Morna's Legacy 04 - Love Beyond Measure

by Bethany Claire

  “Jerry, I think it best we make our way back. I need to do a travel with Morna, and I’d like to be back before the evening meal.”

  “Huh?” The old man jerked up from lying horizontally on the ground, his back cracking as he sat up. “What did ye say, lad?”

  “I’m sorry, I dinna wish to wake ye. ’Tis only I think we should go so that I can do me travel with Morna.”

  “Ah, verra right.” Jerry held his hand out for assistance. “Ye must help me up though, or I’ll be here all night. I doona have the same knees I once did.”

  “Up ye go.”

  He reached toward the old man with his left hand, being sure not to strain the other half of his body too much as he lifted him. Seeing Jerry rightly vertical, he hollered after Cooper.

  “Have ye had yer fill of fishing? If so, I think it time to go. Yer mother shall be back at the inn soon enough.”

  Mention of the boy’s mother had Cooper gathering up his rod and tools as quickly as his little arms could move to reach them. While Eoghanan knew the boy had enjoyed their afternoon, he didn’t wish to be away from his mother for long. He didn’t blame him in the slightest and found himself ready to be in Grace’s presence once again as well.

  *

  “I know we must make a journey daily, but do ye mind making it a verra short one? I wish to be back before Grace returns from her work.”

  “Oh, do ye now? I expected ye to say as much. Aye, verra short. Now, lay back so that I may begin.”

  He did as she asked, placing his left hand behind his head to prop himself up a little as Morna began her spell. As always, his head began to split first, the pain shooting down his spine and shaking him all over. Vision blurred quickly but, just before he evaporated entirely, he caught movement in the doorway and directed his focus just long enough to see Cooper peering inside with wide eyes.

  Chapter 7

  “Oh. My. Jiminy. Cricket. That is sooo much cooler than a spaceship! It’s magic, huh? You used magic on him. Where did he go?”

  Cooper’s voice filled the room, and Eoghanan struggled against the fog consuming his brain to stay present. He no longer wished to make a travel today, not now that the boy had seen him. Why wouldn’t Morna cease her spell? She saw the boy but continued her low chant, sending him further into oblivion.

  Speech eluded him. He couldn’t answer Cooper with his physical body already gone from the room. Only his hearing and sight remained, although his vision remained blurred. He could hear Cooper’s voice calling after Morna, but he couldn’t see the room clearly, only making out the faint edges of the young lad and the witch.

  Morna’s words grew louder and with it his consciousness weakened. He couldn’t be certain, but Morna’s words seemed to change, different from the ones she usually spoke. Suddenly everything went black.

  *

  In the next instant, he was back in the room, his eyelids fluttering open to find Cooper sitting on the bed next to him, his little hands cupping both sides of his cheeks.

  “Wake up, sleepy. I knew it, E-o. I knew you were the same person that was in the park and at the airport. You’re magic!”

  His head throbbed even worse than usual, but he pushed the pain aside, attributing it to the fact that his journey had been interrupted. He couldn’t tell how long he’d been out, but he’d not arrived anywhere in the past. He simply remained in the space between until Morna called him back to the present.

  Eoghanan propped himself up in the bed as Cooper released his face. Looking around the room for Morna, he addressed her first. “How long was I gone?”

  The witch made her way to him, extending a cool rag to press along his forehead. “Ach, no more than a few minutes. The second the lad walked into the room, I started the return spell. I’m only pleased that all of ye arrived back here.”

  “Ye dinna know if I would?” The notion unsettled him. The travels were frightening enough without worrying about the possibility of his legs ending up in one century and his head in another.

  “No, I couldna know for sure. This has never happened before.”

  “Did ye tell him?” Eoghanan glanced over at Cooper who nodded emphatically at his question.

  “Yes, she did. I know everything. She’s a witch and you’re from like a million years ago. It’s awesome!”

  Morna shut the door to the bedroom so that the three of them could speak more freely. “Aye, I dinna have a choice. I doona believe he would have ever silenced if I hadna done so. But ye needn’t worry, I shall make him forget it. I was just waiting for you to wake up first.”

