Karma and Kismet laid back their ears and trotted across the shop to hide behind the safety of the girls’ legs. Trulie rounded the counter. She was on a roll. One way or another, they were going to settle this. Today. “You have always talked about someday resettling to the past but in the past six months you have shifted your nagging into overdrive. I want the truth. Plain and simple. What is the deal? Why now? You’re gnawing on me worse than a dog worrying an old bone and I am tired of it.”
Trulie crossed the room, flipped the Open sign on the door to the Closed side, and yanked down the shade. “What is it with you? Just tell me the truth instead of all this maneuvering. Why are you so adamant about permanently moving back to the past? Why does it have to be now?” She couldn’t understand it. What was this burning need Granny suddenly seemed to have to see Trulie settled in the past? It was almost as though she were afraid of something, and that just didn’t make sense. Granny feared nothing.
Hadn’t the tough-as-nails woman jumped to an unknown future with two little girls and an unhealthy set of newborn twins to honor her only daughter’s dying wish? Trulie remembered the family’s first jump through time better than any of the other jumps Granny had led. Before that initial jump, memories of the first twelve years of her life were faded and patchy at best. Granny had filled in the blanks about those early years, and from all Trulie learned, Granny was an unwavering force.
How many times had Granny told her how Mother had died bringing Lilia and Mairi into the world back in the thirteenth century? How Father had been so despondent over the loss of Mother, he had pressed the unhealthy, blue-tinged babies into Granny’s arms and begged her to do whatever it took to save his children? How many times had Granny told her how her parents’ bond had been so strong, Father had climbed down into the grave beside Mother and ordered his men to bury them both?
Trulie shivered and rubbed at a tiny scar at the base of her throat that always ached whenever she thought about the past. Granny had saved her life too, by bringing them all to a future where a child’s underdeveloped heart could be repaired with a simple surgery. How could the woman who had endured so much be afraid of something as insignificant Mrs. Hagerty and her whining lackey?
“I fear nothing for myself, Trulie.” Granny twirled the white stick hanging from the curtain rod between her bent fingers. Her frown deepened as the window blinds slowly closed. “But for all of you, I fear much once I am gone and there are none like us left in this particular patch of time to protect and teach you.”
Trulie caught Kenna’s eye and nodded toward Lilia and Mairi. “We won’t forget the old ways, Granny. I promise we’ll be all right.” Trulie wrapped an arm around Granny’s shoulders, noticing for the first time how thin and frail the old woman seemed.
“You don’t belong here, Trulie. None of us really do. This troubling patch of time is good for nothing but a training ground.” A heavy sigh shuddered through Granny, shaking her against Trulie. “But you, Trulie, especially right now, must travel back. ’Tis time to put the wheel in motion. If you stay, you will suffer. We all will. Greatly.” Granny gently slid out from under Trulie’s arm and bent to scoop Kismet up against her chest. “Look into your heart, Trulie. Look hard and you’ll understand exactly what I mean.”
Hugging the cat, Granny slowly walked across the room. A troubled look darkened her face when she reached the back-room door and turned back to face them. “One last thing I want you to know before you give me your final refusal. The time grows near for my last leap, and I will be damned if I make that crossing alone out of this godforsaken century.”
CHAPTER3
“Fearghal wishes to see his brother. Let us pass. ’Tis our right to see the chieftain.”
Gray closed his eyes against the nasal voice shattering the pleasant comradery of the great hall. As much as he wished to bar the owner of the voice from his presence, his conscience refused to grant him leave to do so.
“Allow Lady Aileas entry, Colum!” His shout echoed the length of the high-ceilinged room and rang out into the bailey. All the better. At least those who might escape Aileas’s presence had now received ample warning.
“May the gods strike the woman mute or have mercy and strike me deaf.” The hounds sprawled at Gray’s feet lifted their heads as though nodding in complete agreement. Gray dug his thumbs hard into his throbbing temples. He was in no mood for another bout of petty complaints from Lady Aileas and her simpering son.
The dried rushes spread about the stone floors hissed out whispered warnings with every sweep of Aileas’s drab, heavy skirts. The great, hairy dogs lying on either side of Gray’s ornate chieftain’s chair perked their heads higher, then groaned with a unified whine when Aileas passed the final column and neared the center of the room.
