The Scottish Siren

by Kirsten Osbourne

  “I know she gave something to me mother when she was expecting. She will have something to help ye.”

  Kirstine caught Alec’s eye and stopped walking. “Why dinna I give ye privacy to talk to Gilly?”

  Beth laughed. “If you want to take some time to talk to your betrothed, all you have to do is ask!”

  Kirstine grinned and walked toward Alec. “I am going to talk to me betrothed.”

  “You enjoy yourself.” Beth couldn’t help but envy the other girl, who was so excited for her wedding. All of her world was spread out in front of her, and it was fun to watch. Beth already felt like an old married woman, and she went into the cottage, thinking of how things could have been different in her life.

  Gilly grinned at her. “Were we having a healing lesson today?” the older woman asked her.

  Beth shook her head. “No, I came to give you some news.”

  “News?”

  “You’re going to be a grandmother again.”

  Gilly jumped to her feet and embraced Beth. “We will have to start sewing for the bairn immediately.”

  “That’s just what Kirstine said.” Beth shook her head. “I need a remedy for the morning sickness if you have something.”

  Gilly immediately looked through her bag of medicines and came out with a small bag of herbs. “Put a bit of this into boiling water and drink it right before bed. Ye will feel better when ye wake up.”

  “Thank you!”

  “I will come over in a little while, and we will start sewing for the bairn. With all the grandchildren, I have most looked forward to Gavin’s children. I know ’tis odd, but it is a McClain thing.”

  Beth smiled. “I’m going to go back to the keep. I’ve been exhausted, and now I have an excuse to nap.”

  “Ye dinna need an excuse to nap. Ye are the lady here. Ye can nap whenever ye please.”

  Beth hugged Gilly and set out for the keep. She noticed that Kirstine and Alec were kissing, and she just walked past them instead of interrupting. There was enough interrupting in their clan without her adding to it.

  When she got back to the keep, she spoke with Morag for a moment about supper arrangements and explained that she was expecting. Morag promised to be careful with spicy foods, so it wouldn’t upset Beth’s stomach.

  As Beth climbed the stairs, all she could think about were tacos. What she wouldn’t give to be able to grow corn there, but corn was another of those New World foods that wouldn’t be there for years yet. Tacos would just have to be a distant memory.

  She crawled into bed and wrapped a plaid around herself, falling straight to sleep. Growing a baby was hard work.

  By the time Beth was showing, the Highlands were growing colder. Her daily walks with Kirstine were still happening, but they had to bundle up before they went. Kirstine was happily married, and she hoped to be expecting sometime soon as well.

  Gavin was traveling more than ever due to a flu outbreak in the Highlands. They weren’t calling it the flu, of course, but Beth knew exactly what it was. He’d been gone for more than a week again when Beth started to feel ill with the symptoms she’d heard about from the other clans.

  Beth had hoped that all her years of getting flu shots would keep her from getting ill, but obviously this was a strain she’d never encountered. Gilly took one look at her and ordered her to bed. “I am going to send for Gavin. He is at the McDonalds.”

  Beth shook her head. “There’s no need. I’m not that sick.”

  “Aye, ye are. And this is his bairn. He needs to be with ye!” Gilly hurried out of the room, and Beth was just too tired to chase after her to protest.

  Hours later, Gavin was sitting on the side of her bed, his hand hovering over the baby. “The bairn is fine, Mother. Now back away so I can heal his mother.”

  Gilly frowned. “She has seemed ill for a few days, and she almost collapsed today. Kirstine was with her and held her upright. Ye need to see to her.”

  “I am seeing to her.” Gavin was filled with guilt over his wife becoming ill while he was gone, and his mother’s incessant nagging about it was making things worse.

  He held his hand over her lungs, healing them quickly, and then his hand went to her face, healing the illness there as well.

  Beth opened her eyes and blinked at him. “I told Gilly not to send for you.”

  “Ye are the most important thing in me life. She had to send for me.”

