Текст книги "Charming The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“Shit,” Jonathan whispered on an indrawn breath, also stilling at the realization they’d overtaxed the ice.

Tom, still holding his gun trained on Jonathan, moved several steps away, his eyes wide with terror.

Wayne, who had run ahead only a few yards, also stopped and whirled to face them, then suddenly started inching his way backward to the opposite shore.

Grace turned and looked back in the direction they’d come from. Where was Grey? He was not being a very good Superman. She caught sight of a movement just off to the right about a hundred yards away.

Father Daar stepped out of the woods and onto a boulder by the edge of the pond.

Grace blinked. Twice. It was the priest, all right, but he wasn’t wearing his usual black wool cassock. He was dressed in a long, billowing green robe, and his crooked cherrywood cane was now taller than he was.

Where had he come from?

“You lie still, girl,” the priest said to her, his voice carrying over the surface of the pond with gentle strength. “Don’t you move so much as a muscle,” he added, lifting his cane and pointing it at the five of them.

There was another sudden pop, sending a wave of vibrations through the ice. The entire pond shook.

Grace snapped her head around and saw Wayne inching his way to shore. “Stand still,” she said, spreading her arms and legs wider.

“Holy shit,” Frank said, backing up another step.

“Hold still!” Jonathan hissed at him.

“Grace!”

Grace lifted her head at the sound of her name being bellowed with a force that vibrated the air around them. It had come from someplace past her feet. She squinted through the drizzle and saw Grey, a good two hundred yards further down the shore from Father Daar, step onto the ice.

“Go back!” she yelled at him. “You’re going to drown us!”

Grey wasn’t paying attention to her, though. He was pointing his sword at Daar.

His sword? Superman hadn’t brought a sensible weapon to fight off the villains; the man was charging to the rescue with an antique sword. Grace didn’t know whether to scream or cry.

“Back off, old man,” Grey shouted, walking over the ice toward Father Daar. “Don’t do it.”

The priest either couldn’t hear him or didn’t care. Daar chanted loudly, his eyes closed and his stick pointed at Grace and the four men with her.

The mantle of ice under her back suddenly shuddered, and Grace watched in horror as Grey fell into the freezing water. He disappeared for a few seconds before he shot back to the surface and stood in water only as deep as his waist. The ice beneath her rippled again in undulating shock waves, and Grace took a large gulp of air and held her breath, gritting her teeth to prepare for a dunking that didn’t come.

Miraculously, the ice beneath her held.

She looked back at Grey. He just stood there as if he couldn’t feel the freezing water, staring at the priest, his sword raised as if he intended to throw it like a lance.

The heavy, humid air around them suddenly crackled with electricity, humming so sharply it hurt her ears.

The sky began to sparkle with such brilliance Grace had to cover her eyes with her hand. Lightning snapped over the surface of the pond, sending tingles of awareness through Grace’s body that stopped just short of being painful.

Grace peeked through her fingers at Grey. He was frantically breaking the ice with the hilt of his sword while shouting something at Daar in a language she didn’t recognize.

“No!” she heard him yell as he climbed onto land and began running again, ignoring the swirling, electrically charged air that surrounded the priest. Grey swung his sword in a long, sweeping arc and sliced Daar’s stick cleanly in half.

If she lived to be a hundred, Grace would never be able to explain what happened next.

Daar’s stick, now two distinct pieces, floated in the air as if held up by strings. The two pieces of wood twisted and twitched, bolts of lightning shooting from them in every direction. Sparks rained through the air like fireworks, spraying upward and out in flashes of sizzling white energy.

A stream of brilliant blue light suddenly appeared from the clouds over TarStone, capturing one of the sticks as it danced in the air. Grace watched, fascinated, as that stick vibrated the merest of seconds, then suddenly flew out over the pond and landed on her. She stared, unmoving, as it hummed with the resonance of a purring cat against her chest, enveloping her in crystal-clear blue light.

The other stick fell back to the ground with a loud thud, striking a rock and shooting out a blast of laser-sharp energy toward the five of them that was so bright Grace was sure she would be blinded for life.

The percussion of the explosion beside her finished the job of shattering the ice they were lying on. She grabbed the stick on her chest as she fell into the freezing water.

Only it wasn’t cold.

Or dark.

