He chuckles, and with a nip to my ear, whispers, “You’rebeautiful.”
“You said you saw me, when you came to me as a ghost.”
He makes a warding gesture with his hand. “Ghosts are dead.”
“You know what I mean. How did your spirit, or whatever, find me?”
“Donag had told me of her chant. I had it in my head as I went to sleep. ’Twas then I first found you—a dream, yet not a dream.” He rests a warm and heavy hand on my head. “I fell asleep thinking of the chant. But I found you. Not Janet.”
“But you didn’t actually say the chant, so how is that possible? Donag needs all kinds of supernatural juju to make the spell work, right?”
“Mayhap I’ve the knack for it. Or mayhap it’s simply I’ve opened my mind to it. Whatever the reason, my soul found yours across time.” He says it easily, like he’s talking about finding his car in a parking lot.
He notices my confusion and smiles. “There’s no puzzle to it, my Rosie-love. Seems to me as natural as breathing. With you is where I most wish to be. Some part of myself will remain with you always. Has been with you, always.”
I curl my fingers, gathering the fabric of his shirt. “Well, we’re not going to part. So.”
“So.” He pulls my hand loose and kisses my palm. “Mayhap it wasn’t me coming to you, but rather the universe sending me. Two halves, each finding the other.”
“A woman at the inn told me you were a taish.”
He shudders with mock alarm. “Heaven forfend. Enough with the ghosts and taishes. A taish is an apparition, Rosie-love. Of a dying man.”
“No.” I’m back up on my elbow, and words blurt from me without thinking. “She said it might be an image of my future husband.” I think my heart actually stops for a second once I realize what I’ve said.
But Callum doesn’t seem to mind at all. His palm slides around my cheek, his voice soft as he asks, “Would you allow that? Have me as your husband?”
“I’m only nineteen.”
He shrugs. Like, he doesn’t get what the big deal is. But he must sense how I’m unnerved, because he says lightly, “Not much would change. We already share a name. With Gregor as your father?—”
“How weird. I guess you’re right. Technically, my name is Rosie MacGregor.”
He says something like, “And what a bonnie name it is,” but I don’t register it.
Because I see a name in my mind’s eye. Or rather, a first initial.
“R MacGregor,” I whisper.
“Mo chridhe.” He looks alarmed as he draws back to get a better look at me. “You’ve gone stiff as a post. We don’t need to talk on marriage if you’ve not the wish to.”
“No, no, it’s not that. I just…” A violent shiver runs through me, goose bumps rippling across my skin. “I saw a grave on Campbell land. Under the apple tree.”
Callum stills. “Whose?”
I swallow hard. “R MacGregor, 1622.”
His whole body goes rigid. “Are you certain?”
I nod.
His voice drops. “Love…might you have read it wrong? The stone will have weathered?—”
“I know what I saw.” My pulse pounds. “The whole thing freaked me out. And I remember every grave, every word. Vividly.” The sightless angel. Thedere mother,infant at her side.
“1622 will soon be over. And the Campbell shelters no other MacGregors. Only Donag and myself.”
“And me. R MacGregor.”