  Beth shook her head. “Go back to the McDonalds. I’ll be fine.”

  Gavin looked at his mother. “Please send emissaries out. For the rest of her pregnancy, all of the ill and injured must be brought here to me. No exceptions.”

  Gilly smiled and nodded. “I will see to it.”

  Kirstine came into the room then with more cold cloths for her mistress’s face. “Thank God ye returned,” she said to Gavin. “She needs ye.” She left the room, leaving the cloths there for him if he chose to use them, closing the door behind her.

  “How are ye feeling, love?” he asked softly.

  “Don’t call me that just because I’m sick. You only call me your love when you’re thinking about the baby or when I’m ill. I don’t want to hear it anymore. Go away, Gavin. I don’t need your pity.”

  He stared at her for a moment, wondering what on earth she was mumbling about. He opened his mouth to speak, but a knock came at the door.

  “Laird, your brother James has fallen ill. His children as well.”

  Gavin sighed. “We will talk about this later.” With those words, he hurried off to do his duty as the clan’s healer.

  As soon as he was gone, Beth buried her face in her hands and cried. He hadn’t denied it. He truly didn’t love her, though she was head over heels in love with him. What was she supposed to do now? She couldn’t even get on a plane to go home, because planes wouldn’t be invented for hundreds of years!

  Beth spent the rest of the day in bed with both Gilly and Kirstine fussing over her. “I’m fine now. He healed me. Let me get up and at least sew.”

  Kirstine went to the chest and brought Beth her phone. It had little charge left, but it was something. “Play your game where ye squash the candy. It will make ye happy.”

  Beth didn’t even tell Kirstine she was crushing candy. What difference did it make? It’s not like the other woman would look for the game for her cellphone.

  When her phone died, it was as if all connection to the twenty-first century was gone. As much as Beth loved her husband and her life there in the thirteenth century, it still felt as if a piece of her was being cut away. She set the phone down and frowned at it. No more Candy Crush. No more Panda Pop. All of her games were gone forever, and Beth was forever stuck with a man who didn’t love her.

  She did what any self-respecting pregnant woman would do at that point, and she cried her heart out. The rest of her life would be spent with no phone games. No books on her Kindle app to read. Nothing but outdoor toilets and men who didn’t love her. What was the point in even trying to keep going?

  Gavin spent the rest of the day going from cottage to cottage and treating all the ill people there on McClain land. He’d been gone long enough that he hadn’t realized how many had become sick during his absence.

  By the time he was done at the end of the day, he ate enough food for six men and fell into a deep slumber, vaguely remembering that he had something important to talk to his Beth about. Right now, all he could do was sleep, though.

  Beth watched her husband sleep for a while before she moved to the next room over. She didn’t want to disturb him in his sleep. At least that’s what she told herself as she climbed into the small bed that had belonged to one of Gavin’s brothers. It had nothing to do with wanting to punish him for not loving her. No, that would be petty, and there was nothing petty about Beth.

  Instead of sleeping, she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. She couldn’t help but wonder if she’d have made the same choice knowing everything she knew now. Would she still want to travel to the
past? Or would she stay in the future where she belonged?

  As she thought about it, she realized that even if Gavin didn’t love her, she loved him with all her heart. She was married to him and carried the first of his seven sons. Yes, she’d have chosen to come to the past, even knowing he wouldn’t love her. She had made the right choice for her, for Gavin, and for the baby she carried.

  She fell asleep after many hours of tossing and turning, wishing she knew what to do to make Gavin love her. Maybe she should have specified that when she made her wish with Dr. Lachele.

  Beth hoped if the others made wishes, they were more specific than she was. They all deserved love. Every last one of them.

  Ten

  By her reckoning, Beth had been in the Highlands and the thirteenth century for a little over five months. She was showing, and all of the women of the clan went out of their way to help her. Some who were finished having babies offered their baby clothes. Some offered to help her in any way they could. So many were kind to her. She realized that she’d lived in Manhattan for years and had never had as many friendships as she’d made in five months as part of Clan McClain.

