Son and Throne (Kaitlyn and the Highlander Book 11)

by Diana Knightley

  “Okay, good, I’ll get more than necessary, I’m cool with that. But also, maybe go to a coffee shop and sit and relax and let me do more shopping. I want to help...”

  We had a big dinner and Isla was sitting in Emma’s lap, quiet, with no crying.

  I said, “It’s a freaking Christmas miracle.”

  “She’s over the colic, mostly, which is good.” She raised her voice, because in the background Archie was howling over something and Beaty was attempting to soothe him.

  Emma finished, “Because Archie needs all of us to rally, his needs are epic right now.”

  We put out the Christmas toys just before midnight and had fun, a few drinks, a few laughs, a little relaxation among all of us. As everyone headed to bed, I turned out all the lights, saying as Zach went to their room, “What time do the little terrors wake up?”

  “Usually around 6:30.”

  I said, “Do you know what I’m thinking right now?”

  “Something about how crazy we are to have another?”

  I joked, “That does not sound like me at all.”

  Katie wasn’t there in the morning. I mean, we knew it, had known it, but it was true. After the presents, when the grownups were in the kitchen talking, I said, “It doesn’t feel like she’s coming, like I should be able to tell, and I don’t feel anything at all, like they’re off radar.”

  The awful part was that everyone agreed.

  Whenever I was in the past, Fraoch kept asking me why I wouldn’t just jump ahead far into the future, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to cement that time. What if I missed her? I couldn’t bear the thought, so in the beginning I just had to keep checking, a week or so in between. A week here, two weeks there. My jump hangovers, even with the vitamin regimen, the go-go potion, were getting worse. Coupled with the sadness, I was a freaking wreck.

  Fraoch and I went riding. We could only do short trips, because it was getting cold, growing into winter.

  I was quiet, one day, looking out over the valley from the headland where we first used to go and sit and talk — my favorite view. The wind was blustering up the hills, bringing the crisp smell of a cool winter day, the sky had all the shades of grey in patterns across it. The castle seemed very small it was so far below, shrouded in mist. Fraoch asked, “How are ye feelin’?”

  “Not good, sad.”

  “I ken.”

  “I did pray, it helped a little.”

  “I am glad.”

  “Doesn’t the castle seem empty now?”

  “Tis because it is cold, everyone is inside tryin’ tae get warm. The soldiers are gone, the tents, the weapons.”

  “I don’t know, it’s hard to describe. Watching it is like the center of gravity is gone, the heart of it. Without my best friend calling it home, and without Mags standing in the great hall telling some ridiculous story about his exploits, without that — what is there?”

  His brow drew down. “I am here.”

  “I really don’t mean for this to seem bad. It’s not about you, I love you so much. You are my everything. You’re the reason I’m here, but it’s just so melancholy that I used to have so many reasons to come, now only one. An awesome one, a great hunky love of my life one, but one all the same.”

  I pulled the tartan around my shoulders. “Even my relationship with Lizbeth has shifted. Like we don’t have anything in common anymore.”

  “Aye, I hae felt it shift, as ye say. It has for me as well. The men hae come tae think of me as part of the clan, but without Magnus here, I am just another man.”

  “I hope this doesn’t sound bad either, but I’m glad you feel the difference too. I’m so glad I have you to talk to. I miss Katie so much. I just want you to know, if I’m being sad, it’s not because of you. You make me happy. I’m so grateful for you and I’m glad we share this.”

  “Except we canna really share it because ye hae tae go again.”

  “Yeah, but I have to, I can’t just ignore it. I have to do something even when there is nothing to do.”

  “Ye promise tae come home?”

  “Always.”

  Sixty-eight - Hayley

  It had been months and now it was high summer. I took Ben and Archie out for a walk on the beach. Archie was crouched with his little hand reaching for shells and I was crouched beside him, shifting my fingers through the shells, trying to be the kind of person who could see shark teeth like Katie. But I wasn’t, never had been. I didn’t have the patience, apparently. I only found them by accident.

  And without realizing I would, I said, “Katie loves looking for shells.”

