Again My Love (Kaitlyn and the Highlander Book 9)

by Diana Knightley

  “That is a huge question. First, the longest I have been there is a couple of weeks. Usually I carry food, equipment and supplies. You’ve been there longer with more deprivation, would you be able to live there?“

  “I don’t know. Plus, you have Magnus, he takes care of you. He protects you. When I was there, Lizbeth had to stay beside me every single moment.”

  Magnus said, “Fraoch is orphaned, he daena have family, tis complicated tae provide for a wife and bairn when ye daena have an extended family tae protect ye.”

  I nodded, “None of this sounds good, like you are not ready for this kind of life. You are a thoroughly modern woman. What about children? The first thing, the entire point of the marriage, would be to have children. What would you do?”

  “I started thinking it might not be such a bad thing, I mean, I kind of like Ben. Archie is rad. Lizbeth isn’t winning any mothering awards and she has babies...”

  Magnus said, “Lizbeth is high born. She daena have tae raise her own bairn because she can have others do it for her. Tis her station. Marryin’ Fraoch winna raise yer station. I have seen the contents of his sporran. He has only what he wears and no more. I tell ye, Madame Hayley, if he wanted tae feed ye and there wasna game about, he would have tae beg for the meal. He is cared for because I asked my clan tae care for him, and in exchange he is tae guard for the storms. He canna marry a woman such as yerself and make ye happy.”

  “Katie is happy. I’m not much different than her.”

  “Hayley,” I said, “Magnus is the nephew of the Earl of Breadalbane, a cousin of the Lord of Argyll, and a king, or at least he was, and in 2020 he is fabulously wealthy.”

  She sighed and leaned back in her chair.

  “So what do I do? It breaks my heart that I left him all alone.”

  There was a stack of notebooks on the coffee table. I tore out a blank piece of paper and pushed it in front of her and passed her a pen.

  “Make a list, pros and cons.”

  She began to write:

  Pros.

  Underneath she wrote: I love him.

  I muttered, “Jeezus Christ.”

  She wrote: I want to take care of him.

  And then: I don’t want to not have children with him.

  I pointed out that double negatives didn’t exactly work in the ‘pros’ column.

  She wrote: He’s smoking hot.

  I said, “Missing a tooth, add that under cons.”

  She scrawled it under cons then said, “He could come here and get that fixed.” She drew an arrow from ‘missing a tooth’ over to ‘pros’ and over the arrow wrote: We can fix that.

  Under that she wrote: Stinks when he doesn’t bathe.

  I groaned watching her write it.

  Not great style.

  Eats rabbit with his fingers.

  Then she added under pros: hunted for food to feed me.

  Under cons: Has never seen an episode of Friends so he misses most of my references.

  I said, “Hayley, I don’t think you’re using this list-making tool the way it was intended.”

  She swigged from her beer and said, “Shhh, this is helping.”

  Under pros she wrote: He has no family.

  I said, “Magnus already explained why that’s a con.”

  She lifted her brow and wrote: No bitchy mother-in-law.

  I said, “You got me there.”

  Pros: He needs me.

  She leaned back on her heels. “See the pros win.”

  I sighed dramatically. “Hayley, you could be a grown up and say to yourself, ‘I met a guy on summer vacation. He was hot. I flirted with him. He showed me a good time. We seemed like a good fit, but I couldn’t leave my job, my house, my life to go to him, and he wouldn’t do it for me.’ Then you say ‘Oh well’ and then you wish him ‘all the best’ and let him find someone else, then you go on Tinder or Grinder or one of the other things you single ladies do, and have meaningless sex until you—”

  “I don’t want meaningless sex, I want Fraoch. I want a ring. I want to wake up and go hunting every single day with Fraoch.”

  Magnus leaned forward and waved his fingers so she would write. “Under the con one write: ‘the Scottish winter will be a’comin’.’”

  “Ha ha, very funny.”

  I said, “Seriously Hayley, write that down.”

  She wrote it down.

  “You still think the pros win?”

  “Yep.”

  “Does that mean you're going to move to Scotland in the year 1704? Hayley, is that what you're saying?”

