Page 16 of I Loved You Then (Far From Home #12)

Reprieve

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Evenings had become a quiet ritual. When the noise of the hall fell away and Alaric was off about some matter or another, Claire found herself drifting to Ivy’s chamber.

She would perch on one of the cushioned chairs Ivy had somehow convinced men to haul upstairs, and together they muddled through the strange new rhythm of life that included a newborn.

On the first night, the day Lily had been born, there had been plenty of nerves and awkwardness, including Ivy’s first attempt at breastfeeding—Lily latching, Ivy stiff with uncertainty and the newness of it.

Claire had fumbled to recall half-forgotten tips from a single semester in the maternity ward years ago.

“Skin to skin,” she’d urged, repeating what she dimly remembered her preceptors drilling into new mothers.

“Babies know more than we think. Just give her time.” Positioning had required some trial and error, finding out what worked best for Lily.

In truth, because she had so little experience with newborns, Claire had been pleased when it had gone so well, and continued to do so.

Then there had been the matter of diapers—God help them, it had taken many days, several mishaps and a fair bit of laughter to wrangle squares of rough-woven cloth into something that wouldn’t unravel the moment the child moved or was lifted.

They’d knotted strips into ties, tucked and folded this way and that, and expressed more than once their wish of modern diapers.

Now, with more than a week of practice, both Ivy and Claire managed the changes quickly enough, even as they still longed for the quick attachment of Velcro and the blessed fresh scent of baby wipes.

Tonight, Lily slept in Ivy’s arms, her tiny fist pressed against her cheek, while the rain drummed steadily at the windowpanes.

Claire stretched her legs toward the hearth, luxuriating in the warmth.

It felt almost normal, just two friends tucked away in a bedroom, trading gossip and sharing in Ivy’s motherhood journey.

Ivy smoothed a blanket over Lily’s small body.

“Alaric spoke more with Ciaran this afternoon. He’s rescinded his command that we leave,” she said, her lips thinned with displeasure.

Ivy, possibly more than Claire, had been frustrated by Ciaran’s unwillingness to even try to understand, and more pertinently, how quick he’d been to cast out his friend.

She sounded bitter still. “Apparently, we’re allowed to stay on—for a fortnight. ”

Claire blinked. “A fortnight? What is that—two weeks?”

Ivy nodded, and then with less animosity, she wondered, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word used, had only read about it prior to coming here.

Now.” She sighed then, her gaze fixed on her sleeping daughter.

“Alaric said that was all he wanted anyway, that he wants to be home before the weather turns ugly.” She glanced toward the window, by which they could hear but not really see the pouring rain. “Or uglier.”

“So Alaric and Ciaran spoke after that mess this morning,” she said carefully, trying to keep her voice neutral. “What did he say...exactly? Did Alaric say?”

“He didn’t go into detail. You know how men are about relaying the details about conversation—just the facts. Only that Ciaran was reluctant, but that he agreed in the end.”

“I want to say what a jerk ,” Claire said thoughtfully. “But then, I don’t blame him entirely.” She lifted her gaze and met Ivy’s astounded one. “That was a lot we threw at him today. Think about it, his reaction wasn’t so different from my own—and I knew some thing had happened to me.”

Ivy breathed another sigh. “I guess so, but he’s still off my Christmas card list for now.”

Claire smiled wistfully. “Ah, Christmas,” she mused. “I can't help but feel a little Santa-mental.”

Ivy froze, her eyes wide, a smile threatening. “Jesus,” she said, beginning to laugh. “Is that another one from Aunt Pitty-Pat?”

Claire laughed, but it caught in her throat. Her smile faltered. “Actually, that’s my dad, the king of dad puns.”

Ivy didn’t respond right away, but Claire felt her watching her, even as her own gaze was claimed and held by the flickering flames in the hearth.

“You’ve mentioned your mom and dad before,” Ivy said gently after a moment, “and your husband, of course, and how worried they must be. But you’ve never said anything about the rest of your family—siblings, nieces, nephews?”

Claire blinked back tears, provoked by the sweet memory of her father’s silly puns. “I have a brother and sister, and they both have kids.”

The words tugged loose an ache in her chest, one she’d only allowed to rise at night, alone in her own bed.

She could picture Sean at his kitchen table, sleeves rolled up after a long day, boasting about his two kids while they clambered over him.