  He looked up into my eyes and broke my heart a little.

  “She does, she loves looking for shells, and she loves you. She loves you a ton, all the tons, so much, and I’m sorry she’s not here right—” He stood up and wrapped his little arms around my neck. And me and Katie’s little boy we cried there in each other’s arms for a long long time. “I’m really sorry little guy. She’s trying to come home. Your Da is trying to come home. I promise.”

  When we went back to the house, he made me carry him, and then all night, through dinner, until bedtime, he sat on my lap.

  That night Quentin turned off the tv and said, “You leaving tomorrow?”

  “I am... I’ll be back next weekend.”

  “How are you going to explain that to Archie? Because he’s been unable to leave your arms all night.”

  “I don’t know, I—”

  “You know Beaty and Emma have been doing the hard work taking care of him for months now, helping him through his grief. Beaty said Archie told her that his Da was coming home, that you told him his Da was coming home...”

  I opened and closed my mouth. “He is... I...”

  “I was a teen when I lost my mama and that shit was so hard. You just told that little boy that he—”

  “I gave him hope! I...”

  “Do you have hope?”

  I shook my head with a huff. “Not really.”

  “Are they coming home?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So why tell a little boy that? Why do that — so he can have his heart broken every single day? He’s little, we can tell him the truth and help him through it and then...”

  “I know... You’re right... It’s just so hard, I needed to cry and he...”

  “He’s a baby, Hayley. He lost his Da and Kay-be. Imagine it. Now tomorrow you’re going to take off, and Beaty and Emma are going to have to help him get through it again.”

  “I won’t, I’ll stay. I’ll step up as Auntie Hayley. I’ll be better. You’re right.”

  I looked down at my hands thinking about the difficulties of living in two different centuries at once. “I can go back to Fraoch at the same time, I just — it’s really hard. I’m going back and forth. So much jumping. Everything hurts and it feels kind of wiggy, deep inside, like I’m not anywhere.”

  “Yeah, I get it, I know. We just needed to talk to you about it. It’s all well and good when you didn’t talk to the kids, but guess what, you’re involved with them now. You’re right, it’s complicated.”

  “Stupid kids always complicate everything.”

  I stayed until Archie’s birthday. And, as we dreaded, Katie and Mags didn’t make it home in time.

  Zach, Emma, and I threw an exceptionally large, excessively lavish kid’s party, because of the guilt and remorse we all felt. The trauma of not knowing. It was getting to be too long. Soon decisions would need to be made. We didn’t talk to each other about it and we couldn’t talk to Archie about it because we couldn’t tell him they were gone. Or where. There was no way he would understand. And we were past hoping they were coming back.

  Katie’s parents were there, and we all focused on the children. Her parents were good at what they needed to do — ignore unpleasantness, focus on what made the family look good, and they agreed that the party was big enough to make them look good. I was Auntie Hayley and I was awesome, but I also spent a lot o
f time in my room taking deep breaths. Then I returned home.

  Fraoch was right there as always.

  As soon as I had my strength, he bundled me up and got me to the castle because it was butt-cold outside, but as soon as I had my arse settled in a chair, I confessed. “I stayed for longer.”

  “How long?”

  “Almost two months. And I have to go back as soon as I can.”

  “Ye stayed, Hayley?”

  “I did. I couldn’t leave. Archie needed help and he was crying... And every time I thought about leaving I couldn’t.”

  Fraoch’s brow furrowed.

  I said, “I’m sorry. I talked to Archie and told him that Katie was coming home soon and... I just about broke his heart. Then he couldn’t let me out of his sight. He’s just going through a thing — separation anxiety, they called it, and I promised him, and now I need to go back. I have to. He’s really an awful little tyrant, but so adorable and it’s totally understandable.”

  He nodded, his expression was thoughtful. He was so quiet it made me nervous and so I kept talking. “The thing was, the other grownups, they had to have meetings to decide how to deal with me, because of my relationship with the kids. So I had to stay. The kids needed continuity. Plus I wasn’t feeling very good and I thought that staying would make it hurt less, and work needed me. All of it. And now I need to go back. I need to prove I’m reliable so I’m going to have to jump even more and I kind of feel like throwing up.” I dropped my head on the table and lay there until my proper cup of coffee was brought to me.

