G rant needed to kiss her. Again and again. As many times as she would allow, but she drew away from him, a heady combination of fear and yearning in her eyes.
“Jessa,” he whispered while reaching for her, not a bit ashamed about begging her to return to his touch. “I am just as fearful, lass,” he said softly, “and I never admit to being afraid. Not ever.”
She remained rooted to the spot, an arm’s length away, but her longing was slowly overcoming her fear. He could sense it.
“But what happens when I leave?” she asked.
“Leave?”
“When I go back.” She barely shook her head. “I don’t belong here. You know that.”
“Ye belong wherever ye wish to belong.”
“You don’t want a wife. Isn’t that what you told me? Isn’t that what you told Mairwen?”
“Have ye never had a change of heart, lass? Never changed yer mind?”
“What changed your mind?” A defensiveness came over her. She jutted her chin higher, challenging him to answer.
He would much rather sweep her into his arms, haul her up to his bedchamber, and spend the rest of the day convincing her to stay and make a life with him. The thought surprised him, but then again, it didn’t. His heart had known it all along. ’Twas his mind that had to catch up with the realization that he needed to make her his—permanently.
“What changed your mind?” she repeated.
He closed the distance between them. If she wouldn’t come to him, he would go to her. “Yer stubbornness changed my mind.” Pulling her into his arms, he locked eyes with her, daring her to move away from him again. “Yer fire. The way ye fought to protect Griselda and her wee dog.” He slid his fingers along the curve of her cheek and deeper into her hair. “How cold and empty I feel whenever ye are not in my arms.”
“That is just lust,” she said, attempting to seem defiant, but the quiver in her voice gave her away.
He shook his head. “Nay…” Then he shrugged and offered her a faint smile. “Well, mayhap a wee bit of lust, but this is different. A far sight stronger than the mere need to bed a comely lass. This feeling is more like I finally found my way home, and I never wish to leave the warmth of this elusive hearthstone ever again.”
“Home.” She licked her lips as if hungry for the feeling. “That word kept coming to mind when we kissed.”
“Could be because we both yearn to be where we belong.”
Recognition flickered across her before she hid it. “This is your keep. You already belong.”
“Nay, love. That is not the belonging of which I speak, and ye know it. This attachment between us is something a great deal rarer, a precious thing few ever find.” He longed to cover her mouth with his, but instinct warned it was not yet the time. “Do ye not feel it at all? Not even a wee bit? Or are ye simply afraid to admit it?”
“I am not afraid.”
He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. He had asked her that purposely, knowing she would hate being accused of being fearful. “Then ye dinna feel that of which I speak? Are ye telling me this powerful connection is one-sided?”
“I didn’t say that.” Her reddish blonde brows knotted in a worried frown over her troubled eyes. “I feel everything you have described, but I can’t imagine staying here in the past. It’s so…so…”
“What, lass?” He had no idea what she would be giving up, but surely the future could not be so grand as to wish to live there alone and leave behind this connection. This thing between them was addictive. The longer he was around her, the more time he needed with her. “This age is really no different from your own.”
She stared at him as if he were mad. “How can you possibly say that? The first hour I was here, you couldn’t figure out half of what I said.”
“And yet, here we are.” He tightened his arm around her waist and continued stroking her cheek with his thumb. “What does your future possess that ye canna possibly live without?” He held his breath, praying she wouldn’t gush out a long list of things, or worse, another man’s name.
She opened her mouth and then closed it three times, reminding him of a fish pulled from the sea. Finally, she clamped it shut and gave him a pitiful frown. “I miss Emily.”
Ah, yes. The sister by choice and not by blood. A strong connection, indeed. “Leaving kin behind, losing them, is a hard and ugly business. For that part of yer coming here, I am sorry. But I am also a selfish man, m’love, and an honest one. I will not lie and tell ye I wish ye had never come, so ye would not have lost yer Emily. At first, I wanted to help ye find yer way back because I never wished to live a life with someone who hated me at my side. But I dinna think ye hate me so much now, and I damn sure know I dinna hate ye.”
“So now you want a wife.”
“Nay, love. Now, I want ye. No one else. I want the other half of my soul to traverse this life’s treacherous path, a partner, a friend, a lover, and, aye, a wife if that is what ye wish to name it, but that one word hardly seems apt to describe all ye would be to me.”
“Even if it means I have to sacrifice everything I’ve ever known to stay here?”
His heart shifted, sagging with a heaviness that felt as if the bottom had fallen out of his world. “If ye dinna think me worth the sacrifice, then no, I dinna want ye to stay. As I said, I dinna wish to go through this life with someone who hates me.” He released her, dropping his arms to his sides as he stepped back.
