by Jane Stain
But no, he wouldn’t be around to help her in that way if he chose to leave because he couldn’t take her being in charge. She sighed, and her hands stopped moving on the keyboard. Her eyes drifted to her Celtic University ring. Yeah, she had book learning, and it was paying off in great ways, being able open the secret doors—and that Celtic Fairy Tale trick of sneaking into people’s dreams.
But it would be so much more fun with Tavish around.
For reasons that made sense, not just sentimentally.
Tavish knew the old time just as well as the present day. He walked right in with confidence and that sexy swagger where she would always seem out of place. He had lived there. He understood history in a way that no one else she knew did. Yeah, there were sensible reasons to want Tavish around.
She didn’t only want him around because he knew her better than anyone else, even Sasha. And not just because he always protected her and watched out for her, and kissed her like he meant it…
Even with all her rationalization, she concentrated hard enough to get the blueprints almost done in a few hours, but she should have been much faster at this. Too much of the time, instead of working at the computer, she played with her university ring, the symbol of her lofty educational distinction, slipping it on and off and turning it around and around.
There was a loud knock on the door.
Kelsey jumped, and then she lifted up the blinds.
Sasha smiled and waved at her through the rain, holding up a plastic bag from the Chinese restaurant in town.
Kelsey jumped up and let her friend in, giving her a big hug and taking the plastic bag from her and rushing with it to the microwave.
The food smelled wonderful. Kung Pao, if she wasn’t mistaken.
Yep. And rice to go with it.
She broke the metal handles off the cartons and stuck the whole things in the microwave to heat it all up, then hurriedly dished it into two bowls and grabbed two beers out of the fridge.
“Make yourself at home. This is the client’s trailer, and he will be here once the rain lets up. I can’t believe you drove out here in that downpour, but I’m glad you did.”
Sasha had sat down on the couch, and Kelsey plopped a bowl and a beer on the coffee table in front of her, keeping the other ones as she sat down next to her friend.
“Sasha, I want you to be my partner on this project. Can you spare a couple years?”
Aon air fhichead
Tuffy ran up to Tavish as soon as he entered his trailer, and he scooped up the little dog and petted him, then brought him back over to Gus, who was the oldest member of the construction crew in addition to being his roommate.
“He earned his name today, Tuffy did. Stood up to a mastiff over castle way.”
Gus held out his arms, and Tavish placed the little dog in them, where he was tenderly held. Gus then rocked him much like one would a baby—which was always comical, Gus was so huge.
“Aye, the woman said so much when she brought him back to me.” Gus nuzzled his face into Tuffy’s head and spoke to the dog. “Yes she did. Yes she did.”
“Sorry you had to speak to her.”
The old Scot looked up at him with his bushy gray eyebrows wrinkled.
“Why do ye say that?”
Tavish wrinkled his own brow in return and reached over to pet Tuffy.
“You don’t find her even a bit high and mighty?”
Gus pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows.
“Nay, far from it. She was right nice aboot bringing Tuffy back to me. She didn’t have to do that.” And then he spoke to the dog again, still jiggling it in his arms like a child. “Don’t you be running off again now. I was so worried.” Eyes back on Tavish, he said, “What makes you say she’s high and mighty?”
Tavish went into their tiny little kitchenette to heat up some leftover fish and get himself a cup of tea. He held up an empty cup toward Gus, who shook his head no.
“Well you know we used to know each other when we were younger.”
“Aye, it’s plain to see in the way you are with each other, even if you hadn’t told me.”
“Yeah, well most of the time she treats me the same as always, but every once in a while now, she acts like she knows better than me—”
Gus laughed. “Bothers you, does it?”
“Well, yeah.”
Gus shook his head. “Son, she does know better than you—”
Tavish almost dropped his teacup. Was the man serious? “She doesn’t know the first thing about construction work.”
“Nay, but she doesna need to. She has you for that, and us.”
“Well what does she know so much about then?” Even as he said this, Tavish knew he was being stupid. She knew all kinds of useful druidic things. But did Gus know that? And why was Gus taking her side, anyway?
Gus sighed and calmed poor Tuffy, who’d been a bit startled by Tavish’s tone of voice.
“Bit rough to see when it’s a woman—and a fine one at that—however, she is a suit, Tavish. She has a doctoral degree. She’ll be second in charge of this job after the owner, and I wouldna be surprised if she brought on people who’ll be third and fourth. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you’ll be able to see these things coming. But I thought I’d better warn you. She does know better, and it’ll be her job to tell you so.”
Whatever. But wow, Gus really did know something. Were the druids on him, too?
“What makes you think there’s a big enough job here to require a second in command, let alone a third and fourth? You do know that stuff we found in the basement was just trinkets made in the 70s by some hippies, right?”
“Aye, that it was. But you aren’t from around here, Tavish. You didn’t grow up with the stories about how the ancient home o the kings of Alba resides beneath these cliffs here. You see, Mr. Blair must think there’s some truth to that, or he wouldna have tried so hard and fought so long to get this land back after his drunken ancestor let it fall out of the family hundreds of years ago. This will be a big find. Depend upon it. Won’t be long before news crews are out here covering it. But getting back to your friend—uh, Kelsey?”
