Page 21 of Cottage in the Mist (Time After Time #3)

It was an impossibly normal day, which on the face of it was ridiculous. Maybe it was the company or maybe it was the beauty of the surrounding fields and mountains, but whatever the reason, for the first time since she’d learned of her parents’ deaths, Lily felt as if life might actually go on.

Which immediately made her feel guilty.

She’d lost everything. Her family. Her home. Her fiancé. Or at least the idea of him. And yet, here in Scotland she’d found something as well. Hope . Although, truth be told, it was fleeting at best, impossibly insane at worst.

Lily sighed, closing her eyes against the enormity of it all.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it now,” Elaine said, lifting a hand from the steering wheel to cover Lily’s, “but things have a way of working out.”

“Aye, that they do.” Mrs. Abernathy nodded sagely from the back seat as they barreled along in Elaine’s tiny car.

They’d spent the morning combing through the records in Dunmaglass.

First at the vicarage and then at the little museum that passed as an historical society.

Unfortunately, they’d come away with little to show for it.

A notation of Bram’s birth, and a record of his service as a page as a small boy.

There was also a record of his father’s death, but no details, and nothing at all of Dunbrae.

It was as if the place had never existed.

Lily tipped her head back with a sigh.

“’Twas a long time ago,” Mrs. Abernathy said, accurately guessing her turn of thought.

“’Tis no’ surprising that there is nothing more.

Events recorded centered around the heads of the clans.

The smaller lairdships were no’ often documented well.

And when the clans lost power and scattered, what records that existed were often abandoned or lost. ’Tis lucky we found anything at all. ”

“And at least we did manage to confirm that Bram existed,” Elaine soothed.

“Yeah. Over five hundred years ago.” What remained of Lily’s spontaneous burst of happiness evaporated.

She knew she sounded defensive, which was inexcusable when she considered that her new friends were driving across the Highlands on her behalf.

But it seemed like such a lost cause. She was chasing a man long dead.

How was that any better than accepting Justin when in her heart she’d known he wasn’t the one?

She’d settled because she’d wanted so much to find what her parents had had.

To be loved exclusively. Above all else.

What a laugh. Justin hadn’t loved her . He’d loved her money.

She’d just been too blind to see. Hungry for attention. Desperate for love.

And wasn’t that what she was doing now? Pretending that what had happened with Bram was something more than it was? She laughed, the sound harsh in the quiet of the car.

“Sometimes you just have to believe,” Mrs. Abernathy said, again reading her mind. “Have a little faith.”

“Easy to say when you have Mr. Abernathy. I don’t seem to be quite as adept at making good choices.” Lily’s fingers closed on the cool silver of the ring her mother had given her father, her heart swelling with guilt and grief.

“Justin was a fool,” Elaine said.

“Maybe. But even if that’s true, I was as big of one. I believed he loved me.”

“Sometimes the heart sees only what it wants to see.” As usual, Mrs. Abernathy hit the nail on the head.

“So what’s to say I’m not doing the same now? Chasing a dream. Even more so than with Justin? At least he’s alive and breathing in my own time.”

“I don’t think love has boundaries.” Elaine shrugged. “You can’t discount what’s happened to you because of the past. Maybe all of it had to happen in order for any of it to be possible.” She smiled.

“You mean that each event led to the other? I can certainly see my parents’ death and the subsequent discovery of their poverty sparking Justin’s defection, but how does any of that feed into my traveling through time?”

“Maybe your heart had to be open to the idea. Or maybe you just needed to come here, and the tragedies at home set the wheels in motion.”

“But that would mean…” She trailed off. This was territory they’d already covered. And no amount of guilt was going to bring her parents back.

“They’d have wanted you to be happy,” Mrs. Abernathy reminded her.

Lily sighed. “I know. And I’m sorry. You’ve both been so kind. And here I am complaining.”

“Not at all,” Elaine said. “You’re confused.

Your emotions are raw and you’ve been through hell.

I’d be shocked if you weren’t a little bit on edge.

And when you add to the mix the fact that you’ve fallen for a man who lives in another time, well, I’d say it’s enough to make anyone a little cranky. ”

“And don’t forget, we’ve been through this before,” Mrs. Abernathy added.

