Jamie returned Duncan’s stare with hard, defiant eyes and tightly set lips. “I had business to attend.”
“Really? I struggle to see what could be more important than spending time with your people.”
“I assure you, Duncan, my priorities were exactly where they needed to be.”
Vee’s hand flew to her mouth, her shoulders twitching with—laughter? Jamie’s twinkling eyes darted to her and they shared a secret smile. I had no idea when they had time for an inside joke, since I’d been glued to Vee’s side practically the entire day. Before I could ask what my bestie found so funny, a waitress with dark skin and a bright crimson sari approached bearing a suspiciously flat, round metal tray. Familiar garlic-scented wafts of steam trailed in her wake. I recognized that smell.
“Holy Hammerstein! Is that pizza?” My voice rang so loudly through the room that other diners stopped what they were doing and turned in our direction. But I didn’t care. Doon had pizza!
As the platter containing what looked to be a large pepperoni was set before us, the occupants of our table relaxed. Vee slid Jamie a sidelong glance. “Is this really pizza?”
“Aye. Likely the best you’ll ever eat.” With a chuckle, he handed her a slice. Vee’s thumb brushed Jamie’s palm and he bobbled her food like a fourth-string quarterback. Hand off completed, he paused, his attention singularly focused on the area of her mouth while she bit into the triangle of meat and cheese.
After a moan of culinary bliss, she bit off a larger chunk and swallowed it whole. “Sooo good. I mean—thank you, m’ laird.”
Jamie tore his attention from Vee’s lips with a slight grimace. “Glad ye approve. As I said, you need not stand on ceremony here. Call me Jamie.”
Vee ignored his request as she dove into her meal like it was her last. I couldn’t blame her … my own little slice of paradise beckoned. After several satisfying mouthfuls I asked, “How? I mean, where did you people get pizza?”
Jamie’s eyes lit up as he explained with quiet pride, “Mario’s an import from Italy, one of the Destined.”
Unwilling to relinquish my slice for even a moment, I choked out between swallows of food, “Who’s a what?”
Jamie laughed. “The restaurant owner’s one of the Destined. Mario came to us during the last Centennial and decided to stay.”
“As I told ye before, Mackenna, we’re no’ barbarians.” Duncan’s statement might have been more impactful if he hadn’t been speaking with his mouth full, but I decided to let it slide on account of him being such a wonderful host.
The pride on Jamie’s face deepened into quiet passion. “Each Centennial, while some Doonians are welcoming new arrivals, others will go out inta the modern world to gather up as much information as possible about the history and progress of that realm. With the help of the new imports, we implement changes that would best benefit Doon, like running water and modern plumbing, while preserving our culture.”
Vee met Jamie’s gaze with a hunger than had nothing to do with food. “Why not electricity?”
“Electricity was fairly new at the last Centennial.” Jamie gestured around the tavern. “Doon has adequate sources of heat and light, so generating electricity wasn’t deemed of enough benefit to implement. O’ course, it will be evaluated again after the next gathering.”
“How does the Centennial work, exactly?” Leave it to Vee to want to peek behind the curtain and discover the inner workings; it was our way out, which was enough for me.
“On the Centennial, the Brig o’ Doon opens for twenty-four of your hours. In that time, Doonians and the Destined, those called from the outside world, are free to come and go as they please.”
She digested the information, her pizza forgotten. “So the Outsiders could stay in Doon?”
“Aye. Most all do.”
“And the Doonians?”
“Do not have to return, if they dinna want to—but that rarely happens.”
Vee’s train of thought furrowed her brow. Rather than look at Jamie, she picked at the checkered tablecloth. “So a Doonian could choose to stay in my world, if he—or she—wanted.”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed as if he were trying to read the thought behind her question. But rather than respond he indicated her neglected plate. “Ye best eat before your food gets cold.”
Back to being Prince Not-So-Charming, Jamie turned to Duncan and began to discuss plans for the next gathering in a low voice. Duncan cast me a helpless glance that I took to mean he’d rather be socializing than talking official business. But it’s not like he had much of a choice, as someday soon his brother would be in charge—Jamie was the heir and Duncan merely the number two. The spare.