As the water closed in over her head and Grace sank toward the bottom of the pond, the stick she clung to enveloped her in a warm blue light so bright it shone through her eyelids. Slowly, and without effort on her part, she rose back to the surface until her head was above water.

A pair of strong hands suddenly grabbed her and began pulling her through the water. She couldn’t see or hear a thing. Spots danced in her eyes, and her ears still rang with dulled thunder from the explosion.

Grey had finally come to her rescue. She was going to let him know just how much his timing stank, just as soon as she came to terms with what had just happened.

Grace was lifted onto the shore. She looked over through the spots still flashing in her eyes to glare at Grey, only to find herself face to face with Michael MacBain.

Now, where had he come from?

And where was Grey?

Grace heard her name bellowed again, this time from the north end of the pond. She squinted and saw Grey making his way along the edge of the now open pond, his stride angry and determined, water dripping off his hair and shoulders—and that damn sword still in his hand.

She looked at Michael. “I—I think you should leave now.”

But he wasn’t paying her any attention. He was staring across the pond. Grace heard him whisper the word drùidh under his breath.

Drùidh? Wasn’t that a wizard or something?

She looked in the same direction as Michael. Daar was now sitting on the rock he’d been standing on earlier, his hands dangling over his knees, his head shaking slowly back and forth as he stared out at the floating slabs of ice littering the pond.

“Wh-where’s Jonathan? And the other men?” she asked in her own strangled voice.

“Gone,” was all Michael said, unable to look away from Daar.

“G-gone where?”

He finally turned his haunted gray eyes on her. “Back to my time, I think,” he murmured faintly, his face draining of color. In unison, they both looked back at the spot where Jonathan, Frank, Tom, and Wayne had been standing.

“Get away from her, MacBain,” Grey said, now standing on a rock next to them, his sword pointed at Michael.

Grace let go of the stick and scrambled up to stand between Grey and Michael. The cold suddenly struck her like a violent slap to the face. She looked down and saw that the stick was humming quietly on the rock, still glowing with shimmering blue light. She reached down, picked it up, and clasped it to her chest. The cold retreated as fast as it had come.

“Move out of the way, Grace,” Grey said, his stare never leaving Michael.

“He saved my life,” she reminded him. “While you were busy attacking a priest, I might add,” she said, if for no other reason than to get his mind off his obsessive anger at Michael.

Grey finally looked at her. “I saw him like that before, four years ago. I thought he was going to…that he was…”

“He was going to what?”

He shook his head, unable to explain his actions any better than she could.

“I want to go home now,” she told him. “I want to see Baby.”

Callum, Ian, and Morgan silently stepped out of the woods and moved to surround Grace and Michael.

She pointed her stick at them threateningly. It wasn’t a sword like the one Grey had, but she was ready to smack them with it if they so much as scowled at Michael.

“Be careful with that thing, girl!” Daar shouted from across the pond, where he stood wringing his hands.

“Don’t be pointing that at anyone!”

She stared at the stick in her hand. “Where—where’s the other half?” she asked in a quivering whisper.

“It disintegrated when it…well, it’s ash now, floating in the pond,” Grey said, also staring at the stick in her hand.

“What in hell happened here?” Callum asked, having no clue of the danger the stick presented. “We saw lightning.”

“It’s a long story,” Grey said, turning his gaze to her. “Will ya set that thing down, lass?” he asked, his voice coaxing and a little distraught.

She hugged it back to her chest. “It keeps me warm.”

“Then at least don’t point it at anyone, like the old man said.” Grey looked at Morgan. “What happened to the men on the snowmobiles?” he asked, his voice now sounding more like the Superman he was supposed to be.

Morgan darted a look at her, then at Grey, and slowly shook his head. “They’ll not be missed,” was all he said, grinning a bit. “Nor will they ever be found.”

Michael, who had been sitting on the rock with his arms wrapped around his knees, finally stood up.

Grey raised his sword. Grace lifted her stick away from her chest, but she didn’t quite dare point it at Grey.

“He didn’t know anything about these men,” she said, lifting her chin.

Michael agreed with her. “That’s right,” Michael said, moving to stand beside her. Grace guessed his pride wouldn’t let him hide behind a woman.

“I heard their machine laboring toward the pass, and I hid at this end of the pond to see what they were doing,” he explained, facing Grey. “I saw them leading Grace onto the ice against her will, and I was waiting to ambush them.”