  Sixty-nine - Hayley

  And that’s what I did. I boomeranged back and forth, except both places were home and it sucked. I was never happy in Florida, never healthy in Scotland. Fraoch said, “I fear ye are goin’ tae get ill, verra ill, tis too much tae put yer body through.”

  “What am I going to do, not come home to you? Not be there when Archie needs his Aunt Hayley? When Katie could come home any day and I should be there to say, ‘what the hell took you so long?’”

  Would I just stay here, and let Archie believe I was gone like his parents? That I deserted him? I had been the child of alcoholic, divorced, totally self-absorbed parents, the kind that couldn’t be counted on when I needed them. I was not like that. I was not.

  “Besides, it’s been so long now, each day gets closer. If Katie is alive she could come home any day. Mags will come through the door, carrying her, because he’s romantic like that.”

  “I am romantic.”

  “You are, so romantic, and now that your ribs are totally healed I’m going to spend a whole day letting you carrying me from room to room and it’ll be so romantic. I will reward you with sex in every room.”

  “Except the men’s sleepin’ quarters.”

  “Except for there, everywhere else, except the garderobe or the kitchen, or the stores or the — you know what, after you carry me room from room, you can carry me to our bedroom and we’ll lie there together on our perfect mattress and have proper alone sex.”

  “Och, I think if I hae been carryin’ ye from room tae room all day it might needs be some improper sex as well.”

  I grinned. It felt so good to grin.

  “It’s a deal. But now you mention it, improper sex sounds good right about now, and who needs all that lifting beforehand? That might weaken you. Let’s go into this with all our stamina.”

  The jumping was kicking my arse. I had been back and forth and back and forth for so long I had to keep a piece of paper in my pocket with dates on it, so I wouldn’t get confused.

  As Emma said, “This is not healthy and just because you’re taking vitamins doesn’t mean you can do it indefinitely.”

  “But Archie! But Isla!”

  “I know, but if you can’t stay here, if you can’t live here, maybe don’t come. If you decided to stay away for a while we would figure it out. We would explain it. We would help them through it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You might have to is all I’m saying.”

  And then when I got back to the past, Fraoch said, “Ye are goin’ tae kill yerself.”

  “Yeah? Well, I hope not.”

  “Ye hope not? Ye are supposed tae say, ‘Nae Fraoch, ye canna die from time travel or I wouldna be riskin’ it.’”

  “Well that would be a lie wouldn’t it? And I’m not going to lie to you. It’s dangerous. But so is living in the long ago past. What if it’s winter? Did you see what she was wearing? Basically a shirt, a skirt, a tartan wrap, that’s it. She might have frozen to death and we would never know.”

  “I thought Magnus carried her a coat and a pair of boots.”

  “Maybe, but what if he didn’t find her? She didn’t even have a bodice on because she was nursing. She was nursing that baby and then she was gone. Ugh, I can’t bear it. My heart is breaking. Our nephew Archie is having nightmares. He cries in the middle of the night. Emma said it’s like he can’t see them or hear them. Can you imagine? He’s that devastated. It’s like we can’t help him. This is our niece and our nephew, and there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Tis a tragedy.”

  Lizbeth came to join us for dinner. She asked, “They arna home?”

  “No, not yet.”

  She sighed. “Dinna ye tell me that Lady Mairead said a year?”

  “Yeah, before she finally stopped.”

  “So dost ye think she will wait and bring them back tae ye then tae prove a lesson tae ye?”

  “I don’t know, I mean, I really hope not. That would be so cruel.”

  “Aye, and she can be cruel, but I truly believe she daena ken how tae get them. I believe if she can she will. She wouldna risk their lives. I ken she will be evil when she can be, but for Magnus she will try tae do what is right. She is just...”

  “A bitch,” I finished.

