“Aye. He must have known, though. He left this”—he held out the box—“for James.”
James reached for it, his mouth agape. “For me?”
“Aye, but sit,” William said. “It’s heavy.”
“Why would he leave James a present?” she asked William. “Is his birthday coming up?”
William shook his head. “Not until December. I guess he knew he’d never get to meet my boy.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I should have . . .”
She rubbed his arm. “Don’t do that to yourself. He had a great deal of compassion for your situation. I’m certain he understood.”
“Can I open it?” James asked, the old dog lying at his feet. “Can I?”
“Aye, go on.”
They stood beside the bench to watch him tear off the paper.
As William helped him lift the lid, the sunlight struck something gold.
They shielded their eyes.
“Jesus,” William whispered.
“What the hell is it?” James asked.
Ann’s mouth fell open, and not because of James’s foul language. Inside the box, resting on a fluff of cotton, was a torc almost identical to the one she found in the cabin ruins. “I can’t believe it.”
“What the hell is it?” James repeated.
“It’s a torc,” she replied.
“It looks like it’s made of pure gold,” William said, looking around protectively.
“It is.”
“But how would an old man own such a thing?”
She didn’t know, and now that Alasdair had died, she never would. “William, I came to Scotland because I found a torc almost identical to this one in the cabin ruins at my farm. I wanted to learn more about it. It must have belonged to one of my ancestors.”
William gestured toward the torc. “Then that one must have, too. Alasdair ran the MacDonald Centre after all.”
“I guess we’ll never know.” She took his hand. “Though I’m grateful my ancestors buried it for me to find. After all, it led me here to you.”
James interrupted them by donning the torc.
“Why, ye look like Somerled himsel’,” William said.
James smiled, raising the vein on his forehead. “Somerled was the King of Argyll.” He threw his arms around Ann’s waist. “I feel like the King of the World.”
He was more than that, she thought as she tightened her embrace; he was the king of her heart, and he always would be.
Chapter 38
Hamaziel hovered formless outside the door of Saint Oran’s Chapel, ready to move on. With no host, he would have to spend time in his own shell for a while. That lay in a remote sea cave on the coast of the Orkney Islands. It would take some energy to reach it, but he’d been conserving for a number of years.
Worry found no room in his joyful heart today. He watched his children cling to each other on the bench outside the nunnery. Divine intervention and mercy blinked like neon in their blessed reunion. No bond compared with that of a mother and her child. Nothing would sever it.
Thank you, Father.
He savored a final glance at the sacred island he loved, where pilgrims streamed in and out of the abbey and ruins. In a world of increasing ridicule for the religious, where men laughingly referred to their maker as the Sky Fairy or worse, this place remained a sanctuary for the faithful, a place where the word “God” still stirred reverence and humility.
He would miss it.
The chapel door squealed as he opened it to offer thanks to the father who had so rightly forgotten him.
On the slab before the altar—the one covering Somerled and Brèagha—he sank low, spreading his energy out as flat as the stone itself.
“Father in heaven, I—”
A bolt of lightning struck from the cross. It swirled around him like a racing orb captured on film. He smelled pinched candlewicks and caught the first notes of a triad. Father, he thought, as the light enveloped him and yanked him upward at the speed of a comet, the whispered prayers of countless souls his only companions. He hurtled through a ball of fire—the Gate—rendering him clean and unburdened.
Then, there was no one and everyone, nothing and everything, and all of it swirling in infinite, eternal peace.
Also from Soul Mate Publishing and Julie Doherty:
SCENT OF THE SOUL
In twelfth century Scotland, it took a half-Gael with a Viking name to restore the clans to their rightful lands. Once an exile, Somerled the Mighty now dominates the west. He’s making alliances, expanding his territory, and proposing marriage to the Manx princess.
It’s a bad time to fall for Breagha, a torc-wearing slave with a supernatural sense of smell.
Somerled resists the intense attraction to a woman who offers no political gain, and he won’t have a mistress making demands on him while he’s negotiating a marriage his people need. Besides, Breagha belongs to a rival king, one whose fresh alliance Somerled can’t afford to lose.
It’s when Breagha vanishes that Somerled realizes just how much he needs her. He abandons his marriage plans to search for her, unprepared for the evil lurking in the shadowy recesses of Ireland—a lustful demon who will stop at nothing to keep Breagha for himself.
Available now on Amazon: SCENT OF THE SOUL
SCATTERED SEEDS
In 18th century Ireland, drought forces Edward and Henry McConnell to assume false names and escape to the New World with the one valuable thing they still own–their ancestor’s gold torc.
Edward must leave love behind. Henry finds it in the foul belly of The Charming Hannah, only to lose it when an elusive trader purchases his sweetheart’s indenture.
With nothing but their broken hearts, a lame ox, and a torc they cannot sell without invoking a centuries-old curse, they head for the backcountry, where all hope rests upon getting their seed in the ground. Under constant threat of Indian attack, they endure crushing toil and hardship. By summer, they have wheat for their reward, and unexpected news of Henry’s lost love. They emerge from the wilderness and follow her trail to Philadelphia, unaware her cruel new master awaits them there, his heart set on obtaining the priceless torc they protect.
Available now on Amazon: SCATTERED SEEDS
The Scent of Forever Page 24