He reached me in one long step and yanked me toward him with his left hand, pressing the front of my body flush against his chest. I moaned as he kissed me, a slow, sensual kiss that washed away every other thought outside of his touch. My body followed him easily, my mouth opening when his tongue sought entry, my back arching as his hand moved to my breast.
We kissed until both of us were weak limbed and needy. Just when we were on the brink of taking it further, he pulled away, moving quickly to open the door.
“I’ll leave ye, lass. ’Tis no the time for more.”
I nodded, agreeing on an intellectual basis, but my body screaming with unspoken disappointment. “Right. You’re right, though I wish that you weren’t.”
“Ach, I wish the same.” He turned away from me and began his trek down the hall. “Sleep well, lass, for I know that I willna do so.”
Chapter 16
I don’t know if it was relief at having things sorted out with Eoghanan or my subconscious taking advantage of the fact that having Jeffrey here relieved me from having to be on constant Cooper watch, but I slept later than usual and woke feeling utterly relaxed.
After a quick shower and a messy hair job, I walked downstairs to find everyone visiting happily in the living room. This time Cooper had roped Jerry into getting down onto the floor with him. I silently worried about the old man’s knees, though he didn’t seem the least bit bothered by them as he dramatically role-played with Coop’s dinosaurs.
“Mom! I thought you were gonna sleep all day, lazy head.” Pausing their game, he ran to greet me. I scooped him up in my arms, kissing him firmly on the top of his head.
“All day? I might have slept a little later. It’s only eight in the morning. What time did you get up?”
“Oh, I don’t know, the usual time.”
“I know.” Jeffrey turned to answer me, his eyes still sleepy, rounded out by dark circles. Clearly, Cooper hadn’t given his father the same courtesy he usually gave me by occupying himself for a while. “It was four. Four a.m., and he’s jacked up like he had six cups of coffee.”
I played with Coop’s messy curls as I sat him back down on his feet. “Well, if that really is the usual time, I never did set my alarm that early. I truly don’t know how you do it, Coop.”
He shrugged, looking up at me with a grin. “I don’t know, Mom, I really don’t. I guess I’m just too excited for all the things I gotta do each day to sleep.”
I laughed, it was a beautiful attitude; I hoped he’d keep it always. “I guess so.” I turned my attention to everyone else in the room, catching Eoghanan’s eye for the first time this morning.
He smiled at me, but not widely enough so as to draw attention from everyone else. His eyes said more, nearly as tired as Jeffrey’s but excited and happy. I hadn’t felt that way in such a long time—that feeling of being in a room with many people, but being so intensely aware of just one person that it’s as if there’s a secret between you that no one knows. The promise of another encounter if you can just find the time to sneak away together. I hoped that the opportunity would come for us, very soon.
Eventually, I pulled my eyes away and willed myself to speak, addressing the room as a whole. “What’s on everybody’s agenda? How about we all drive to McMillan Castle and explore around there for the day?”
“McMillan Castle? Why there, lass?” Eoghanan seemed shocked by my suggestion, though I couldn’t imagine why.
“For the article. It looks lovely on the Internet, and I’d like to check it out. Do you know it?”
“Aye.” Eoghanan shared a knowing glance with Morna, puzzling me further. “I know it verra well, lass. ’Tis a good way from here.”
“Farther than Edinburgh?” I couldn’t begin to rationalize his reaction. As much time as he’d spent in the inn, I’d expected him to jump at any excuse to get out for awhile. Instead, he seemed genuinely hesitant. Even more than that really, he seemed afraid to go there.
“No, ’tis closer than Edinburgh.”
“Is it haunted or something?” I laughed, but his face showed he didn’t think me funny.
“No for ye, though it might be for meself.” He said it softly, almost underneath his breath.
I wasn’t given the chance to ask him what he meant by that, for as soon as he spoke, Morna leapt up from the couch, interrupting.
