A Highlander’s Homecoming (32 page)

“Okay. I’m going to be totally honest with you here, but you have to promise me you won’t freak out or anything. Promise?”

“Freak out,” Isa repeated slowly, having no earthly idea what the girl meant. “I will try not to do this thing.”

“First off, Robert isn’t my father. He brought me here to protect me from some really bad guys.” Here she stopped and shook her head, tears shining in her dark eyes. “Really bad Faeries, as a matter of fact. The father/daughter thing is just the cover story he came up with. But his parents have been so great to me. They’ve accepted me as their granddaughter, and for that I love them to pieces.”

Isa stared at the girl, concentrating to follow Leah’s strange pattern of words, trying her best to follow the girl’s story.

“Here’s the thing. About nine years ago in actual time, and don’t even ask about that yet because it will all make sense in a minute or two, Robert got in this god-awful battle to save a friend, and he ended up getting a sword between his ribs for his effort. That friend used Faerie Magic to take Robert into the future, to a time where doctors had the tools to patch him up and save his life, because if he’d stayed here, he’d have been a goner. So—flash forward there he is in the future, doing fine until he agrees to bring me back here, back to
his
time, to save my butt. Only problem is, he isn’t supposed to be alive in this time, and it looks like the Faerie Magic is determined to set things straight.” The girl finally paused her nonstop rant to take a breath. “Make sense?”

Isa shook her head. Sense? Not at all. “Yer from this future Robbie was taken to?” she asked at last, her voice sounding hesitant to her own ears.

“Yes. And even though he knew this might happen, he decided to act as my Guardian to bring me back here because, way back when, he’d promised a dying friend
he’d look after this guy’s little girl, but first those guys almost killed him, and then the whole time thing got totally messed up, and now you’re not a little girl anymore. In fact”—she smiled sadly—“you’re his wife now. And he’s . . .” Her words trailed off and she squeezed Isa’s hand.

Leah’s story boggled her mind. If not for the things she knew to be true, the things she’d experienced in her own life, she wouldn’t have believed a word of it. Not even the words she could understand.

But she did believe, and knowing the truth of his story made so many things he’d said and done so much easier to understand. Still, honesty deserved honesty.

“I have something I must tell you as well. As yer no his daughter, I am no his wife.” Isa kept her voice low, hoping to control the emotion buffeting her in waves. “No that I wouldna give all that I am to be such. Thinking to secure our release from the man who’d captured us, I spoke my vows to him in front of my clan. I’m no free to be Robbie’s wife. No ever.”

Leah rose up on her knees and put her arms around Isa, hugging her. “Don’t cry, Isabella. You are his wife as far as he’s concerned. That’s all that matters right now.”

All that matters? Hardly. If she understood Leah’s story correctly, the man she loved lay dying before her very eyes and it was as much her fault as anyone’s!

“He came back because of a promise to look after me.” She drew on Leah’s earlier words to help it all make sense.

“Uh-huh,” Leah confirmed, sitting back down on the floor.

“Came back though he knew it might cost his life.”

The girl nodded her agreement to that statement.

“Came back from a future time where he was perfectly healthy.”

“Yes.”

Isa felt as if there was something important just waiting to be plucked from the line of logic she’d followed, but it eluded her. Her tired mind struggled to find the missing piece, and then the pieces snapped together like the foreign puzzle box in her grandfather’s solar.

She tried it one more time.

“If he can travel through time, and he’s no in any danger in the future . . .” she began, pausing as she considered the implausibility of what she was getting ready to say.

“We should send him back to that future where the Faerie Magic wants him to be.” Margery finished her line of reasoning from the shadows by the door.

“How long have you been standing there?” Isa stood and turned to face Robbie’s mother.

“Long enough to recognize what you say as truth. An excellent plan, my dear. Leah? How do we make it happen?”

Leah had risen to her feet as well, one hand supporting her against the chair. “I’m not one hundred percent sure. I only know that the women who sent us told us we had to think about the place we wanted to be. So I guess you have to think about where you’re going.”

“It takes those of the Faerie blood to invoke the magic.”

Isa jumped at the sound of Robbie’s voice and hurried to his side. One look at the growing red splotch on his bandage and she knew they had little time left.

“I am of Faerie blood. Only tell me what to do, Robbie.” Anything. She’d do anything to save his life.

He held out his hand to her. “Come sit beside me. I’ll tell you about my home and we’ll imagine ourselves there.”

Isa carefully climbed up onto the bed, cursing her clumsiness when she noted the flinch of pain on his face. “Tell me. Help me to see it with you.”

“My home sits in a lovely valley in the mountains. It’s a big ranch, with plenty of room for . . .” He paused, panting for breath, obviously in pain. “Room for little Jamie and all the children you’ll give me.”

Isa tried to envision his words, but his dream was too much fantasy even for her, despite how much she wanted what he described to come to pass.

“It’s no working. There’s nothing,” she muttered, her frustration and fear growing by the second.

His eyes were closed, as if it took too much effort to hold them open, his face wrinkled as he gritted through the pain. “Cate warned as much. It took three of them to send us.”

“And we’ve only two.” Leah stood at the side of the bed, twisting her fingers together. “Try again, Isa. Keep trying.”

Try what? Isa had no idea what it was she should be doing. Think on someplace she’d never even seen? How was she supposed to do that?

Only Robbie could see where they were to go, and he seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness now.

“Stay with me, love. I need you to concentrate on yer home for us.” Isa grabbed his shoulders, giving him a little shake.

When her hand covered the mark on his arm, a shaft of green light burst from between her fingers, shooting out into the room.

“Whoa,” Leah breathed, leaning forward. “Tell me you saw that, Grandma Mac.”

“I did,” Margery replied. “Though I’ve no idea what it was I saw.”

