Reunited (Book 2 of Lost Highlander series)

by Cayman, Cassidy

  Evie clung to her and sobbed. “Don’t,” she said. “Promise you’ll be back.”

  “I’ll be back,” she said, disentangling herself. “You two go to Maison Craig and have a nice lunch. We might even be back in time for you to pick us up on your way home later on tonight.” Her voice cracked on the last word and she cleared her throat vigorously to try to hide it.

  Sam dragged Evie away from Piper, and gave Lachlan a hearty handshake. Piper saw that Sam’s eyes were glistening with tears and she had to hurry away, vaulting over the wall and running to the edge of the trees. She took a deep breath and held it, willing her own tears not to spill over.

  Lachlan caught up with her and she turned and gave Sam and Evie a wave. She let their images burn into her memory, praying this wouldn’t be the last time she saw them, but having to accept that it might be. She hated goodbyes, avoided them at all cost. This one was the worst.

  As Sam helped Evie back into the car, she knew that they would be happy together. She felt a stab that she might never see the baby, but shoved that thought out of her mind. She watched the car until it went around the bend and then she stared at the empty road, clutching Lachlan’s hand.

  “Are ye ready for this?” he asked, pulling her close to him.

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation, closing her eyes and breathing in the modern air, trying to catch any whiff of pollution, trying to hear any of the sounds she wouldn’t hear in the past.

  The Highlands were disgustingly fresh and quiet though, and just as she gave up and opened her eyes she heard an airplane and laughed. She leaned back in Lachlan’s arms and watched as the small plane buzzed by overhead, then enjoyed Lachlan’s amazement.

  He’d seen a plane once when he’d arrived the first time. It was the thing that finally convinced him that she and Sam weren’t lying to him about having come to the future. The poor man had about had an aneurism.

  Now he watched it until it was lost from sight on the horizon, it’s puffy white trail breaking up into wisps in the pink morning light.

  “‘Tis a miracle,” he said, his voice full of emotion. “Have ye ever been in one of them?”

  All at once she felt it really was amazing, seeing it as if through his eyes. “Well, sure,” she said, feeling slightly show-offy. “I’m from America, remember? I’d have to, to get here.”

  Piper had been all over, it was her life’s goal to travel as much as she could, and had taken her first plane ride when she was just a child. It had never occurred to her how incredible it was that they could fly.

  “What is it like?” he asked. “To be so far above the earth?”

  “It’s a little nerve wracking at first, when you take off,” she said, then shrugged. “It’s just a way to get around.”

  She hugged him close, feeling guilty for taking all her plane trips for granted. She either watched movies or took a pill to fall asleep, never once savored the wondrous fact that she was actually flying.

  “Are there no more ships?” he asked, still watching the jet trail break up in the sky.

  “For cargo mostly. You can take a pleasure cruise, too. I used to work on a cruise ship. They’re not so much to get somewhere as to just be out on the boat.” She smiled at his grimace.

  “I dinna think I would like that,” he said, then blinked down at her in disbelief. “Ye worked on a ship? A wee lass like yerself, a sailor?”

  She laughed at him, wondering what he must have been picturing. “I think you’d love it. There’s a ton of food and gambling, drinking and dancing and shows.”

  She wanted to take out her phone and find pictures of a cruise ship, with its swimming pools and waterslides right on the deck, to blow his mind.

  Her heart stitched up a little. Would she love his time as much as she thought he would love hers? Would she be able to adjust if he didn’t want to come back? She could hear Evie’s voice in her mind, telling her she should really get these issues dealt with.

  “I hope I would have the courage to get on one,” he said, nodding at the empty sky.

  She pulled out of his embrace and set off slowly into the woods, letting him take the lead. He knew roughly where Agnes’ place was and they wanted to be close, but not right in her backyard when they arrived.

  “Would you want to come back, if we can get everything sorted with my ancestors?” she asked.