“I think it’s a lovely idea, Grace. We should leave soon, for it isna a short ride. Cooper,” she tapped him gently on the shoulder, “would ye mind helping me make some sandwiches to pack? Jerry, why doona ye and Jeffrey ready the cars? Grace, ye go pack yer camera.”
Everyone dispersed quickly, and I was left with little choice but to do the same. I hesitated, lingering in the doorway until it was only Eoghanan and me in the living room. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, standing and moving forward to grab my hand, squeezing it gently. “Aye. McMillan Castle is lovely. ’Tis only…” he hesitated far too long, finally releasing my hand as he turned away, ending the conversation. “Never mind, lass. Go and get yer things. ’Tis nothing to worry yerself over.”
Knowing when to leave well enough alone, I stepped away, wondering all the way to my room just what had been said during the other conversation in the living room.
The conversation that had been entirely silent.
*
Eoghanan wanted to tell her desperately just why he didn’t wish to go to McMillan Castle. That he didn’t wish to see his home, the castle he’d grown up in, crawling with visitors, no longer a home or safe haven among the Highlands. All of it a painful reminder that while he knew his family lived in the past, in today’s time they’d all been dead for hundreds of years.
A hand gripped his shoulder, pulling him from his thoughts. Morna stood next to him, her knowing eyes telling him she already knew his concerns.
“Ye needn’t worry. I too once had trouble visiting me old home. But now, seeing all that it is today gives me comfort that harm dinna befall all those I love over the centuries. McMillan Castle is still in fine condition today; ye will be surprised to find that many things still look much the same. And…” she patted his right hand, where he gripped the spelled rock that had sent him here. “If ye are worried that I’ll spell ye back, I have no intention of doing so today. No, when ye are just getting to know the lass. Besides, ye still need to heal, and ye have some time before Mitsy’s babe is born.”
“Thank ye,” Eoghanan turned the rock over in his hand, realizing that perhaps leaving had been his greatest fear. He couldn’t go home just yet, not before he’d told Grace the truth.
Smiling, she stepped toward the hallway. “Still, I think it best ye leave the wee rock here. Ye wouldna want someone throwing it into the pond by happenchance.”
“No, I wouldna.”
Morna turned to leave as he placed the rock down, and he called out to stop her. “Morna, will she believe me?”
“Grace? Ye care verra much about the lass, aye?”
Eoghanan nodded. “Aye, far too much and too soon as well.”
“There is no such thing as too soon if ’tis a match that is destined. While Grace doesna know it yet, ye do, I can tell. ’Tis destined, lad, so though she might need some help, when ye decide to tell her, she’ll believe ye in time.
*
Cooper couldn’t see them, but he listened attentively, his back flat against the side of the kitchen wall. Please don’t let Mom catch me. Please don’t let Mom catch me. He repeated the words over and over again in his mind, not wishing to be caught eavesdropping once again.
Waiting until E-o’s heavy footsteps walked up the stairs, and Morna’s voice hollered after Jerry as she exited the front door, he silently made his way into the living room.
He knew Mom liked E-o. He’d never seen her get dressed up so nice just for dinner. Cooper liked E-o, too. He even thought that maybe Dad liked him all right.
If Mom needed help believing in the magic, then he’d be the perfect helper.
He’d noticed the black, shiny rock E-o had held this morning. Now the rock lay on the small table in the center of the room. Sticking his head out in the hallway and looking both directions for good measure, he scurried quietly over to the table.
Picking up the rock, he slipped it securely away in the pocket of his jeans.
Chapter 17
McMillan Castle
Present Day
Eoghanan imagined ghosts felt much the same way when they traveled the halls of their homes, silently watching over loved ones. As he roamed through the empty dining hall now lit with the same electrical hanging lamps that hung from the ceilings of Morna’s home, a strange realization hit him—although he couldn’t see them, he imagined that his family ate in this very room at much the same time of day—only hundreds of years in the past. They wouldn’t know that he stood among them, oblivious of his unseen presence so many years in the future.
