“Say something, Granny. I know you’re dying to wade in on this.” Trulie widened her stance and planted her feet. No way was this bound to be good, so they might as well get it over with.
“So, you’re giving up? Acting the coward. Going to walk away from the very man that completes you. From the one man who fills you with passion and joy.” Granny broke her stare at the fire and faced Trulie. “I raised you better than that, Trulie. No blood of mine ever turned tail and ran. No Sinclair is a coward.”
“I am not running.”
“The hell you aren’t.”
“So, you want me to go belly up? Just cow down to a man’s orders and do whatever he says? Since when, Granny? You always taught yourbloodto rear back on our own hind legs and handle it! How many times have you told us we don’t take crap from anybody?” Trulie knotted her fists in the folds of her skirts. Granny wasnotgoing to win this one.
Karma and Kismet raised their heads, flattened their ears, and glanced toward each other. The dog and cat rose in unison and moved to a corner across the room, as though they had telepathically agreed to get as far as possible from the dueling women.
Granny rose from the bench. Her pale-blue eyes flashed with fury behind her wire-rimmed lenses. “You know what he meant, Trulie! He’s a man, for heaven’s sake. They rarely say what’s in their hearts. You have to listen deeper than their words. They never know how to say what they really mean.”
“And ye said ye would stay and prevent yer troubling vision.” Coira’s voice trembled with emotion. “I dinna ken all that ye saw, but from what ye said and the pallor of yer face when the telling hit ye, I ken it canna be good.”
“What is she talking about?” Granny asked. “What have you seen?
Trulie yanked off the stiff jacket and threw it across the back of one bench. The castle wasn’t cold anymore. “I promised it would be okay, Coira. You should know by now that I never break my word.”
“What did you see, Trulie?” Granny grew louder as she followed Trulie across the room. “Coira. What did Trulie tell you about her vision?”
Coira clamped her lips together and shook her head.
Trulie closed her eyes, bowed her head, and pressed her knuckles against her temples. As the troubling vision replayed through her mind, it triggered a nauseating fear that went straight to her knees and weakened them. She struggled to calm her pounding heart and reached out to steady herself against the table. That damn vision. Since she was able to recall it so strongly, the Fates were still warning her against what might possibly happen and they were granting her permission to intervene. Damn it all to hell and back. Could they please just handle one crisis at a time?
“If somebody doesn’t answer me, I am going to find me a switch and start heating up some tails.” Granny swatted a shaking hand against her skirts and glared at Trulie. “Tell me what you saw, young lady. I have had just about enough hardheadedness for one evening.”
“I saw Colum and Gray stretched out on big stone blocks. They were…lifeless. Their skin had turned an ugly gray.” Trulie swallowed hard against the sickly bile burning the back of her throat. “They were dead. I know they were both dead.”
Granny didn’t say a word, just slowly lowered herself into a chair.
“You”—Trulie motioned toward Granny—“draped a square of gauze over Colum’s face and I covered Gray. Neither one of them looked older than they do now, and the trees...” Trulie paused and replayed the latter half of the vision, trying to remember the tiniest details. “The trees’ leaves were out in full, and so green. It has to be sometime during mid to late summer of this year.”
“This is now late March,” Granny observed as she folded her hands in her lap. Her scowl deepened as she stared into the fire. “Did you see how they died? Is there a way to prevent it?”
“I saw everything.” Trulie nodded, then continued in a halting whisper, “They were both poisoned—and it wasn’t quick or painless.”
“Then we—especially you—must stay to see this evil averted.” Granny broke her stare from the fire and turned to Trulie. “The Fates only give such visions when they expect something done to change them.”
Trulie clenched her fists until her nails dug into her palms.Dammit.She knew Granny was going to say that, and in all honesty, there was no way she could ever return to the twenty-first century without first saving Gray and Colum from that fate. But to stay here in this keep and act like nothing had gone off kilter with Gray? “Look—I didn’t mean we weren’t going to figure out what was about to happen and derail it. I don’t want anything to happen to Gray or Colum. B-but I can’t stay here. Not in Gray’s keep.”Not in Gray’s bed.How had things gotten so complicated so fast?
Granny leaned forward and propped her elbows on her knees. The older woman shook her gray head as she stared down at the floor. “I never thought I would live to see the day when one of my own would allow her stupid pride to kill a good man.”
“I said we were going to save them!” The sense of guilt already clawing at her unfurled and grew into a raging beast. How could Granny think she would abandon the two men and leave them to their fates? She would never do such a thing and Granny should know better.
Trulie blinked back angry tears as she stomped across the sitting room to the narrow doorway of her private chamber. Yanking open the door, she stopped and spoke without looking back. “You know I am going to make this right. Don’t I always make everything right?”
She didn’t wait for a response. Whatever they said didn’t matter. She plowed into the room and slammed the heavy door so hard that the flames on all the candles flickered horizontally with the force.
“You and I are not finished.” The deep voice echoed from the shadows.
Trulie squeaked and fell back against the door. “How in the hell did you get in here?” Her heart pounded so hard it took her breath away. She flattened her palms against the smooth wood at her back and silently cursed the sudden weakness in her knees.
Gray’s voice rumbled steady and low. “A wise chieftain ensures some corridors of the keep are known only to him.” His face was shadowed in the half-light of the room, but Trulie could still make out hard lines of sadness around his mouth.
“And that gives you the right to just show up in my room?” She flinched against the tremor in her voice. Damn him for putting her through this.
Gray shifted in place and sucked in a slow, deep breath. “What have I done to anger ye so? Tell me so I might set things right.”