  “Maybe. I mean I could always come back right? Jump back and forth?”

  I asked Magnus, “Would we give her a vessel?”

  “You kind of owe me since this is all your fault.”

  “Aye, Madame Hayley and Fraoch can have a vessel tae live on the edge of a loch through the Scottish winter, nae ownin’ anythin’ but love, beddin’ each other because tis naething else tae do, verra borin’, until there are bairn all around their skirts mewlin’ for milk.”

  Hayley wrote between both columns: Birth control is a thing.

  I asked, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  She shook her head. “But look at you — you love someone from the past.”

  “Magnus has seen the future. He knows things about the world. The first time he took me back in time I was faced with medieval rapists and barbaric murderers and the weird political maneuverings of the upper class and to make me feel better Magnus made a joke about Foo Fighters music and I laughed and we felt better. We had to have that in common... I don’t know, honey, you’re giving up so much.”

  “Yeah, and I don’t know... I just think he will be worth it. When I was there it was so simple and comfortable and we had so much to talk about.”

  “Did you go to meetings? You’re drinking...”

  She shrugged. “They don’t have AA meetings in the eighteenth century, but also, they... I just felt better about myself, fresh and not bored, and while I’m saying that I know it’s not true. I actually was dirty, tired, and bored, and I don’t know what the right answer is, except — Fraoch.”

  I looked at Magnus. He had his fingers resting on his lip but wasn’t really laughing, just considering.

  “What do you think, Magnus?”

  “I believe Fraoch is a lucky man tae have Madame Hayley interested in bindin’ her life tae his.”

  “Do you think he will be modern, and gentle, will he abuse her?”

  “I ken him tae be of a mild manner when he inna beatin’ me tae teach me a lesson.”

  I waved my hand at Magnus, “See, Hayley, he might be an abuser.”

  Hayley raised her brow. “How many men have you killed in the last year, Magnus?”

  “If ye are speakin’ on all my lives I canna count them all.”

  Hayley waved her hand at Magnus, mimicking me. “See? And remember that whole thing about if you’re lost, stay put and...?”

  I grinned. “I do. I was just telling my grandparents that of all the things they accomplish in their life, they have to make sure Grandpa Jack gets lost at the amusement park, so that I learn that lesson. I have to tell it to you so we can apply it to every single situation whether it fits or not. But Hayley, it doesn’t fit in this case, who is lost?”

  “Fraoch, he’s orphaned, lost, and I need to go find him.”

  I took her pen from her hand and under her columns wrote —

  Need supplies.

  Need to pack.

  Need to go find him.

  Thirty-eight - Kaitlyn

  Our plan was for Hayley to leave in three days. I wish I could call our days calm and stress free but they weren’t. We had, all of us, moved into a new house, and not all at once, in fits and starts. We couldn’t find anything. Someone was always hollering, “Where is the...?”

  Emma was muttering about the “insane people who put stuff away like idiots,” sounding a lot like me when I was searching for Magnus’s lett
er through the boxes in storage back at the beginning of all of this.

  Zach was trying to toddler-proof while Ben was toddlering, and the furniture was lavish and not at all childproof. There was a pale peach velvet settee, much like Lady Mad’s velvet couch, and it only took a couple of hours before there was a spilled Cheerios and milk situation on it.

  Neither Ben nor Archie remembered it happening, they just found it funny.

  Hayley said, “This is one hundred percent why babies aren’t allowed to live in nice houses.” To Ben she added, “I always know where my Cheerios are, I wouldn’t leave them lying willynilly.”

  And Zach was irritated because he had to go so much farther to get to the grocery store, plus Quentin sent a guard with him every time and this was our life now.

  The house was awesome. It was still too cold to begin using the swimming pool, and the lack of ocean-front kind of sucked, but we had an amazing yard sloping toward the marsh — a long dock stretching into the intracoastal waterway, a large boathouse with a thirty-foot get-away boat.

  We were dealing with a lot of life stuff, but whenever we could we gathered family-style — breakfast out in the screened porch, a long table with chairs all around it, larger seating even than the dining room.

