Now, three years later, newly divorced and teetering on financial ruin, she was determined to turn her life around without the love and acceptance she had always been denied by her parents—and eventually, by her husband. Only Granny had loved and understood her, and she had lost her when she was just seven. But things were going to change now, and she was going to find genuine happiness if it was the last thing she did. Nudged from her inner pep talk by a cold wet nose poking her in the ribs, she reached down and ruffled the velvety ears of the loyal lab. “I love you too, Maizy. You’re my special girl, and you love me no matter what.”
A high-pitched yip on her other side and a frantic digging at her legs let Rachel know in no uncertain terms that Sam also needed her attention.
“I love you too, Sam. After all, you’re the only male I will ever trust again!”
The demanding little dog cocked his head to one side, his huge terrier ears perked as he intently took in every word.
Gently pushing them aside, she rose from her chair and went to the yellowed countertop beside the refrigerator. She pulled the ledger book from where she always stuffed it between the cookbooks, a crock of wooden spoons, and the knife block. She opened the book to the section marked with a paper clip.
“I have to figure a way to pay these bills and bring in more income, or we’re going to find ourselves out of a place to live.” She chewed on the corner of her lip while tapping the page. No matter how many times she added up the entries in the ledger, her pitiful savings account and upcoming paycheck ran out long before the numbers in the column were accounted for.
Her job at the steel mill barely kept her body and soul together and fed the dogs. The slump in the steel market had put a stop to any available overtime she might’ve volunteered for to bail herself out of some of this debt. Even though her marriage had lasted only a short four years, her conniving ex ensured he didn’t walk away from the relationship empty-handed. Between lining up bed partners while she was on shift at the mill, he had methodically siphoned money out of their joint accounts into one bearing his name only and known only to him.
To keep the small acreage of land and the leaky roof of Granny’s old house in her name, Rachel had been forced to take out a loan to buy out what the court had deemed was David’s half in the divorce settlement. According to the laws, the lowlife was entitled to half of everything no matter how big of a horse’s ass he was. Unfortunately, she’d not been able to afford the type of lawyer who was slick enough to convince the judge that her lying, thieving husband was a full-sized Clydesdale’s ass.
The jerk had also been thoughtful enough to max out all their credit cards. Even topping out a few she hadn’t known he’d taken out in both their names. Her lawyer assured her David would be held responsible for part of the debt, but since he’d disappeared from the face of the earth, the creditors found it easier to harass her for what they were owed.
As an afterthought, she shoved the ledger back among the cookbooks, picked up the ancient kitchen wall phone, and punched in the number to work. She had to make this call before she attempted to put work out of her mind during the next two weeks.
“Joel? Hey, yeah, it’s Rachel.” Cradling the receiver between her cheek and shoulder, she stretched to open the junk drawer and fished out a pen. “Yes, I am on vacation, but I was calling to see if any overtime time at all might be available for the weekI come back. Any scheduled vacations or leaves of absence that might need to be covered?”
She narrowed her eyes at yet another crack in the grout work surrounding the tile around the sink’s backsplash, while half-heartedly listening to what she knew was going to be Joel’s answer. “I know you have to go by seniority, but just keep me in mind. I’ll take it if nobody else will, okay?” She blew out what she hoped was a silent sigh as she leaned forward and propped her elbows on the peeling linoleum of the countertop. “Yeah, I’ll try to keep my mind off work and enjoy my time off. I know. Okay. See you when I get back.” She placed the receiver of the ancient, goldenrod yellow wall phone back in its cradle.
As she combed her fingers through her tangled mass of curls, the two-story garage standing just behind the house caught her attention. She frowned at it, narrowing her eyes as she folded her arms across her chest. “Maybe I could rent out that old apartment over the garage. I could clean it up and make it livable. Probably couldn’t get much rent, but something is always better than nothing.”
She tried to remember what extra furniture remained in the attic, and what it would take to turn that space into arentableapartment that might bring in at least a few hundred dollars a month.
“Come on, guys.”
Grabbing her ratty ball cap off the peg by the door, she whistled for the dogs as she pulled her hair through the back of the cap. Sam and Maizy crowded around her, fighting to be the first out the door on this latest adventure.
“We have some work to do, babies, or we’re going to be living out of the pickup truck.” Armed with a notepad and pen from the junk drawer, she marched outside, determined to turn the garage into a meal ticket—or at least a way to keep the dogs fed.