  “We will get it sorted,” he said firmly, then wrinkled his brow. They walked in silence for a few minutes. “I would like verra much to come back,” he finally said shyly. “If that is what ye want as well?”

  “You wouldn’t miss your family?” she asked.

  “My mother died when I was a lad, and my father a few years back. I have a half sister who lives wi’ an aunt on my land, and I care for her, but we are no’ close as she is verra young. My idiot brother Quinn is a thorn in my side. I couldna in good conscience leave the running of the clan in his hands. But I wouldna miss him, and I could leave instructions with my steward. He is a good man, and can be trusted.”

  “I’d be sad if I never saw Evie or my mom again,” she said, when she’d gone over what he’d said.

  “Then we shall return.” He stopped and turned, looking all around and down at the ground. “I think this is it.”

  His readiness to give up his old life for her took her breath away, and when she stopped and looked around all she saw were trees and vines. How he could tell where he was, almost three hundred years after the fact, was beyond her comprehension, but she was too happy to care. She stood on her tiptoes so she could kiss him.

  “If we can’t come back to this time, I won’t care,” she said. “I want to be with you whenever.”

  He nodded and kissed her back, brushing her hair behind her ears. “I love yer glossy hair,” he said, then frowned. “It’s verra short for my time, though.”

  She grinned and rummaged in her bag. “Evie thought so as well,” she said, whipping out a soft woven scarf, which she pulled over her chin length bob like a kerchief. She grinned and struck a pose. “Stylish, and will also cover my shame.”

  He frowned at her teasing, and pulled off the scarf, tucking it around her shoulders.

  “Never say that, Piper,” he said. “Ye are beautiful, no matter.”

  They stood and looked at each other, their moods slowly dampening as they realized now they were in the right spot, it was time to get ready.

  Piper swallowed her nerves and set her bag on the ground, kneeling beside it to take out the carefully wrapped objects. Lachlan sat down beside her, looking grim.

  “We need something, a marker, no? So we go to the right year?” Lachlan asked.

  “We have something from the right year,” Piper said shortly. “You. Just concentrate on your life in your time.”

  “Aye, I suppose. I hope we dinna go to when I was a wee lad, or any other time in my twenty-five years.”

  She looked at him in a new light. Was he only twenty-five years old? He was the same age as she was, but he was so big and capable and sure, the leader of his clan. He seemed older to her.

  “Well, don’t think about when you were a wee lad,” she cautioned. “Think about the last time you were there, that’s all. I don’t think we can be super specific anyway. Let’s just aim for the right year.”

  Her stomach started to churn and a sour taste rose in her mouth. She held up the pendant and tugged it over his head, untangling strands of his hair from the chain.

  “What shall ye use?” he asked, closing his fist around the pendant.

  She knew he despised it, but she wouldn’t take a chance.

  She shrugged. “I only have the one. Do you still have the one from last time?”

  He shook his head. “It was gone. Disappeared. I looked through every blade of grass where I landed. I dinna understand why it was gone.”

  “It’ll be fine,” she said with more confidence in her voice than she really felt. “Don’t let go of me during the spell.”

  She’d joked about
it, but she didn’t want to end up lost and alone in medieval times.

  “Never,” he said fiercely. “And if we must, we shall take turns wearing the vile thing.”

  Piper unrolled the cloth wrapping up Daria’s grimoire and the disgusting packet of finger bones. She shuddered when they clattered together in their bag, and once again hated herself for keeping them, while at the same time being relieved that she had.

  With a last look at Lachlan, she opened the book to the page that was still marked with a strip of paper from the last time she’d done the spell.

  Time slowed down around her and she was taken over by the book. All the sounds of the forest dropped away and she heard words coming out of her mouth that she didn’t understand.

  Without a conscious thought of what she was doing, she arranged the bones in the proper way on the ground in front of her. Keeping one hand on the page of the book, she took a knife out of her bag and handed it to Lachlan.

  Wordlessly, he dragged the razor sharp blade across the inside of his forearm, leaving behind a thin line of blood. Several drops fell onto the bones, and while part of her felt sick, another part of her felt invigorated.

