Ever My Love

  She was, however, very happy when she opened the door to find one extremely handsome time traveler standing there in jeans and a black leather jacket.

  “Dangerous,” she noted.

  “Sleepy,” he said wearily. “Feel like lunch?”

  “I’m thinking. I can’t eat while I’m thinking.”

  “Well,” he said slowly, “I didn’t mean to put you off your food.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about you,” she said, then she paused. “Well, I was thinking about you, but not in the way you’re thinking I was thinking.”

  “You make me dizzy.”

  She didn’t want to comment on what he did to her, so she simply stood back and invited him inside.

  “What mischief are you combining?” he asked.

  She shot him a look before she could stop herself. “What an interesting way of putting that.”

  He opened his mouth, then shut it. “Long night in a different language. Never mind anything else,” he added, not quite under his breath.

  That man there needed a change. She shut the door behind him. “I imagine so. And I’m just doodling. Want to come and look?”

  “Love to,” he said.

  “I can make you a sandwich,” she offered. “I ran to Mrs. McCreedy’s this morning and she said you never buy bread but you like it, so she sold me what you’ll eat.”

  He stopped in mid-step. “It molds.”

  She winced. “I’m sorry. I should have known that.”

  He smiled briefly. “I’m tired and talking too much. A sandwich sounds brilliant.” He shrugged out of his coat, draped it over the back of a chair, then walked into her living room.

  She followed him. She thought it might be interesting to get his perspective on things given that he likely knew more of the players in the drama than she did.

  He stopped in front of the wall, looked at it for several very long minutes in silence, then looked at her in astonishment.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Doodling.”

  He backed up and sat down hard on her couch. “Sorry?”

  She sat down next to him. “I like to make storyboards,” she said. “It puts things I can’t wrap my mind around in perspective.”

  “Does it now,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t like where this is going.”

  “Take a nap, then. I’ll make you lunch. You’ll like it all much better after lunch.” She started to get up, then noticed the look he was sending her. “It’s hard to ruin a sandwich,” she said pointedly.

  “But possible.”

  He was laughing at her silently, damn him. She glared at him. “What did you eat last?”

  He put his hand over his stomach. “Must I say?”

  “I think you’d feel better about my sandwich if you did.”

  He took a deep breath. “Haggis, but it was not fresh and there were things in it I didn’t want to identify.”

  “And you thought ham and cheese wasn’t going to be a big step up,” she said archly as she went into the kitchen.

  She made him lunch, then carried it back in with a glass of juice. He was, unexpectedly, sound asleep, tipped over on her couch. She left him there, set his sandwich down on the coffee table, then considered her wall. It didn’t take her very long to realize that her drawings were much less interesting than the man sprawled on her couch. She sat down in one of the comfy chairs nearby and watched him for a bit.

  She supposed his hair was disreputably long for a businessman, but she could see why he kept it that way to fit in with the other half of his life. She wouldn’t have guessed there was anything unusual about him based on anything else past his being unsettlingly handsome.

  Or she thought that until she watched him wake up, freeze, and figure out exactly where he was before he moved.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. She held up her hands slowly.

  “Friend, not foe.”

  “I’ll pass judgment after your sandwich,” he said, his voice rough from what was probably very little sleep the night before.

  She smiled to herself and watched him sit up and rub his hands over his face. He looked at the plate on the coffee table, then at her.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Very kind.”

  “It’s just lunch, Nathaniel.”

  “I bet it would taste better if you’d come sit next to me.”

  “But then I can’t ogle you.”

  He pursed his lips as if he was trying not to smile. “Well, wouldn’t want to rob you of this fine view, so stay where you are.”

  She did, then simply watched him as he ate. She supposed she had Mrs. McCreedy to thank for his lunch being tolerable, which she imagined he appreciated. She continued to watch him for little tells that he wasn’t what he seemed to be. They were subtle, but she was used to looking for subtle.

  That was a man there who didn’t spend all his time in a boardroom.

  He had a long drink, set his glass down with a hand that wasn’t terribly steady, then looked at her. “Thank you. Delicious.”

  “I had nothing to do with the taste, but it was made with great affection.”

  He smiled. “Someone’s been driving her Audi.”

  “You said you put it in your name, but yes, it is a lovely car.”

  “I did put it in my name,” he said, “temporarily, and I’m happy you’re enjoying it, hopefully for longer than temporarily.” He looked at her wall. “Come over here and tell me about this madness there, Emma.”

  She supposed there was no reason not to join him on the couch, so she did, then nodded at her drawings. “I thought if we could see it on paper, we could identify the patterns.”

  “The only pattern involved is madness,” he said grimly, then he looked at her reluctantly. “I’m tired, sorry. Say on.”

  “The world moves in patterns,” she said. “People move in patterns, unless they don’t, but even when they don’t, there’s generally a pattern to what they do.”

  He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. “Do you think so?”