“Yeah, her name’s Kelsey, but now she seems to prefer Dr. Ferguson.”
Gus nodded sideways.
“I suppose if I spent seven extra years in school to get a doctorate, I’d prefer to be called Dr. as well.” He raised his eyebrows at Tavish.
“I guess.” Yeah, Gus did have a point.
“I’m just saying maybe it’s you who are na being a verra good friend, here.”
There was a loud bang on the door, and the voices of Brody, Lyle, and Gavin could be heard outside, along with a general hubbub that said there were more guys with them.
“Are you in there, Tavish?”
“We’re on to have a party because of this rain.”
“Aye, and because of the boss being away.”
Gus smiled at him, and Tavish went over and let the guys in. It was crowded with 10 of them in the small trailer, but they had brought whisky, so he supposed he could stand it. There were far from enough chairs, even with the small sofa, but the men who didn’t get seats made do with sitting on the sofa arms or leaning on the kitchenette counters.
As they passed the bottles around, Tavish thought about what Gus had said.
Dhà air fhichead
An hour before sunset, it had still been raining, and so Mr. Blair had said he would come the next day and was eager to meet Sasha. Sure enough, the next day dawned dreary but dry, so their high-tech equipment from the university would be able to survey the land and mark out the underground castle’s likely entry points. Which would all be recorded and stored away in the university’s records, of course.
Kelsey and Sasha had microwaved frozen breakfast sandwiches and donned their suits—Sasha kept one in her trunk for just such emergencies—and they were getting their equipment ready to go out and start surveying while they waited for Mr. Blair to arrive.
; Kelsey felt much better after a good night’s sleep.
“Now don’t let Tavish give you any grief,” she told Sasha. “I’m not going to. He probably won’t, though. He and I are having a little fight, but really he’s a nice guy. I’d be surprised if he said anything mean to you at all. No, that’s going to be all for me, lucky me. But yeah, if he does, just realize it’s because he’s mad at me. It won’t be about you—”
Sasha elbowed her in the side gently.
“Quit it. I’m sure it will be just fine. You’re over the fight, and he probably is too. In fact,” she picked up Kelsey’s purse and walked her over to the bathroom and handed it to her, “I think you should do your makeup. You never know.”
Kelsey rolled her eyes at her friend, but doing her makeup did sound like a good idea. After all, she wanted to look put together when she presented her blueprints to Mr. Blair, and likely he would have her explain the project to the crew.
Half an hour later, they were immersed in their task of showing all the land to the equipment when Kelsey recognized Mr. Blair’s voice.
“I like that, ye got right tae it first thing in the morning.” With Tavish trailing slightly behind him, the client walked up to Sasha and offered to shake hands. “Hello, I’m Keith Blair, the new owner of these premises. And you must be Dr. Swain. Dr. Ferguson here speaks very highly of you.”
Kelsey couldn’t help turning her eyes toward Tavish while Sasha returned Mr. Blair’s pleasantries. He gave her a tentative smile, which she returned.
Mr. Blair turned his attention toward her and gestured at all their equipment.
“So what’s this all aboot, then?”
Kelsey showed him the tiny monitoring screen.
“The equipment is finding the Alba castle’s likely entrance points, see?”
Mr. Blair peered into the little monitor, but then Tavish put a hand on his back, taking his attention away.
Kelsey felt her hackles rise, and she spun on her heel, preparing to get some distance between herself and Tavish—and unfortunately between herself and Mr. Blair. She was going to have to do something about Tavish. She did not want to do this job under these working conditions. It was demeaning. She felt more like an errand girl than a doctor.
But then she heard Tavish’s voice.
“While this equipment is grand, and we will need its readings for all the work ahead, it’s much more imperative now that you let Kelsey show you the storage room we found—isn’t that right, Kel?”
Sasha gave her an ‘I told you so’ smile before Kelsey could answer.
She gave Tavish a ‘thank you’ smile and then turned to Mr. Blair with an expression she fought to keep professional, but which she knew was all excited.
“Oh yes, absolutely. In fact, let’s go over there right now.”
She and Sasha had been sensible enough to wear their hiking boots with their suits, so all four of them went right over to the hatch door above the root cellar. Tavish got it open and gestured for her and Sasha to go down first in their skirts, which they did, but then she heard Tavish talking to someone new up top.
“Go on down and introduce yourselves to Dr. Ferguson and Dr. Swain,” she heard him say.
She looked at Sasha, who shrugged.
And then the two of them watched a third woman come down the ladder next. She was stylishly dressed, but in slacks, and her hair and makeup were Hollywood grade.
Bile rose up into Kelsey’s mouth. If Tavish had a girlfriend…
But the woman no sooner made it down than two more strangers came down the ladder, men this time, with big backpacks on. They started to open their backpacks while the woman looked at all the nooks and crannies in the 10 x 10 stone root cellar with interest.
The woman finally turned toward Kelsey and Sasha and held out her hand.