  “No way.” Cooper kept his voice calm, but reached out latching hard onto Eoghanan’s hand. “Don’t you let her put those witchy hands on me, E-o. I won’t tell anybody. I promise.”

  Morna laughed in response, waving a hand in dismissal. “Doona worry, lad. I willna place a hand on ye. I’m no bad witch, surely ye can see that. I’ll just say a few words, and ye willna know that ye are missing the memory.”

  “No.” Eoghanan spoke, settling the matter in his mind. He trusted Morna completely, but it didn’t mean he wished her to use magic on the lad. If knowing that magic truly existed in the world would bring the boy joy, he didn’t wish to take it from him.

  “Ye know that we doona have a choice, Eoghanan.” Morna reached to take the rag from him, walking across the room to hang it over the basin.

  “Aye, we do. Ye have told me yerself that too few people know of the existence of magic in this present world. Now that the lad knows, doona rob him of it. I believe we can trust him. Why doona ye give me and Cooper a moment alone?”

  Morna eyed him speculatively, one eyebrow raised astonishingly high as she relented. “Aye, I willna spell him if ye doona wish me to. ’Tis yer secret, I suppose.”

  Eoghanan waited until she’d shut the door behind her to shift toward Cooper. “Now, if we doona wish for Morna to take this knowledge from ye, ye must promise me that ye willna say a word to yer mother. Such a thing is difficult for most to understand. I doona think she would believe ye.”

  Cooper stuck his littlest finger up by Eoghanan’s nose. “I promise, promise, promise. I won’t say a word to anyone.”

  “What is that, lad?”

  “It’s a pinkie promise. Haven’t you ever heard of those?”

  Eoghanan shook, “No. What is it?”

  “It…um…let me show you.” The boy reached for his hand, bending in his thumb and folding his first three fingers over, leaving but the one smallest finger sticking out. “When we wrap our pinkies together it makes the promise stick.”

  It made no sense to him, but Eoghanan didn’t question Cooper. “Aye, ’tis our secret then. Just ye and I.”

  Chapter 8

  “What are you so smiley about?” I flipped the blanket and sheets back just far enough on the bed so that both Cooper and I could crawl in and, after climbing inside myself, patted the top of the bed for him to join me.

  “I had the best day ever, Mom.” Clad in his dinosaur pajamas, he climbed onto the bed but didn’t slip beneath the covers, instead he sat on top of the comforter with his feet near my head so that he could face me.

  “Ever? I didn’t know you were such an enthusiastic fisherman, Coop.” Placing both my hands behind my head, I settled in for a bit of conversation before sleep.

  “I fish with Bebop all the time and I like it, but it wasn’t the fishin’.”

  He had both hands extended back behind him to rest on and his feet swayed back and forth, happily.

  “Well, what made it the ‘best day ever,’ then?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  I rolled over on my side, smiling to the wall as I reached to turn off the lamp, “Oh, okay. Well, goodnight then, Coop. Love you.”

  Just as I put my finger on the lamp’s knob, Cooper pounced on me. “No, Mom! Gimme a break. You know I wasn’t through talking.”

  Laughing, I released my grip, rolling onto my back once more. “What is there to say if you won’t tell
me?”

  He jumped from his current position and flipped himself over so that he lay on his stomach and rested his head on the palm of his hands. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I can’t. It’s a secret.”

  Now he had my attention.

  “Now, Coop, is this a secret someone told you, or one that you learned by spying? Because those are two very different things, and we’ve already talked about this before—it’s not okay to eavesdrop on people.”

  I watched him wrestle with my question, his face contorting as he lifted his brow and shifted his lower lip in between his teeth. As always, he didn’t want to lie, but he knew I wouldn’t like the truth either.

  Instead, he rolled off the edge of the bed and silently walked over to my side, reaching up on his tip-toes to turn off the light. Enveloped in darkness, he crawled over me and onto the bed, slipping under the sheets on his side.

  “I just got real sleepy, Mom. Goodnight. Angels on your pillow.”