  She had long since given up the idea of Gavin loving her. They’d barely had time to speak since he’d healed her from the flu. There was so much illness as part of the winter in the Highlands that she couldn’t even begin to be upset with him.

  After a long day, she made certain there was a good mutton stew on the stove, though she didn’t let herself really think about what mutton was. She sat eating alone, and Gavin came in toward the end of her meal. “Ye dinna wait for me.”

  Beth shrugged. “You’re never home early enough to wait on. I usually eat alone, and then I sew all evening before going to bed. You come in sometime during the night.”

  Gavin sat down next to her, serving himself a bowl of the stew. “I tried to be home early enough to eat with ye tonight. It is hard when I feel like I never get to see me wife.”

  “I’m sure it is.” She finished her bowl of stew, and though she considered getting up and carrying on with her evening, instead she sat and waited for him while he ate. “Are people still suffering with the sickness?” The entire clan had referred to the flu as the sickness, so she just joined in, not correcting their phrasing.

  He nodded. “Aye. I healed seven people of it today. And five injuries. The other clans are now bringing their sick and injured to us, and that is helping. I dinna have to be away all the time.”

  “Good.”

  “I was hoping we could have some time to have a good long talk this evening. If ye arena too busy.”

  She laughed. “Me? I just sit around and do my best to entertain myself. You’re the busy one.”

  He smiled. “I will try to do better.”

  “Then I will, too. I try to be free whenever you’re around.”

  “How are ye feeling? Ye are really starting to show.”

  She nodded, patting her round belly. “I feel like I’m bigger than a house, but I just keep growing.”

  He grinned. “Ye have another four-and-a-half months by me estimates. Ye will have to just deal with growing some more.”

  “Won’t that be fun?” She shook her head. “I want your baby, but I am not enjoying growing it.”

  “Does it help that I enjoy seeing ye growing big with him?”

  “Not particularly.” It just proved her point that he had only married her so he could have sons. She wanted to be loved so badly, but she didn’t even know how to make that clear to him.

  He reached out and took her hand after finishing his third bowl of stew. “Do ye want to go to the sitting room?”

  She shrugged. “That would be fine.” Really, she didn’t want to spend more time with him than she absolutely had to. Every minute in his presence reminded her that he didn’t love her. Why was wanting love asking for too much?

  Once they were in the sitting room, he pulled her down onto a wide chair they could share. She wanted to suggest he have someone make them a couch, but she wasn’t sure how he’d take it. “When ye were sick and I healed ye, ye told me not to call ye love. Ye were quite emphatic and angry about it. Why was that?”

  She sighed. “I was hoping you’d forgotten about that.”

  “Not at all. I simply havena had time to mention it.”

  “Well, you seem to only use words like love when I am ill or you are talking to me about the baby. It frustrates me that you only think to love me when you want something.”

  He stared at her for a moment. “Why would I have married ye if I didna love ye?”

  She frowned at him. “Because I was completely alone in a country across the world from everyone I knew. Because I was in the wrong century. You wanted to protect me, which makes sense considering you spend all of your time healing people.”

  He shook his head. “If that was all I wanted or needed, I would have brought ye home and let me mother take care of ye. Instead, I married ye.”

  “Why then?”

  Gavin shook his head. “Havena ye been listening lass? I married ye because I loved ye from the moment I saw ye. Even before I knew or believed ye came from the future. I loved ye for who ye are.”

  “Really? Because everything seems more important than me. You’re always running here and there, doing whatever anyone else needs from you.”

  He sighed. “That is how me life has always been. It is hard to break old habits. Since ye were sick, all of me time has been here on McClain land. I even made me grandmother come here to be healed instead of going to her. If that is not love, what is it?”