  “Aye, she is that. I am sure she is doin’ her best tae understand it. How dost ye think it works?”

  “I don’t have any idea.” I shrugged.

  She looked off at the carved details in the ceiling. “I was weavin’ the other day, hae ye done it yet, Madame Hayley?”

  “No, but I’ve seen the looms in the weaving room upstairs.”

  “Aye, I like tae sit there sometimes. Tis a good escape from the business of running the household.”

  “I get it, it’s meditative.” Her brow drew down so I added, ”Like calming.”

  “Aye, and I was thinking on the weave. I haena time traveled but when I hae considered it, I imagine time is a bit like cloth. The warp and the weft hae a strength as long as they are woven taegether, but if a strand comes undone, tis a chance it might unravel it all. I believe Magnus’s life there and his life here are woven taegether in a strong tapestry.”

  I nodded. “I can totally see that.”

  “But when the weave is unfinished, there is only the warp, and though tis tightly held on the loom, it daena hae true strength. Without the weft tis only string.”

  “I’m not sure I...”

  “I think Young Magnus and my sister Kaitlyn hae found themselves on the unfinished part of the weaving. Lady Mairead will only need tae learn how tae finish the weave, the warp and weft of time, tae be able tae bring them home.”

  “I like that metaphor, the warp and weft of time... Please tell me Lady Mairead knows how to weave.”

  “Och aye, she is the one who taught me the skill, though I must be honest, Hayley, she daena like tae do it, she finds it verra beneath her.”

  I groaned. “And she’s our only hope, the kids need Kaitlyn.”

  She took a drink of ale and shook her head sadly. “Aye.”

  “I just hope they aren’t gone for much longer, this going back and forth is so hard.”

  Fraoch said, “Ye could wait longer afore ye go again. Ye need tae rest and—”

  “But the children... I don’t know.”

  Lizbeth watched us her brow drawn down. Then she said, “Fraoch MacLeod, ye could go with her. I haena wanted tae trave
l, but I haena had a reason tae. Ye hae a wife who needs tae be there.”

  “Nae, Madame Lizbeth, I canna go.”

  “Ye might hae tae—”

  Fraoch abruptly stood, his chair scraping loudly. “Hayley promised me she wouldna require it of me. Tis the work of the devil. Ye yerself hae said yer mother is evil and she is a regular user of the vessels.”

  Lizbeth whispered, “Fraoch MacLeod, ye keep yer voice down!”

  Eyes turned to watch us in the room. “Ye sit down, Master Fraoch.”

  He sat down.

  She said, “Lady Mairead does use the vessels for malevolence, but your wife is nae malevolent. Magnus is nae evil. Kaitlyn is a Godly, motherly, wifely woman, she has a boisterous wit, but she is nae evil. I hae prayed beside her. Ye are a brave man, a good man, ye hae been loyal tae Magnus and m’own family and I am grateful tae ye for the work and protection ye hae offered us, but in this ye are wrong. Yer wife is living two lives and is torn between them because ye are being cowardly about it. There is a new world beckoning ye. Magnus is your brother and his children need tae be cared for, and what of your own? If your own positions were reversed what would Magnus do for ye?”

  Fraoch scowled.

  “If ye and Hayley were lost and there was a bairn and a son, what would he do?”

  “He would take them intae his home.”

  I spoke up. “Magnus has friends, he has Quentin and Zach, Madame Emma, they are taking care of his bairn. Fraoch doesn’t have to—”

  “I am nae askin’ if Fraoch has tae. I am askin’ Master Fraoch what Magnus would do for him, and if he is tae be the kind of man who kens that another man would do something that he himself inna willing tae do? If ye were lost Magnus would take care of yer bairn. He would take them intae his home. Master Fraoch, ye ken tis true. Kaitlyn took in Young Magnus’s son by another woman, and has been raisin’ him as her own, she would take in your bairn if ye were lost. Tis the type of woman she is and the regard she holds ye in. Your wife is trying tae be honorable and tae live up tae her friend’s regard, and tis time for ye tae do your part in it.”