“This has nothing to do with Shane, either. Ye didna hear a word I said, did ye?”
“I heard all your words, Catie, but I dinna understand ye. I’ve already said ye dinna have to marry the Englishman. But ye canna stay here for that ginger lad.”
“His name is Shane,” she hollered. “And that isna why I want to stay. I want to keep having adventures. I want to go to school like Mellie, and fly on an airplane as ye’ve got to do. I want to choose my life, not have it chosen for me.” She paused to catch her breath, holding out both hands so Lachlan wouldn’t interrupt. “I dinna want to stay to fornicate, I want to find myself.”
Lizzie clapped her hand over her mouth. Could someone’s head actually explode? If so, she thought she might get to witness it firsthand.
“Find yourself?” Lachlan bellowed. “Where did ye hear such a thing?” He looked accusingly at her and she shook her head.
“I heard it on the telly, at Evie’s house. There’s many programs that give advice on how to better one’s self.”
Laclan’s face was purple but he kept silent, probably not having the least clue how to answer that. Lizzie gave up trying not to giggle. It was just so heartbreakingly absurd. The poor kid just wanted to be a kid, with all the opportunities the modern day offered. Honestly, if it were Lizzie, she’d hold on with all her fingers and toes and never let go.
She felt such a longing to go upstairs and see Quinn that her breath whooshed out of her. She’d had all the opportunities that Catie now fought for. Her grandma had seen to it, gone without for it. Was she giving it all up to return with Quinn? Her heart told her a resounding no. She’d never recover from the regret she’d feel if she didn’t return with Quinn.
“What if she stayed for a year, to take a class or two?” Lizzie asked quietly, as Lachlan’s face still hadn’t settled to it’s normal shade. “There’s all girls schools if you’re worried about the, ah, fornicating.”
He laughed without any humor behind the sound and shook his head.
“Please, Lachlan,” Catie said. “I’ll stay here with ye and Piper. I willna be any trouble or bring ye any shame.”
He dropped his hands. “Ye have never been trouble, nor could ye ever bring me shame.” He swallowed hard and closed his eyes.
Lizzie and Catie stared at one another and Lizzie realized she was holding her breath. She wanted to add something, a closing argument, a plea, but the tension was too thick, too much was at stake.
“I’m sorry, lass, but ye must return with the others. We can perhaps arrange a stay in Edinburgh for ye if ye want, but ye must go to your proper time.”
He didn’t yell the words, in fact he sounded almost sad. The look on his face was completely blocked. Lizzie couldn’t tell what he thought, but Catie clearly saw something that said she shouldn’t argue anymore. Her eyes filled with tears. She nodded once, and turned and left the kitchen.
“Is that it?” Lizzie asked. “Will she run away, or try something else?” She couldn’t believe it was over and her heart hurt for the girl.
“She willna run away again. She understands my decision is final. She’s a good lass underneath it all.”
Underneath it all? Catie was a good lass on top of it all. She wanted to keep arguing for Catie’s chance to stay, hating with all her being the fact that she had to return to the same old options. Why didn’t Catie get a choice? It was so unfair, everything she’d hated about the past welling up. She had to leave before she said something rude, reminding herself she had no place here. She wasn’t Catie’s chaperone anymore, and her footing with Quinn was tenuous at best.
“If ye’ll excuse me, I must find Piper,” Lachlan said, standing up and giving her a quick bow.
She nodded and waved absently, wishing she had someone here to talk to. She wandered around the ground floor, peeking into the doors that were open until she spied an old-fashioned green phone sitting on the desk in one. She thought about calling her old friend Andie. Perhaps she’d have some advice for her, and if nothing else Lizzie could tell her to get Trent to stop his antics.
It seemed an eternity since she’d dialed the number, and she was surprised she still remembered it, one of the few numbers besides her agent that she’d actually memorized. She prayed Andie would answer the strange number. The joy she felt when she heard her friend’s questioning voice after so long nearly made it impossible to reply to Andie’s suspicious sounding hello.
It took nearly forty-five minutes to convince her she wasn’t being held hostage somewhere. The cord didn’t stretch very far, so she dragged a plush armchair closer to the desk and curled into its comfortable cushions.
She waited through the exclamations and tears and patiently repeated her story for a disbelieving Andie. She didn’t leave anything out, not even the fact that more than a year had gone by for her, even though to Andie it had been four months.
After she felt certain that Andie believed her, and didn’t think she was under duress, or being held hostage by some cult, Lizzie told her all about Quinn.
“Wait a tick, you’re in love with someone from the past? A Highlander?”
Lizzie laughed, not sure if her friend’s incredulous tone was over the fact that Quinn was from the eighteenth century or that he was Scottish.
“Yes, and here’s the thing, Andie.” Lizzie took a deep breath and held it, knowing that saying it out loud to her oldest friend would make it really real. “I’m going back with him.”
Another round of exclamations and arguments. Andie asked if she could come with her and check it out.
“It’s not as simple as getting on a bus.” Lizzie twisted the cord around her finger and lowered her voice even though she had nothing to hide here. The owner of the castle herself was a witch. “It’s witchcraft, remember. It’s not really precise. We ended up in the wrong time the first try.”