“Something you’re fond of doing,” Grey said in a low growl. “What are you doing up here?”

Grace saw Michael gaze out at the pond before he turned a narrowed look back on Grey. “There were men in town yesterday asking questions about where Grace’s plane had crashed. I thought they might be from StarShip Spaceline, but something about them made me suspicious. I came up here to see what it was they seemed to be looking for.”

Michael let out a tired sigh and wiped his wet hair back from his face. “I found nothing but the empty plane, but I remembered these men had been asking the store owner if he had maps of the snowmobile trails. So I decided to keep climbing up here to the trail to see what they were doing.”

“Wait a minute,” Grace piped up, staring wide-eyed at Michael. “You know the name of the company I work for?”

“Yes. StarShip Spaceline. Mary told me.”

Grace’s jaw dropped. She turned to face Michael. “You knew where I worked? And lived?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you must have realized when Mary left that she would run to me. Why didn’t you come after her?

Or call?”

Michael looked down at her, his eyes pained. “And say what?” he asked, shaking his head. “Mary needed to come to terms with all of…all of this,” he said, his voice trailing off to a whisper as he looked at the slabs of ice floating in the still churning water of the pond.

Grace hugged the stick back to her chest, wanting to weep. This entire tragedy never should have happened. Mary shouldn’t be dead. She should be here with Michael and Baby, living happily ever after.

She turned to Grey. “Will you take me home now? To Baby?”

Grey stared hard at Michael a bit longer, then slowly looked at her and nodded.

“You can take my snowmobile, MacBain,” Grey said, still looking at her.

Grace turned to Michael and touched his arm before he could leave. “Ellen and John are at TarStone Resort,” she told him. “Stop there first, and let them know you’re okay. They’re worried about you.”

He nodded curtly and turned and walked away, brushing past Ian and Callum and Morgan without saying a word.

Grace sighed and turned to Ian, stepping to the edge of the rock she was standing on so she could touch his arm. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she whispered. “Thank you for coming to save me.”

Ian’s old face turned a dull red, and his gaze shot to her feet. “I didn’t save ya, lass. I nearly got ya killed.”

Grace reached out and enveloped him in a heartfelt hug, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, the stick in her hand touching his back.

Ian jumped as if she had pinched him, his eyes wide and incredulous as he stumbled away, staring at the stick in her hand. It wasn’t glowing blue anymore, but it still hummed with gentle vibrations. Grace hugged it to her chest again and stepped back to look at Grey.

“I want to go home now,” she repeated.

“Morgan,” Grey said. “You and Callum get that damn priest and take him back to his cabin. Ian, bring the other snowcat around the pond and pick us up.”

Without comment, the three MacKeages suddenly disappeared as silently as they had arrived.

“And what are my orders, Laird Greylen MacKeage?” Grace asked once they were alone, staring at his still angry posture, his wet freezing clothes, and the sword that looked so at home in his hand.

“You can lay yourself over my knee while I whale the living daylights out of you,” he said, sitting on a rock and spreading his arms, his free hand pointing at his lap. “You scared ten years off my life, woman.”

He didn’t sound as if he was kidding. “I—I still have the stick,” she said, holding it up for him to see.

He held up his sword. “I’ve cut it in half once already. Shall we see if I can do it again?”

She hugged it to her chest. “No. But if you set down that sword and stop threatening me, I’ll let you touch it.”

“Why would I want to touch that accursed thing?” he asked, looking incredulous and horrified.

“It’s warm,” she told him. “See? I’m not even shivering, and I’m half dry already. If you touch it, those icicles will melt off your hair.”

He set his sword on the rock beside him and slowly held out his hand to her. Reluctantly, hoping she was doing the right thing, Grace carefully gave him the stick. The cold immediately assaulted her again.

Grey closed his fist around the burled cherrywood stick and stared, his eyes widening as he felt the hum of energy move through him. Grace smiled at his expression.

He suddenly swung it in an arc, slashing at the air as he would with his sword. He hefted it several times as if feeling its balance.

“It’s not a toy,” she scolded. “Remember Daar’s warning. You’re going to set these woods on fire or something. Give it back.”

He stilled his hand and gave her an incredulous look. And then he slowly moved his arm back and put all of his strength behind his swing, arcing the stick down and then back up before releasing it to sail through the air and land in the center of the mountain pond.