  “When you go back to the past, what do you do?”

  “I check my modern sensibilities at the door and take care of business,” he said without hesitation.

  “And you don’t do the same here?”

  He opened his mouth, probably to deny it, then he frowned at her. “I don’t think I like this. Still.”

  She imagined he didn’t, but she had to help and she couldn’t think of any other way to do so at the moment. “When you go to battle with your grandfather, what do you do?”

  He took a deep breath. “I take care of business.”

  “And how do you do that? In a metaphorical sense.”

  “Brutally and to the point.”

  She smiled. “See?”

  He rubbed his hands over his face, then looked at her wearily. “Doesn’t this idea turn people into robots? Slaves to instincts they can’t control?”

  “I’m not saying people don’t change or that they can’t change, but it’s been my experience that unless there’s a compelling reason to do things differently, people tend to act in patterns. They protect themselves and they protect what’s most important to them, but they generally do it in ways they’ve done it before simply because it’s comfortable and safe.”

  “And what does that have to do with anything we’re embroiled in?”

  “I think we’re trapped in some kind of something.”

  “Time travel,” he said in resignation.

  “Yes,” she said. “Time travel. But I think it’s more than just a random thing.” She shrugged helplessly. “I think there’s a pattern to it. Maybe even a purpose to it.”

  He shook his head slowly. “You realize this sounds absolutely barking. We could be imagining it all.”

&nbs
p; “I have a pile of clothes in a garbage can in the back that says we’re not.” She looked at him seriously. “Patrick MacLeod isn’t crazy.”

  He looked at her for a moment or two in silence. “I have something you might want to see,” he said finally.

  “It better not be clothes or another car.”

  He smiled and heaved himself to his feet. “I wish it were, but unfortunately it isn’t.”

  She decided he was a man who looked like he needed something else to settle his nerves, perhaps tea. She had fortunately become adept at not flooding the house with smoke, but that was about as far as she’d gotten with that damned Aga. She retreated to her kitchen, filled a kettle, then looked at her nemesis. She wasn’t sure if the thing needed more wood or if it would magically know just how hot it needed to be in order to cook what she wanted it to.

  “Very domestic.”

  She looked at Nathaniel, who was closing the door behind himself and taking off his boots.

  “Yeah, well, you weren’t just transported back to the 1950s, so don’t get too excited about it.” She looked at him as he straightened. “I’m a terrible cook.”

  He set a manila envelope down on the table, then took the kettle away from her. “You make excellent sandwiches. As for the rest, I’m a very keen chef, so why don’t you sit and read whilst I make us some tea.” He slid her a look. “What have you eaten your whole life?”

  “Whatever the local coffee shop shoved across the counter at me. When I was feeling particularly ambitious, I hit the nearest juice bar.” She smiled briefly. “I eat lots of peanut butter and jelly.”

  He made a noise of horror, then started fiddling with her stove. She left him to it and opened the envelope he’d put on her table. She slid a folder out and opened it.

  She felt a silence descend.

  She only realized that, actually, because Nathaniel wasn’t moving any longer. She looked up to find him watching her. He lifted an eyebrow.

  “Worthy of your wall?”

  “This is a copy of a parish register.”

  “And so it is,” he agreed. He paused. “It was a gift from Alexander Smith, if you’re curious. He thought since he was providing me with so many juicy details about Sheldon, he would tuck in a few other things I might find interesting.”

  “He is a first-class snoop, isn’t he?”

  Nathaniel leaned back against her counter. “Absolutely. I hesitate to introduce the two of you for fear you would set your sights on tumbling superpowers. But let me distract you with a little interesting tidbit I didn’t realize until this morning: my favorite investigator Alexander Smith has a connection to our little enchanted forest in the person of his sister Elizabeth.”

  “Is she Scottish?” Emma asked in surprise.

  “By marriage,” Nathaniel said slowly. “She’s married to James MacLeod.”

  “Patrick’s brother.”

  “The very same.”

  Emma frowned. “You know, Patrick said something to me about his family marrying Americans in droves, but I thought nothing of it at the time.”

  “I guess you could call it a pattern,” he said solemnly.

  She scowled at him. “You just wait until I really get going here.”

  “I’m half afraid of what you’ll find,” he admitted.

  “You probably should be. So, why does it matter that Elizabeth is married to James MacLeod?”

  “Dig through those papers and see what you think.” He smiled, then turned around to deal with the kettle.

  She watched him gather things for tea, then looked at what was on the table in front of her. She flipped to the first page and realized quickly that she was looking at a genealogy of the Clan MacLeod that stretched back into the early Middle Ages. Nothing was highlighted, though, which gave her the opportunity to draw her own conclusions about what she thought was important.

