Chapter 3 #3
She made it to Inverness without mishap.
First on her new list was a stop at Culloden.
Between good signage and a big fat red line on her map, she managed to find it.
The sight, what she could see of it from the parking lot, seemed quite unremarkable.
Nothing gave away the carnage that she knew had happened there.
She checked her visitor’s map, then hurried through the visitor’s center.
She had planned several sights for the same day she’d intended to visit Culloden’s field.
No sense in not efficiently checking them off her list while she was out.
After all, she didn’t have much time and she really wasn’t one to waste time—
She came to a sudden, uncomfortably abrupt halt.
It was as if her feet had suddenly become glued to the ground.
She turned to her left, looked down, and saw a gray, rather unremarkable rock on the ground, a round, headstonish kind of rock. And on it was written the name MacLeod.
She looked around her. The path she was on was flanked by the same kind of stone markers she stood in front of. Simple stones with a clan name inscribed on them. She looked back at the MacLeod’s marker. A chill went down her spine.
She backed away. These kinds of otherworldly sensations lay in her sister’s domain, not hers.
She turned to look at something else, rubbing her silk suit-covered arms. But wherever she looked, she saw markers of death. This hadn’t been on her list. What she wanted was nice, safe, comfortable examinations of historical sights. She didn’t want to be blindsided by the first thing she saw.
She turned and walked resolutely away. It had been a fluke. Maybe jetlag was catching up with her. She might have been better off to take the day and remain ensconced in Roddy MacLeod’s broom closet.
She came to another unwelcome halt. Had one of Roddy MacLeod’s ancestors fought on the field she had yet to see?
She walked on before she could think about it.
It was one thing to speculate on those lives lost from a safe emotional distance.
It was another thing entirely to have it personalized.
Maybe that was why she enjoyed being a lawyer.
She got to savor the justice that would be brought to bear without having it be brought against any of her relations.
At least no justice had as of yet been levied against any of her relations.
She paused. Maybe she should check to make sure those were really herbs Sunny was growing in her basement, not pot.
She continued on her way, neither looking to the right nor to the left so as to avoid any more encounters with head-stones, and didn’t stop until she’d marched right out onto Culloden’s field—
And into the final stages of the battle.
She dropped to the ground, squeezed her eyes closed, and covered her head with her arms. As she felt her legs be liberated from their sheer-as-silk coverings, she realized that she was losing her mind.
Either that or the fact that she’d had no breakfast was getting to her.
She would really have to eat something tomorrow morning.
No more hallucinations like this, no sir.
She didn’t move until the gunfire ceased.
She opened her eyes, lifted her head, and saw through the smoke a field littered with the fallen bodies of men wearing plaids.
All except for the man standing at the front line.
Madelyn could hardly believe there was anyone still standing, yet there he was, one lone man standing in front of his fallen comrades, his plaid flowing about his knees, his sword flashing silver in his hand.
His long black hair was a tangled mess swept back from his face.
His eyes were closed, his face set in lines of grief, his posture rigid as if all that kept him on his feet was pride and the sound of the pipes behind him.
A sound she could readily hear even with her eyes open and her imagination shut safely up where it should be.
She knelt there in the heather for what seemed like hours, listening to a battle dirge played by some unseen bagpiper and watching a man standing in the midst of carnage, swaying a little himself with the breeze and the music.
The complete hopelessness of the scene before her was too much to take. Tears streamed down her face.
Then a handful of birds took startled flight from a bush nearby and the spell was broken. She blinked and saw that the field before her was once again a flat, barren plain that stretched out to an unassuming motorway. It was not filled with the wounded and the dead.
It was, however, filled with one man still standing, though this one was dressed in jeans and a sweater, not a kilt. Keys dangled from one of his hands, flashing silver in the sunlight. His black hair was cut short around his ears.
But his face was the same one.
His face, she realized, was a familiar face. He was the one who’d wrecked his car to save sheep. What was he doing in the middle of a battlefield, taking part in her hallucinations?
She would have given that more thought, but he turned suddenly and looked at her.
And time again ceased to be. It was the same sensation she’d had at the headstone, only this time it was stronger.
And it seemed to have everything to do with the man before her.
Half a dozen potential explanations for that raced through her mind, but she ignored them.
What she knew, and she couldn’t have said how she knew—obviously some unsettling legacy from her kooky sister—was that the man in front of her was connected to her in some way.
And she knew, beyond reason, that she had to make contact with him before he walked out of her life forever.
She hadn’t come to Scotland expecting this.
But she had the feeling this was why she had come.
She lurched to her feet, then stumbled a pace or two toward him.
“Um,” she began, fumbling in a most unaccustomed way for the right words.
He turned to look at her.
The wind kicked up suddenly, so suddenly she found herself having to shout to be heard.
“I think we’re connected!” she yelled.
He frowned.
“I think that we’re meant to be!” she bellowed.
The man looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
Which, upon further reflection, she suspected she just might have.
Good grief, what was she doing? Begging a stranger to stay and be her soul mate? Spooky feelings or no spooky feelings, she wasn’t going to stick around and make a bigger fool out of herself. She was going to just turn around and march right off the field.
Soon.
The minute she got her feet unstuck from the sticky bit of destiny she seemed to have stumbled into.
She stared at the man in front of her.
She could do nothing else.