  I rolled my eyes in the darkness, leaning over to kiss him on the forehead. “Angels on yours too, Coop. It was a little bit of both, huh?”

  Silence followed my question for a minute or two, and then his voice, soft and sweet in its confession, answered. “Yep, maybe a little.”

  *

  I woke early, hoping to get a jump on looking through all the photographs I’d taken the day before and perhaps, get a little writing done on the article. Coop always rose early so it came as no surprise to find his half of the bed empty when I woke.

  When he outgrew his crib several years ago, I moved him into his own room with a “big boy” bed. I made it my goal to figure out just what time he seemed to wake up each morning by setting my alarm at a different time each day—continually setting it earlier and earlier if I woke to find him already awake the day before. It didn’t matter what time I set it, Coop’s internal clock was determined to beat it. I would walk into his room every morning to find him playing with his toys. Eventually, I’d given up the effort and settled for rising by six each morning so that even if he woke earlier, he wouldn’t be unsupervised for very long.

  I knew he wouldn’t have gone far and suspected he’d made his way downstairs to the kitchen, hoping to lend a helping hand with the breakfast preparations. Still, Cooper’s idea of helping wasn’t always viewed the same way by others. Deciding to forgo a shower for the moment, I brushed my hair and teeth, pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and left in search of my son.

  I heard him before I saw him, giggling at the deep Scottish voice making a gurgled, horrible sound that I could only assume was an attempt at a dinosaur noise. Sure enough, as I descended the stairs, I saw Eoghanan sprawled out on his left side next to Cooper on the floor of the living room.

  Each held a dinosaur—Cooper a small one with wings, Eoghanan a large t-rex. While Cooper had the advantage by keeping his dinosaur in the air, Eoghanan had his creature jumping to unimaginable heights for the short stubbiness of the dinosaur’s legs. It sent Cooper into a fit of laughter each time.

  “You’re cheating.” He said it smiling, not bothered by Eoghanan’s imaginative dinosaur play. “That dinosaur couldn’t jump like that.”

  “How do ye know that, lad? Have ye seen a dinosaur?”

  By this point I’d reached the bottom of the stairs, but I stayed where they couldn’t see me for a moment, not wishing to interrupt their conversation. Perhaps I knew where my son’s penchant for eavesdropping came from, after all.

  “No. Have you?” Cooper asked the question with such genuine curiosity that it left me baffled. Of course, Eoghanan had never seen a dinosaur, and Cooper knew it.

  “No, lad. I havena traveled that far back. No at all.”

  For the life of me, I couldn’t begin to imagine what they were talking about. Out of the loop and frustrated with my lack of understanding at their conversation, I decided to make my presence known.

  “Good morning. Please tell me that you were awake when Coop found you.” I looked sympathetically at Eoghanan as I neared, sitting down on the edge of the couch next to them.

  “Aye, I was. I doona sleep verra much.” Eoghanan shifted so that he could stand from his place on the floor, looking rather pleased with himself as he did so. “Ah, it feels nice to be able to move more freely. That dinna hurt me at all.”

  “Good, I’m so glad.” I placed my hand on his back in a sort of congratulations. The warmth that shot through my fingers at the touch sent a jolt through my body. I enjoyed the unfamiliar feeling, but I felt him shiver a bit beneath my hand, and I jerked away awkwardly, worried that I’d made him uncomfortable. I had a tendency to be that way with people—to touch them in comfort or understanding. I supposed it was the mom in me.

  Quickly, I bent to lift Cooper up into my arms to break the tension. After a good long hug, he pulled away, jerking his head toward the kitchen.

  “Morna asked if I wanted to go work some sheep today.”

  I smiled at his statement, not sure if I was more pleased at how excited he seemed over some sheep or at prospect of having at least part of the day to look through my photos and write.

  “Sheep, huh? Do you want to go?”

  He thought my question ridiculous. I could tell from how his eyes bulged when I asked it, and he twisted free from my arms so that he could pull my hand back toward the staircase.

  “Of course I want to go! I need to go put on some sheep working clothes, Mom. Let’s go.”