“I do not hate you,” she said, her voice quivering with the tears that gleamed in her eyes. “I think…”
He waited, bracing himself and holding his breath.
“Jessa!”
He whirled toward the excited shriek, then turned back again as Jessa squealed just as loudly.
“Emily!”
He shifted again and scowled at the two walking toward them. It was that damned witch with the one Jessa cherished as a sister. Mairwen silently greeted him with a smug nod and a knowing smile.
Before turning his full attention to Jessa and her Emily, dancing and squawking like a pair of feckin’ geese, he shot a narrow-eyed glare at Mairwen, knowing she would get the gist of his displeasure at her timing.
“I never thought I would see you again,” Jessa told the tall, dark-haired woman who reminded Grant of his allies in the east, the royal merchants native to the lands that his nemesis, the East India Trading Company, exploited for coffee and spices. The lasses caught each other up in another hug and continued spinning in a dizzying circle.
“One would think they had been separated a lifetime,” Mairwen observed as she joined him.
“Those two are bound by something much stronger than blood.” Grant resettled his stance and folded his arms across his chest. The women’s greeting and excited talking over one another could last quite a while. He nodded at Jessa’s Emily. “That woman is the sole reason the lass refuses to remain in this time.”
“Refuses?” Mairwen said so sharply that it made him smile. “What do ye mean—refuses?”
“What does refuses usually mean?”
The old witch wrinkled her upper lip as if about to gnash her teeth at him. “Dinna test me, laird. Until ye are fully and happily bound with yer mate, I have enough to say grace over.”
“What the devil does that mean? Are ye telling me the priest converted ye?”
“I am telling ye there is evil afoot. Evil not of this world. One of my Tranquility Weavers sensed a dark energy lurking around the lass before she came to ye.”
A protectiveness shot through him with the heat of a raging inferno. “What dark energy?”
“One that would benefit from the fall of the Veil and thrive upon the chaos that would ensue. Yer Jessa and yerself possess an unusually strong connection. They dinna wish ye united. They fear the strength of yer bond.”
“Aye, well, the strength of our bond may not be strong enough for Jessa to choose to remain in this time and become my wife.” He nodded at the women still holding tightly to one another. “The bond she shares with that one pulls at her, strengthens her reluctance to leave her old life behind.”
“I have spoken to Emily about that. It is my hope she will help Jessa open her mind to all the possibilities a life here offers. She has promised to do so to the best of her abilities.”
“All the possibilities a life here offers?” Had the old witch told the woman that the only way he kept his clan’s body and soul together was by funding his people’s needs through smuggling?
“She does not know ye are a smuggler, and stop calling me an old witch . I have told Emily little about ye. I thought it better that Jessa fill her in so Emily might encourage her. Enough of their ridiculous chattering. We have a union to safeguard.” She charged forward and pushed her way between the lasses, then looked back and summoned Grant with a pointed glare.
He glared right back at her and narrowed his eyes. They would be having a word about her eavesdropping on his thoughts. They had addressed that invasion before. Gritting his teeth, he strode across the way, took his place at Jessa’s side, then gave Emily a gallant bow. “Welcome to MacAlester Keep. I am the laird, Grant MacAlester, at yer service.”
“Good to meet you. I am Emily Mithers, but then you probably already figured that out.” The woman smiled and held out her hand, acting as though she wished him to take it as if she were a tradesman, and they had just struck a deal.
Odd, indeed, but mayhap that was a quirk from the future. He shook her hand, impressed by the firmness of her grip, and wondered if she was handy with a sword. When he noticed Jessa watching him, as if afraid he wouldn’t accept her friend, he did his best to charm the woman who Mairwen had said was going to help him win his Jessa’s heart. “It is glad that I am that ye have come to visit, Mistress Emily. Jessa and I were just discussing how much she missed you.”
With tears in her eyes, Emily turned to Jessa. “I had to come. I was so worried about her.” She shot an irritated look Mairwen’s way. “Her departure was very abrupt.” Her tone clarified that she and the old witch were not on good terms.
Interesting, indeed. Grant smiled. If he could win Emily’s trust, she could prove to be a valuable ally. He wondered if she would consider staying in this time with himself and Jessa.
“That is not her fate,” Mairwen snapped.
“Stay out of my mind, witch,” he retorted with a growl.
“Good,” Emily said. “He’s on our side.”
“He’s on his side,” Jessa corrected, then gave him an apologetic nod. “But he’s been very kind and sort of patient, for which I am very grateful.”