“What did you do that for?” she said with a gasp, staring at the angry fizzle of steam that erupted on impact. Blue light shot from the center of the pond in a blinding thunderbolt of pure energy back toward the summit of TarStone Mountain, shaking the air with booming vibrations that echoed over the ridge.

“Why?” she asked in a whisper, gaping at Grey.

He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down against his chest, holding her so that her eyes were level with his. “Because I don’t intend for that priest ever to get his hands on it again,” he said, just before covering her mouth with his own.

Grace wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. She’d lecture him on his lack of respect for other people’s property later. And on his lack of timing when it came to rescuing her.

And on bringing his sword instead of a gun.

Grace quickly forgot all about being cold. There was enough heat coming from their kiss to melt the snow off TarStone.

Who needed a silly old stick, anyway?

Chapter Twenty-one

The ride down the mountain in the snowcat was made in silence, none of them willing to speak about what had happened at the pond. Ian was especially silent, concentrating instead on steering his machine through the sad-looking forest straining under a siege of ice that was now a good two inches thick. If it didn’t look so devastating, it would be absolutely stunning.

Grace was softly crying. Not that she let the two men in front know that. She was curled up on the backseat, wrapped in a blanket, her face buried in her arms.

It was too much for her to comprehend: Daar’s mysterious appearance, Jonathan’s disappearance, the fireworks, the impossible aspect of it all.

The most distressing part was Michael’s whispered speculation that those four men had been somehow transported backward through time.

Somehow the old man—drùidh, Michael had called him—and his long, crooked, glowing stick had conducted enough energy to breech the fourth dimension.

Just as Michael had seen four years ago.

Just as Grey also admitted seeing before, and the reason he had attacked the priest at the pond.

But all of that, no matter how unexplainable, was nothing compared with the realization that if Michael MacBain was crazy, then so were Grey and Callum and Morgan and Ian and Father Daar.

And so was she.

Grace heard Grey tell Ian to drive directly to the hotel, and she scrubbed her face clean of tears and sat up.

They were back. She was safely off the mountain for the second time in four days, only this time Grace knew that the journey to keep her promise to Mary was over.

She saw the snowmobile Michael had used to come down the mountain parked in front of the lobby entrance. Before the snowcat was shut off, and before she had to face Grey again and he realized her intent, Grace jumped out of the snowcat and ran toward the lobby doors.

Ellen and John and Michael were there, just stepping outside under the carport that protected the entryway from the weather. Baby was in Ellen’s arms. Grace walked up and plucked the child from Ellen and hugged him to her chest, kissing every inch of his sweet-smelling face.

“Oh, you feel so good,” she whispered to Baby. “Give me a smile.”

He did better than that. He giggled out loud, shivering from the kisses she’d given him. Grace hugged him tighter for several heart-pounding seconds, then lifted her gaze to Michael MacBain, who was watching her silently.

Grey and Ian walked under the carport to get out of the relentless drizzle. Ian turned his back on Michael to look out over the resort. Morgan and Callum came out of the hotel and silently joined Ian.

“He’s been such a good boy,” Ellen said, tucking Baby’s blanket up onto his shoulders as Grace held him. “Any time you need a sitter, Grace, you call me. It’s been a pleasure.”

“I will. Thank you.”

A low, rumbling moan suddenly trembled the ground beneath their feet, traveling toward them from the direction of TarStone Mountain. The moan slowly rose in pitch and volume until it sounded like the hum of a tuning fork moving closer.

“Dammit. The ski lift!” Grey shouted, grabbing Grace and pushing her and Baby to one of the carport pillars, wrapping himself around them in a protective embrace. Grace only had time to see Michael hug Ellen and John together and use his body to shield them from the direction of the lift before Grey pushed her face onto his chest, over Baby, and covered their heads with his arms.

A sudden detonation, like a sonic boom, shook the ground and rattled the windows of the hotel. Grace lifted her head just enough to see past Grey’s shoulder. She watched, horrified, as the cable of the ski lift finally snapped and whipped angrily through the air, backlashing against the lift shed. The shed collapsed under the force of the blow.

The tower arms broke then, each one sounding like a succession of gunshots that trailed off in beating echoes up the mountain. Gondolas smashed to the ground in a hail of shattering ice and glass. Trees near the lift trail bowed and broke from the indiscriminate whip of the cable.

