Page 9 of Crazy About Jill (Highland Berserkers #1)

CHAPTER 9

T he heavy oak door closed behind them as Jill, William, and Joe followed their father into the kitchen. She inhaled the familiar blend of pine cleaner and leather polish. Four steaming mugs of hot chocolate sat waiting on the worn kitchen table, marshmallows melting into little islands of sweetness. Her father must have prepared them before coming out to the porch.

"Figured we could all use something warm," Dad said, his Scottish brogue thicker than usual as he gestured for them to sit. "With the wee marshmallows floating like boats, just as ye liked when ye were small."

Jill's throat tightened at the gesture. So familiar, yet now cast in an entirely different light. This man who'd taught her to ride, who'd bandaged scraped knees and checked for monsters under the bed—this man was from another time entirely. The thought was too enormous to fully grasp.

"Thanks, Dad." She settled into her usual chair, the wood creaking a familiar welcome. "Though I'm not sure cocoa is strong enough for this conversation."

A ghost of a smile crossed her father's face. "Aye, perhaps we should've broken out the whisky."

"The good stuff you keep hidden behind the oatmeal?" Joe asked with a tentative grin.

"Ye know about that, do ye?" Dad chuckled, then sobered. "Sharp lad. Ye take after your mother."

William leaned forward, his expression serious. "Dad, what exactly happened out there? How did you...do what you did with those men?"

The soft sound of her mother's cough through the baby monitor and Jill's eyes darted upward, her hands tightening around her mug. Despite everything—warriors from the past, druid magic, her father's true origins—Mom's illness remained the most terrifying thing in her world.

"She's resting easy," Dad assured her, his eyes following her gaze with a tenderness that transcended time.

Jill nodded, breathing in the rich chocolate aroma. "Dad, we need to talk about...well, everything. You being from the 8th century, the druid magic, those men from the past..."

"Ah." Her father's hand went to the pendant he always wore, its surface catching the lamplight with an otherworldly gleam. "I suppose we do need to have a proper family discussion about all this."

"It still doesn't feel real," Joe said, staring into his mug. "Even after what we saw you do with that stone."

"The language spell," William added, his expression analytical as he processed the implications. "And what you told us about being born in 789. I mean, we heard you say it out there, but..."

"But it didn't quite sink in," Jill finished for him. "It's one thing to hear something impossible, and another to actually process it."

Dad nodded. "The mind protects itself from truths too large to grasp all at once. I've had centuries—" he caught himself with a slight smile, "—well, decades in your perception, to become comfortable with who and what I am."

Jill still struggled to connect the father she'd known her whole life with the medieval druid he claimed to be. "When you first told us out there, it sounded...I don't know, almost like you were humoring those men. But you're serious, aren't you? You're really from the 8th century."

"Aye," Dad confirmed quietly. "From a time when Scotland was still forming itself, when druids still walked openly among the people. The stones spoke to us then, and the old trees remembered the first men to walk the glens. It's why I recognized those warriors for what they were the moment I sensed them arrive."

"So you're...what? Over twelve hundred years old?" William asked, his brow furrowed in concentration.

Her dad’s lips quirked. "Well, when ye put it that way, it does sound a bit dramatic."

A snort of laughter escaped Jill. "A bit dramatic? Dad, you're practically prehistoric!"

"Oi! I'm not that old." He affected a wounded expression. "And I'll have ye know I still beat your brothers at arm wrestling."

"Not every time," William muttered, though his lips quirked upward.

Joe grinned, tension visibly leaving his shoulders. "Does this mean you used druid magic to win at Monopoly all those times?"

Their shared laughter broke the tension, and Dad's expression softened. "I'm still me. Still the same father who taught ye to ride and helped ye with your science projects. I just...have a bit more history than most."

The absurdity of his understatement struck Jill. A bit more history. Like the Pacific Ocean has a bit more water than a bathtub.

"The stone?" Jill nodded toward his pendant.

"Druid magic." Her father's hand cupped the smooth surface. "I'm what they called an elemental. A keeper of the old ways."

"Like in those fantasy books I used to read?" Joe asked, eyes wide.

"Similar, though with less dramatic hand-waving." Dad demonstrated with an exaggerated flourish, making them smile. "The real magic is subtler. It's in the wind and earth, in the turning of seasons.”

"And those nightmares I had as a child?" Jill asked. "The monsters you fought off?"

"Weren't nightmares." Her father's face grew serious. “The old world was dangerous, lass. And now and then, its shadows cross into ours.”

A shiver ran down her spine as she remembered both her childhood terrors—the shapeless shadows that had oozed beneath her bedroom door—and Alasdair's description of the Brollachan. The warrior's steady voice had lowered to a warning rumble when he'd mentioned it, his stance shifting instinctively to place himself between her and potential danger. She'd noticed the way his shoulders had squared, how his hand had reached for a weapon that wasn't there, the protective intensity that had transformed his features.

"Like whatever the Highlanders were fighting in the woods?" William asked, leaning forward.

"The Brollachan." Dad nodded grimly. "Nasty piece of work, that one. Feeds on fear and innocence. Shapeless in its natural form, but it can take on aspects of whatever it consumes. Tis a shapeshifter. The ancient texts called it 'the hunger that walks.' We'll need to deal with it before it grows stronger."