“You’re willing to do that?” Andie demanded. “Risk getting stuck in the dark ages for this guy?”
Lizzie shivered. The 1700s was as far back as she wanted to go, and their first failed attempt had only sent them a few years off their original mark. The idea of being stuck in a more archaic time made her breath hitch. But then she thought of Quinn and her chest eased. She’d live in any time with him.
“Even in a cave?” Andie asked, her voice rising. “You have to be addled by this experience somehow. Just wait a day, let me catch a flight up there, first one they have available. I’ll help you through this.”
“There’s nothing to help me through, I’m not addled. And yes, I’d live in a cave with him. But it won’t come to that,” she laughed, crossing her fingers. “Oliver’s getting better at the spell every time he does it.”
“Couldn’t he make it so you didn’t seem to leave at all? You could arrive on the night you left and come downstairs from that creepy mansion as if nothing happened.”
“But something did happen. I’m sorry everything is so topsy-turvy because of it, but I have to do this. I have to follow my heart.”
“But I want to see you again,” Andie sniffed. “It’s not fair. I mean, I get you need to help those sick people and all. Who would have thought you’d be saving an entire clan?”
Lizzie laughed and wiped tears from her eyes. Leave it to Andie to always see the best in her, and forgive her darkest mistakes.
“I want to see you too, so much.”
“Listen,” Andie said urgently. “You need to find a way to get a message to me. Write a letter or a book or something about what happens to you. And make sure it gets to me somehow.”
“I promise I will.”
“I love you. Don’t forget about me.”
“You’ve always been my rock. I could never forget about you,” Lizzie said. “I love you too.”
She hung up and snuggled deeper into the armchair. She knew she had to find Oliver so they could get the supplies back to Bella and Pietro, but she was so tired, she closed her eyes. She just needed a moment to regroup, get over her sadness at saying goodb
ye to her last link to this time.
The cozy chair was so comfortable, she slung her legs over the side and nestled her head against the plush arm. The room was quiet, and no one jabbed her with the muzzle of a gun. Her moment lengthened as she fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter 16
Quinn rested his bare feet on the rug beside his bed and dropped the pills he was supposed to have swallowed onto the nightstand. He’d be damned if he fell into a deep, painless sleep while everything was still in such turmoil.
If they thought they were going to leave him behind, again, they were wrong. Again. Though this bed they’d put him in was nice. Very nice. And when he made his way to the small room attached to his bedroom, and found that swiveling the knobs by the basin made hot water came crashing out that didn’t seem inclined to stop, he could see why Lachlan liked it here so much. Why Lizzie would want to stay.
She was being heroic, saying she’d return with the medicine. He knew how badly she felt about her betrayal, her treatment of his sister, and knew she only wanted to make up for it. She’d proven to him that she was a good person, and he forgave her completely. Now he had to make sure he could convince her to stay with him in his time, rather than return as quickly as she could to this one.
He wouldn’t have minded filling the large, round tub that took up most of the room, but knew he had to hurry. He made do with a few splashes of the gloriously hot water, washing his face and hands. His shoulder was neatly wrapped and held in a complicated sling. It hurt like the devil still, but felt more secure, and the physician had assured him he’d live if he didn’t do anything stupid.
He smirked at his reflection in the mirror. Of course he couldn’t be counted on to not do anything stupid.
He made his way downstairs, marveling at how the castle seemed so different, yet the same. He half expected Bella or another Glen to pop out and give him grief. He didn’t have the best memories in this place. During the time he’d been stuck here while Lachlan was married to Bella, and they were trying to figure out a way to free him of that state without bringing war down on their people, he’d been stabbed once and got into countless fist fights with the Glens.
His first goal was to find Lizzie and sort everything with her once and for all. He would ask her outright if what she said was true, about her so-called fiance in this time. He argued with himself as he searched for her, unable to find her in any of the second floor bedrooms, or the kitchen. She’d spoken adamantly against being promised to anyone, but he reminded himself that she’d told him plenty of things that weren’t true, and that in fact, acting was her profession.
He wished he could have the confidence his brother had. Lachlan and Piper’s love for each other was indisputable. As long as those two were together, it didn’t matter where or when they were. As much as he didn’t like being left with the responsibility of the clan, he couldn’t begrudge Lachlan his happiness.
Quinn heard Lizzie’s voice and paused by the door that stood slightly ajar. He peered around it to see the back of her head peeking above a large armchair. She spoke tearfully, and he could see a long curling cord twisting away from her to attach to something on the desk. Since he’d arrived, he’d seen just about everyone speaking or tapping away at wee, glowing devices. A means of communication with people who were far away. She must be using such a device right now, and he paused before entering the room.
“I want to see you too, so much,” he heard her say. Her voice was full of yearning, and it hit him like a punch to the gut.
She must be speaking to the man who’d spent all that time searching for her, building a shrine and posting signs. He knew he should turn and leave, that at this point he was just eavesdropping, but he stayed rooted to the spot, stepping away from the opening in case she turned.
