“Keep it up, Kismet.” Trulie walked faster to catch up with her grandmother and the feline. “As soon as we get home, I am going to tell Karma where you hide your treats.”
The sleek cat flattened her ears against her dark head. Her golden eyes narrowed and she whipped her tail, clearly telling Trulie to kiss her ass.
“We must return to the past.” Granny exploded with short, impatient huffs as she clumped through a puddle. “It is very ... important and we must do it soon.”
Trulie drew in a deep breath of the crisp night air and forced herself to remain calm and keep the frustration out of her voice. She loved and respected Granny with all her heart, but this incessant badgering was getting old. She came to a halt, pulled her denim jacket tighter around her, and waited for Granny to realize Kismet was the only one still walking beside her.
It didn’t take long. Granny stopped, spun around, and glared back at Trulie. “Well? Now what?” The senior’s tone had taken on the color of a full-blown scolding.
Trulie widened her stance and tried to ignore the sudden feeling that she and Granny were facing off like a couple of gunfighters in the Old West. “You know how much I love you. I understand you miss the old Scotland, but we belong here. We belong in this century. We’re pretty much settled, and life isn’t too bad when our home remedies aren’t sloshing around in the back of the truck.”
Trulie waited, then took a step toward Granny. “Please forget about relocating. I don’t want to uproot us again. We are settled. Home base for all of our trips through time is right here.”
She decided to aim dead square at Granny’s conscience. “And you know you can’t time-jump alone anymore. And you’re not able to maneuver the web as point beacon and keep all of us connected to you like you could when you were younger.”
Trulie scuffed the toe of her boot in the mud. She hated pointing out anyone’s weaknesses, especially Granny’s. “I haven’t jumped as beacon enough to connect with more than one or two travelers. If I try any more than that, I’m afraid I’ll scatter the lot of us across a string of centuries. If I ran beacon to take you back, we would have to leave Kenna and the girls in this time. Alone. Would you feel good about deserting the rest of your grandchildren? Do you really think they would be okay without us?” There. That should stall out this round. Trulie forced herself not to back down. She hated using guilt on Granny, but it was the most effective ammunition she had.
Granny’s shoulders sagged and her gaze sank to the patch of road between them. Her voice fell to just above a whisper as she stared at the ground. “I do not want you permanently anchored in this time, Trulie. Your babies are not meant to come from this disturbing patch of history. This place is temporary. A place of trial to help us grow and strengthen.” Granny bent and ran a slightly shaking hand across Kismet’s arched back. “Kenna and the twins will be fine if we have to leave them here for a bit. Kenna’s grown and the girls aren’t far behind. Don’t think I haven’t got plans for them. I mean to see all my girls properly settled before I move on.”
Trulie released the breath she had held. So that was it. Granny was afraid Trulie was about to settle down and sink her roots even deeper into the current century with a man Granny didn’t like. Trulie’s relationship with Dan had always irritated the older woman. For what reason, Trulie wasn’t quite sure. Dan was ... okay. Most of the time. “Dan is a good man, Granny. He will take good care of me. Of all of us.”
Granny stormed forward. She locked her spindly legs into sparring stance and raised a shaking fist. “Do ye really love him, Trulie? Does yer love for him make yer throat ache with tears if ye canna be near him? Do ye pine to hear the rumble of his deep voice whispering yer name in the darkness?”
Granny stomped another step closer. Her accent thickened and her voice became shriller with every word. “Say it, Trulie. Tell me the truth. If ye thought ye would never see Dan again, would ye rather die than live a day without him? Tell me. Tell me Dan is the other half of yer soul and I will never talk about jumping back again.”
Granny’s tone hit a low, ominous knell as she pointed a knobby finger at Trulie’s heart. “But don’t ye dare lie to me, gal. Because if ye do, ye willna be lying to me, ye will just be lying to yerself.”
Granny’s sharp brogue, paired with the fire in her eyes, shoved Trulie back a step. Apparently, it wasn’t Dan that Granny had a problem with; it was whether the relationship was strong enough to satisfy Granny’s standards.
Trulie swallowed hard. Did she really love Dan? She tried to conjure up tingly, I-can’t-live-without-him thoughts of Dan—tall, gangly, always-preoccupied Dan. And she failed. She couldn’t muster anything more than a vague, foggy feeling ofmeh.Why couldn’t she bring his long, narrow face and soft, brown eyes into focus and feel ... something? At least she thought his eyes were brown. Weren’t they?
Instead, she saw eyes fierce with rage. Strange-colored eyes, an unusual shade she had never seen. They were blue. Sort of. They reminded her of a night sky exploding with tendrils of brilliant-white lightning.
Instead of Dan’s lanky, underfed form, Trulie remembered corded, muscular arms bulging like banded whisky barrels as they wielded a sword as long as she was tall.
She started to speak, but then closed her mouth again. Dan was safe. Dan was security. But no, Dan was not her love, and Granny already knew the truth of it. Granny had always told Trulie never to settle, and here she was about to do that very thing. Trulie shook away the thought. No. She was not settling. She was just making sure they were all taken care of. What the devil was wrong with that? “Dan will take good care of us, Granny. Don’t worry. It will be all right.”
“It will not be all right!” Granny stomped her tiny boot hard against the muddy ground. “I will be damned if I allow ye to break my oath to yer mother. Ye will not settle for safe old Dan. Yer true future, the future waiting to set your soul on fire, can only be found in the past.”
* * *
Scotland
The Highlands—Thirteenth Century
Gray MacKenna jerkedfree of the hypnotic depths of the roiling orange embers. A cold sweat peppered his body. He couldn’t stop his hand from shaking as he wiped the moisture from his face. Damnation. Had it been real or just a vision? “What the hell are ye playing at, Tamhas? I bade ye show me the traitor and instead ye throw me in the path of some unearthly beast?”
Tamhas didn’t look up from the worktable. His gnarled hands patiently twisted the worn stone pestle into the mixture of herbs and oils in the chipped mortar. The only sound breaking the silence of the room was the rhythmic thump and grind of stone against stone and the crackling flames consuming the wood in the hearth.
Gray shuddered. He hated the sound of fire. “Have ye gone deaf or have ye decided to ignore yer chieftain?”
The stooped old man brought the herbal concoction closer to his nose. He squinted down into the bowl, barely shook his head, then leaned once again into the grinding motion. When Tamhas still failed to respond, Gray strode to the door of the cramped dwelling and threw it open wide to the cold, clear night. He needed air. Fresh, clean air to chase away the disturbing vision wrought by Tamhas’s strange incense and the smoke-filled chamber.
“Return to the bench, m’chieftain, so I might treat yer wounds.”
The old man’s words reawakened the throbbing pain burning down one side of Gray’s back. “Uncover the window first. I canna stomach more of yer wicked smoke.” Gray remained rooted to the threshold of the open door. The muted greens and grays of the night-shrouded Highlands rolled out before him.
He glanced back at the old man still standing behind the bench. Perhaps he should have sought his answers from the only thing soothing his soul of late. His beloved Highlands would have come far closer to revealing the fiend seeking the end of his clan than the damned old man with his magic and strange smoke. “I need clean air, old man. Either throw open the shutter or step outside to treat my wounds. Yer wretched cave seeks to smother me.”
