Page 19 of Here in Your Arms (Far From Home: A Scottish Time-Travel Romance #10)

It had been two weeks since Tiernan left Dunmara.

Fourteen days of waking without any chance of seeing his handsome face, of meals without his brooding presence at the table, of cold, quiet nights where memories of being entwined in his arms were most painful. Rose had counted them at first, each day a weight that tugged at her spirit. But somewhere between the ninth and tenth day, she stopped. Not because she didn’t long for him, or didn’t still hope for a different outcome, but because the weight of that longing had become exhausting.

She refused to drown in it.

Whatever had passed between them in that chamber abovestairs, it had ended when he walked out the next morning without looking back. And if that was how it had to be, then so be it. She would not unravel over a man who had made his choice, even if that choice had left her feeling disposable and desolate.

Dunmara was a quiet place, with few inhabitants outside Brody and Emmy and now Rose, but not without rhythm or purpose. She spent hours in the kitchens, learning from Maud the names and uses of unfamiliar herbs, the eyed-not-measured recipe for bread, and how to make broth stretch through three meals. With the young maid, Alice, Rose learned the patterns of daily labor, how to clean the hearths and the hall, how to properly wash a woolen cloak without ruining it, and the daily routine of housemaids. Agnes taught her how to dry strips of meat for preservation, how to mend seams and repurpose old cloth, and Rose practiced her stitches until they no longer looked like knots tied by a drunken toddler.

On warmer days, she and Emmy walked to the village, Emmy coaching her in the old Gaelic as they strolled. After a few such visits, they began to draw a group of nosy children, curious about Rose’s strange speech and efforts to learn. Just yesterday, she’d read aloud to them from a bit of parchment Emmy had helped her copy phonetically, and they’d clapped like she’d performed a miracle, even though she was certain she’d botched half the words.

And for all of it, Rose told herself it wasn’t for nothing, she wasn’t simply surviving, she was learning to live.

If this was her life now, then she would live it the best way she knew how.

And at times, well, the pain in her chest felt a little less sharp.

The sun was warm above the green sweep of the village, casting long golden shafts across the fields where sheep grazed, weeds were being pulled, and new seedlings planted. Rose wandered along a narrow footpath that curved past the grazing paddocks, and then farther until Dunmara and the village were well behind her.

She saw a woman at the edge of a northern field. A young woman, maybe in her late teens, with wild russet curls spilling from a lopsided braid, who was crouched low in the tall grass, her fingers working furiously to uproot what looked like nettle or yarrow. She wore a faded apron and an odd expression—half determined, half distracted—as if she were mid-argument with herself since she seemed to be talking to someone though there was no one else about.

Rose slowed, curious.

“Need a hand?” she called.

The girl startled, nearly losing her balance as she twisted to greet Rose. She looked up with a smile that was wide, but noticeably strained.

“Oh! Nae, nae, I’m quite all right, thank ye.” Her voice was bright, high, with the distinct lilt of someone trying just a little too hard to sound normal.

Rose stepped closer. “I haven’t seen you before. Are you new to Dunmara?”

The girl blinked, then offered a flustered shake of her head, bouncing her wayward curls. “Oh aye...er, nae. I’ve always been here.”

Rose smiled politely, if cautiously. “I’m Rose.”

The girl’s eyes flared slightly. “Of course ye are.”

Rose’s smile faltered. “Have we met?”

“Nae! Nae,” The girl said quickly, standing up and brushing her hands on her apron. “I just mean... I’ve heard of ye. Everyone has.”

“Oh. Right.” Rose murmured, sorry to hear that her resemblance to Margaret might plague her here at Dunmara as well. She studied the young woman for a moment longer, something about her energy too... jittery. “And what is your name?” she prompted in a friendly manner.

“I’m...Maella.” She fiddled with a sprig of nettle, avoiding eye contact.

Rose nodded. “Nice to meet you, Maella.” Her gaze drifted to the ground. “What are you trying to pull up?”

“Oh, just... weeds.” Maella smiled, far too quickly again.

“Weeds that fight back?” Rose asked lightly, pointing to the plant still half-stuck in the dirt. “You looked like you were wrestling it.”

