Unable to resist her favorite person in all the world, Rachel ducked her head and ran into Granny’s waiting arms. “I hate them! They’re sending you away, and I’ll never see you again. I hate them, and I’m gonna put one of them spells on them like you do!”
“Shhh,” Granny said, her frail hug tightening around Rachel. “Hush now, sweet girl. You know better.” Granny smoothed Rachel’s tangled curls away from her face and smiled down into her eyes. “You always get back times three what you send out. Remember that, Rachel. For the good of all, harm none.”
“B-but…” Rachel hiccupped and sobbed in her precious grandmother’s embrace, committing the smell of lavender, sage, and lilacs to memory. “It’s my fault they’re sending you away. They say you’re just not right, and you shouldn’t be ’round me no more. I hate them!”
“Look at me, gal. Our time together is over for now.” With a trembling hand, Granny wiped the tears from Rachel’s face. “But when you need me the most, I’ll return and help you. You just wait and see.” She bent and kissed Rachel on the forehead. “Now you run and take Granny’s book with you. Hide it whereit will never be found, so you’ll have it when I come back to help you. Run now. Hurry, sweet girl. They’re coming and mustn’t see you with that book or where you hide it. Run!”
The last thing Rachel remembered was running from that porch with Granny’s leather journal hugged to her chest. Busy with her mission to hide it, her parents hauled Granny away without even allowing her to say goodbye, and whisper that she’d hidden the bookreal good. Rachel swallowed hard. She never saw Granny again.
She gasped in a shuddering breath as she snapped out of the trance, her hand to her throat as she wheezed with a heart wrenching sob. It had been years since she’d thought about the awful day they had taken Granny off. Why would that terrible memory come to her now?
Sniffing back tears and shoving the raw memory back into the shadows where it belonged, she started the truck while her mind whirled in all directions. But even in her sadness, she couldn’t resist a faint smile. Granny had been such a talented, wise woman. Country folk had come from all over to beg her for healing and her love potions.
Maybe that was why she hadn’t been all that shocked about the mystical aspects of Caelan’s story. She’d spent the first seven years of her life being raised and instructed by a woman known far and wide for her healing powers and her abilities to help with the elemental issues. Granny had been a proud and powerful witch.
It was only when Rachel had exhibited even stronger talents in the mystical arts that her parents decided it was time to lock the old woman up in a nursing home. Imprisoned inside a sterile world of glass, plastic, and ceramic tile it had taken Granny’s soul only three months to vacate her body and seek refuge on a more welcoming plane of existence.
A heavy sigh pushed free of Rachel as she turned the truck toward home. “Where in the world did I put that book?” she asked her reflection in the rearview mirror, frowning as she tried to remember. A tiny plan, delicate and new, began itching at the base of her brain, and if she could find Granny’s book, she just might figure out if she could do it.
Fully engulfed in a jaw-cracking yawn,Rachel slid out of the truck. Thankful to be home, and a lot calmer and determined than she had been when she left. She tried to close the truck door quietly to keep from rousing the dogs into a barking frenzy. As she stepped back from the truck and turned toward the house, she screeched as Caelan scooped her up into his arms.
“I feared ye had left me for good.” He buried his face in her hair and held her clutched to his chest, her feet dangling in midair.
“I can’t breathe,” Rachel said, while trying to shift the laptop wedged under her chin.
He loosened his hold but kept her pinned to his chest and her feet well up from the ground. “If I let ye down,” he asked in a voice rasping with emotion, “will ye swear not to leave me? Never again?”
She tilted her head and caught sight of his weary face revealed by the porch light and the light of the full moon. Guilt nudged her conscience before she reminded herself that the situation wasn’t entirely all her fault. “I haven’t quite figured everything out yet, but no. I promise I won’t take off again.”
Ever so slowly, he allowed her to slide lower until her feet touched the ground, and she stood in front of him. He rested his hands on her shoulders, gripping tighter as he drew her closer.“Of your own free will, you are choosing to travel to the past? To be my wife? Say the words, Rachel. I canna believe ye until ye say the words.”
She tamped down a fresh wave of guilt over the lie she was about to tell and pushedPlan Bto the back of her mind. With his worried face framed between her hands, she nodded. “Of my own free will, I choose to travel back in time to be with you, my beloved husband.”
Caelan threw back his head and let out a Scottish war cry that echoed across the Kentucky hillside. Sam and Maizy came running, barking, and ready for battle. Emrys stuck his head out the apartment window, his white hair even wilder than normal.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” the old druid shouted. “Is one of the rival clans invading?”
Caelan grabbed Rachel around the waist and spun her around until all the coffee she’d drank threatened to come back out.
She beat on his shoulders. “Stop! Before I puke!”
He halted but still held her high in the air. “She agreed,” he shouted. “It is done. She is coming home.”
“That was entirely too easy,” Emrys mumbled before pulling his head back inside. “The lass is up to something. I’d bet my eyeteeth on it.”
Rachel heard what he said but was relieved when Caelan ignored it. She shot a narrow-eyed look at the window that the druid had disappeared into and made a mental note to watch him. She would not allow him to ruin herPlan B.
Still breathinghard from climbing the rugged incline, Rachel leaned back against the tree, straining to listen for any soundof anyone following her through the woods. Weariness and worry plagued her. Weariness from not sleeping well, and worry because the pregnancy test had come up positive.
“But the pee sticks aren’t foolproof,” she reminded herself even though intuition told her the test was spot on. Being pregnant would explain a lot—and she and Caelan hadn’t exactly been steadfast about always taking precautions. She shivered away the thought and forced herself to make her way deeper into the trees.
Even though she was exhausted, she had to perform the ritual that had surfaced from her memories before the sun rose, andbeforeshe forgot the ritual again. It was the only rite she fully remembered without the aid of Granny’s journal. Hopefully, it would work and not only lead her straight to the book itself but also confirm if the pregnancy test was right and provide even more information. Granny had always accurately predicted a woman’s offspring whenever asked if it was a boy or a girl.
She paused at the hidden spring behind an outcropping of limestone and splashed the icy water on her face and throat. When this was over, she would return home to Caelan, curl up against his warm, welcoming body, and sleep forever.
When she reached the clearing, she remembered from her childhood, Rachel smiled wistfully. “I still miss you, Granny,” she whispered into the breeze. Knowing she had little time, she removed all her clothing and reverently unfolded the carefully preserved cloak she had retrieved from the trunk tucked away in the attic.
The deepest of purple velvets; it perfectly matched her eyes and settled around her shoulders as though made for her. She freed her hair and let it tumble down her back as the moonlight spun silvery lights and threads through her curls. She took it as a good sign that what part of her pale skin that wasn’t coveredby the cloak seemed to glow as though she were lit from within. It could be the pregnancy, the gift of magick Granny had passed down to her, or both, but she hoped that for certain it was the magick. As she stood in the clearing, the woods went silent and the breeze disappeared as though, at long last, their mistress had returned.