“Sort of patient? I have given ye free rein to spoil my servants, allowed ye to banish a clansman, and dipped into my supply of coffee beans, which I intended to sell in Edinburgh for enough to feed my kinsman for a few months this winter.”
“That clansman was a wife beater and an animal abuser. The pulley system for the well will increase efficiency and decrease injuries, and I never said you had to dip into your precious coffee beans. I would’ve just as gladly drank tea for breakfast.”
“Wow.” Emily appeared impressed. “You two sound like you’ve already been married for like fifty years.”
He jabbed the air, pointing first at Jessa and then at her. “She’ll not agree to marry me because she refuses to leave yer side.” Feckin’ hell. The words had burst free of him before he could stop himself. He snorted and bowed his head. “Forgive me. I should not have said that.’Twas quite rude.”
“Yes, it was,” Jessa said, but followed the accusation with a sigh. “But what he said is true. Grant is many things, but he is not a liar.” She resettled her footing like a hen scratching for bugs, then surprised him by hesitantly looping her arm through his. “He is a good man, Em. Nothing like any of the others.”
“Others? What others do ye speak of?” He glared down at her, ready for an immediate explanation.
“Women sometimes go out with several men before settling down,” she explained.
“Go out with?”
Jessa shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll explain later. Or Mairwen can explain it after she and I have had a nice long chat.”
“Come then,” Mairwen said in acceptance of the unspoken dare. “Walk with me. I feel sure Lord Suddie will not mind entertaining yer Emily.”
“Who is Lord Suddie?” Emily wrinkled her nose as if the name had an odor to it.
“I am, but it is not the title I prefer, and the witch knows it. Call me Grant, the MacAlester, laird, or arsehole, if ye wish, but dinna call me the feckin’ Earl of Suddie.”
Jessa and Emily snorted in unison, then clapped their hands over their mouths, failing to hide their merriment.
Mairwen rolled her eyes, shook her head, and took off across the courtyard, pausing only long enough for Jessa to catch up with her.
“So, why do you hate that name so?” Emily asked once they were alone.
“I feel it, but one more way for the English to distance me from the blood of my ancestors.”
“It is important to remember your ancestors. It took my parents a while to retrace our lineage because it hit so many places: the Caribbean, India, Spain, and South America, to name a few. But now that we know it, we feel we’re richer for it.” The way her dark eyes narrowed made him brace himself for whatever she was about to say. “So, do you believe in this fated mate stuff Mairwen is trying to sell us?”
“I canna say that I did at first.”
“But now?”
He would not lie to Mistress Emily. He owed Jessa that much. “Never have I felt what I feel with Jessa.”
“ With Jessa,” Emily said, “not for her . ”
“I shall describe it to ye the same as I told her. ’Tis as though I have been adrift all my life, lost and searching. When I am with Jessa, I feel as though I have finally found home.” He slowly shook his head. “It defies everything I ever believed myself capable of—an insatiable hunger I never knew I could possess.”
Emily fixed him with an unblinking stare. “You told her that. In those words?”
“Aye.”
The lass shook her head as though reeling. “Damn. And she hasn’t jumped at the chance to marry you?”
He clenched his teeth, sucked in a deep breath, and refrained from reminding the woman that he’d already told her about that particular matter. It was her fault Jessa had yet to accept him.
“Have you slept with her yet?” Emily asked before he could answer.
“She slept in my bed when she arrived. I slept in the chair.”
The lass wrinkled her nose as she stepped closer. “I wasn’t exactly asking about sleeping sleeping.” She twitched a brow with a meaningful look. “I was asking about sleeping— you know.”
“Is this something from the future of which I am unaware?”
“Have the two of you had sex yet?” She scowled at him.
“That is a private matter between myself and Jessa and none of yer damn concern.”
Emily shrugged. “Fine. She’ll tell me.”
Realizing that the cocksure minx was probably right, he bared his teeth. “We have kissed. Nothing more. It would not be fair of me to try anything more whilst she was still so confused.”
“Wow.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you are a rare find, Mr. MacAlester.”
“Dinna call me that either.”
“I could call you what Jessa and I named you when your photo popped up on that app.”
A heavy groan escaped him. He couldn’t help it. There was that feckin’ word again, app
“What?” Emily frowned. “Did Jessa already tell you we named you Mr. MacSexy? Surely you didn’t find that offensive.”
“Mr. MacSexy, eh?” As a matter of fact, he did not take offense at that name. He grinned. “Whilst I find it verra flattering, perhaps it would be best if ye called me Grant, aye? Do ye not think Jessa would prefer that?”