  The bones began to swirl and she blinked to clear her vision, but soon the bones were whirling around so fast they disappeared. In their place on the ground was an opening, through which Piper could see a cloudy sky and the edge of a wooden fence.

  With a glance at Lachlan, who was looking at her intently, she ran her fingers down the page. More words rose unbidden from her mouth, and the window in the ground started to close up, become the pile of bones again.

  Hurriedly, she rearranged them and held out her arm, looking beseechingly at Lachlan. Her blood also had to be shed, but even in her half trance, she was too much of a coward to cut herself. The last time she’d wavered so long, Lachlan had taken the knife from her and neatly sliced her arm for her, apologizing profusely afterwards.

  Now he did it without flinching, quickly pressing the edge of his shirt over the cut after a few drops of blood fell on the bones.

  Not caring about her arm, she wrenched out of his grasp and started chanting loudly, feeling a whirlwind starting in the very center of her being. The bones began spinning into a new vision, this one a deep black hole that started growing, threatening to swallow them both, and the entire forest along with them.

  She stood up as angry sounding words spilled out of her and to her horror, she saw Lachlan start to disappear. She screamed as he lunged across the gaping hole and grabbed her around the waist.

  She fell backwards, all the breath knocked out of her as he landed on top of her. With a final scream, and a slicing pain in her head, she blacked out.

  Chapter 17

  She opened her eyes to see a crazed black-haired god towering over her, violently shaking her and … was he crying? He looked very upset.

  He was repeating the word Piper over and over again, interspersed with words she didn’t understand. As if to show all the humans in the world how silly they were, a bird flew past overhead, cawing rudely at their ardent little scene.

  Something clicked in her head, then something else and she knew she was Piper and it was Lachlan who was shaking her because he probably thought she was dead. She coughed and waved him off of her.

  “You’re scrambling my brains,” she said, holding the sides of her head and looking around.

  The trees that had been sprouting their new spring growth were now clinging to the last of their fall leaves. There were more evergreens than she remembered, so many she almost felt claustrophobic in their midst. They were several feet from a well worn path that hadn’t been there before. Vines that had hung around her minutes ago were no longer there.

  And the bones were gone. She decided not to think about the bones just yet. If it meant collecting new ones for the trip home, there just wouldn’t be a trip home. Nope. She wasn’t going to think about the bones right now.

  Lachlan pulled her hands away from her head and kissed both her palms, then kissed her face and her mouth.

  “I thought I’d lost ye,” he said, making a noise between a laugh and a sob. “I didna like it.”

  Still feeling a bit dizzy and with a ringing in her ears, she pushed herself up to sitting. He jumped up and held out his hand to help her get to her feet.

  He gently turned her and a couple hundred yards away she saw a small stone cottage through the trees. An agitated goat was tied up beside it, butting its head on its post. Several chickens scratched in the dirt nearby. She turned back to him and he gave her a dazzling smile.

  “I believe we made it,” he said. “Can ye walk?”

  He looked so excited to get to Agnes’ house that she managed to move her feet and return his smile.

  Shakily, she followed him as he made his way up to the cottage. He kept a firm grip on her hand and kept pausing every few steps to check on her.

  As they got closer she could hear the goat as it butted its head and made irritated goat noises. The chickens scattered when they entered the yard, but quickly calmed down and started rooting for bugs again as if they weren’t even there. Lachlan asked her to wait while he told the herb woman they had arrived.

  “She’s never gone forward,” he said in a low voice. “She swore it couldna be done. I dinna think she ever believed me when I spoke of ye.”

  He looked like a boy who had managed to complete a challenging dare, and dropped a kiss on her forehead before knocking on the door.

  A stout woman with friendly eyes and dark hair shot with gray, flung open the door and teetered out into the yard.

  She looked more like someone who would win a blue ribbon for cookie baking than a witch, and Piper was relieved to see that not everyone who mastered the magic of time travel was purest evil.