A quarter hour later, Fergus leaned back in his chair and caressed his bulging belly with meaty hands. “I dinna think I can eat another morsel.” Although I had not personally eaten two whole pizzas, like the big man, I still echoed his sentiments. Best pizza ever!
Fiona cast Fergus a teasingly stern look. “’Tis a good thing, Fergus Lockhart, because I don’t think Mario has a morsel left ta spare.” Through most of the meal, she’d remained silent. Observing. I doubted there was much of anything she failed to pick up on.
“Sì.” Mario, the mustached restaurateur who’d been the benefactor of our incredible meal, joined us with a chuckle. “Ma va bene se gli piaceva la mia cucina.”
Fergus looked blearily at Duncan, his brain likely struggling to process the conversation due to his food coma. “What’d he say?”
Trying to suppress his laughter enough to translate, Duncan replied, “He said, ‘It’s fine as long as you enjoyed his food.’”
“His cooking, Duncan,” Jamie interjected with a hint of superiority. “Cibo is food. Cucina means cooking.”
Duncan rolled his eyes. “Cucina also means kitchen, Jamie. My translation was contextual rather than literal.” His impish wink at me made it clear Duncan was baiting his brother. Although I had no idea why. To me it seemed as advisable as poking a bear.
Jamie glared from across the table, his dark eyes narrowed as a muscle in his jaw ticked. “Are you saying that your Italian is better than mine?”
Duncan nodded in the affirmative. “Sì, certo!”
The brothers jumped to their feet in unison, causing Mario to raise his hand to his forehead. In thickly accented English, he exclaimed, “Not again. Ragazzi!” Other than Mario’s admonishment, no one else in the tavern appeared particularly alarmed that the princes were on the verge of coming to blows over a translation.
After a moment of testosterone-fueled opposition, Jamie’s lips began to twitch and Duncan’s shoulders started to quake. In a strangled voice, Jamie said, “Italian aside, can we not agree, brother, that Fergus’s new tam is the ugliest hat in all the realm?”
Between heaves, Duncan replied, “Aye.” Laughing too hard to say more, he collapsed back into his chair, tears leaking from the corner of his eyes.
Fergus looked from one prince to the other in astonishment, finally settling on his future leader. “Wha’s wrong with m’ tam, exactly?”
Besides the bright yellow pom-pom? In the marketplace, I’d seen lots of people wearing tams of the Doonian plaid—called the Auld MacCrae, which I’d learned thanks to Fiona—with a green or blue toorie on top. But nothing quite like Fergus’s. To my left, I heard Vee muffling giggles behind her napkin and I couldn’t help but cave.
Truth be told, he was a big man … in a little hat.
With his pride at stake, the giant turned to Fiona. “You care for it, don’t ye, Fee?”
Fiona blinked at him, her face deliberately placid despite widened eyes. After a moment she stood and smoothed her skirt. “I want ta pop round and see my mum before returning ta the castle. So if ye don’t mind, I’ll take my leave.”
In a surprisingly lithe move, Fergus sprang to his feet. Before Fiona had taken a half dozen steps, he was at her side. She paused and lifted her lovely face toward her massive shadow. “What’re ye doing, Fergus L
ockhart?”
“Escorting ye.” His face colored ten different shades of mottled pink, but he didn’t back down.
“Because the streets o’ Doon are so unsavory?” Undeterred by Fergus’s size, Fiona placed a petite hand on his sternum and pushed. “Shove off! I can fend for m’self.”
Fergus placed his bear claw of a hand over hers, trapping her palm against his chest. He leaned toward his captive and invaded her space while speaking in a low, even voice. “That may be, Fee, but the people are in a state of unease”—he glanced at us apologetically—“because o’ our new arrivals. So I’m escorting ye.”
Fiona’s nostrils flared, but not from anger. Her pupils swallowed up her hazel eyes as she inclined her mouth toward Fergus’s bright red ear. “Fine. But you better not eat all of Mum’s biscuits again.”
With that, she yanked her hand from the giant’s grasp, spun on her heels, and stalked out the door. With a contrite “m’ lairds” and a single nod, Fergus followed in her wake.