His stomach twisted as she spoke of him being her rock, and how she could never forget him. When she said I love you, he clenched his hands and took a step away. She’d said the very words to him, and he wanted to tear the door off its hinges after hearing her say it to another. She ended her conversation, and he waited for her to come out of the room, not sure if he wanted to yell his rage or pretend he hadn’t heard, to see what she did.
A few seconds passed, and his agitation grew. She still loved that other man. She’d either lied again, to spare him, or speaking to the man had rekindled her feelings. And since the man didn’t know she was here, it had to have been Lizzie who reached out to him. Something had made her want to speak to him again, and it reminded her she loved him and had never forgotten him.
Quinn turned and silently retreated, no longer wanting to confront her. Why put himself through the humiliation of hearing her tell him something he’d already figured out? He could creep up to his room and take those pills he’d spit out earlier, let his shoulder heal and then return to his own time to nurse his broken heart and get Catie’s life back in order.
He thought of wee Callum, and the other Glens who were falling ill. Maybe more people were being claimed by the sickness even as he stood there feeling sorry for himself.
Earlier, he’d appreciated Lizzie’s attempts to make amends and her brave and selfless gesture of offering to return with the medicine. And at the time he’d been happy just to have her be back, close to his own time. He thought it would make it easier to convince her to stay if she was on his home turf.
Now he knew there was no reason for her to go at all, not when she pined for someone else. That wasn’t how he wanted her. He loved her enough to want her to be happy, and that meant she would have to stay.
He couldn’t find Oliver anywhere, but came across Catie brooding in the barn. “Ah, ye’re as good as anyone, I suppose,” he said, coming up behind her and startling her into dropping the brush she’d been absently pulling horse hairs from.
She looked at his arm tucked neatly against his middle, encased in the sling, and her eyes filled with tears.
“Quinn!” She rushed and hugged him awkwardly, trying not to jostle him. “I’m sorry for being such a bother, and that ye got hurt because of me.”
“Good, lass, keep feeling guilty so I dinna have to argue with ye overmuch. Where’s that Englishman, so we can be on our way?”
Catie tilted her head to the side and looked like she might argue with him, then her face changed and she became agreeable, alerting him immediately that whatever she said to him would be lies.
“Lachlan said I could stay,” she said, holding eye contact, never blinking her pale blue eyes. “I shall help ye look for Oliver, though. It was really so kind of him to come for me.”
The words tumbled out in a rush and he would have laughed except he did feel sorry for her. He knew without being able to read her like a book though, that Lachlan would never agree to let her stay.
“Ah, Catie,” he said compassionately. “It seems neither of us is to get what we want out of this.”
She slumped and followed him from the barn. “What if I hid in the woods and ye couldna find me?”
He did laugh at that. “So, ye’d risk his wrath here on this side, and then send him after me for leaving without ye? That’s kind of ye. And we both know ye couldna hide from me. I’m too good of a tracker.”
“Lachlan’s different now. Perhaps he wouldna be so verra angry.”
He gave her a long look and she rolled her eyes.
“I dinna want to go back,” she pouted.
“Aye, I know. And I dinna want to leave with things the way they are, but that’s life. Remember your friend Bella?”
“Of course I do,” Catie said, then her face fell. “Did ye see her in the other time? Is she well?”
“It was a time a few years ahead of our own, and her child is gravely ill. Will ye tarry now, or help me get them what they need?”
He felt bad, worrying her that way, but he could always count on his sister’s caring heart, and she and Bella had become the best of friends while he’d kept her hidden at their Aunt Gwen’s farm. If it kept her from dragging her f
eet and crying the whole way into the forest, so be it.
He hugged her quickly, to show her there were no hard feelings and to try to absorb her pain of having to return, and then hustled her across the yard, hoping to find Oliver before Lizzie caught up with them. He didn’t think he could bear to see her face again, or hear her try to explain. If they got away quickly enough, she could stay and not feel guilty about trying to make amends. And when he got home, he’d stay so busy he could forget about her too, eventually. He hoped.
They searched the front and back before Catie noticed that Mellie’s car was gone. She told Quinn that Mel took Oliver for a drive so he wouldn’t have to witness the showdown with Lachlan, and it seemed they weren’t back yet.
“I think she may fancy him as well,” Catie said with a sour look. “I thought she was my friend.”
“Dinna start with the drama. I heard ye were passing the time just fine while he risked everything to come here for ye.”
Catie blushed. “What shall we do?” she asked meekly.
“Well, if he’s out gallivanting when we need to get this medicine to Bella, he can just find his own way home. We’ll have to be on our way without him.”
“Ye’re going to do the spell?” Catie said the word with a twist to her mouth.
“I’m going to attempt it,” he said, trying to assure her it wasn’t evil. It seemed like hours had flown by since he’d overheard Lizzie’s conversation, and they’d wasted enough time looking for Oliver. He wanted to be gone, done with all of this. “I dinna think I shall have a problem,” he said. “Now, come along.”
Chapter 17
Damn, damn, damn. Piper looked down to see murky pond water sloshing over her ankles, a lily pad quivering in the chilly breeze. She was at the lake again. Her hands were dirty and her pants were wet almost to the knees. How long had she been out here, and what had she been doing?
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