand how knowing more about Donell wasn’t a priority in everyone’s mind. But then, fifty percent of the room was satisfied with labeling it all magic. Something Emmy had never been comfortable with despite all she’d witnessed to the contrary.
Donell shook his head mournfully. “’Tis sad I am to ken I brought ye to this. Such a thorn in my side these many years is Jameson.”
“Many years?” Emmy was the first to pounce on that.
“I believe there is much that needs to be explained since Jameson has put in an appearance,” Donell affirmed, much to her surprise. The old fart never readily volunteered anything.
“Do you plan on sticking around long enough to do it?” Emmy demanded. “Not feeling the need to bolt again?”
“Sometimes I think ye forget all I’ve given ye, lass.”
The admonishment was softly spoken but hit Emmy like a smack in the face. “I’ve forgotten nothing,” she conceded.
She slipped her hand into Connor’s. As it always did, the sense of being complete washed over her just by touching him. For all that she’d railed against Donell, against his plan for her…against the world often enough over the years for taking her mother from her, something about the merest contact with Connor settled Emmy’s heart and mind.
If life was Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train over a loud speaker in a chaotic emergency room, Connor was Styx’s First Time whispering to her on a Caribbean beach. He banished the pain in her heart, filled the blank spaces of her soul.
For all her dis
trust of the old man, she owed Donell all she had. It would gall her to admit all her audacity when it came to the old man was nothing more than fear. A hard lesson had been learned because of him. What had been given could just as easily be taken away. She wasn’t about to forget it. Or trust him with her future again.
“I just hate mysteries,” she hedged instead. “And you’re a big one. I think we’d all feel a little better if you solved it for us.”
“And gi’ up all my secrets?”
That would be nice, but somehow Emmy didn’t think a confession was going to happen. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“What ye need to ken, all of ye, is that Jameson is working to undo all I’ve done,” Donell told them. “He began wi’ ye Hugh, once he heard a time machine was being built wi’ some success. He kent nae scientist had cracked the secret to making a successful device and guessed correctly I’d had a hand in it.”
“To bring me to Sorcha,” Hugh confirmed. “But ye never did say why ye couldnae carry me to this time as ye did the others.”
Donell’s lips compressed into a thin line that told Emmy he was considering a way to not respond, but the answer came to her without his input.
God knew he’d said it often enough.
“Because he can’t move things about, only through time.”
Donell inclined his head. “Aye, ‘tis the one secret I’ve still to decipher. I maun move others only through time, no’ space.”
“But not yourself?” she added, grasping the nuance of what he’d implied.
“From a particular starting point, I can move myself. As I came here this time.”
“From…?”
“’Tis unimportant in the greater scheme of things,” he brushed her off. “Ye maun focus on the problem at hand. Jameson.”
“Is he like you?” Scarlett jumped in. “Can he move through time? Will he follow us home?”
“Nay, such power has been taken from him.” Donell waved his hand airily and moved on before any of them could press for a more refined explanation. “Though there are others oot there who would also try to undo what I’ve done here. Where I can, I cloud the details of yer pasts to sweep the trail clean so no one else can follow ye. This is why Hugh can find no record of his former home or family, lest Jameson, if he were to find a way to regain his ability, discover a way to kill his parents ‘ere he was e’en born. Laird, there is nae record of who yer mother was, leaving yer parentage safe enough as ye father was always well protected. Connor, I dinnae believe the connection has been made as yet.”
Connor looked as confused as Emmy felt. “I hae nae connection for him to find, auld mon. None but to ye.”
Donell rocked his head from side to side as he tended to when dithering. “Aye, well, in any case, Jameson’s been trying to rid the world of Hugh these past months. I suspect wi’ e’en the most tenuous connection, he will attempt to erase all of ye from time if he can.”
Now it was Hugh’s turn for befuddlement. “Rid the world of me? There hae been nae attempts on my life.”
“None as bold as his attempt to kill Laird, nay,” the old man allowed. “His days of subtlety are at an end, I fear.”
Emmy had come to know Hugh as one of the smartest men she’d ever met, and he proved it by making the connection while all of them were still staring blankly at Donell.
He turned to his wife with a wry smile. “Ah, ‘twould appear I’m no’ at all the most unlucky driver ever, Sorcha, my lass.”
“What? Why?” she blinked up at him bewildered.
Hugh glanced back at Donell. “Let me guess, ‘twas nae mere rock that shattered my windshield last month? Nor simple blow outs wi’ my tires?”
“He wanted it to look like an accident, so I wouldnae catch on ‘til it was too late,” Donell confirmed his theory.
Claire cried out and hurried to her husband’s side, and into his arms. “You are never driving again.”
“He wouldn’t need to,” Connor spoke up, his expression grim as he crossed his arms over his chest. “The car that nearly hit him the other day was nae accident, was it?”
“Oh, God!” Emmy slapped her hands over her mouth as the implication of everything that was going on hit her. “He’ll kill them all if he has the chance, won’t he?”
“I fear so,” Donell agreed.
“Why?” Emmy demanded. “Why is this so important to him?”
“The whys dinnae matter, lass.”