  At sunset we gathered on the dock and sat with our feet dangling in the water, while Beaty played the bagpipes — a terribly squawking, unsettling racket that was somehow really beautiful. This was our Beaty’s music, her blue hair cascading around her shoulders, barefoot and bare legged, she was learning to play by watching YouTube videos and serenading us out of a feeling of gratitude for rescuing her from her own time and bringing her here. We never ever complained about her missed notes.

  A security guard stood a few feet away. Always.

  We had packed Hayley’s bags. She had a letter from Magnus for Lizbeth and Sean asking them to give her care and attention. Also there was a letter for the Earl of Breadalbane with a bag of gold as a gift and a request for her to be cared for.

  Hayley had her own bag of gold. She was wearing an outfit from my stash, combined with some of the clothes she arrived home in so that she looked the part. She had a cooler full of food. A blade for protection.

  She had long ago gone on a hormone patch for birth control and skipped her periods, so she was going to stick with that. “Something you should have done years ago,” she unhelpfully pointed out.

  To which I answered, “I’m trying to get pregnant.”

  “Ugh. Why? Your life is perfect, don’t go screwing with what is already perfect. Did you learn nothing from the Katy Perry concert? We had sneaked into good seats, but no, you weren’t happy, you wanted to try for front row, but that security guard found us and escorted our sorry asses all the way back to our way-in-the-back-back seats and stood watching over us.We were stuck.”

  “Yes, I learned my lesson, but also, I’m still trying to get pregnant. Call me a lesson-ignorer if you want, but I don’t think anyone wants children because they want perfection. I kind of think you have to go into parenthood with the idea that you want to be imperfect. That’s how it works. Kind of like if you wanted a perfect life you would not be heading to the eighteenth century right now. Antibiotics being something that is lacking.”

  She looked in my eyes. “Did you remember to pack me the antibiotics?”

  “I did. Did I remember to tell you how brave you are?”

  And then we were all driving in three different cars down to the south end, because we didn’t want to jump from our house and draw attention to its exact location. But we all wanted to be there to say goodbye. Everyone was armed.

  We parked along the road and we all helped carry a load to the sand. Ben and Archie ran chasing after a flock of seagulls though the pristine sand, pale white, not even a footstep around.

  Everyone joked, teasing Hayley. She was going to stay away for two weeks, which wasn’t a big deal. She was calling it a vacation, but she would stay there as long as she needed or wanted. I had taught her the night before to use the vessels. She was ready.

  Zach speculated that she might come back with gray hair, and when she said, “I don’t think I can stay that long,” he said, “No, not gray because of age, because that Highlander is going to be such a pain in your arse.”

  Beaty took photos while Ben and Archie chased the birds. She raced alongside them, kicking her sandals to the side, and taking shots of the little boys against the blue skies of the clear March day.

  Her internal body-temperature was all wackadoodle, like Magnus’s — we were in jackets, she believed it to be warm out.

  Quentin said something funny. We laughed. I rustled through one of the packs, checking it for the umpteenth time, then my eyes traveled down the beach, the distant spot where the boys were playing — Beaty was working her fingers on the back of her camera.

  I asked, “What is she doing?”

  Quentin called across the sand, “What are you doing, Bea?”

  She didn’t look up.

  He cupped his fingers around his mouth and yelled it again, “What are you doing?”

  She called back, some of her voice lost on the wind, “...namin’ this photo, hashtag... ‘the prince.’”

  I stood, hands on my hips and asked Quentin, “What does she mean, ‘namin’ it’?”

  Suddenly two big dark future-cars, raced across the road and drove careening down onto the sand.

  Men in full soldier gear leapt out—

  I grabbed the dirk from the bag at Hayley’s feet and Quentin, Magnus, and I were in a full race toward the boys, ohnoohnoohnononono, Emma screamed as soldiers closed on Ben.

  Zach was yelling and running toward the boys. We were all converging on the same point, the two cars, near the boys, a storm rising above them, a big terrible storm, just as one of the soldiers hit Beaty and ripped Archie from her ams. She was begging and crawling after them, grasping after the soldier’s legs — he kicked her face.