Her sister, Meghan, was restless and sometimes sharp-tongued, but Claire could imagine her pacing her tiny apartment with that mix of worry and resentment that had always colored their relationship.

She cleared her throat, trying to force lightness into her voice.

“I can totally see my brother, Sean, having flown over to Scotland the minute Jason called them to say I was missing.” Her chin quivered.

“He probably won’t rest as long as I’m..

..gone. Meghan...” She shrugged faintly.

“She’ll be mad at me for disappearing, but that’s just how she loves.

Sideways.” She fell silent for a moment, before admitting what she’d tried so hard not to think about.

“They’re all probably worried sick—the thought of my mother worrying, maybe never knowing what happened to me, breaks my heart.

” A frown darkened her brow. “And here I am, gone only two weeks and it feels like a lifetime already.”

“The thing is,” Ivy said softly, reflectively, “there’s no guidebook for this, no instruction or procedural manual.

We’re on our own, Claire. I figured out as you have, we just have to make it up as we go along.

But...well, I’ve told you I’m not even sure my mother will have realized, even by now, that I’m missing, and that I have no relationship with my father.

” She shrugged, her soft expression showing so much sympathy.

“I have no one missing me, and that used to make me sad, but now... I can’t even imagine what you’re going through, not only worried about yourself and this—this fantastic, unreal thing—but having to worry about your family and what they’re surely going through. ”

Claire admitted in a small voice, “I hate to say it—I want to go home, wish desperately every day that I can somehow get home—but...there’s also that part of me that—aside from being still so confused and bewildered—is a bit fascinated by the whole thing.”

It sat there, that deeply personal confession, which felt a little like a betrayal of her family, of her husband, too.

And then Ivy asked, her voice just as quiet as Claire’s, “Fascinated by this, the fact that time-travel actually exists, or fascinated by...Ciaran Kerr.”

She felt they had no secrets and didn’t hesitate to reply. “Both.”

“That I totally understand,” Ivy admitted. “While it terrified me—and to some degree still does—I was so...captivated, intrigued, crushing on Alaric almost from the beginning, even when he frightened me. Isn’t that bizarre?”

Claire smirk a bit. “Bizarre, as in unusual? Apparently not, according to my fixation with Ciaran.” She chewed her lip for a moment and then revealed, “I told him, by the way. About how he was familiar to me, that the man who appeared to me after my car accident looked exactly like him.”

“You did?” Ivy questioned, shock in her tone. “What did he say?”

“He dismissed it,” Claire answered thoughtfully, reviewing their earlier conversation.

“But I swear even now, though he swore he never saw me or knew me before I arrived at Caeravorn, that for a moment, I saw the lie behind his eyes. I swear, Ivy, we’re not wrong, believing he thinks he knows me from somewhere. Or sometime.”

Silence stretched, but not for long.

“It is fascinating, isn’t it? I mean, it begs one to consider fate and destiny, and...everything like that. Right?”

Claire turned her head against the cushioned back of the chair. “Do you imagine that fate brought you to Alaric?”

Ivy shrugged and made a face suggesting she didn’t know for sure. “I mean, apparently, anything is possible, so why not?” She laughed lightly. “But honestly, couldn’t they have brought him to the future instead of sending me to this time?”

“Right?”

They were quiet then, and Claire wondered if Ivy was trying to imagine Alaric dropped into the twenty-first century, same as she was trying to picture Ciaran navigating the modern world.

At length, their gazes met, each revealing a knowing smile, thinking of how badly that would go.

***

Claire hesitated at the threshold of the long, low outbuilding, the smell of damp straw and sickness wafting out to meet her. The events of two days ago returned to give her second thoughts, recalling the doctor’s reaction to her attempted intercession, and then Ciaran Kerr’s reaction to that.

I’m not here to start trouble , she reminded herself. I’m here to apologize for the trouble I started.

But still she hesitated, nervous, until she saw the young kid who’d been hauling water buckets the other day, the one who’d translated the gist of the doctor’s angry tirade.

Here he was again, his skinny arms once more made taut by the weight of the bucket he carried.

He stopped with the bucket at the side of each wounded man—Claire counted twenty-three while she’d been cowering at the door, trying to talk herself into entering—doling out a ladleful of water to each man.

Another practice that would have to stop, she determined, as that was hardly sanitary either, having them all share the same ladle.