She took it from him and started loading it with things. It caused a pain in Piper’s chest to watch the special stuffed animal, binky and fluffy blanket all go into the bag. Things that Magnus needed that had to be transported back and forth.
Her own parents had divorced her first year of high school and she wondered if this would be easier for Magnus, to not ever know his parents being together. She almost threw up her breakfast it hurt so badly to think of it, and if she had any say at all, she was going to get those two back together.
She looked over at Mellie, wondering if she knew anything, but Mellie was apparently used to the baby exchange and wasn’t paying them any attention.
Sam merely nodded at Evie’s weak excuse and Piper rushed to try to defuse any suspicion he might have had that she would have been purposely ignoring him. God, she hoped Evie hadn’t been purposely ignoring him.
“We got back pretty late, and it was just a mess,” she said, realizing exactly how lame her explanation sounded. “Sorry,” she finished.
He smiled at her and she could see the hurt in his eyes. He had been an integral part of everything since the first day Lachlan had mysteriously appeared in her tower yelling in Gaelic, swinging an axe, and scaring them half to death. They should have called him.
He shrugged. “It’s all right. There’s time to catch up later,” he said, taking Magnus out of his bassinet. “Hello, Mags.” He gently bounced the little bundle in front of his face and smiled at the sleepy infant.
Piper saw Evie’s jaw tighten considerably and she figured it was because she didn’t think Magnus should be bounced around at such a young age. Dear lord, what should she do? Once again she glanced at Mellie, who just shook her head slightly. Stay out of it.
“His nappy’s wet,” Sam said absently, laying the baby back down and reaching for his bag to get a diaper.
Red alert! This was not good. Mellie’s eyes widened and she dropped the head of lettuce she was holding and took off for the pantry, the coward. Evie’s jaw tightened even further and Piper knew she was grinding her teeth to keep from snapping at him.
While Piper heard a perfectly reasonable and non-judgemental observation come out of Sam’s mouth, she also knew that Evie heard something very different and very crazy, probably along the lines of “Why in the hell do you never change him, you horrible, good for nothing whore.”
She waited with baited breath, but Evie just sat there, quietly taking deep breaths and white knuckle gripping her tea cup. Piper was surprised the thing didn’t explode and rain shards of porcelain all over the room.
“Okay. That’s that, my wee man,” Sam said, patting Magnus on his freshly diapered bottom. He smiled widely at Piper, then turned to Evie. His smile stayed in place, but he was definitely working on it. “I’ll bring him back after dinner.”
“Thanks a lot for taking him,” Evie said in a falsely chipper voice as she leaned over to kiss the baby. “I really appreciate it.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Evelyn. Jesus.” Sam slumped a little and rolled his eyes. “I’ll see you later.”
Piper gaped at Evelyn, who assiduously refused to look up. “That was the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” she said when Sam was gone. “What happened with you two?”
“Piper, come on,” Evie said tiredly.
Mellie came back out of the pantry and started making dinner, trying to pretend she hadn’t been witness to a quiet, awkwardly polite war.
“Why did you thank him?” Piper said after several moments of tense silence. She just couldn’t let it drop, even though she could see how badly it upset Evelyn.
“I was being nice,” she said.
“Are you kidding?” Piper was incredulous. “You are literally a master of gender studies! Your main thing was parental roles! He wasn’t doing you a favor, he was being the father of his kid.”
Evie started to snivel. “I know. I was being super passive aggressive. I couldn’t stop myself after he made that crack about his nappy being wet, like I don’t take care of him right.”
“Or maybe his nappy really was wet? I mean, babies pee constantly, right?”
Mellie came over and plopped a pumpkin cheesecake on the table in front of them.
“I was going to save this for dessert, but I think it’s needed more now.” She placed two plates, forks and a serving knife in front of them.
Evie sliced herself a piece with lightning speed and only relaxed when her mouth was full.
“Now, about your birthday party,” she said, looking expectantly at Piper.
