He pulled her in and looked down at his watch.
“It’s only eight; we still have a couple of hours,” he told her, pulling her in a little closer, as if he also wasn’t ready. She looked up and kissed him, a long deep passionate kiss, one that she didn’t want him to forget.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, why?” she said, confused.
“Morning breath, remember?” he teased.
She laughed, then kissed him again. “If I can break a centuries-old curse, I can also break my own rules sometimes,” she joked back.
Alistair got up to put the kettle on and pop some bread in the toaster.
Nora walked over and sat at the island, watching him pace the kitchen.
“Are you okay?” she asked, echoing his own question.
“I’m just thinking about everything. It’s a lot to take in.”
“It is. It’s going to be strange going back to my life in Vermont after everything,” she confessed.
“I get that. I feel like last week was a lifetime ago.”
For Nora, it felt like lifetimes and lifetimes ago. Even though she had regained all the memories of her past lives, they were slowly fading. She couldn’t remember what James’s face looked like anymore, or Peter’s or Charles’s. They had all faded into one: Alistair’s face.
They spent the rest of the morning packing while talking about everything that had happened. Nora called Stuart, the all-in-one driver, for a lift back to the bus station. Alistair had found a bus back to Edinburgh at noon and booked them both tickets online.
Before Stuart arrived, she and Alistair walked over to check on Betty. She was out on the walkway when they arrived with her bag resting next to her.
“You leaving, Betty?” Alistair asked as they approached her.
“Yes, a car should be here any minute to pick me up. I am itching to get back home after all of this,” she told them.
“How are you feeling?” Nora inquired as she leaned against the railing of the walkway.
“As good as new,” she said, and she looked it. She had seemingly made a full recovery from her mysterious illness overnight. “I want to thank you both for everything you did for me. I’m not sure what would have happened if you two hadn’t been here.”
“Of course. We’re just happy you’re feeling better,” Alistair said as a black car pulled up into the turnaround near the cabins.
“That’s me,” Betty said.
Alistair picked up her bags and walked them to the car. Before Betty got in, she turned and said, “See, you two make a cutecouple,” then winked and got into the backseat and shut the door.
Alistair put his arm around Nora, and they waved goodbye as she drove off down the road. They turned and walked back down the stairs toward the cabin when Alistair said, “I think she might be right.”
“About what?”
“Us being a cute couple,” he said with a smile.
“Yeah, it’s too bad the storm didn’t hold out a few more days so we could have explored that further,” she joked, but in all seriousness, she had wished it were true. Everything had happened so fast that they hadn’t had time to talk about what was next. And it was too late now. They would be headed to the bus station in the next few minutes, on their way back to their prospective lives. They entered the cottage for the last time, taking the final sweep of the place before Stuart arrived.
“You know, this place is actually your birthright. If you can prove you are Marjorie’s last living relative, you might be able to get ownership over it,” Alistair told her as he zipped up his bag and sat it next to the door.
“I don’t know; I’m not sure I belong here,” she said, taking the stack of letters out of the shoebox and placing them in her bag on top of the little red book, the photo album, and her grandfather’s code journal. “I think it’s time to make a fresh start of my own,” she told him, as she looked around the cottage one last time.
She walked over to the bookcase and pulled down the copy ofThe Unfortunate Traveller. She dusted off its jacket, tucked it under her arm, then pulled downNature’s Apothecarynext. Walking back, she placed both books in her bag.
Alistair raised his eyebrows at her. “Technically, these are my books, seeing how they were Marjorie’s,” she said with a sly smile.