Grey moved to his right, protecting them from the spectacle. Grace squeezed Baby’s ears between her chest and Grey’s to protect him from the percussion of the unbelievably loud cannonade that rumbled on and on, slowly decreasing in volume as the destruction traveled up the mountain.

The sudden silence was almost as shocking as the noise had been. It was broken only by occasional thumps and cracks high up on TarStone. Grey stepped back and turned, looking into the mist toward the remains of his ski lift, his expression awed.

It came then, the sound Grace had been waiting for and dreading. High up, far out of sight, the thunder of the summit house collapsing slowly rumbled back down the mountain toward them. The top tower had snapped under the strain of two miles of cable breaking free, and everything in the cable’s path was destroyed. All that was left were naked towers, still vibrating with an energy that had finally stripped them clean of the ice entombing them.

“Holy Mother of God,” Ian whispered, his eyes huge and his face pale.

And that, Grace thought as she looked down to check on Baby, was about all that needed saying.

She noticed a drop of water on Baby’s hat and wiped it away. Another one immediately replaced it. She wiped it away also. A large finger suddenly lifted her chin, and a warm thumb brushed across her damp cheek. She looked up through blurry eyes at Grey.

“It’s only metal and cable, Grace. Don’t weep for the loss of something as unimportant as a ski lift.”

“I promised to save it for you.”

“Nay, lass. You promised only to try. And you were going to win. The destruction is on my shoulders, Grace, not yours.”

The people of Pine Creek came pouring out of the hotel then, milling around and staring at the destroyed ski lift. Michael stood with Ellen and John, one of his big hands on each of their shoulders. Grace didn’t know if he was steadying them or holding himself up.

She wiped her eyes clean of tears and stared up at Grey. She took a deep, painful breath, steeling herself for what she was about to do. She cupped Baby’s head with her hand, then stood on her tiptoes and kissed Grey on the chin. “I love you,” she whispered just before she turned and walked away from him.

Every step she took hurt. Her breathing became labored. The blood rushing through her body pumped with the violence of an erupting volcano, and her vision narrowed until everything—the resort, the people standing in stunned silence, the stark remains of the chair lift—all of it faded into the background and ceased to exist.

Clutching Baby against her chest, Grace fought to keep herself focused on the man in front of her now, fought to keep herself from giving into the voice screaming in her head, telling her to run as fast and as far as she could before she opened her mouth and broke her own heart.

She stood there in front of Michael MacBain and fought back the tidal wave of emotion that threatened her courage as nothing else ever had.

“Michael,” she said in a shuddering whisper, drawing his attention. He turned away from Ellen and John, his face showing concern for what he must have seen in her eyes.

“I’d…I’d like to introduce you to your son.” She turned Baby to face him. “Mary gave birth to him just a day before she died. He’s yours and Mary’s, Michael,” she told him, holding Baby out for him to take.

A myriad of emotions crossed Michael’s face in rapid succession—confusion, disbelief, pain, and finally wonder—as he turned his gaze from her to the child she was handing to him.

He slowly, carefully, took Baby and held him up until they were face to face, staring into young eyes the mirror image of his own. Baby shot him a sudden, spontaneous smile.

Michael looked stunned. He brought Baby to his chest and pulled off his cap and covered his head with his large hand, smoothing down the length of spiky, dark auburn hair. He looked back at Grace in silent question.

“He—he doesn’t have a real name yet,” she told him, wiping another tear from her cheek. “Mary said that was your duty.”

Pain clouded his expression, and his hand trembled as he looked back at his son and ran one large finger over his face, much the same way Mary had done on her deathbed.

Both of Grace’s eyes flooded then, and there was no stopping the flow of tears she finally allowed to run freely down her cheeks. She was shaking with the force of her mixed emotions.

“Sh-she said you would love him as no one else on this earth can,” she continued hoarsely, determined to say her piece before she broke down completely. “I promised Mary I would bring him to you, and I have. Now I want your promise that you’ll love him and raise him to manhood in a way Mary would want for her son.”

“Aye,” he said fiercely, nodding at her, then looking back at his child with a new glint of passion lighting his eyes. Baby shot him another smile, and Michael MacBain held the infant’s cheek against his.

“Good,” Grace said, a sob catching in her throat. She turned in the direction of the driveway and began walking home.

“Grace.”