“The future is sheer madness!”Caelan flung the strangely slick and colorful parchment made into a book onto the pile of more of the same littering the floor beside the hearth. Emrys had called the thingsmagazines.As far as Caelan was concerned, they were fit for nothing but wiping his arse after he took a shite. To prepare for their journey into the future, the old druid had called forth the disturbing material from the year 2007 through the Mirrors of Time. Caelan scowled down at the pile. Still unable to believe the things he had seen and read.
It would take more than one dram of whisky to settle his mind after studying that heap that needed to be fed to the fire. A chill ran through him. He couldn’t believe what the world would someday become. “Why in Brid's name would the woman even contemplate not coming back here with me? Her world is—terrifying! Surely, she will run into my arms and beg me to save her.”
“Be that as it may…” Emrys lowered the large, shiny magazine he held open wide. “That world is the only chaos she has ever known. To her, it is as normal as this place and time is to yourself.” He tossed the thing aside and snorted. “Burn that one. One of those pages reeks of rotting flowers.” He rubbed the corners of his eyes. “Damned if my eyes dinna burn hot as embers. I’ve not studied this much since my initiation, and that was well over five hundred years ago.”
“Ye said ye went to the future many times.” Caelan gingerly selected another bit of reading material, cringing as he flipped through the pages filled with entirely too thin women and men who wouldn’t be able to hold a proper sword or shield if their lifedepended on it. “Is there famine in 2007? These people need to be fed.”
“I have been to the future many times but not that far forward,” Emrys said. “And my trips were for brief forages of knowledge and lore to ensure the tapestry of time and space remain intact.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and massaged the corners of his eyes. “I can read no more this evening. Weariness blinds me.”
“And the continuum will only allow us to stay for seven moons?” Caelan wished he had longer to win the lass’s trust as well as her heart, but as he’d said earlier, surely, she would beg him to save her. “The span of seven moon cycles is all the time I have to convince her she belongs with me?” He nudged the pile of papers and books with the toe of his boot, sorely tempted to kick all of them into the fire.
“Aye, ye have until midnight on the night of the seventh full moon to convince her the two of ye are meant to be one.” Emrys rubbed his eyes again as he continued, “And she must choose to return with ye willingly. Ye canna kidnap her as ye would do here in the Highlands of this time.” He twisted and stretched, making his bones crackle and pop like the wood burning in the hearth. “She must know the entire truth of it—the truth that she can never return to her era or she’ll not be allowed to remain here, and your love will be lost.”
“From what I have seen of her life, and the age in which she lives, we should be back here with our first child well on its way by the seventh moon!” Caelan allowed himself a smug grin. The thought of finally being with the lass of his heart swelled his chest with joy and anticipation.
“Mind your arrogance, my prideful laird. Ye saw how she was mistreated by her parents and that man she called her husband. She trusts verra few now and men are not among those with which she lets down her guard—ever. What makes ye so certainshe will fall into your arms as soon as ye show at her door? Do ye not feel she will find it strange when we appear? Mayhap, even frightening?” Emrys hit him with a hard, scolding glare.
“Will she not sense our connection as soon as she sees me? How could she not know I am the other half of her soul?” Caelan ignored the old man and stared into the fire. He hated uncertainty. It roiled in his gut like a poorly digested meal. The thought that Rachel might reject him hadn’t occurred to him. Not that he was vain. It was just that when all his ancestors before him found their heartmates, the women had immediately known it as well.
What if she didn’t trust him? What if she wanted nothing to do with him? How was he going to explain to her he was her eternal match, traveling across time and space to join with her and return her to Scotland to be his own?
The fire popped, jerking him from his worries and reminding him Emrys had yet to answer. “Well, old man? Will she not feel our connection when she meets me?”
“That all depends on how sensitive she is to the old ways.” The druid rose from his chair, massaging the small of his back as he ambled around the room. “The future has numbed people to the energies that flow through the universe. Legends and lore have been forgotten and replaced with mind-numbing rhetoric and science.” Still rubbing his back, he rolled his shoulders and continued pacing. “Few can see through the mists of time any longer. Fewer still can sense the mysteries that lie just within their reach. It’ll not be easy convincing your Rachel to believe the truth if she is as tainted to the ways as most of her time has become.”