  She frowned thoughtfully over the players operating at the turn of the fourteenth century. There was a laird, James, born in 1279. While that in itself wasn’t particularly noteworthy, it was interesting that he had a brother named Patrick. She was also quite interested to learn that those MacLeod boys had had a cousin named Ian, who had died in a Fergusson dungeon on a date she couldn’t quite read. Then again, she couldn’t really read the death dates for either James or Patrick.

  That was interesting.

  She looked at Nathaniel as he set a cup in front of her and put a cozy over the teapot.

  “We have some smudges here,” she noted.

  “This is a private parish register,” he said easily. “The more public one puts death dates somewhere around 1320 for all three of those lads.”

  “So young,” she murmured.

  “And yet still so alive,” he said sourly. “I know this because our good Lord Patrick said as much, though I was doing my damndest not to believe him at the time. Apparently he was born six years after his brother James, way back in 1285, and he somehow trotted through that bloody forest and set up shop in the current day.”

  “Then those pub rumors are true,” she said.

  “It would seem so.” He poured tea, then sat back and looked at her. “Hard to deny that business there, especially given who sent it to me. If anyone would know family secrets, you would think it might be Alexander Smith, James MacLeod’s brother-in-law. I’m guessing that Alex probably has a sword in the back of his closet.”

  “Is that where you sword-wielding types keep them?”

  “Behind the hand-tailored Italian suits,” he said. “As it happens.”

  She sighed deeply. “What do you want to do?”

  “Run away with you to Paris and live in a little garret where I will write poetry and you will sketch or hammer or whatever it is you decide you want to do, though your drawing is breathtaking.”

  She smiled. “Really?”

  “Really what?” he asked. “Do I want to run away with you? Aye. Do I want to write poetry? Nay, I’d rather just lie in the sun, drink expensive wine, and look at you whilst you’re arting. And aye, your art is glorious. Do I think you’d agree to any of it? I’m afraid to ask.”

  She wondered if he would notice if she took her napkin and fanned herself a bit. She was fairly sure she was blushing.

  He set his cup down, leaned over, and looked at her. “May I?”

  “May you what?”

  “If you need to ask, lass, I have obviously not been living up to my reputation as a desirable and rakish recluse.”

  She looked up at him. “I’m not interested in your reputation.”

  “You just want me because I have a terrible habit of pulling you out of medieval dungeons—”

  He stopped speaking. That was likely because she had leaned over and kissed him.

  And she’d thought seeing the numbers 1387 had rocked her world.

  If he pulled her to her feet and made, as he might have said, a proper job of the business, she didn’t argue. She didn’t have the energy to and, truthfully, she didn’t want to.

  The girls from London had no idea what they were missing.

  She decided quite a while later that she was absolutely not going to rush down to the pub to tell any of them who might be setting up camp there. She also didn’t take it personally when Nathaniel asked her very politely if he could indulge in a bit of a swoon on her couch. She tucked him in, then watched him fall asleep almost instantly. She wasn’t offended, because as lovely as it was to have him awake, she had business that he didn’t need to be a part of.

  She watched him for a moment or two and came to a decision. He was exhausted, but that wasn’t the worst part about it. He was so enmeshed in what was happening to him, so completely at its mercy, she was half afraid he would never have the luxury of stepping back far enough to see what was really going on.

  She, however, did.

  She
made a decision, left him a note, then dressed as sensibly as she could. If she’d gone to the local charity shop that morning after Mrs. McCreedy’s and found herself something that might have passed in a different day for normal women’s clothing, well, she did like to be prepared.

  She looked at the copies on her kitchen table, traced the MacLeod line until she found the appropriate number, then felt something shift as surely as if she’d opened a door. She looked quickly at Nathaniel, but he was still sleeping peacefully.

  She was going to leave him there without telling him what she was planning because she had no other choice. She needed to find out what was going on without involving Nathaniel in it, and not just out of a desire to save him trouble. If she alerted him to what she was thinking, he might do things differently from his normal pattern, then change things in a way neither of them could predict.

  There was something odd going on. Once was unusual. The same series of events happening exactly the same way twice in a row was a startling coincidence. But having them potentially happen a third time?

  That was a pattern.

  She let herself silently out the front door, unearthed the very small go bag she’d put there earlier, and wished she had even a fraction of Bertie Wordsworth’s skills.

  Well, what she had was enough.

  She would make do.

  Chapter 24

  Nathaniel washed up the dishes partly because he’d made a habit of it after the first time he’d been unexpectedly gone and come home to things rotting in his sink but mostly because it gave him something to do with his hands besides wring the neck of the woman sitting out on his deck.

  He looked around for something else to do, then decided on making coffee. He did it slowly because he needed some time to think. It was one thing for his life to affect just himself, to be looking over his shoulder to protect nothing but his own sweet neck, to have no one to think about but himself in a place where survival depended solely on his own skills. It was another thing entirely to be responsible for someone else.

  As Patrick had said, the past wasn’t a place for a modern woman.

  The problem was, his woman wasn’t listening to any of that.