Piper stopped chewing and shook her head. “What about it?” she asked.
They’d been in time travel limbo for her actual birthday. She didn’t know if she was really twenty-six, but according to the calendar she was. She shrugged, not wanting any fanfare, too worried about what Daria might be up to, and just wanting to get back to as close to normal as she could. But Evie looked so happy, and she was shuffling her papers around as if she’d already made plans.
“Did you already make plans?” Piper asked. “When do you sleep?”
“With Mags, very little anymore, actually. But Mel and I came up with some rudimentary ideas this morning while you were still up in bed with Lachlan.” She childishly waggled her eyebrows and Piper looked down, her cheeks blazing. Since they’d been back, they’d both been insatiable, and they hadn’t come down until almost noon.
“We thought we’d have an open house during the day for the villagers, since they haven’t seen you in so long. I kept giving them updates about your world tour and photoshopping you into different tourist spots.”
Evie handed over her phone and Piper scrolled through a bunch of pictures of herself. “You told everyone I was on a world tour?”
“Yes, and it was exhausting. I had to make a spreadsheet to make sure I kept things realistic. I mean I couldn’t have you in Cairo one day and San Francisco the next.”
Piper paused on a shot of herself grinning cheekily in front of a windmill. She would have almost believed she was in Holland except she recognized the picture as having been a selfie she took in the grocery store one day to send to her mom. In the original, she’d been standing in front of a sign advertising haggis, with the butcher looking annoyed in the background. It was just one of dozens of pictures to prove to people that she was alive during the eight months she’d been gone. Evelyn had outdone herself.
“Thank you,” Piper said, handing back the phone. “For all you did. And for believing I was alive all that time.”
Evie shrugged. “I couldn’t have believed anything else.”
Lachlan came in the back door, followed by a yapping sheepdog puppy. The dog was nipping at his heels and dodging back and forth in front of him, causing him to get a volcanic look on his face.
“Yon wee dog has been plaguing me since I left,” he said, carefully making his way past it without stepping on its furiously wagging tail.
“Do we have a dog, now?” Piper asked as the hyperactive ball of fur jumped up on her lap.
Evie looked embarrassed and quickly snapped her fingers to get the dog to come to her. “He’s mine,” she explained. “His name’s Hoover. He can stay outside if you want him to.”
Piper told her not to be silly, she was delighted to have a dog around the house. She fawned over him for a moment before looking up to see Lachlan staring down at her with a dark look on his face. He smiled at Evie, but the smile never reached his eyes.
She could tell it was more than just mild annoyance at the dog. He’d found something out, and it wasn’t good.
Chapter 3
For the first time in his entire life, he hated Scotland. How could it be eternally uphill? Shouldn’t they have to go downhill as well at some point? His horse seemed as unhappy as he was with the long trek over the muddy trails that might have been called roads by the people of this time, but Pietro refused to classify them as such. He didn’t recognize anything. He’d been this direction before, but it had been in a spe
eding car, probably with music blasting and other modern distractions.
Quinn had let them stop in the wee hours, and if either of them had bothered to light a fire, he didn’t know about it. He’d pulled his bedroll around his throbbing head and been asleep in twenty seconds, regardless of the sticks and stones poking at his aching body from the freezing ground.
He knew he had some illness, or his injuries were more severe than he thought. All he could do was keep moving until he fell off his horse and died. His head hurt so badly, that almost seemed preferable.
Bella rode up next to him, the scant predawn light surrounding her angelic face like a halo. He weakly reached out to her, resting his hand on her sleeve before she snapped her reins and tossed her head. Her russet brown hair was loose and hanging wildly all around her shoulders. Quinn had given them approximately four minutes to get into their saddles when he woke them an hour or so earlier, hustling them back onto the mud trail toward his aunt’s house.
Pietro tried to pretend Bella wasn’t frowning at him. In fact, if he turned his head slightly to the left and squinted, she almost looked cheery. How could someone so beautiful never smile? It almost seemed criminal.
