Caelan silenced her with a kiss and didn’t raise his head until he was certain she was completely breathless. “Dinna fash yourself, my love. I have a plan. But for now, let’s go home and have our pagan honeymoon tonight. Then we shall have a second one when we’re back home in Scotland.”
He reached over and buckled her in securely, then fastened his seatbelt and started the truck. As he pulled past the gate, heshouted to the midnight guard on shift, “I’ll be back to get the other truck tomorrow!”
CHAPTER 11
“Tell her everything first. This notion ye’ve come up with might not even be necessary.” Emrys shook a knobby finger in Caelan’s face. “Ye dinna have that much time left. This fool plan of yours not only wastes precious time but valuable resources.”
“Thisfool plan of mineas ye call it, old man, will give my wife peace of mind, clear her name before she leaves, and also allow her the sweet taste of a revenge well played.” Caelan jotted a few more numbers in another column of Rachel’s ledger. Thank the gods and goddesses his father had insisted he be tutored at a young age even though the knowledge of ciphers and reading had to be practically beaten into him. “Lore a’mighty, I dinna see how the woman survived as long as she has.”
“If ye tell her she’s traveling across time, then she won’t have to worry about any of this mess anymore!” Emrys waved a hand across the neatly laid out piles of invoices, canceled checks, and receipts.
“I know Rachel,” Caelan said while squinting at the scrawl across a receipt so he could match it to an entry in the ledger. “She’ll not be at peace if she knows that bastard Larkin is pissing on her trees to mark them as his own.”
Emrys blew out a heavy sigh and dragged a chair out from the table to sit. With a defeated groan, he propped his head in his hands. “So ye need me to bring back enough gold to clear her debt and buy her lands. Everything must be transferred to your name. Is that what ye wish?”
“Aye,” Caelan said, while running his fingertip down another column of numbers. “I spoke with a solicitor—I mean, alawyer—in the next town who can take care of all the paperwork for right now, as well as the paperwork for after we’ve crossed over and Larkin discovers we’ve gone.”
“There must be no errors,” Emrys warned. “Ye ken well enough that a man as rich and conniving as Larkin didn’t get there by being honest.” The old man ran his hands through his shaggy white hair until it stood on end.
“That, oh grand and mighty druid to the MacKay, is where ye need to shine. Cast a binding spell on all the contracts, bequests, and wills so they can never be broken. If memory serves, that was your second most favorite magick next to time travel—was it not?” Caelan sat back in the chair and folded his arms across his chest.
Emrys took on a sly look, pursing his lips as he pushed up from the table. “I shall do as ye request, my fine laird. Obtain the gold by tomorrow night’s full moon—but onlyafterye tell Rachel how and, more importantly,whenwe will arrive in Scotland. I shall do no magick until she knows the entire truth of things.”
“Ye old bastard.” Caelan slammed his fists on the table, shaking the neat stacks of papers back into disorderly piles. “That is blackmail.”
“No.” Emrys shook his finger again. “That is what ye should have done before ye bedded the lass outside of the dream plane. By all the Fates and Furies, have ye no honor left in your bones?” Anger dripped from Emrys’s every word. “What happens now if ye tell her the truth and she refuses to accept it and crossover, yet she is carrying your child? Then what shall ye do when ye have to leave not only your soulmate here, but your son or daughter as well? What were ye thinking, man?”
Caelan let his mouth sag open, completely at a loss for words. Then he shook himself, refusing to even consider such a terrible thing. “The time has not been right. Ye ken that as well as I. I thought if she and I spent a little more time together, then somehow, it would all come together.”
“Time is a luxury of which ye are quickly running out. Need I remind ye that ye came to the year 2007 with only a set number of days to accomplish this task?” Emrys shoved away from the kitchen table and started toward the door to the back porch. “I shall return at sunset tomorrow to see if ye’ve done as I’ve said, ye ken?” He paused in the doorway and looked back at Caelan. “Tell her the dogs may come. Kindred spirits may pass freely without harm.”
He shook his head and mumbled as he stepped out the door, “Mayhap, that will somehow help your case.”
The morning sunglistened across their rings, the metal seeming to warm his flesh as he smiled down at their hands lying together on his bare chest. More thankful than he had ever been in his life, Caelan watched the mystical energies send a rainbow of colors dancing across the ceiling. The symbols shaped into the metalwork embraced the shafts of sunlight, then set them free again, strengthening the promise of the eternal circle, the infinite hope, and the endless gift of true love.
It soothed his soul to stroke Rachel’s silky hair as she slept nestled in the curve of his shoulder. Her leg curled around hiswith a possessiveness that hardened him to readiness as she shifted in her sleep.
Lore a’mighty, he could stay like this forever. With an almost silent groan, he thought over how he needed to convince his beloved lass that traveling back in time to the Scotland of 1379 was no great feat at all. He had to make her see how wonderful and full their lives would be—raising a castle full of rowdy bairns and growing old among his proud and caring people. She needed to understand how leaving all the conveniences of this time also meant leaving all the complications. Tensed beyond measure, he shifted and ran his free hand through his hair, a bleak realization hitting him that energy from their rings no longer danced across the ceiling. An omen, perhaps? Goddess help him, he prayed not.
“You’re fidgeting,” Rachel said around a yawn, then nuzzled his neck with warm kisses before shifting higher to nip his ear.
“Ye keep nipping at me, and I shall do more than fidget,” he promised as he rolled her over onto her back. He smiled down at her. “I fear I must beg ye show me a bit of mercy this morning, though. We need to discuss the details of our trip.”
She arched upward and ground her hips into him, grinning impishly as she tickled his sides, then slowly raked her nails down his back the way he loved. “You said we didn’t have to leave until the end of October. We’ve got lots of time to work out the details before then.”
Caelan grabbed her wrists and rolled to a sitting position, pulling her to a neutral spot beside him on the bed. Goddess, help him. He couldn’t concentrate when she did the things she did. “Rachel, I am serious. This is a talk we should’ve had days ago. I have not been entirely honest with ye.”
“Oh, hell. You’re married, aren’t you?” She spat the words out so fast, at first, he wasn’t sure what she said.
He frowned at her. “What say ye?”
“I said, ‘You are married’,” she repeated, baring her clenched teeth.
“Aye. I am.” He wasn’t sure what the problem was. Of course, he was married. To her. He nodded. “We two are married in the old way, but we’ll still need to say the vows at the altar and record them in the Church when we get home. As laird of my clan, I am expected to have my wedding vows sanctioned by the Church.”
She closed her eyes, scrubbed her face with both hands, then dropped them into her lap. “Okay. Well, that’s good. But what have you been dishonest about? Are you really from Scotland?”
“Aye.”