  Quentin was yelling. Quentin was aiming at the guards while running, commanding them to stop.

  Zach was aiming his gun but a soldier was holding Ben, using him as a shield.

  Magnus unsheathed his sword as he ran and was on that soldier, bellowing, “Put him down!”

  I raced past Magnus, with the dirk in hand, heading straight for that asshole who was holding Archie — a struggling, screaming, terrified Archie. Like a wild banshee I brandished my blade, “Let go of him! Let go of him right now! You asshole, let go of him!”

  As I gained on him I drew my hand back and plunged my dirk into his stomach, screeching. Then we were struggling over the handle of the blade, blood gushing over my hand, trying to free Archie from his grip, my hair pulled, Archie screaming, hand to hand against this monster — my arm was grabbed, yanked behind my back. Another soldier grabbed me around the waist, writhing, kicking, screaming — I was thrown onto the floorboards of a car.

  Archie was screaming nearby. We were both inside the car but separated and oh god, the storm winds battered the vehicle, rocking it, a boot on my chest holding me down, my arm bent under me.

  I could see through the open sunroof as the storm built more dangerously, lightning arced across the sky, and I felt it rip through my body as the time jump began.

  Thirty-nine - Magnus

  I gripped my sword though twas useless as the storm whipped and roared around us. I was holding Ben tight tae my chest, covering him, as sand battered us in the wind.

  The cars were gone. Kaitlyn was gone. Archie.

  Twas all now the sound and fury of the storm as the clouds built tae their highest position and then began tae roll back and pull away, until moments later clouds raced from the point above us.

  Madame Emma reached me, taking Ben intae her arms. He was wailin’ a convulsive cry, scared from his mind. He was only two years auld, a bairn, nae old enough tae be grabbed by soldiers.

  I turned m’attention tae Madame Beaty, layin’ on the sand her hands on her face, blood streamin’ down her
shirt. Master Quentin crouched beside her, pressin’ a cloth tae her nose — twas slow motion around us.

  Mistress Hayley beside Master Quentin, “Is her nose broken?”

  He was dabbing at the blood and speakin’ tae Madame Beaty tae calm her. “I don’t think so, I think she’s going to be okay. Can you get the monitor? I dropped it over there. We need to watch to see if more are coming.”

  “More could be coming?” Mistress Hayley ran tae find the monitor.

  Madame Beaty was cryin’, “I am sorry King Magnus, I dinna ken twas a problem. Quenny...” She clutched his shirt. “I dinna ken Insta was the problem. Ye took m’phone away, but with the camera I could post the photos. I just wanted tae put up the pretty pictures. I just...” She moaned. “If anythin’ happens tae Archie twill be m’fault.”

  I crouched beside her and patted her hand while Master Quentin advised Mistress Hayley where tae search. “Check near your bags!”

  I said, “Tis nae yer fault, Madame Beaty, ye dinna ken, tis nae... daena worry on your part in it.”

  Madame Emma was consolin’ Ben, carryin’ him tae the car.

  I stood tae watch that place where Archie and Kaitlyn had last been, their struggles and screams echoin’, but there was naething there—

  Chef Zach stood beside me, his hand on my back. “Thank you for saving Ben, I thought — God, I thought they were going to fucking take him, to kill him — thank you.”

  I nodded. “I canna believe they were...”

  “Do you need to go, to follow...?”

  I shook my head, keeping my eyes focused on that spot. “I daena ken where they are. I have nae way of discoverin’ it.”

  My sight had gone blurred around the edges, a pinpoint of focus in the middle, direct and straight, this — the blood on Madame Beaty, Master Quentin’s voice consolin’ his wife on the sand, my heart racin’, my breath comin’ bullish from my nose, pushed from my chest in short bursts. My sword was beside me in the sand, glintin’ in the sun, heatin’, I wanted tae raise it against them, tae kill them all, but when?

  They were an enemy of stealth. They had waited for the right time and caught us unaware, twas strategic and brutal and final.