Page 54 of Wild Highland Rose (Time After Time #4)

C ameron listened to the darkness. The beeping was back. The whooshing noise had vanished and this time he recognized the incessant beeping for what it was. A monitor. He was in the hospital. He'd made it home.

"Cameron, can you hear me, sweetie?"

Lindsey. He recognized her scent before her voice. He let his eyelids flutter open and waited for his eyes to adjust to the artificial brightness of the room.

"You're awake."

Lindsey's face swam into view, rich pink artfully accentuating her lips and cheeks. He thought of Marjory's pale unadorned face, and oddly, found it more beautiful.

He opened his mouth to say something, but Lindsey shook her head. "Don't try to talk. You've been in a coma. They just took the tube out this morning."

She laid the book she'd been reading on the bedside table, the title, Touch Not The Cat was the motto of Clan Chattan. Marjory's grandfather.

Marjory. Her name resonated through his mind like sweet music.

"Cameron, honey?" Lindsey reached for his hand. "Can you hear me?"

"Coma?" he croaked, his throat raw and painful.

"Yes." She squeezed his hand and licked her lips. "They put you into a drug induced coma, to help you heal. Dr. Graham reduced your meds today. He thought you wouldn't wake up until this afternoon."

A coma. That explained the noises and the darkness, but what about his adventure in Scotland? Had it only been a fantasy? Had he dreamed it all?

He wriggled his toes and fingers. No paralysis.

Whatever medications he was on, they were keeping the pain to a dull roar.

His head throbbed and he thought there might be a splint on his leg, but other than that everything seemed to be in working order.

He looked over at Lindsey, catching a look of guilt on her face.

"Cameron, I've got something to say." She licked her lips again. A habit, he remembered. "I've had a lot of time to think about this. And I need to tell you, while I've still got the courage."

Something in her tone set off alarm bells.

Memory teased him, but slipped away almost as quickly as it had come.

Lindsey shifted so that she was leaning forward, the tops of her breasts just visible below the neckline of her shirt.

She reminded him of Aida. He frowned, forcing himself to concentrate on what she was saying.

"…it was all my fault. And I swear it will never happen again. Deke and I made an awful mistake, but I want to make it up to you."

His heart rate jumped. Deke and Lindsey.

Deke and Lindsey. Suddenly, it all came crashing back, the scene replaying itself in his mind.

He'd left the hospital early. He'd planned to surprise Lindsey with a night on the town, but he'd been the one surprised.

He'd walked in on her in bed with his best friend.

He felt pain rocket through him, as the memory returned. He'd rushed from the house and jumped into his car, his only thought to get as far away from the scene in the bedroom as possible. It was raining, and Lindsey had followed him to the car, begging him to forgive her, to forget what he'd seen.

He'd slammed the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway, speeding away into the night. He'd rounded a curve on the interstate going too fast. The highway was slick with rain and the Porsche had lost traction. He'd spun out of control and hit an embankment. And wound up here.

An alarm went off above his head. Lindsey jumped up. "Oh, God, have I upset you? I was just trying to make things okay. You know, to get us back where we were. I'm truly sorry, Cameron." She stood by the bed, wringing her hands. He couldn't stop staring at her perfectly manicured nails.

A nurse hurried into the room and over to the monitor by the bed.

Flipping a switch, she turned off the alarm.

Reaching for Cameron's arm, she felt for his pulse.

With a firm look in the direction of his ex-fiancée, she said, "Miss Bowden, you'll have to leave now.

" Lindsey backed through the door, her eyes wide with worry.

The nurse wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm and began pumping as she glanced at her watch. Ripping away the cuff, she took a capsule from her pocket and stuck it under his tongue. Verapamil most likely.

"Your blood pressure is high, Dr. Even. This ought to bring it down."

She fussed with an IV bag, increasing the flow of fluid into his arm. Morphine Sulphate, he noted. No wonder he was feeling no pain.

"Close your eyes and rest now. I'll check back in a little while. I've put in a call for Dr. Graham." Then she bustled out of the room as quickly as she had entered.

Cameron settled into his pillows and closed his eyes, amazed that he hadn't blown an artery.

He couldn't remember ever having felt so angry, so betrayed.

And to think that he thought it had been his fault.

That he needed to prove himself to Lindsey.

To come back and save her. The lying bitch. He should have never left Marjory.

Marjory . Just thinking her name was painful. He didn't even know if she really existed. Maybe she was just a coma induced hallucination. He'd read of such things before. His heart cried out at the thought, insisting that she was real—more real than anything he'd ever had in his life.