Maella glanced down at the stubborn root. “Nettle. But not just any—er, it’s the kind that holds...um...strong energy. Good for salves, poultices. And... grounding. Sometimes.”

Rose tilted her head. “Grounding?”

Maella’s eyes flicked up, then away again. “For... people who are a bit unsteady. It helps keep their feet where they’re supposed to be.” She said it with a twitch of a smile, but her voice faltered at the end, like she realized too late that she’d said something odd.

Rose’s brow knit slightly. “Meaning...what?”

Maella blanched. “What?”

“What do you mean?” Rose repeated. “You said it had strong energy and that...it kept people’s feet where they were supposed to be.”

“Ha!” Maella barked a laugh, waving a dismissive hand. “Tis naught but lore. My...er, gran always said that. Old habits, I guess.” She bent quickly, fumbling for another weed. “Plants make us feel safe, don’t they?”

“I... guess so,” Rose said, watching her closely now.

“It’s pretty here, is it nae?” Maella asked without glancing around.

Rose had the impression that the young woman was trying to distract her, change the subject.

Maella began to talk quickly, mindless stuff, cementing Rose’s impression that the girl was nervous for some reason, or that... she was hiding something.

“Plants are full of all sorts of little secrets,” she said. “Nae actual secrets, nae like whispering secrets, obviously. Just, ye ken, natural properties. Proper ones.”

Rose narrowed her eyes. “Sure...”

“Ye’re lucky the rain dinna come today,” she chattered on. “The light’s good, nae too bright but nae dim either. Perfect for foraging. Nettles, thistle, bits of chickweed if ye ken where to look. Nae that I do, really, I mean, I try, but it’s hard when the soil’s so black and hard, ye ken? And some days it’s like the plants just dinna want to be found, like they’re hiding.” She laughed, much too loudly, then added, “Nae that plants can hide . Obviously.”

Rose didn’t answer. She just kept watching her, nearly entertained by the flight of ideas in the girl’s head, except that it all felt so...contrived.

Maella shifted again, nearly toppling sideways as she tugged on another stem. “Ye seem a verra calm sort. Exceptionally calm, for a stranger in a strange land. That’s a compliment, by the way.”

Now Rose was sure of it. Something wasn’t right.

Maella shrugged. “It’s so different here—there’s so much mud. And all these layers of clothing. Just yesterday, I was sunbathing near the sea watching planes go by.”

Rose froze, her heart thudding. “What did you just say?”

Maella blinked. “What?”

“You said something about a...plane.”

“I did?” Maella laughed, the sound high and hollow. “Aye, I said... plains... the grasslands, ye ken. Near the sea. Very breezy. Lots of... sheep.”

Rose stared, expression flattening. “You said you were watching planes go by.”

“Nae,” Maella dragged the word out, smiling too wide. “Nae, I’m sure I dinna. Or mayhap I did. Sometimes I say things weird. My accent’s very muddled. My mum was from... the east.”

“The east?” Rose repeated.

“Aye, easterly. Er, East... Kilbride.” Maella dropped the nettle and gave a little cough. “Och, but look at this root—it’s such a stubborn little beast, is it nae?”

But Rose was looking at Maella like she’d just peeled back a curtain and found something impossible staring back at her.

“Who are you?” Rose asked, her voice hollow with shock.

Maella flinched and froze. Her face went deathly pale.

“Are you a...time-traveler?” Rose asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

The question hung between them, crackling with life. Something in Maella’s expression shifted, the twitch of her jaw, the way her pupils seemed to contract ever so slightly.

“A...what?” she whispered, and her voice had changed—lower, older, as if a different part of her had stepped forward. She rose to her full height, which didn’t quite reach Rose’s chin. She was tiny, almost impossibly so, for a girl in her late teens.

“I think you just slipped up,” Rose said. “You’re not from this time, are you? It’s okay. You don’t have to be afraid. I’m in the same boat.”

“I don’t know what you’re—” Maella began, panic rising in her throat, her speech suspiciously devoid of any accent now.

“Oh, my God, “Rose breathed, incredulous. “It’s true. You’ve come from another time. Maella, don’t be scared.” She stepped forward, instinctively reaching out, placing a steady hand on the girl’s forearm.

And froze.