She stopped at the sound of Grey’s voice and turned and lifted her chin, more to keep her tears from spilling down her face than to challenge him.

“Home is that way,” Grey said, pointing toward Gu Bràth.

“Not today it isn’t,” she whispered. “Not yet.”

She turned again, holding her breath as she once more began walking home. No one stopped her this time. No one said another word. Grace concentrated on setting one creeper-covered boot in front of the other, careful not to trip over her broken heart.

Chapter Twenty-two

Daar sat in front of the fire of his cozy little cabin and whittled on the new cherrywood cane. He carefully stripped the bark off it in long pieces of curling string, the aroma of cherry oil wafting pleasantly through the air. The young sapling felt awkward in his age-bent hands, its smooth, straight, unflawed surface hard to hold on to. It was much more delicate than his old cane and smaller. But then, it was meant for a much smaller hand.

This new staff would belong to a woman.

To Winter, Grey and Grace’s seventh daughter.

He’d been dragging out this chore for too long, and now that his own staff was sitting in pieces at the bottom of the mountain pond, it was necessary that he begin carving and training this new one immediately.

It would have only one or two burls on it by the time he presented it to Winter, and she and it would grow old together once he placed it in her hands. He would train them both, and as Winter’s power increased with knowledge, the staff would twist with burls and strengthen. It was the way things worked in his wizard’s world.

Daar ran his hand along the smooth surface of newly exposed wood. He couldn’t believe his warrior had had the audacity, or the foresight, to throw his staff into the pond. Grey knew the danger Daar’s cane presented. He had seen its energy firsthand. Yes, Greylen MacKeage had known, when he’d held the remaining piece of that still humming wood in his hand, that he was holding the power to send him and his men back to their natural time.

And when he had banished it to the depths of that high mountain pond, Greylen had quite deliberately given up any chance that such a thing would ever happen.

Grey didn’t bother to knock. He silently let himself into Grace’s kitchen, kicking off his boots and setting his jacket and Mary’s tin of ashes on the kitchen table. The house was eerily silent except for the occasional snap of a log on the fire in the living room and the faint sound of a sniffle every so often coming from the same room.

He walked sock-footed into the living room, and his heart fell down to his knees.

Grace was sitting cross-legged on the couch, a box of tissues beside her, another box’s worth of used tissues balled up and thrown on the floor in front of the hearth. He watched as she sniffled, blew her nose, and threw another tissue at the fire. She was in so much pain, and for the life of him he didn’t know how to help her.

She’d given up the child of her heart today. She had united a son with his father because it had been the right thing to do, and now she was paying the price.

Grey admired her strength. And he hurt for her now.

“Grace,” he said softly, moving to stand in front of her.

She turned wide eyes to him, a gasp catching in her throat. Her face was freckled with pink blotches, and her swollen, red-rimmed eyes were devoid of life. He wanted to hold her in his arms and squeeze the pain right out of her.

She got down on her knees and started gathering the evidence of her grief, tossing all the balls of wet tissue into the fire.

Grey let her get used to the fact that he was there. He walked out to the attached shed and filled his arms with wood, then brought it inside and dumped it in the box by the hearth. He made two more trips before it was full, stopping the last time in the doorway to watch Grace silently.

She had come into the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil on the range, but he noticed she forgot to turn on the burner. He didn’t correct her. He went back into the living room and dropped his load in the woodbox, then used the poker to resettle the logs on the fire.

Grey walked back into the kitchen and stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. Grace was now sitting at the table, staring at the cookie tin in her hands as she fingered the dents on it.

“Do you know why Michael moved to Pine Creek last year?” she asked, not looking up.

“I hadn’t given it much thought,” he told her honestly.

“Because he needed to be near the only other people on earth who knew what he’d been through four years ago.”

She looked up then, and Grey’s breath caught in his throat at the sad and understanding look she gave him.

“It didn’t matter if you were enemies or not. You and Callum and Morgan and Ian were all he had left.”

So she now knew what he’d sworn never to tell her. She understood that Michael wasn’t insane, because she was in love with a man from another time.

She probably couldn’t comprehend what she had seen today, no more than any of them could. But she was smart enough to put things together, to realize that he lived in a castle and carried a sword for a reason.

This beautiful, intelligent, twenty-first-century woman knew he was ancient. And she had said, just before she’d given away the child of her heart, that she loved him.