  Agnes patted Lachlan’s cheeks and then shoved him aside to rush over to Piper. She grabbed Piper’s hands and beamed at her, then turned to Lachlan.

  “Have ye succeeded then, laddie?” She pulled Piper toward the house. “Is this the lass from the future?”

  Lachlan followed them with an indulgent smile on his face. He clearly adored the lady. “Aye, this is my Piper.”

  Agnes enveloped her in a hug and motioned for her to have a seat inside the cottage. Piper was grateful to sit as her legs were still shaky from the arrival.

  A hot cup of tea appeared before her and Agnes held out a tray of biscuits. Piper took a few and looked at Lachlan, feeling overwhelmed with the welcome. He patted her hand and sat next to her, accepting his own cup of tea, but waving away the biscuits.

  “Ye’re truly a Glen?” Agnes asked when she’d settled into a chair across from them. She leaned over and studied Piper’s clothes.

  “A bit diluted, but yes,” Piper said.

  “Ah, but ye do look like my protégé.” Agnes looked down. “May God rest her.”

  Piper realized with a jolt that she was speaking of Daria. She cleared her throat awkwardly and didn’t say anything. Lachlan murmured what may have been agreement, or just comforting sounds. She looked at him questioningly while Agnes kept her eyes lowered and he shook his head.

  Agnes must only know that Daria had been killed in the tower fire, but not how far she’d slipped into madness and been the cause of it all. She supposed that Lachlan had wanted to spare the sweet old lady from feeling responsible.

  “There is so much more we can learn,” Agnes said after a moment. “The fact that Lachlan found ye is a miracle. I myself have never gone further forward than the amount of time I was gone, and in fact didna think it could be done.” She looked from one to the other. “And to be so precise in the navigation. I have no’ attempted to travel in a long time, but I used to go years from my intended mark.”

  “We don’t really know what we’re doing,” Piper admitted.

  “The mysteries surrounding it are many,” she said with a nod. “At first I thought I was cursed, then blessed. I thought ‘twas my bloodline, but what then could explain Daria and dear
Lachlan here? The nearest we have to an explanation is the land. Perhaps the wee folk used to live here. Fairies, lass,” she explained at Piper’s confused look.

  Piper just stared. She knew if she ever really saw a fairy her brain would explode and she’d probably squash it like a bug. She prayed it would never come to that. There was quite enough craziness in her life without the wee folk messing around with her.

  “Yes, Lachlan told me he couldn’t travel from the mountains,” Piper agreed.

  She nibbled at the crumbly butter biscuits while Lachlan asked if Agnes ever had any knowledge of anyone who was close to her getting sent along for the ride when she did the spell.

  “Going back with ye?” he repeated when she didn’t understand. “Not that ye would have done apurpose, mind.”

  “You may not have known it was happening, but did anyone just disappear when you used the spell? Anyone at all from the area? We think it happens to people when they’re close by.”

  “Close by? I dinna think so. Has it happened to ye?”

  Lachlan explained that the first time he was sent forward in time was an accidental byproduct of one of Daria’s spells.

  “But Daria does a different spell,” Piper said, looking apologetically at Lachlan.

  She didn’t want to break Agnes’ heart by revealing Daria’s evil core, but they needed answers.

  Agnes gasped and put her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with fear. “A different spell than the one we use, Lachlan?”

  Lachlan nodded slowly and Piper’s stomach started to churn with guilt. She took a fortifying sip of tea, but wasn’t fortified.

  “I can’t use the spell that you and Lachlan use,” she blurted. “I had to use Daria’s spell to get here.”

  She covered her face with her hands, hiding from Agnes’ horrified look. She must know about the bones.

  Agnes crumpled into herself and her spry, cheerful face grew older before their eyes. She sighed and got up, pacing the small area of the sitting room as she spoke.

  “In my youth, when I first learned I could travel at will, I sought out others who had the gift. There aren’t many, and even less who go by the means that Lachlan and I do.”