“Right, sae ye’re the Dr. Ferguson who will show us how tae get in the secret doors, eh?”
Kelsey made a face that hopefully showed how puzzled she was, but she shook the woman’s hand.
“Do I know you?”
The woman laughed and went on to shake Sasha’s hand.
“Oh, ye’re American, and ye dinna have a clue who I am, dae you?”
Kelsey looked at Sasha, who shrugged again, so she looked back at the woman and shook her head no.
The woman visibly admired Kelsey and Sasha’s Celtic University rings and then turned to the two men, who were unpacking equipment.
“I’m Gisa Sutherland with BBC Scotland, and we’re here tae dae a story on ye, Dr. Ferguson, complete with movie cameras documenting how ye open these secret doors.”
Tavish and his kilt came next down the ladder, which thankfully was on the other side of the small room. He spoke up toward the top of the ladder, where Mr. Blair’s feet could be seen.
“I can’t wait for you to see this, Keith. She had it open in just a few seconds.”
Once everyone was down, Mr. Blair gathered them around the secret door with the camera crew’s lights blaring.
“Well nae, Dr. Ferguson, I reckon ye’d better show us yer magic.”
Her eyes went to Tavish’s, and the two of them shared a look which savored the excitement and the awe they had felt the first time she did this.
And then she explained to Gisa and the camera crew and the rest of Scotland and probably the world how she had read the Celtic interlace symbols and known this was a secret door.
She opened it and gave everyone a tour of the underground space you could get to without opening any more secret doors—with all of its arcane runes and ancient items. She even let Sasha explain some of it, once they got to the storage room.
BBC Scotland’s camera crew were as shocked as she had been, to find that cellular connections worked down here. They’d been able to do some of the segments live.
If Kelsey was any judge, Mr. Blair was glowing almost as much as she was from all the attention the project was getting, and he insisted that Kelsey show the camera crew her blueprints and explain just how large she thought Alba Palace was.
By the time the folks from BBC Scotland departed, the sun was setting in a trail of sea sparkles leading to the distant view of Ireland.
Mr. Blair turned to Kelsey and Sasha out in front of his trailer.
“I’ll be gang back into toon where I’ve got a motel room for tonight, but tomorrow I’ll get ye ladies yer own trailer brought oot here. I’ll see that ye each hae yer own room. Any ither amenities in particular that ye’d like?”
Kelsey just shook her head no, all the while smiling at Tavish.
Sasha gave Kelsey a playful little shove and led Mr. Blair over to his car, which was parked on the other side of the trailer.
“Is it possible we could each have our own bathroom as well? And do any trailers come with full refrigerators? What about built-in espresso makers? And if this is going to be a new trailer, then I prefer blues to neutral colors…”
Alone with Tavish at long last after just stealing glances at him all day, Kelsey hurried over to him, talking before he could say anything.
“Thank you so much for today, Tavish.”
He twinkled his eyes at her and raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘Whatever for?’ Which let her know it was okay, and they weren’t fighting anymore.
She moved closer to him, reaching out, and he opened up his arms so that they were soon holding each other close, watching together as the sky and the sea grew red.
She spoke with her head against his chest, hearing his heartbeat.
“Only you could have explained all that to the TV station ahead of time, and it was the sweetest thing you could have done for me today, making sure the world knew I had something to do with this discovery. Thank you so much.”
He caressed her back.
“You’re welcome, Kel. Sorry it took me so long to see how much you know, and how much you can do. I’m so proud of you, and I’m so sorry I didn’t let you choose whether I’d leave or not, all those years ago. I was miserable without you,
and I’m so sorry if I made you miserable by leaving. I thought I was doing the right thing, but now I see that all I did was make you lose faith in me.”
She squeezed him tight.
“Apology accepted. Now it’s my turn. I’m so sorry for the way I treated you in our time’s yesterday, like some stupid construction worker who couldn’t possibly know anything about ancient ruins.”
He kissed the top of her head as he held her close and then laid his head down on top of hers, enveloping her.
“There was no way you could have known I’d been back to the old time, Kel. And for all you knew, I was just a jerk who disappeared from your life and hadn’t spoken to you in seven years. Your behavior made perfect sense.”
“True, but I’m still sorry. And you’re at least as responsible for the discovery of Alba Palace as I am.”
He started them rocking from side to side and raised his head up, then beamed a smile at her when she met his eyes. He lowered his mouth to her ear and whispered.
“But thanks to you, I got the old druids their scepter in two days instead of two years, and they’ll be off my back awhile. You did me a much better favor than I did you.”
She pulled away until he could see her face and know that she was sincere.
“Still, I’m going to find a way to give you credit for this discovery, too.”
He studied her face, equally sincere.
“I don’t need credit with the world, Kel, only with you.”
Her face broke into her biggest smile.
“You have all the credit in the world with me.”
He lifted her and swung her around, then settled comfortably with her still raised up so they were face-to-face, with his arms around her waist.
“Will you give me a lifetime with you to spend it?”
Lost in his eyes, all she could do was nod a vigorous yes before she was kissing him.