Gray dropped a hand to the nearest dog’s head and buried his fingers in the thick, wiry fur. “I feel the same way, lad. But we must be tolerant of the past chieftain’s wife.”
The hound disagreed with a low, rumbling growl.
Both dogs lumbered to their feet and retreated to the passage connecting the meeting hall to the outer kitchens.
Cowards. Gray glared at the retreating beasts, all the while wishing he could join them. Ever since thedearbh fhinehad named himTànaisteto the chieftainship rather than Fearghal, his father’s only legitimate son, Aileas had seen fit to test his patience, along with his leadership, at every opportunity.
The bitter woman had never publicly denounced him as the bastard son of her dead husband’s leman, but sources reported she had shared this opinion privately on more than one occasion.
A sad smile pinched the corner of Gray’s mouth as he straightened in the chair. Damned if he wouldn’t wager his best warhorse that his parents had reunited on the other side and stood together at this very moment ... laughing because he had been left behind to deal with the unpleasant Aileas.
The tall, gangly woman lumbered forward. She kept one oversized hand locked in the crooked arm of the puny young man stumbling along beside her. Aileas’s wispy hair had escaped its combs, fluttering about her perspiring face and wide shoulders like a veil of mud-brown cobwebs. The exertion of dragging her clumsy son the length of the hall had reddened the broken capillaries covering her bulbous nose and her sallow, pockmarked cheeks.
When the woman came to a halt in front of the main table, she yanked her ill-fitting dress back into place across her sturdy, big-boned frame.
As he had more times than he cared to remember, Gray wondered how his father could have ever bedded such a woman and managed to seed a son. There was not enough whisky in all the Highlands to blind a man to the undeniable truth that the Lady Aileas more closely resembled a surly blacksmith than a comely chieftain’s wife.
“My chieftain.” Aileas coughed out the word “chieftain” as though it had lodged crossways in her throat and she was trying to hack it loose. “Fearghal is greatly distressed over the treatment he received this verra morning at the stables.”
Gray shifted his gaze to the nervous man twitching at Aileas’s side. Gray almost felt sorry for the poor excuse for a Scot. Almost. Fearghal might be a sniveling wimp, but he also possessed a cruel streak Gray had witnessed on several occasions. Fearghal’s preferred method of bolstering his own confidence was to torment those less fortunate than himself. Fearghal was a bully. In the worst possible ways, the unpleasant oaf mirrored the cruelties of his hateful mother. Gray rolled his shoulders against the wave of disgust Fearghal and Aileas always triggered. It could not be that he and Fearghal shared the same father.
“What distressed ye this time, Fearghal?” Gray struggled to keep the contempt out of his tone as he straightened in the chair and feigned interest in Fearghal’s plight. His father’s words rang in his ears: a chieftain is known by his actions as well as his word.
“They...” Fearghal’s annoying voice stalled out. He swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple skittered up and down his long narrow neck like a mouse scurrying beneath the bedclothes. His wide-set eyes darted nervously to the right of the room where several of Gray’s men were seated. “Yer guard would not grant my wish to ride one of the horses that best suits my station. The man dared suggest I take one of the children’s training mares.”
Fearghal’s pompous statement soured Gray’s mood further. What arrogance. Gray did not doubt Fearghal’s claim. The last time the dunce had been given a decent horse, Fearghal had returned on foot and the valuable horse had never been seen again.
By this time, Colum, Clan MacKenna’s chief man-at-arms, had assumed his usual position beside Gray’s chair. With one hand resting atop the pommel of his sword, Colum stepped forward and joined the conversation in a tone leaving no doubt as to how little he thought of Fearghal. “Our clan’s stables can nay afford to turn our stock of best-bred horses free into the Highlands. Too many thieves lay in wait to claim them for their own.” Colum jerked his chin toward Aileas’s scowling face. “Perhaps yer mother might grant ye access to her decrepit mount or mayhap even her closed wagon. Yer arse might stay seated atop a wagon’s board better than it stays planted in a saddle.”