Shaking his head to push the nostalgia away, Eoghanan wandered up the stairs to his old bedchamber continuing his search for Cooper as he’d promised the boy he would. Trying to remember what the lad had told him to call in warning, he spoke out to the empty room. “Ready or no, here I come.”
The room truly did look much the same, thanks to many rounds of restorations. Red ropes meant to keep visitors away from certain items lined the furnishings, ropes that he and Cooper ignored entirely during their game of hide-and-seek. They were the only visitors at the castle this day, thanks to Morna, so it became their playground.
Eoghanan stepped over the rope to open a chest, not his chest but one much like it, near the end of the bed. Cooper sat crouched down inside.
“Found ye.”
“Oh man, I thought this was such a good one. How do you keep finding me?”
Eoghanan looked around to ensure that Grace hadn’t wandered in on them. “Have ye kept our secret, Cooper?”
“About the magic and you being like really, really old and stuff? Yeah, of course I have.”
Eoghanan laughed loudly, the sound of it echoing off the walls. “I am no verra old, Cooper. Why do ye think that?”
The young boy held his hands palms up, shrugging a bit as he spoke. “Well, if you can travel in time and you were born close to the dinosaurs, then you’re really old.”
“No verra close to the dinosaurs, but ’tis no me point. If ye have kept the secret this long, perhaps I can tell ye another, aye?”
“Yeah, I can keep it.”
“This castle is where I was born. In me own time, ’tis where I live. This is me own bedchamber.”
“Awwwesome. So, when are you gonna tell Mom?”
It was the very question he’d asked himself all day. It seemed the best place, at his home, the place he loved most in the world. “I doona know.”
“Don’t you like her?”
Eoghanan smiled, taking Cooper by the hand and walking toward the staircase where they sat down next to one another.
“Aye, I like her verra much. ’Tis why I doona know if I should tell her, even though I want to.”
Cooper regarded him skeptically. “That doesn’t make any sense, E-o.”
“Aye, ye may be right. Ye see, we are still verra new to each other, yer mother and I, but I care about her verra much. That doesna mean that she feels the same way. If I did tell her about the magic, ’twould be so that she might consider returning home with me—along with ye and yer father, if ye wish it. She’s only known me a week.”
“A week is a real long time.”
Cooper sat with his elbows on his knees, his palms cupping his small face. He was an intelligent child; fun, curious, kind, and in that moment, Eoghanan knew that he loved him. The boy’s presence awakened a desire within him to be a father; a desire he’d not known he’d ever had. If he could love the boy so quickly, after only a week, why couldn’t he love the boy’s mother as well?
“Do ye really think a week is a long time?”
Eoghanan waited patiently, appreciating how Cooper always took time before answering a question. He thought about things deeply. At such a young age, the boy had already mastered a talent far too few people possessed.
Finally, he spoke. “Well, are we talkin’ about love here?”
Eoghanan smiled, nodding silently.
“Then yeah, a week is real long. Let me think…when Bebop tells me something I don’t understand, he tells me a story to help me get it. You wanna hear a story, E-o?”
“Aye, tell me yer story.”
“I don’t know if you know this, but next to Mom, Dad, and Bebop, I love dinosaurs more than anything else in the world. I mean,” he spread his arms wide. “I love them soooo much, and it didn’t take me a week to figure that out. I knew the first time I saw a dinosaur, in a book my Bebop got for me, that I loved them. Not everybody loves dinosaurs. Grandfather doesn’t, but that’s okay. ’Cause I was meant to love dinosaurs. What I mean is, if you are meant to love each other, you and my Mom, then a week is a long time.”
Eoghanan shook his head in disbelief. “How old are ye again, Cooper?”
Cooper tapped the side of his head. “I know, I’m kinda weird. I think my brain is older than my body.”
He laughed. “I doona doubt it. Ye are verra special lad. I have never met a child like ye before.”
“Does that mean you’re gonna tell her?”
Eoghanan stood, jerking his head toward the castle’s main entrance. “Aye, I think that I shall. Let’s go and join the others. Do ye mind staying with yer father a while, so that I may talk to yer mother alone?”