Her fingers touched fabric. But not skin—there was no warmth, no weight. It was like touching the memory of a person. Her palm pressed lightly against Maella’s arm, but there was no resistance, no substance beneath it—only the suggestion of form, as if Maella were made of mist and light, a sketch rather than a living thing.

A cold ripple slid down Rose’s spine. Her stomach turned over.

Maella stared at her in wide-eyed horror.

Rose looked down again, her breath catching. “What...?” she whispered, squeezing her fingers to delve further. There had to be...

Though Rose could feel nothing of substance, Maella winced and reacted sharply, her free hand flying up between them. She didn’t push and it wasn’t quite a strike, and yet Rose felt it. It felt as if she had been slapped, and hard.

And then something happened, something familiar, electrifying, and yet...otherworldly. There was no flash of light, no sound, no wind, but everything around Rose seemed to shimmer and buckle. The fields lifted and rolled toward her, looking like a heat mirage on pavement, warping the edges of the world.

Rose’s breath caught, her hand still on Maella’s wrist, touching nothing, anchored to nothing.

“Mother absolve me—I’m sorry,” Maella said, covering her mouth with her hand.

Rose blinked. And then everything went black.

***

Tiernan rode hard for Dunmara, the hooves of his horse thundering against the muddied road, flanked by forty of his men who struggled to match his pace. The wind bit across the open road as Tiernan spurred his mount harder, the rough hills and scrub-covered lowlands of Druimlach blurring past. He barely registered the cold, or the ache in his shoulder, which likely would plague him for another few weeks yet. His jaw was clenched tight, his eyes narrowed against the sting of wind and worry.

Emmy MacRae’s missive arrived just after dawn. The note, scrawled in haste, and the handwriting slanted in jagged lines, suggested panic.

The words written screamed it.

We need you. Rose is gone.

Not sick. Not hurt. Gone.

More than two weeks had passed since he’d left her at Dunmara, two weeks spent trying to purge the images of their night spent together, trying to forget the look on her face in Dunmara’s yard before he’d ridden away from her. Two weeks of telling himself he’d done the right thing. And yet every night since, he’d lain awake trying to cleanse her from his mind, willing himself to forget the feel of her skin beneath his hands, the way she’d whispered his name in the dark. But the memory clung fast—worse than pain, sharper than guilt—and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the image of her body tangled with his, or the maddening quiet that had followed when he’d left her behind.

He hadn’t expected her absence to leave such a mark.

He had known loss before. He’d buried men, held brothers-in-arms as they bled out in the mud. He’d mourned Margaret with a quiet, private grief—the grief of duty unfulfilled, of intentions unkept. But this was different. Though Rose hadn’t died, her absence hung heavier on him than Margaret’s passing ever had. What he’d shared with Rose, even briefly, was previously unknown to him. It had been real, impossible to forget, and he was haunted by what had been left undone between them, unspoken.

Several times over the past fortnight, he’d nearly turned his horse toward Dunmara. Each time he’d stopped himself, telling himself it would only make things worse. She was better off at Dunmara. Druimlach was no place for her, he reminded himself again and again.

But now she was missing.

He’d left within minutes of receiving Emmy’s message.

As Dunmara came into view, Tiernan pushed his horse to a brutal pace, barely slowing as he crossed beneath the gatehouse. He rode straight through and was already dismounting before there came the startled shout of a guard who only just began to announce his name. He hit the ground hard, boots thudding against damp earth, while his men arrived and crowded the bailey behind him.

The great hall doors stood open and within, Brody stood near the head table, several of his men gathered loosely around him, the remnants of a morning meal pushed to the edges of the table. Maps and scraps of parchment littered the center, weighed down with cups and a dagger half-buried in a hunk of bread. Emmy was there too, worry etched into every line of her face, worry that seemed only minimally lessened by his arrival. She was seated at the table, small and anxious in the midst of Brody and his stalwart men, but she rose to her feet when she saw Tiernan.

He marched straight to the table, the sound of his boots echoing sharply against the stone floor.

“Have ye found her?” he demanded with steel in his voice, not bothering with a greeting.

Brody looked up, clearly surprised. “Tiernan. What—?” He stopped himself, his gaze flicking to his wife, sharp and accusatory.