“What do ye know of them?” he asked her, clearing his rusty throat. He rolled his shoulders and tried to get his back to crack.
“The Fergusons in general, or his aunty?” she asked, her face softening for a split second over his obvious discomfort. “Is yer head still hurting ye?”
He nodded, not wanting to complain out loud. He had been complaining non-stop in his mind since he’d been kicked awake and harangued back onto his horse with barely enough time to hobble off behind a tree for a minute of privacy. He glared at Quinn’s back, a dozen yards ahead of them.
“The aunt and the sister,” he said. “I already know how ye feel about the Fergusons in general.”
She laughed and he gazed at her pathetically. He knew it was pathetic, but he was too sick to care. Her laughter and her smiles were the only thing keeping him on his horse right now.
It seemed she had a very miniscule soft spot in her heart for him after all, because she shook her head and nudged her horse closer to him to feel his forehead. Her cold hand caused a chill to rush down his spine and he shivered visibly.
“We shall be there verra soon, and ye can have hot soup and sit by a fire,” she said soothingly.
He nodded. That sounded beyond amazing. Maybe she’d spoon the soup into his mouth for him. He gestured for her to tell him what she knew about Quinn’s family, hoping to be distracted.
She shrugged. “I know Catriona is his half sister. His aunt Gwendolyn is from the father’s side, and she’s a widow these past six or seven years. Oh, yes! Catriona’s mother was English.”
“No way,” Pietro said, the gossip taking his mind off his aches and pains. He knew enough of history to know that that was a big deal in this time. “Quinn’s father married an Englishwoman?” He whispered it, even though with the wind whipping past them and the mud squelching under hoof, there was no way Quinn could hear them.
“Aye, ‘tis true, and a rich one at that. It was when I was a baby, so I only know it from stories, but after the lads’ mother died, their father was heartbroken beyond measure. He raided up and down the coast, making a terrible nuisance of himself, drinking and getting in fights. Lachlan was just a lad, maybe eight or nine, and was left with servants to raise his brother, who was probably four or five?”
“Did he make it all the way to the border on this grief rampage of his?” he asked, intrigued by this family story. It would explain a lot about Lachlan’s bossy tendencies.
She looked at him for a long moment. “Ye talk so strange.” She shook her head as if a fly was bothering her. “No matter. No, he didna quite make it to the border, but some English were visiting Edinburgh to do a deal. Honestly I dinna know the whys of it, but she was the daughter of a verra important person.”
“How important?” he goaded when she stopped, as if that was the end of the story. “And how did they meet?” .
“I dinna know, perhaps an earl? He was investing money I imagine, so I’m quite sure there were balls and fancy dinners. That’s probably how they met.”
“Wasn’t he a drunken brawler? Was she rebelling against her family?” Pietro couldn’t imagine that the daughter of a dignitary or member of the peerage would go for someone like that.
She turned and stared at him as if he was out of his mind. “Ye’ve seen Lachlan, and ye see Quinn, aye? Well, they got their looks from their Da.” She blushed. “And ye must remember, that he was still the laird of his clan.”
“Oh, that’s nice, Bella,” Pietro teased, his headache receded from the distraction of the story. He was more amused than irritated that she had all but admitted to finding the Ferguson men attractive. “Perhaps having to marry Lachlan wasn’t such a torture for ye after all.”
Her countenance instantly changed from relaxed camaraderie to intensely insulted and she opened her mouth to let him have it. He reached out and grabbed her hand before she could get started.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said, trying to get his fingers laced with hers, but she closed her fist and refused to look at him. “Come on, we were getting along.”
“Why did ye have to bring that up, then?” she wailed.
She cut a sideways glance at him and he could see she was pouting but maybe not as mad as he first feared. Her hand was a tight ball, but she hadn’t snatched it completely away.
“Let’s forget I did,” he pleaded. “It never happened.”