“Probably.” Emily went quiet and fixed her attention on Jessa and Mairwen across the way, where they were carrying on quite a robust conversation. “You know I don’t want her to stay in this time, right?”
“I nay thought ye would, but would ye mind telling me yer reasons other than missing her in yer time?”
“Of course, that’s the main reason.” Emily shifted with a heavy sigh, then shook her head. “I just feel like if she stays here, chances are she’ll die long before she would die in our time.”
“Are ye a seer, then?”
She tore her worried frown from Jessa and fixed a scowl on him. “Well, no. But you know what I mean. In the future, we’ve improved upon a lot of things that kill people right now.”
“So, there are no dangers at all in the future? None that might take her from the world long before anyone is prepared to see her go?”
“Maybe I will call you arsehole, after all.”
“Ye know what I am saying, lass, and ye ken well enough that it be true. We die when we are meant to die. No matter what century in which we find ourselves.”
“Predestination as opposed to free will?” she said. “No matter what choices we make, whatever Fate says will be—will be. That’s what you believe?”
“Aye. The only thing free will affects is how miserable or happy we are during the days between birth and death.”
“Interesting viewpoint.” Emily kicked a small clod of dirt across the cobblestone courtyard. “I still don’t want her to stay.”
“So, Mairwen lied to me yet again?” He had known it all along, felt the truth of it searing a hole through the pit of his stomach.
“I promised Mairwen I wouldn’t talk Jessa into coming back to the future without giving you a chance,” she said, “and I never go back on a promise.” She slowly shook her head while eyeing Jessa, who stood shaking a finger at the old witch. “I just wish it were different.” She sniffed, then turned away so he couldn’t see her face. “I can’t imagine life without Jess.”
“Neither can I, lass. Neither can I.”
* * *
“I trusted you.” Jessa was so angry with Mairwen that she couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I trusted you!” she repeated even louder, hating the shrillness of her tone. The old witch, as Grant so aptly called the woman, had turned her into a snarky bundle of nerves.
“I had yer best interests at heart, lass,” Mairwen said quietly.
“Bullshit! All you care about is your Highland Veil mumbo jumbo. Grant told me so himself.”
“So ye feel nothing toward him, then?” The irritatingly calm elder arched a silvery brow. “And afore ye lie, remember two things: I am quite adept at reading minds, and ye have a tell.”
“A what?”
“A tell,” Mairwen said. “Ye would be a horrid card player. Whenever ye feel uncertain of yerself, not only do ye chew on yer bottom lip, but yer fair skin takes on the heady blush of the reddest rose. Telling lies is not one of yer strengths.”
“I do not belong here.”
“That is not what I asked ye. The question was: do ye feel nothing toward him?”
“I am afraid,” Jessa admitted softly, trying to ignore the shame churning through her. If a love wasn’t strong enough to overcome fear, then was it really a love worth fighting for, a love worth leaving everything behind and leaping into the unknown? “I barely passed the history class required for my degree.”
Mairwen chuckled. “Some things ye canna learn from books or online. Some things can only be learned by being lived.” She nodded in Grant’s direction. “And he’ll not be grading ye, lass, or testing ye on yer knowledge. This is life. Ye are the judge and jury of yerself—as ye have always been. Do ye not think it high time ye stopped being so quick to condemn yerself with a less than satisfactory grade? Look at all ye have survived, lass. Look how brightly ye shine.”
“I do not need a therapy session on self-esteem.”
“I disagree. Ye dinna believe in yerself enough to face yer fears and embrace a life worth living—a life much more than a mere existence.”
Jessa glanced back at Emily and Grant and gave up on trying not to cry. The hot droplets of pure frustration burned their way down her cheeks, and her nose immediately started running. “Dammit.” She sniffed and patted her outer skirt, searching for the opening in the seam that Molly had shown her. Somewhere under all those layers was the small cloth sack the maid had tied around her waist to carry necessaries, as she had phrased it. “When are real freaking pockets invented?”
“Did yer maid not tuck ye a bit of linen behind yer stays?” Mairwen tipped a nod at Jessa’s chest. “A circa 1785 handkerchief? In the winter, ye can keep it tucked inside the sleeve of yer jacket. Much easier to get to that way.”
“I don’t know what she tucked where while trussing me up like a turducken for Thanksgiving.”
Mairwen stepped closer and angled an ear toward her. “Trussed ye like a what?”
“A turducken.” Jessa fished down into the front of her tightly bound stays and found the handkerchief. “You stuff a deboned chicken filled with dressing inside a deboned duck layered with more dressing and herbs, and then you stuff all of that inside a deboned turkey, sew it shut, slather it in butter, wrap it in caul fat, then bake it.”