The moment the tavern door shut, Duncan and Jamie exploded with laughter. Duncan raked his hand through his already-chaotic hair so that it formed dark, spiky peaks. “Poor lad.”
Jamie nodded in agreement. “Aye.”
I failed to get the joke. “Why?”
“Why?” Jamie smiled, looking the most at ease he’d been all evening. “Because he’s totally besotted, that’s why. He’s been in love with Fiona since childhood.”
A miniscule sigh slipped from my bestie. Out of the corner of my eye, I noted the devastating effect of Jamie’s smile. In the aftermath, her eyes brimmed with stars that rivaled the Hollywood Walk of Fame’s.
Not that I could claim to be completely unaffected. When he wasn’t sulking, Jamie was one of the hottest guys I’d ever seen—aside from his brother. Staring at the two of them side by side was like stepping into a medieval Calvin Klein ad—only with more clothing. And when the both of them smiled, I felt the resulting swoon deep in my girly parts.
Speaking of swooning, Vee blinked dreamily up at Jamie. “And Fiona doesn’t feel the same way.”
“Nay, she’s crazy about him too.” Duncan pulled the focus back to himself, but not before I noticed Jamie’s posture shift slightly away from Vee. “But he’ll not have an easy time of winning her.”
“Winning her?” While I wasn’t a brainiac like Vee, I didn’t typically need water wings in the shallow end. I was obviously missing something. “She’s not a prize turkey. If they like each other, why don’t they just talk it out? Honesty is the foundation of a healthy relationship.”
“That’s what I was saying to Jamie this very morning.” Duncan propped his chin on his fist, batting his lashes and favoring me with a disarming smile. His twinkling eyes drew me in like a magnetic force field. Imaginary music swelled, filling the tavern with the sweet love ballad of Christine and Raoul from Phantom.
Unable to look away, I squirmed in my chair and sent Vee mental smoke signals. She reached across the table and lightly touched Duncan’s forearm. “Is Fergus any relation to Kenna’s uncle, Cameron Lockhart?”
For a moment, he appeared confused by Vee’s touch. But he quickly recovered and favored her with a million-watt smile that abruptly silenced the romantic melody in my head. “Aye. Cameron Lockhart was Fergus’s mother’s cousin. But he and his bride left Doon the year before Fergus was born.”
While Vee chewed thoughtfully at her lip, Jamie scowled at the juncture where her pale hand rested against his brother’s coppery skin. A barely audible growl rumbled up from his chest. Vee glanced toward the noise, noticed the murderous expression on Jamie’s face, and snatched her hand away as if stung.
Recognizing my cue to play rescuer, I quickly improvised. “But if Cameron left Doon more than fifty years ago and Fergus is—what, early twenties?—how does it work?” I was sooo not a math girl. On my best days, I struggled to add and subtract double digits.
Mario, the proprietor and import from Italy, paused in his task of clearing the table adjacent to ours. “If I may, signori? It is a gigante mystery.” He illustrated his point by holding his hands wide apart and giving them a shake for emphasis. “As a young man, I was called to Doon from Napoli in 1915, during the last Centennial. I met la mia moglie—my future wife. Since then, I marry, make seven bambinis—babies—but I do not look over one hundred years old.” He demonstrated by doing five quick jumping jacks. “I do not feel it either.”
If I passed Mario on the street, I would’ve placed him in his late thirties or early forties—not in the hundreds. Yet he stood before us like the Italian cross between a Roman immortal and the old woman who lived in a shoe with all those kids.
Vee waved her hand, apparently unsatisfied with the breezy explanation. “But there must be some logical explanation.”
“Niente” Mario shrugged and then resumed busing tables.
Vee turned to Duncan who, in turn, gestured to his brother. Cautiously, Jamie turned toward her and answered, “There’s no exact formula for matching the passage of time in Doon to the outside world, but it moves at approximately one-fourth the pace and can have a variable of eight years.”
Nerd alert. Although Jamie MacCrae looked GQ, he had some serious IQ going on.
Plunging into the mental deep in the prince’s wake, Vee hypothesized, “So, the Brig o’ Doon opens once each hundred years in the outside world, but it happens approximately every twenty-one to twenty-nine years in this realm?”