She begged to differ.
He interjected before she could protest. “Regardless, the time has come to send ye all home. Straightaway.”
“No!” Scarlett protested. “I will not go without my baby. Don’t even try to make me.”
“When then?” he scowled. “It maun be soon, lass.”
“Two days.”
“Och, ye could all be dead by then!” He threw up his arms. “Why do I e’en try?”
“Why do you?” Emmy pounced then. “Why is it all so important to you? The baby lived so Hugh could be born. We get that, but why?”
“So I could come here,” Hugh replied. “So I could come to this time and meet my Sorcha. I couldnae figure it oot at first, but I hae now. ”
“Ye always were a canny lad,” Donell nodded in approval. “I kent I made a good choice wi’ ye.”
“What?” Emmy wasn’t the only one to raise such a question. Similar ones echoed around her demanding an explanation.
But Donell had already moved on. “If Scarlett willnae leave, I can assume Laird willnae either, but we can get ye home, lass.” He turned to Emmy. “Ye and yer husband.”
“Why? Why do we matter?”
Rhys started laughing then, his hilarity in the moment grossly out of place. Emmy eyed him as he slapped his knee and threw back his head.
“What’s so funny?”
“Can ye no’ guess it?” Rhys looked around at the open puzzlement on all their faces. Glancing at Scarlett, he winked roguishly. “Och, ye might hae thought me the nice one, but ‘twould seem I’m the clever one as well.” His gaze shifted to Donell and he winked again. “What a convoluted game ye play, auld man. Pray, I ne’er find myself on yer game board.”
Then Connor caught on while the rest of them remained mystified. “Och, I cannae believe it, but then I suppose I can.” He hesitantly stepped a few paces away from Emmy more decisively went to Claire. He bent and brushed a kiss to her cheek. “I guess it makes sense why we took to ye, trusted ye so readily, aye?”
Claire pressed trembling fingers to her lips. “Oh my God, really?” She turned wide eyes on Donell. “Really?”
“One of my best kept secrets,” he confirmed. “And I’d like to keep it that way. Things will only get worse for ye if Jameson figures it oot.”
Only then did Emmy get it.
“Are you saying she’s my…she’s our…?” She covered her mouth again, mumbling through her fingers. “Holy…holy shit.”
“More than acceptable at this point, my love,” Connor told her.
She stared at Claire with the benumbed shock of one who’s just had the rug ripped out from beneath them. And so she had. In a million years, she never would have guessed it, but Connor had a point, she’d bonded with Claire from the beginning. Now she knew why.
“My great-great…oh, I cannot bother counting.”
Emmy raced to her new friend’s side and hugged her fiercely. Their refrain of oh my God, oh my, God sang in a soft duet that brought smiles to everyone’s faces despite the cloud hanging over all their heads.
“Now ye see why ye maun return to yer own time wi’ haste,” Donell grumbled, breaking up the party. “Ye’ll need to be making bairns of yer own.”
“Which one?” Emmy inquired, pulling away at last but keeping Claire’s hand in hers. She did some quick math in her head. “Not Connor the Fourth’s grandchild, obviously. Claire would have recognized the name straight away if it were.”
“No’ that it matters but Claire is descended from yer daughter,” Donell told them. “Sh
e weds an Englishman…”
“Gads, another American?” Rhys quipped. “My condolences.”
Donell rolled his eyes. “Her daughter wed an American and so forth. Satisfied? Can we be off?”
“Nay.” Connor planted his feet and glowered down at the old man. It was a look Emmy hadn’t seen in some time. Probably not since the day she’d been dropped into the past. Anger, suspicion. Protectiveness. “I’ll no’ be going anywhere until I ken Claire is safe from this madman. Until they’re all safe.”
“I’ll second that,” Emmy concurred, slipping her free hand into his to form a unified front. “We’re staying.”
Her husband smiled down at her, his rich chocolaty eyes flooded with love. “Aye, we are. Though it pleases me to nae end ye’ll eventually return home wi’ me of yer own free will.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. “I’ll admit I had some uncertainty whether ye’d make the choice twice after seeing how well ye fit in this time.”
Indignation burst in Emmy’s chest. “Of all the…! I’d make the same choice a thousand times over even if this place fit like a damn glove, Connor MacLean. Which it wouldn’t without you in it, FYI! How could you even think…? Oh. My. God. You are the mos—”
Hauling her against him, Connor thwarted her reprimand in the most effective way possible. Covering her mouth with his in a hard, intoxicating kiss, he bent her back over his arm until all thought was gone.
Grinning broadly, he set her back on her feet and that smug grin became a conceited chuckle when she wobbled to the side like a drunk on a bender. “Don’t think you got away with anything, mister,” her words slurred through her swollen lips. “I’ll still have a thing or two say about this later on.”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest and smirked like the cocky bastard he was. Lord Connor had the savage charisma of an ancient Highlander in his kilt, and oozed posh aristocracy in his tux. This Connor, though—rugged, gorgeous, relaxed and satisfied—was somewhere in between the two. He was the one who’d stolen her heart.
A Laird to Hold Page 18