“Aye, it never did happen, just as I shall say nothing happened with ye when I’m returned to my father.”
These words fell like bricks and a stone cold fear rose in his chest. He had been sure she didn’t want to be returned to her father. Wasn’t that the reason they were running in the first place? He studied her face, her brow furrowed low over her deep brown eyes, her full lips pressed into a thin line. But, still her hand was in his.
“Ye don’t mean it,” he ventured. “And ye know ye would never tell such a lie to your father.”
She glared at him and her chin wobbled. “I dinna lie,” she said boldly. “Never.”
Now he was outraged that she would try to pretend everything that passed between them had never happened. They had shared some beautiful, passionate moments, and he would be damned if she just sat there on her horse, looking him in the eye and even daring to say they hadn’t. He gave her back her stormy glare with interest and she yanked her hand out of his grasp.
“I hope ye are pregnant,” Pietro sputtered to her back as she haughtily pulled up ahead of him.
Bella jerked around and for the first time looked ungraceful in her saddle. A strange look flickered across her face before she rearranged it back into the frown he was used to.
“That’s a wicked thing to hope for,” she said. She stared at him for a long moment, until he almost had to look away. God help him, but he really almost hoped she was. “Though, since I am wed to Lachlan, it would lawfully be his child, and be heir to all this. And it would put an end to the clans fighting. So, if I were, it would probably be for the best.”
Before he could think of a retort, Quinn put an end to their argument. “We are no’ on Ferguson land yet, so no’ yet out of danger,” he hollered from his place far ahead of them. “If ye’re well enough to spar with the wee harridan, perhaps we could pick up the pace a bit?”
***
The sun had risen halfway in the sky when they arrived at the farm. Quinn stopped at the top of a small rise and they caught up with him to look at the land. On higher rises, Pietro had caught glimpses of the sea in the far distance, but now there was no sign of it. Rolling, recently harvested fields spread out in every direction, surrounded by more hills and spotty woods. Crofter’s huts charmingly dotted the landscape and a larger house could be seen at the edge of the land, butting up almost against the forested hills.
It looked to Pietro like a slice of
heaven. He glanced over at Bella who was also staring at the peaceful scene and then he turned to Quinn, who was rightfully looking down at all he surveyed with a deep sense of glowing pride.
“This is really lovely, mate,” Pietro said.
Quinn arranged his features to something more befitting his station as their leader and nodded abruptly, tearing his eyes from the farm.
“We’re still a bit away. Let’s keep moving,” he said, kicking his horse forward. With twin sighs, Pietro and Bella followed him.
They’d passed the first of the crofter’s cottages, Quinn merely waving and promising to return with news when he got his charges settled in, when a young girl came racing across the fields toward them.
Her dark blond hair flew behind her like a tangled banner and she had bits of dried grass stuck to her skirt along with a swipe of mud on her cheek. She laughed joyously when Quinn slid off the side of his horse before it had even completely stopped and took her in his arms and twirled her around.
“What have ye been doing, Catie lass?” he asked when he set her down and gave her a once over.
She looked down at her skirts and began brushing away the straw. “I saw ye approaching and fell down the hill in my haste to reach ye,” she said breathlessly.
“Well, are ye hurt?” Quinn asked with a frown of concern, wiping the smudge off her cheek.
She shook her head, her somewhat plain face taken over by a smile. “Just feel a bit foolish is all,” she said.
“Aye, then, ye’re used to that,” Quinn said in a gruff tone that couldn’t hide his obvious affection for the girl.
She stuck out her tongue at him and eyed Pietro and Bella, who’d stopped and waited to be introduced. “Is that yer wife?” she asked, nodding at Bella. “She looks miserable enough to be.”
Quinn barked a laugh and put his sister in a choke hold, leading her squirming and giggling over to his horse, where he then hoisted her onto the saddle. He got on behind her and tried to explain what was going on as they continued on to the farmhouse.
Revenge (Book 3 of Lost Highlander series) Page 4