“Interesting.” The silvery-haired matron brightened. “Ye must show Cook. I am sure the clan would enjoy a dish like that.”
“I don’t make it a habit of eating meat,” Jessa said with an overwhelming sense of guilt at betraying her animal friends. “I love animals alive. Not on my plate.”
“Then how do ye know how to prepare such an extravagant dish?”
“I dated a chef once.”
“I take it that did not last long once ye told him ye preferred yer meals animal-free?”
“Pretty much.” Jessa dipped a curt nod. “See? Yet another reason I can’t stay here. These folks would never tolerate a vegetarian.”
“They will tolerate whatever Grant orders them to tolerate.”
Jessa snorted. “Like the social worker telling the other kids to be nice to me while she met with my fosters. As soon as she left the room, they morphed into demons.”
Mairwen bowed her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. A sternness settled over her as her hand dropped to her side, and she fixed Jessa with a look that made her shiver. “If ye dinna choose a life with yer fated mate, ye will never be whole. Never truly happy. Ye will always feel as if ye are watching life pass ye by. As if ye are standing on the sidelines while everyone else dances. Is that the life ye want? Because the choice is yers. If ye so choose, we will return to the twenty-first century immediately. But know this—whatever you decide, you condemn Grant to that same fate.”
“That isn’t fair.”
With a bitter laugh, Mairwen shook her head. “And who was it that lied to ye, lass, and told ye life was ever fair?”
As Jessa turned and looked at Grant, he looked her way as well. When their eyes met, something indescribable passed between them. Whatever this fated mate fairy tale connection was, it was real and growing stronger by the minute. She could almost hear his deep whisper, “ Stay with me, Jessa. Please. ”
“What happens to Emily?” she said to Mairwen without breaking the connection with Grant.
“Yer Emily has a fated mate as well, but he is not in this time.”
“So, when I say goodbye to her, it will be forever?” The hot tears overflowed again, and Jessa didn’t care.
“For a little while. At least, at first.” Mairwen lightly touched her arm. “But I offer ye this solemn promise. When I speak with the goddesses, I shall ask that the two of ye be granted the power to pass through the Highland Veil to visit one another whenever ye like. At Seven Cairns. Such a gift of power is rarely given, but I feel the love between the two of ye could benefit the blessed weave just as much as the love between fated mates. Love is a powerful healing energy, no matter its form. Love is love.”
That wasn’t much, but it was something, she supposed. Jessa fisted her hands to her middle and gave Emily a sad smile. When Emily smiled back at her, she knew then and there that Emily already knew everything Mairwen had just told her. But that was dear, sweet Em to a tee. She was a selfless friend who would do anything to keep Jessa safe and happy. While looking in that direction, a movement in the sky, a shadow much larger than any bird, caught her notice in the clouds. “What is that?”
“What, lass?” Mairwen turned and looked in that direction.
“There is something in those clouds. Something really dark.” A strangely familiar fear, a primeval urge to either fight or flee, nearly choked off her air. “I don’t know what that is, but we need to get inside. All of us. Now. I feel it.”
“ Protego !” Mairwen said, in a voice so powerful the cobblestones shuddered beneath their feet.
Jessa ran to Grant and Emily and started pulling them toward the laundress’s shelter. “We have to take cover. Something is coming.”
“Go. The both of ye. I dinna run. I fight.” Unsheathing his sword, Grant crossed the courtyard in long, fearless strides and took a defensive stance beside Mairwen.
A fear worse than any Jessa had ever known, an aching worry for his safety, paralyzed her. She could lose him. That thing could kill him before they ever discovered what they could become. From deep within her, a raging NO burst free and boiled her blood to battle readiness.
“What is it, Jess?” Emily stared up at the strangely swirling cloud, its murky, dark center an unmistakable shadow of a person—an enormous person with arms outspread like great, ratty wings.
“Something bad, like in a horror movie bad, where just as the car starts and you think you’re home free, the monster rips off the roof and grabs you.” Jessa pushed Emily toward the washhouse lean-to. “Go in there. Huddle against the back wall with Griselda and her dog.”
“Where are you going?”
Jessa locked eyes with Emily. “I can’t let him die defending me. I can’t let him die—period.” She pointed at the lean-to. “Now, go. I don’t want you hurt, either.”
Emily huffed. “You’re not the boss of me. Come on. We’ll fight the cloud monster together.”
Jessa didn’t like it, but also didn’t have time to argue. “Come on, then. Let’s do this.”
Emily caught her by the shoulder. “One question—what are we going to use as weapons?”
“Not sure. We’ll make it up as we go along.”