  She sighed. “I hope you’re telling me the truth, Gavin, because I love you with everything inside me. I came here, hoping to marry a man just like you. Well, just like you with maybe a bit more time for his wife . . .”

  Gavin smiled. “I need ye to believe me. I have done everything I am obligated to do, which we both knew would be difficult when we married. All of me time is taken, and I spend as much with ye as I can. Sometimes I steal time from other things I should be doing so I can spend it with ye.”

  “I need to be grateful for the amount of your time I get, I suppose.” Beth wasn’t sure why she was hesitating. He had declared his love for her, and it was what she’d been waiting for. Why did she find it so hard to believe him?

  “Beth, I have had woman after woman thrown at me over the years. All of the lairds wanted me as a son-in-law because they wanted me healing powers for their clans. Me mother has thrown woman after woman at me, wanting the seventh son. The whole family is waiting to see what his power will be.” He shook his head. “There was only one woman I ever considered marrying, and that was ye. I refused to marry anyone who wasna right for me.”

  Beth moved into his arms, resting her head on his shoulder. “I love you so much it hurts sometimes, Gavin. It’s been hard with you gone so much, but I’m determined to be happy.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “Would ye come back in time to me if ye knew everything ye know now?”

  She nodded emphatically. “I may have come a little more prepared, but I still would have come.”

  He smiled, resting his cheek against hers. “I am pleased to hear that. I always thought ye would want to go back to your time if ye could.”

  “Not at all. My place is here. With you.” Beth smiled up at him, happy finally. Never in her life had she felt loved for who she was until that moment. She was where she belonged. Finally.

  Epilogue

  Beth was sitting alone in her bedchamber a few weeks later, wishing she had books to read. She could handle the outdoor toilets. She could handle everything but the lack of books. She needed some good old-fashioned romance to make her day complete.

  She made her bed, and when she turned around, she stared in shock at what was before her. Dr. Lachele in all her purple-haired glory.

  “How did you get here?” Beth didn’t hesitate as she ran to the older woman, hugging her tightly.

  Dr. Lachele grinned. “The same
way you got here, of course.” She held up a bag that smelled suspiciously of tacos, and Beth snatched it from her hand.

  “I think I may love you more than I love my husband at this moment.”

  Lachele laughed. “Looks to me like you love him a lot.” Her eyes looked pointedly at Beth’s baby bump.

  Beth was too busy chomping on tacos to respond.

  “I came here to make sure you were happy. I could bring you back to the day you left Manhattan, and all of this would be just a memory.”

  Beth stared at Lachele in shock. “I don’t have to go, do I?”

  “No, of course not. You just have the opportunity to go.”

  “I want to stay here.” Beth went back to eating her tacos. “I just wish tacos were a part of this century.”

  Lachele laughed. “As I was thinking about coming to see you and giving you the option of coming back, I wondered what I would miss about our century. And it came to me in a flash. I’d miss my Kindle, my iPhone, and tacos. So . . . I brought you things that I hope will make it so you can live here happily. I’d have brought indoor plumbing, but I just didn’t know how!”

  Dr. Lachele sat on the edge of the bed beside Beth and dug into her bag, pulling out a Kindle with a solar charger. “I crammed this as full of books as I possibly could. The memory is completely full. Mostly romance. I did put a lot of Highlander romances on there, but I added others as well. I thought it would be more fun that way. I also added a couple of history books, and I thought a book on medicine might help.”

  Beth started crying. “I was just missing books and tacos.”

  Lachele stuck her hand in her bag again. “I brought you a cord for an iPhone. I figured you could use the solar charger for that, too.”

  Beth laughed, wiping away her tears. “I think Candy Crush has been missing me.”

  “I’m sure it has.” With one more dig into her bag, she pulled out eight packets of seeds. “Corn seeds, pepper seeds, potato seeds, and tomato seeds. You can grow the ingredients to make your own tacos. I’d keep these to yourself, though. You don’t want to change history by having tacos invented before their time.”