And he'd let her go.

The realization hit him like a brick. He'd had had everything he'd ever wanted and he'd let it all slip through his hands. He'd tried to do the honorable thing, but in reality he'd simply refused to listen to his heart. Grania had told him, but he'd refused to listen.

He wondered what had happened. Had he died in the fifteenth century?

Had Marjory survived? Had she mourned his loss?

Suddenly, he longed to go back—to go home.

The word surprised him, and he whispered it out loud.

"Home." Crannag Mhór . It felt right, more right than anything else in his life. But it was too late.

His brain was getting foggy, the pain killer doing its job. With a sigh, he let his eyes drift shut allowing the darkness to take him.

Marjory sat up with a start, excitement making her pulse quicken. "I think he's breathing." She laid her head back on his chest. She could definitely feel a shallow up and down movement. "Holy Mary, Mother of God. He's alive."

Cook materialized from nowhere, the kindly woman kneeling by her side, doubt written across her ample face. "Nay, Marjory 'tis just your imagination. The man is dead."

"'Tis no' true." She grabbed the woman's hand and forced it down on Cameron's chest. "Feel for yourself."

Cook frowned her, then slowly smiled. "Dear God, ye speak the truth.

The man is breathing." Her smile faded. "You canna get your hopes up, lass.

Just because he's breathing now, doesna mean he'll ever wake up.

He took a bad blow to the head, and there's all this blood. That canna bode well for his recovery."

Marjory ignored the woman's gloom. She had hope. Hadn't Cameron first come to her through just such an injury? She placed an arm under Cameron's shoulder. "Help me get him up. He needs to be in bed."

"Fine. I'll help ye get him to bed. But I dinna want ye getting yer hopes up."

"I'll think what I want." Marjory cried, surprised at the vehemence in her voice. "The man has risen from the dead before." Her heart soared.

She leaned over Cameron, whispering in his ear. "Come back to me, you stubborn oaf. I've need of you here. You belong to me and no one else. Come back to me."

"Come back to me." The voice echoed in his head, pulling him from sleep, darkness surrounding him. He listened to the darkness. The beeping was incessant, pounding out a steady beat. But instead, he concentrated on the voice. Marjory's voice. Had he dreamed it, or was he still linked with her time?

He tried to open his eyes, but couldn't. Hope shot through him.

It had been like this before. He willed himself back to Crannag Mhór, to Marjory, but nothing happened.

There was only the darkness and the syncopated beeping.

He struggled to see something, anything, in the dark, frustration consuming him.

"Rest easy, child."

Grania.

He relaxed at the sound of her voice, and immediately, the white door appeared. He felt his heartbeat accelerate, whether from excitement or fear he couldn't say, probably a bit of both.

"Dinna be afraid, I'm with ye."

He felt the warmth of her love surrounding him. "I can't see you." He spoke and yet he knew he hadn't truly vocalized the words.

"I'm here. Feel me with yer heart."

Again, he felt the warmth of her love embrace him.

"'Tis time fer you to make a decision, Cameron. Ye must decide what it is ye want, lad. Yer old identity or a new life with Marjory. Ye canna have both, and I canna hold the door open much longer."

As he watched the white door dimmed a little. "Why are you here?"

He felt her laughter. "'Tis my job to watch o'er ye. What I couldna do in life, God has allowed me to do in death. I want only your happiness. But the decision must be yer own."

The light faded a little more, and he wondered suddenly how he could have ever thought anything was more important than love. For he loved Marjory Macpherson with all of his soul. He belonged with her, no matter what century, no matter what body.

"Ye have chosen wisely, my son, I'm proud o' you. Remember a part o' me is always with you."

Grania's voice faded away with the door, and the darkness shifted, black to gray. The beeping was gone. Afraid to hope, he slowly opened his eyes.

Marjory sat on a chair, resting her head on the edge of the bed coverings, her hand entwined with Cameron's.

With Cook's help, she'd managed to clean and bind his wound.

Once the congealed blood had been washed away, the gash had seemed less nasty.

He did have a large knot on the back of his head, but in truth, it didn't seem any worse than any he'd had before.

But he hadn't awakened, hadn't even made a sound. Once, she'd thought she heard him say her name, but then she'd decided she'd only imagined it. With a sigh, she raised her head, quickly sucking in a breath, as she looked into his amber eyes.

"Marjory, mine." The words were weak, but she'd never heard anything more beautiful in her life.

"I'm here, love, I'm here."