“Yeah, sure. Maybe Dad will play hide-and-seek.”
“Aye, perhaps he will. I think it may take some time to explain the magic to her. Even then, I doona know if she will believe me.”
Cooper took off down the stairs, hollering at him over his shoulder. “Don’t worry about that E-o. I’ll help you with that part. If she doesn’t believe you, I think I know something that will work.”
Eoghanan couldn’t explain it, but as Cooper ran out the front door of the castle, a sense of unease settled over him.
Chapter 18
Much to all of our delight, we arrived at McMillan Castle near noon without a tourist to be found. It was literally as if it had been vacated just for us. The only person on the property, as far as I could tell, was a lackadaisical ticket operator who seemed much too interested in her magazine to worry about what areas we did and did not enter. We had free run of the place.
It made for excellent picture taking. While Jerry, Morna, and Jeffrey visited by the pond out front, Eoghanan occupied Coop with a castle-sized game of hide and seek. It was a magnificent edifice, and I was glad to get some work done, but I was even more pleased when Cooper came running out headed straight toward his dad.
Eoghanan made his way out more slowly, lingering near the entryway of the castle. Something within my gut started to hum each time I saw him. I barely knew him, but I kept trying to think of reasons to call Mr. Perdie to ask if I could extend my trip by a week or two. I still had a week left here, but I was beginning to believe that no amount of time would ever feel like enough. It was completely irrational thinking; I didn’t know his last name, about his family, what he did for a living, but I knew that after knowing him, even if I left, I would think about him every day for the rest of my life.
Still, that wasn’t enough. There was a mystery about him that I couldn’t figure out and, until I did, I wouldn’t allow myself to trust my feelings for him. I knew myself well enough to know, despite my lack of experience in recent years, that I had a tendency to fall for bad guys—the kind of guys who purposely leave important details about themselves out of the conversation; the kind of guys who are attractive more for their mystery than their substance.
I could tell by Eoghanan’s eyes—Cooper and Bebop were right about people’s eyes—that he couldn’t be lumped into the same “bad guy” group as so many others. Regardless, he still remained more of a mystery than I was comfortable with.
Hi
s injury, although partially explained, still made very little sense. Who in the heck got into sword fights nowadays? And what could he possibly have done to provoke it? Not to mention his odd speech and his obvious fascination with the car.
And although I’d put off his reaction to Jeffrey’s arrival as being more out of surprise at the situation than true anger, it seemed weird to me that he would assume that just because Jeffrey was Cooper’s father that he and I were married. With divorce being so common, it surprised me that it wasn’t his first conclusion rather than me being a cheating spouse.
Lastly, Cooper’s small mention of a secret between him and Eoghanan nagged at the back of my mind relentlessly. I knew it had to be innocent enough, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it was somehow related to Cooper’s belief that Eoghanan was the man he’d thought he’d seen at the park and airport. I knew my son, and he was not one to let things go. If he believed something, he wouldn’t allow it to be dismissed without proper explanation, and he’d dropped the issue suddenly—right after his fishing trip with Jerry and Eoghanan.
I liked Eoghanan…a lot. I loved talking to him, I loved how much Cooper adored him, and despite how it made me feel like a sex-crazed teenager, I couldn’t be near him without daydreaming about him slamming me up against whatever wall, car, or now castle that we stood next to. Still, I needed to know a lot more, and very soon, or I would have no reason to stay past the end of the week—even if he wanted me to, which as of yet, he’d said nothing of the sort.
I smiled as I approached him, hoping he couldn’t see all the thoughts running wild behind my eyes. “Hey, you. Everything alright?”
His face was serious and a bit apprehensive as he took my hand and began to pull me away from the others, toward the side of the castle. “Aye, come with me.”
Allowing myself one quick glance backward to make sure Cooper was being supervised, I turned back to him, allowing him to lead the way. It struck me as odd that he moved with such direction. Without a doubt, he’d been here before. “Where are we going?”
Morna's Legacy 04 - Love Beyond Measure Page 9