“Tha’s right. We call it the Centennial as a reminder of the passage of time in the world from whence we came.”
Vee turned to me, her eyes shining with the power of knowledge. “That answers a lot of our questions, doesn’t it?”
They’d been her questions, not mine, but the point wasn’t important enough to debate. Instead, I swung my head back and forth and reveled in gleeful ignorance. “Nope. Afraid it’s all Geek to me.”
As patient as Mother Teresa, Vee explained, “It’s like a sale where shoes normally cost $79.99 but are thirty percent off—you have to round up or down to get even sums. Because we’re in an alternate realm, it doesn’t match exactly. Like how we have leap year every four years to make time fit.”
“So you’re saying time is adjustable, just like I told you back in the cottage.” This totally called for an I-told-you-so dance.
Before I could celebrate, Duncan leaned forward. His confidence had been replaced by an eagerness that made him seem as awkward as a freshman on his first date. “It’s common that those who’re led to Doon have visions or dreams about the kingdom prior to coming. Did either of you dream of Doon while ye were still in the modern world?”
Vee and I exchanged a cautionary look, wondering how much to divulge, when Jamie suddenly shoved his plate away and stood to tower over the rest of the table. While his words were meant for our conversation, there appeared to be some cryptic significance directed at Duncan. “Dreams have always played an important role for our people. We believe the Protector speaks to us through waking visions and dreams—many kinds of dreams. We must remain vigilant. It would be a mistake to let down our guard simply because we envisioned a pretty face and pair of fine eyes.”
Duncan straightened in his chair, all traces of his easygoing disposition gone as he glared back at his older brother. “It would be a mistake not to trust the gift ye’ve been given.”
“Agree to disagree then. ’Tis late. Fergus and Fiona will be waitin’ for us.” Jamie put an end to the discussion as he turned stiffly to Mario and thanked him for the hospitality.
Undeterred by Jamie’s petulant mood, Mario kissed him on both cheeks. “Shall I send for the carriage, m’ laird?”
“Nay.” Duncan stood, pausing to roll the kinks out of his linebacker shoulders. “It’s a beautiful night. We’ll walk ‘round. Grazie, Mario.”
Throughout dinner, I’d noticed Duncan’s flawless Italian. The way his lips moved, his easy cadence. When he rolled his r’s with wild abandon, it made me go all gooey inside
.
Mario kissed my cheeks and then Vee’s, saying, “Signorine, I hope next time you dine with us, you will be able to meet my beautiful wife. My Sharron and our seven bellissimo bambini.” I thanked him profusely for the pizza before I took Vee’s arm and we stepped out into the warm night.
Despite being summer, a light wind brushed over me, coaxing little goose bumps across my skin. I did my best to ignore the sudden chill and focus on my impression of the village after dark. The lit lampposts cast an amber glow over the cobbled street, like a set from A Christmas Carol. I half expected Ebenezer Scrooge to round the corner any moment and bellow “Bah humbug.” The image was enough to remind me that despite the little pepperonied slice of home, we were trapped in another time and place.
Arm in arm, Vee and I strolled down the main street until Duncan stepped up to my free side. Giving my arm a quick squeeze, Vee veered away and picked up her pace. Jamie, back to his Emo Stalker routine, trailed several paces behind.
With a low sigh of contentment, Duncan matched his gait to mine. “Mario’s a lucky man.”
“He might be, but his poor wife …”
Duncan stopped, his face hidden in shadow. “What’s your meaning?”
As Vee moved farther ahead, I registered the increase in Jamie’s stride as he silently skirted around Duncan. She rounded the corner and Jamie practically sprinted to catch up. With them out of sight, I returned to my own boy situation.
“I can’t imagine having all those kids … Actually, I can’t imagine having any.”
“Can’t ye, woman?” Duncan’s deep, soft brogue caressed me like the wind. “Not even for love?”
Someday I would probably want a couple of rugrats, but right now career came first. Well, career and getting home. I wasn’t about to jeopardize either one by making a medieval love connection. Maybe telling that to Duncan would get him to back off. “What I want is to get back to America. I’ve got an amazing internship waiting for me in Chicago. It’s a dream job, really.”
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