“Who are the women?”
“The Triple Goddess. They shattered the keystone into three pieces to protect it.”
His response made more questions surface in her mind. She started with the simplest one. “From whom?” she asked.
“The Clan MacDonald.” He pointed to the army advancing on the Triple Goddess.
Brianna noticed the wall hanging next to Evie then. There, she saw a familiar face—Chloe. And behind her, a man. Like the wall hanging showing Evie, this one had a rip in the space around Chloe and the man, as though they had tumbled through it. Through the rip, she thought she saw a city.
“Who’s the man?” she asked.
“Bruce MacDonald. He followed her through time.”
MacDonald.
The man she’d met on the street in Edinburgh said his name was John MacDonald. Was he related to this Bruce? He had said something about the stone calling to him and that’s why he tried to get it from her. The only person who would know the answer to that was Chloe. She made a mental note to ask her about it later.
The final tapestry nearly made her heart stop. She moved closer to inspect it, to make sure she was seeing what she was seeing.
There she was, standing on a craggy hill with her hair billowing around her wearing a white gown. One hand was clenched and glowing. The other reached for something or someone. At the edge of the moving picture, she saw an image. Perhaps ahand reaching for her? It wasn’t clear.
What was clear was that she was in that tapestry. Just like her sisters.
She pressed cold, shaking fingers to her lips. “It’s me.”
“Aye,” he said, his voice low. “And this one, too.”
He pointed to the tapestry next to that one. There, woven in the enchanted fibers, was another image of her falling through time. Just like the one with Evie and Chloe, there was a rip in time around her. And through that she saw what appeared to be the city. She’d used the keystone when she was on the terrace of the museum.
“I ken ye were going to arrive when yer image fully appeared.”
This is what he meant. He was waiting for her to fully appear in the tapestry. He’d said he was waiting to see her arrival. Hot pinpricks danced along her spine as heat flashed over her. She unbuttoned the coat and ripped it off, dropping it on the floor and stepping closer to examine the shimmering thread of the woven fabric. The images truly were moving.
“You knew I was going to arrive,” she repeated. “You knew because you saw it foretold in this tapestry.”
“Aye,” he agreed.
“That’s why you were there when I woke up.”
“I dinnae ken it would be today.”
She turned to face him. “So, you just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
He stepped closer to her. There was no mistaking the burning desire deep in his eyes. His gaze was like a soft caress, leaving a tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach.
“’Twas good luck.” He grinned, one corner of his mouth pulling up which was so familiar now she found it endearing.
“And did I meet your expectations?” The words spilled from her mouth before she was able to stop them. She knew what she was doing—but flirting with this young Scotsman seemed harmless.
“More than ye can ever know.”
His voice was low and soft, rumbling around in that magnificent chest of his. He stood a breath from her. She hadn’t realized he was so close until the moment he reached for her, cupping her face. Nor had she realized he was much taller than her. So tall, in fact, she had to tip her head back to look up into those devastating eyes that had such depth she thought she could fall in and never pull herself out.
When his lips met hers, she did not expect to feel anything other than a simple kiss, the brush of his lips on hers. What she felt, instead, was so much more. Her heart exploded with a fiery passion she thought long dead. Her arms slid around his waist as they fell into each other, his body rock hard and solid against hers. He was not like the men of her time—the men of her time who were soft and weak.
His mouth was tender and sweet and experienced, which surprised her. He certainly knew what he was doing when it came to kissing and she certainly liked kissing him. A mewl vibrated in her throat. Then he was trailing kisses across her jawline.
A part of her screamed at her to push him away, to stop this nonsense. But the other part—the part so starved for this type of affection—refused to do that. That part of her wanted more and more and more. That part of her wanted this to never end. That part of her wanted him to go on kissing her forever.