Jill absorbed this, her mind whirling. "So many things make sense now. The weird herbs in the garden, the stones around the property line, the way you always seem to know when a storm's coming..."

"That time our treehouse collapsed," Joe added, "but none of us were in it because you suddenly decided we needed ice cream in town."

"Or when that mountain lion showed up near the south pasture," William said quietly, "and somehow changed direction before reaching us."

The puzzle pieces of their childhood rearranged themselves. That time in third grade when Tommy Jenkins had pushed her down and somehow slipped in mud that hadn't been there before. The way animals always seemed to respond to Dad's whispered words. The stories he told that felt more like memories.

"Your mother calls it my party trick." Her father's expression softened at the mention of his wife. "She knew what I was, ye ken. Accepted me, past and all."

"Does she know about the Highlanders?" William asked.

"Aye. Said it was about time I had someone around who understood my 'archaic turns of phrase.'" He grinned. "Your mother's a remarkable woman."

"She is." Jill studied her father's face—the familiar lines and creases that she now realized mapped experience from a time she could barely imagine. "So what do we do about our visitors?"

She thought about Alasdair—not just his striking appearance, but the quiet strength in how he'd guided his brothers through their bewilderment, the careful respect in his interactions with her family, the flash of wonder in his expression as he'd encountered each new marvel of the modern world. There was something compelling about a man who could maintain such dignity and purpose even when his entire world had been upended.

Dad sighed, suddenly looking weary to his bones. "Help them adapt, I suppose. I tried for years to find a way back, but time's a one-way road, lass. The kindest thing we can do is help them build a new life here. Time-travel isn't a round trip. It's exile. The portal only flows one way."

“You got stuck?" Joe asked quietly.

"Aye." He reached across the table, squeezing Jill's hand. "Though I'd say things worked out rather well for me in the end."

She squeezed back, feeling the calluses earned over decades of farm work. For a moment, the kitchen fell silent, each of them lost in thought.

Jill's gaze wandered to the framed diplomas on the wall—her bachelor's in Environmental Science, her master's in History, her PhD certificate. All that specialized knowledge, all those years of study, now brought into focus in a way she'd never imagined.

"I've been feeling like I've put everything on hold lately," she admitted softly, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. "All that schooling, that teaching position I stepped away from...”

Dad's eyes softened with understanding. "Ye believe coming home means ye've set aside your dreams?"

"Maybe temporarily," Jill replied thoughtfully. "Mom needs us now. That's what matters. But lately I’ve been wondering about my path forward. And now this.”

"Oh, mo chridhe." Her father's voice was gentle. "Nothing ye learn is ever wasted. Who better to help six medieval warriors adapt to modern life than a historian with your expertise? Who better to understand the journey they've made?"

She nodded.

“Life rarely follows the path we map out," he said, his eyes wise and knowing. "Take it from someone who's lived through more than most. Sometimes the most meaningful work finds us when we least expect it."

"I suppose having six living witnesses from medieval Scotland will make for interesting research," Jill admitted with a small smile.

And one of them is already occupying far too much of my mental space , she realized with a start. What was it about him that kept drawing her thoughts back? The steadiness in his presence? The way responsibility seemed to sit so naturally on his shoulders? How he managed to retain his dignity even while facing an entirely alien world?

"Aye, and consider this—your life experience prepared ye to communicate with them in their native tongue, to understand their customs and fears. That's no small thing." Dad raised an eyebrow. "And that tall one, Alasdair? He looks at ye like you're the moon and stars."

"Dad!" She felt her cheeks warm. "That's not—I mean, he's just?—"

Is it that obvious? she wondered, mortified. I've barely met the man and I'm already so transparent that my father can see right through me?

"Just a handsome lad who happens to be exactly the sort of honorable warrior ye used to read about in those history books." Her father's eyes twinkled. "I've seen that look before, lass. Wore it myself once, looking at your mother. Still do.”

"Well, I’m out," William said, standing up. "I need to check on those security lights we installed last week anyway."

Jill felt her blush deepen. "Right. Well. I should..." She gestured vaguely upstairs.

"Go on then." Dad's eyes twinkled. "Though mind ye, if he breaks your heart, I know several 8th-century curses that never go out of style."

"Dad!"

His laughter followed her up the stairs, wrapping around her like a familiar blanket. Her world had shifted on its axis, expanded beyond imagination, but some things remained constant. Her father was still her father, even if he came from a time more distant than she could truly comprehend.

As she climbed the stairs, Jill felt a curious lightness in her chest. Maybe Dad was right. Maybe everything—her education, her return home, even the appearance of six medieval warriors on their doorstep—was part of some larger design she couldn't yet see. For the first time in months, the thought of her paused academic career didn't seem so overwhelming.

And if her mind drifted to a certain green-eyed Highlander as she reached the landing, well—that was just one more complication in a day already overflowing with them. Though when she caught herself wondering what Alasdair might look like in modern clothes—jeans and a flannel that would highlight the quiet confidence in his bearing—she had to admit this was becoming something of a pattern. Her third Alasdair-related daydream in the past hour alone.

"Not wasted at all," she murmured to herself, glancing back at her father and brothers as they settled into conversation below. "Just being put to use in ways I never expected."

Well, no one could accuse life on the Greenwood ranch of being boring. Not anymore.