“It’s those tattoo things!” Leah cried. “Robert’s Guardian Mark. It’s on the back of Isa’s hand, too. When they touched, it sparked the magic.”

“But no enough.” Isa swept her hand over Robbie’s forehead once again, desperate to come up with an idea. Any idea.

“Love you,” Robbie groaned, “Need to say that before I lose . . .”

“Oh, Robbie.” Isa put her face close to his, kissing his cheek. “Dinna you die on me, do you hear? I dinna want to live without you.”

“Soulmates,” he whispered. “I’ll find you again.”

“No!” Isa sat up on the bed, grabbing his shoulders, sparking the shaft of light once more. “I dinna want you to find me. I want you to stay with me!”

As the light died down the door burst open and Jamie ran inside.

“I saw a strange light coming from yer door.”

“Not enough,” Leah murmured. “Not enough! Of course! It’s only two.”

She reached into the neckline of her shift and jerked, pulling a broken ribbon from around her neck. A shiny black stone dangled at the ribbon’s end she held out to Isa.

“Take this. Hold it in your hand against the mark on
his arm. You’ve two marks. This will make three. It’s worth a try.”

Isa took the stone, sparing only a second to look at it. Carved into its polished surface was the same mark that Robbie wore on his arm. The same mark as on her hand.

“Wake up, Robbie. Stay with me. You must see where you want to be in yer mind.”

His eyes fluttered open. “Be with you,” he muttered.

“Aye, with me, love. But in the future. In yer home where yer safe. See it in yer mind for me. Please.”

She slapped the stone against his arm, holding on to it as tightly as she could. If this worked, it would be up to him where they might go, for her thoughts were centered on him.

An odd green glow began to pulse through the room, with strange little bursts of color sparking in and out.

“Isa!” Jamie yelled, as he nimbly slipped past Margery’s outstretched arm, straight up onto the bed beside Isa, his little arms locking around her waist.

With her free hand, she grasped onto Jamie’s wrist, filling her mind with a new vision. A vision of the three of them. Together.

The tingling along the back of Isa’s hand intensified and she fought the urge to slap at the invisible creatures she felt crawling on her skin as thunder rumbled nearby.

The green light grew more brilliant, shrinking into a wavering sphere that enclosed the bed, and the sparkles of color multiplied until it looked as though there were thousands upon thousands of them shooting around inside the sphere. They dashed soundlessly against the
wavering emerald walls and through Isa’s body, picking up speed until she could no longer discern individual shapes but only streaks of color swirling around her head.

The myriad colors gyrated around them, faster and faster, and at last, as if hitting the peak of their frenzy, they merged, and the world around Isa turned to black as she felt herself being thrown through the air.

Chapter 31
 

As the black lifted, Isa found herself flat on her face, her grip holding tight to her two men. She opened her hands, trying to flex her cramping fingers before she pushed herself up to sit.

Jamie’s body lay against hers, one limp arm, the one she’d held on to as they tumbled, still draped over her leg.

She grasped him under his arms and dragged him into her lap, smoothing her fingers over his soft pink cheeks.

“Dearling,” she murmured. “Open yer eyes.”

“He only sleeps.”

Robbie, his eyes smiling and alert, watched her, a smug grin on his face as he sat up straight. “You did it, love.”

She froze for a second before reaching across the child in her lap to whip the blood-drenched bandage
from his chest. It gave way easily, leaving a wet brown smear across his skin.

Skin marked only with a thin silver scar.

Isa ran her finger over the ancient wound, finding herself speechless for one of the few times in her life.

“I told you. You did it.” Robbie placed his hand on either side of her face and, leaning forward, pulled her toward him until their lips met.

What began as soft and gentle soon became desperate, and they broke apart, each of them gasping for air.

“Let me get our lad settled.” He scooped Jamie into his arms and climbed off what had to be the biggest bed Isa had ever seen in her entire life.

“Yer sure he only sleeps?” His breathing did sound like that of a sleeping child, but she hardly knew what to believe after all she’d seen in the past twenty-four hours.

“Time travel is hard on Mortals. He’ll sleep for a good twelve hours or more and wake as hungry as a bear in spring.” Robbie chuckled as he walked away from the bed carrying the boy. “Dinna you move from that bed, wife.”

Wife.

If he’d intended to freeze her to the spot, he couldn’t have chosen a better word.

Wife.

It rattled around inside her head and dropped into her heart like a heavy lump of lead.

Wife.

What she wanted most. What she couldn’t have.

“Ugh! Let’s get rid of that.” Robbie returned, snatching up the bloody bandage between two fingers and walking through another door with it, continuing to
talk even after he disappeared. “I was thinking as I put Jamie to bed, I can only guess it’s the Guardian Mark we wear that brings us through the travel so alert.”

Isa changed her position to try to see into the room where Robbie had gone and her knee hit on something hard. Reaching down, her fingers tightened around a small, oval object.

Leah’s stone.

Without this, they’d still be in MacQuarrie Keep.
Without this, Robbie would be
 . . . She couldn’t finish the thought. After days of staying strong, her reserves crumbled and, like some dam they had broken through, tears coursed down her cheeks.

“What’s all this? We’re fine now, love. You’ve nothing else to worry about. No ever.”

Robbie had returned, pulling her to him. He held her in his arms, stroking his large hand gently over her hair, making little shushing noises that only seemed to elicit more tears.

He was so good to her and she wanted to be his wife more than anything in the world. She wanted to bear the children he’d spoken of when he shared the vision of his home.

She wanted him, but she was already the wife of another man.

“It’s no fine. It’ll never be fine,” she finally managed to blubber.

“Of course it is. You’ve brought us here to our home. Jamie sleeps like an angel in the other room. We’re together. What more could you ask for?”