“Where is Tamhas?” Trulie glanced toward a tangle of bushes.
Granny’s cheeks flushed an even brighter shade as she gave her hair a final pat. “He will be along shortly.”
Judging by the look on Granny’s face, Trulie didn’t want any details. “I need your help,” she blurted out. Granny had to make Gray see reason.
Concern wiped all merriment from Granny’s expression. She shook the wrinkles out of her skirts and took a step forward. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Gray.” Trulie quickened her impatient pacing to a frustrated stomp in a tight circle. “He’s ... he’s...” she groaned. “He refuses to see reason.”
Granny studied her with a confused scowl. “About?” When Trulie didn’t speak, she rolled her eyes heavenward and lifted her hands. “I need a little more to go on than ‘He refuses to see reason.’”
Trulie stopped pacing and stared down at the ground. “He can’t understand why I won’t go back in time and keep his parents from dying in that fire.”
“I see,” Granny said softly. She reached for Tamhas as he pushed through the brush with his wet hair slicked back into a tight queue. “Did you explain to him why you couldn’t?” she asked while stroking his burly forearm and leaning against his shoulder.
“If the lad has set his mind on what he wants, she will not be able to turn him no matter what she says.” Tamhas kissed Granny’s hand and leaned against his staff against his shoulder.
“He’s right,” Trulie agreed. “I even told him about Tia and he still wants me to go back and save them.”
“He blames himself for his mother’s death,” Tamhas explained. His face darkened with the memory of that night as he stared off into the distance. “Perhaps his guilt is what drives him to not see the reason of yer words.”
“But I can’t risk it.” Trulie could tell by the look on Granny’s face that the wise old woman had shifted into plotting mode. Good. That was exactly what this problem needed—a Granny plan of attack. “And since he asked me, and I said no, things aren’t...” She flicked a hand. “Things just aren’t right anymore.” The uncomfortable weight of the situation crushed her in its grip. A dull ache throbbed through her like an ill-timed heartbeat.
Granny slid from Tamhas’s embrace, easing her way around the circle as she thoughtfully tapped a bent finger against her mouth. After one slow lap around the clearing, she stopped and stared down at the ground. “Perhaps it is time to study that fateful night from a different angle.” She slowly lifted her head and stared at Trulie.
Trulie slowly moved forward, barely shaking her head. “Are you talking about alternate timelines?” Now was not the time for Granny to be cryptic.
“No.” Granny shook her head. She scrubbed both hands up and down her arms beneath the bell of her sleeves as though she had taken a sudden chill. “I am talking about showing Gray what really happened that night—from his parents’ point of view.”
A sense of foreboding shivered through Trulie. “What if what we show him is worse than what he already knows?”
Granny lifted her chin and smoothed her hands down the front of her soft-gray dress. “That is not the case. I knew Gray’s mother well.”
“And you were going to tell me this when?” Trulie did her best to keep her jaw from dropping. Why hadn’t Granny told her this before?
“I am telling you now. That is all that matters.” Granny fixed Trulie with a stern look and jerked her head toward the deer path. “Go get Gray. Meet me in the gardens. It is time he saw the night of the fire from a different perspective.”
* * *
He hadto let it go. Gray scrubbed his palms against the cold roughness of the stone wall. For sanity’s sake, he had to let it go.
“I canna release it,” he admitted in a defeated whisper. His head sagged forward and he closed his eyes. The night of the fire exploded inside his mind. His mother’s cries. His father’s roared curses. Cythraul’s screams as the terrifying blaze set the fearless warhorse bucking against the choking, smoke-filled air.
And all of it could be prevented. Gray lifted his face to the gentle breeze and sucked in a deep lungful. If only Trulie would agree, all the pain and terror of that terrible night could be wiped away like blood washed from a shield.
Trulie. He fisted one hand and brought it down hard against the stone. He hated himself for allowing this obsession to drive a wedge between them. What the hell was wrong with him? Since her arrival, he had felt whole. Complete. Why the devil did he have to ruin it?
“Ye are wanted in the garden,” Colum called from the carved stone steps leading down to the bailey. “Come, Gray. Ye brood overmuch about that which canna be changed.”
Damn, Colum. The man had no idea of what he spoke. All he knew was the Sinclair women had somehow traveled back from the future. The fool did not realize the extent of the women’s powers.
“Who waits in the garden?” Gray had no intention of moving from the narrow footpath running atop the curtain wall. Looking out upon the wild beauty of his land was the only solace he found these days.
“Yer woman waits.” Colum shifted on the narrow stairs and leaned against the wall. “A wise man never keeps his woman waiting.”
“What do ye ken about my woman?” Gray spit over the wall. The taste of the situation curdled on his tongue. He almost flinched at the frustration he heard in his own tone. Lore, he sounded like a man who had just been booted from his lover’s bed. “What does she want?” he said as he leaned with his forearms propped atop the wall. The day was nearly spent. It would soon be the time in the evening when both sun and moon shared the sky as they slowly swapped places, the in-between time when energy painted the horizon with cooling blues and heated crimsons. “What does she want, Colum?” Gray repeated as he turned away from the rugged hills spanning as far as he could see.
Colum turned and loped down a couple of steps. “Come to the garden and ask her yerself.” The grating crunch of his boots thudding down the rest of the staircase shadowed his voice as he called out. “Ye best hurry. Granny is with her and ye ken how patient that old woman is.”