Emmy lifted her chin and stared down her husband. Clearly, she’d not told her husband that she had notified Tiernan of Rose’s disappearance. “More eyes and people searching can only help.”

Tiernan had the distinct impression that he was not only an extra body, but that Emmy knew the he cared, and that there wasn’t a power in this world or the next that would stop him from finding her.

“What the hell happened?” Tiernan’s voice was low and tight, all control and no patience.

“She was last seen two days ago,” Brody began, removing his gaze from his wife. “Walking past the lower fields. Alice saw her from the stillroom window.”

“Alone?” Tiernan asked.

“Aye, at that moment,” Brody answered. “But then another saw her talking to someone in the fields, a young woman, but nae can say who she is, that other lass.”

“What’s been done?” His voice cracked out like a whip.

“We’ve been searching,” Brody said tersely. “Every field, every wood trail within two miles. She didn’t say anything to anyone about leaving. Her clothes are still in her chamber. This was nae...deliberate.”

Tiernan cursed under his breath, his eyes dragging over the table strewn with maps of Dunmara, meaningless scraps. “And ye’ve had riders out?”

“Aye, since first light today, south and east. And we’re aiming to go now, north and west again.”

“She didn’t leave of her own accord,” Emmy said quietly. “Unless...Tiernan, might she have been going to Druimlach?”

“Nae,” Tiernan replied, his voice dark, threaded with certainty. “She was nae coming to me.”

Emmy’s eyes filled, a single tear slipping down her cheek as she returned his gaze. “Then she might be... gone.”

His jaw tightened. “Gone?” he growled. “Meaning what?”

She hesitated, clearly torn, her hand lifting in a helpless, open gesture. “I mean... gone back. To where she came from—as I once did.”

Tiernan stared at her, his chest tightening. He understood what she was suggesting, and the weight of it landed hard. He hadn’t believed the stories—the impossible talk of time bending and people slipping through it—but the look on Emmy’s face gave him pause. Whether it was true or not almost didn’t matter. She believed it. And the fear carved into her expression suggested that, if she was right, Rose wasn’t just missing, she was beyond reach. Beyond his reach, at least. There would be no finding her, not by any means he possessed.

Tiernan refused to surrender. “I want everyone questioned. Every villager, every merchant, even the bairns. Someone must have seen her. And let’s ride. Now. There must be some trace of her.”

He pivoted on his heel and left the hall. There was no time to waste. Rose had been missing for two days— too long —and Emmy’s knowledge suggested this was no ordinary disappearance, but possibly something unnatural.

But until he knew that for sure, he would tear Scotland apart to find her.

He only prayed to God she was still in Scotland, still in this time .

***

Maella sat cross-legged in the tall grass just beyond the edge of the forest, chewing absently on the end of a stem of wood sorrel, her knees bouncing, fingers twitching in her lap. She’d screwed up. Badly. Not the kind of mistake where you forget to boil the lavender before adding it to a salve, but the kind that fractures fates. The kind that bends the lines of the world where they were never meant to curve. This wasn’t a botched spell or a clumsy incantation. This was real. Dangerous. The kind of mistake that could unmake someone’s life.

She hadn’t meant to move Rose.

Truly, she hadn’t. She liked Rose. Liked her spirit, her stormy eyes, her too-honest way of speaking. There was something about her that glowed brighter than the rest of the dull humans around here, like she vibrated slightly out of phase with this century and even the one she’d come from, and Maella, for all her inexperience, had felt it. It had made her curious, but dangerously so.

Though centuries old, Maella was young in the world of the nigheanan sgàil, a daughter of shadows born only hundreds of years ago and not a millennia ago like the elder daughters.

She’d been so energized to have discovered Rose, to have sensed her connection to this time—to Margaret.

Maella recognized immediately that Rose and Margaret were echoes of the same soul across time, what some called "soul mirrors." The nigheanan sgàil called it the Sgàthan-anama , the soul’s reflection that spans lifetimes. They were not reincarnations exactly, but parallel sparks destined to repeat, the same person under different skies. Rose was drawn to Tiernan because part of her already knew him.