“With Katherine.” Again Lily felt embarrassed. They’d both lost someone dear to them. Even if, in some other timeframe, Katherine was indeed alive and well. And loved. The last words echoed through her mind.

“Look, I know we implied that Katherine never doubted.” Elaine glanced in her direction, then focused again on the road in front of them.

“And on the whole, that’s true. She never really wavered.

But that doesn’t mean there weren’t moments.

Eight years is a long time to wait for someone who might not even have been real. ”

“But she did wait.”

“Yes, but not passively. At least not at the end. She fought for what she wanted. What she believed in her heart was right. And it was worth it in the end. All the hell that they went through. It was worth it.”

“So you’re saying I have to fight? But fight for what?”

“I don’t know. For Bram, maybe. Or for the idea of him.

And I’m saying that it’s all right to have doubts.

Just don’t let them take over what you know in your heart is true.

” She touched her chest to underscore the words.

“We all have doubts, you know. I never believed for a minute that Jeff and I would find our way together. We were too locked into the way things had always been. But it was Katherine leaving that pulled us together. That made us see how much we really cared about each other.”

“Sometimes the answers are right in front of us.” Mrs. Abernathy nodded. “But we have to open our eyes to see them.”

“Well, I can’t really argue with any of that, I suppose. So I guess we’ll just have to keep looking.”

“Never give up.” Mrs. Abernathy nodded. “That’s always been my motto.”

They drove on in comfortable silence. Lily leaned back against the worn leather seat staring out the car window.

There was a rough majesty about the Scottish countryside, broom and gorse mixing together across the rocky foothills of the mountains in a wild mix of yellow blooms, green undergrowth, and the milky gray of lichen-spattered chunks of stone jutting up through the coarse vegetation.

They were heading for Dunbrae. Or what was left of it. She shivered, not certain if it was with anticipation or worry. Both probably. Odds were she’d learn nothing new. But it was important somehow to see the tower for herself. To see Bram’s home. To reach for him there across the years.

Elaine and Mrs. Abernathy were right. She simply had to trust herself—trust her heart.

Maybe she was chasing moonbeams. But then again maybe she wasn’t.

And if the latter were true—if, like Katherine St. Claire, she’d somehow managed to cross the boundaries of time, and if the reason was because her soul was somehow linked with Bram’s—then she had to believe. Had to have faith.

Her hand closed around the wedding ring. It had most definitely traveled through the years, as Val had said, from one happy ending to another—blessing those who loved with their whole hearts.

It was her ring now.

Her journey. Hers and Bram’s.

In truth, she had no choice but to believe.

The track leading to the ruins of Dunbrae was almost invisible. In fact, despite the vicar’s helpful map, they’d passed the turn-off twice. It was only on the third try that Lily spied the faint markings between two ancient rowan trees, their narrow green leaves cradling creamy white blossoms.

“I see it,” she cried. “Or at least I think I do. There. Between the trees.” She pointed at the shadow of a rutted road running between a rock wall and an open field.

Behind the wall, the meadow was dotted with sheep. On the open side, the terrain was wilder, overgrown, and to Lily’s mind somehow wrong. Her inner eye was quick to create cottages and outbuildings. Smoke in chimneys, livestock in pens. And everywhere people.

For a moment her heart swelled, joy singing through her veins as if at long last she’d come home. And then it was all gone. Nothing more than a figment of imagination or the wisp of a memory. Discomfited, Lily shifted on the seat as Elaine steered the little car down the half-hidden lane.

“Are you all right?” Mrs. Abernathy asked from the back, her eyes, as always, seeing everything.

“As much as I can be, I suppose,” Lily replied, turning to smile at the older woman. “For a moment I let myself get carried away. I thought I saw a village.”

“There would have been one here,” Mrs. Abernathy assured them.

“There was always such around a tower. People who depended on the laird for safety when danger came calling. In peaceful times they’d have built their wee stone cottages, and their lives would have sprawled out across fields such as these. ”

“But there’s nothing here now.” Lily shook her head, turning back to the overgrown meadow, watching as it was obscured from view by a small forest.

“Aye, but you see with more than just your eyes.”

“You mean I’m crazy.” Lily couldn’t help herself. The words spilled out of her, even as her mind sought to recapture the image of the village.