  For being such a small kid, he did a fair job of pulling me across the floor. Shaking his hand free, I waved him ahead of me. “Go on, Coop. I’m right behind you.”

  Rubbing the sleepy from my eyes, I trudged up the stairs after him, watching as he stripped his pajama top even before reaching the bedroom door.

  Chapter 9

  I worked consistently throughout the morning, zoned into the screen of my laptop, clicking through photos and sporadically trying to get a start on the article, only deciding to take a break after the growl of my stomach became too loud to ignore.

  As I made my way down the hallway, I created a mental task list, running through all of the places still left to explore and photograph, hoping I could remember them long enough to write them all down after grabbing a bite to eat. Midway down my mental list, as I passed the last door before the staircase, a deep scream inside Eoghanan’s room made me shriek as I jumped as high as Cooper’s t-rex.

  “Grace?” Eoghanan’s voice from somewhere inside the room calmed me immediately. I’d not realized that he’d stayed behind.

  Cracked slightly, I stepped forward to push his bedroom door open, one hand on my rapidly beating heart in an attempt to slow it. I didn’t find him in the main room, but I could hear him grumbling something from inside the bathroom and moved toward the sound of his voice.

  “Eoghanan. Are you okay? Why did you scream?”

  Unthinkingly, I stepped into the center of the room, giving me a direct view into the bathroom and a wide, gorgeous shot of Eoghanan’s bare rear-end.

  “Oh…gosh. So sorry.” I jerked around quickly. My bare toe caught on the corner of the bed, sending me sprawling onto the floor, arms and legs spread wide.

  Eoghanan laughed loudly. Although I kept myself on the floor, folding in one arm to shield my eyes, I could imagine his body shaking from the effort of it. As I listened to him step forward to help, I held up my other hand to stop him. “Wait. Go get a towel or something.”

  With the only injured party being my big toe, I pushed myself up to stand and turned right into Eoghanan’s approaching chest as he grabbed both my arms to steady me. With hesitation, I glanced downward and exhaled loudly in relief at finding him wrapped in a towel.

  I didn’t need to see him naked again. I’d not been on a date since before Cooper was born…or made for that matter, and the sight of that too perfect body left me quite hot and bothered.

  “What was yer name again, lass? I doona think it can be Grace. ’Tis no verra fitting.”

  I laug
hed. He couldn’t have been more right. “Yeah, it never has been very fitting. Why did you scream? And who showers with the door open?”

  Reluctantly, I tore my gaze away from his chiseled chest and looked up to see his face contorting with embarrassment.

  “I dinna expect ye to walk into me bedchamber, and I dinna scream. I doona scream, lass.”

  I rolled my eyes—typical man. “That was a scream if I’ve ever heard one.”

  “No,” he released me, but reached up and thumbed my nose gently with his thumb and the corner of his forefinger. The gesture was playful, and I smiled as he moved back toward the bathroom. “Will ye help me with these beastly…,” he hesitated, “ye call them knobs, aye?”

  I nodded, my brows pulled in. He baffled me. How could a grown man, seemingly containing all his mental faculties, know so little?

  I needn’t say anything for him to see how odd I thought the question. “I told ye, lass. I dinna grow up amongst such things. I nearly melted me skin off trying to run the water.”

  “Alright.” I stepped into the cramped bathroom with him, reaching down past him to fiddle with the shower knobs. “Just exactly where did you grow up? Did you wear a butt-flap and swing from the trees while being raised by monkeys?” He certainly had the physique to be a type of Tarzan.

  Eoghanan shook his head, testing the water temperature with his fingers. “No, I doona think I’ve ever seen a monkey. Thank ye, the water feels much better.”

  He tugged at the corner of his towel, and I knew it was time to take my leave. That, or just jump right in with him. Appealing as the idea was, I thought it not the most ladylike of ideas.

  “Good. I’ll leave you to it then.” I stopped walking just as he started to close the bathroom door, my own grumbling stomach reminding me of my manners. “Have you eaten anything in a while? I thought I’d go round up something for myself. I’ll bring you up something, if you’d like.”