Some souls just ripple, Maella had been taught. They repeat themselves, not to relive the same story, but to finish it. Margaret’s life was meant to shape something—a lineage, a moment in history, or Tiernan himself—but her early death severed that thread. As with all the nigheanan sgàil who were bound to preserve balance, Maella simply pulled a matching thread from the future to repair what was lost. Rose wasn’t sent back to replace Margaret, but to complete what Margaret could not.

Maella sighed, distraught. She’d meant to repair time and balance by bringing Rose here to this time, but now she’d ruined it.

Oh, if only Rose hadn’t touched her!

She’d grabbed her without warning, had just seized her wrist, with that fire and fear and sudden certainty in her eyes. Maella had reacted purely on instinct. Her magic, always unruly, always more flare than control, had surged straight through her like a livewire. The air had gone weird and thin, her fingertips had sparked, and then— poof . Gone.

Rose Carlisle had vanished.

Maella groaned and flopped backward into the grass, staring up at the pale spring sky. Her whole body still ached from it, a slow, dragging weariness that clung to her like soaked wool. No one had told her how debilitating moving someone through time—or even just across distance—would be. She’d learned that the first time, when she’d purposefully relocated Rose, and now had experienced it again, albeit unwittingly this time. It felt like she’d been wrung out, drained dry and hung crooked on a line. Even now, more than a day later, she hadn’t fully recovered. She’d tried to track Rose again earlier this morning, but she simply hadn’t the strength. Her vision had blurred, her legs buckled. There was nothing left in her.

She’d seen where Rose had landed in the instant it had happened but knew nothing of her whereabouts today.

At the moment of relocation, Maella had a fleeting glimpse of Rose, alone, lifeless, in the middle of unfamiliar land that shimmered wrong at the edges. There had been smoke in the air and bloodied earth underfoot, remnants of tents and hooves and booted feet. Maella had felt it in her chest like a pressure drop before a storm. Armies. They were moving, circling, converging, and Rose was somewhere in the path of it all. That girl didn’t know enough to keep her head down, let alone how to tell a Scots rebel from an English soldier. She might get picked up or cut down or disappear again, this time for good.

Brody, bless his mortal heart, had been trying. But he wasn’t looking in the right direction. His riders searched the woods near Dunmara, combed the foothills eastward, doubled back toward the village roads, but Rose was so much further away.

A sigh escaped Maella, and the trees responded, their leaves shivering.

A whisper in the distance caught her attention. The subtle shift of hooves on wet ground, a mind tortured with concern and regret.

Maella’s eyes flashed open and she sat up.

He was here.

Tiernan.

She felt him before she saw him—like a wave of heat slamming into cold water. The air around him crackled, his energy a low, growling hum that disturbed the birds overhead. When he came into view, riding hard into Dunmara’s outer court, his jaw was set, his plaid snapping behind him, his whole being fixed to a singular, furious purpose.

Maella’s heart leapt with hope.

He would find her. He was not a man to stop, to yield, to shrug and say, “We’ve tried.” Tiernan would move heaven and earth. He had more at stake. She could feel it pulsing off of him, heavy and ragged—the fear, the regret, the quiet, blistering need. That fierce warrior of his might be scowling from horseback, but somewhere inside that brutal man was a wound, and it was bleeding for Rose.

Maella scrambled to her feet and crept toward the edge of the keep’s wall, peeking out from behind a crooked stone pillar. She wasn’t supposed to be seen but hadn’t the strength to render herself invisible.

Please, she thought, narrowing her eyes, reaching for him.

She focused on his mind, on the heat and weight of it and tried to form a picture for him. A curve of a hillside, a bent tree near a stream, the red clay soil and the mist-shrouded south. She tried to show him where Rose had landed, where she still wandered alone.

But his mind— by the ancient flames! His mind was like a solid stone wall. His energy, raw and coiled, resisted her completely. She pushed gently, then harder, searching for a crack, a soft place to seep in, but it was like trying to send water through granite. Every effort broke against him, splintered and sent scattering.

“You stupid, stubborn man,” she whispered, a tremble of panic rising in her voice. “She’s out there. She needs you.”

She dropped her hand, frustrated. She couldn’t get through. Not in her present state, not without more power.

Still, her heart pounded with hope. He was here, at least.

Tiernan would not stop until he found Rose.