Chapter 31 #3
“No, not that.” I nudge him with the energy of someone who should’ve gone to sleep hours ago.
“I keep thinking about what you said—how my truest desire is family.” I rest my chin on his chest, holding his gaze.
“Neither of us has it. Real family, I mean. Do you think that’s why we’re drawn to each other? ”
“Och, no,” he says easily. He places a large, warm hand along the side of my head, gently guiding me back down. “We were drawn to each other because how could it be otherwise? You’re the sun in my sky, Rosie-love.”
“So this is destiny?”
“Beyond destiny.” His thumb brushes my temple, slow and sure. “The sun doesn’t rise because fate wills it. It rises because it must. It could be no other way…it simply is.”
I trace lazy circles along his chest, fingers wandering through loosened laces, over warm skin, exploring all the masculine things about him that fascinate me. The dusting of hair that tickles my palm. His low hum of pleasure as I lightly scratch his skin.
“But there was magic, too,” I murmur.
“If sunrise is the heartbeat of the heavens,” he says, his voice a low rasp in the dark, “then magic is the breath.”
“That’s beautiful.”
He chuckles, and with a nip to my ear, whispers, “You’re beautiful.”
“You said you saw me, when you came to me as a ghost.”
He makes a warding gesture with his hand. “Ghosts are dead.”
“You know what I mean. How did your spirit, or whatever, find me?”
“Donag had told me of her chant. I had it in my head as I went to sleep. ’Twas then I first found you—a dream, yet not a dream.” He rests a warm and heavy hand on my head. “I fell asleep thinking of the chant. But I found you. Not Janet.”
“But you didn’t actually say the chant, so how is that possible? Donag needs all kinds of supernatural juju to make the spell work, right?”
“Mayhap I’ve the knack for it. Or mayhap it’s simply I’ve opened my mind to it. Whatever the reason, my soul found yours across time.” He says it easily, like he’s talking about finding his car in a parking lot.
He notices my confusion and smiles. “There’s no puzzle to it, my Rosie-love. Seems to me as natural as breathing. With you is where I most wish to be. Some part of myself will remain with you always. Has been with you, always.”
I curl my fingers, gathering the fabric of his shirt. “Well, we’re not going to part. So.”
“So.” He pulls my hand loose and kisses my palm. “Mayhap it wasn’t me coming to you, but rather the universe sending me. Two halves, each finding the other.”
“A woman at the inn told me you were a taish.”
He shudders with mock alarm. “Heaven forfend. Enough with the ghosts and taishes. A taish is an apparition, Rosie-love. Of a dying man.”
“No.” I’m back up on my elbow, and words blurt from me without thinking. “She said it might be an image of my future husband.” I think my heart actually stops for a second once I realize what I’ve said.
But Callum doesn’t seem to mind at all. His palm slides around my cheek, his voice soft as he asks, “Would you allow that? Have me as your husband?”
“I’m only nineteen.”
He shrugs. Like, he doesn’t get what the big deal is. But he must sense how I’m unnerved, because he says lightly, “Not much would change. We already share a name. With Gregor as your father—”
“How weird. I guess you’re right. Technically, my name is Rosie MacGregor.”
He says something like, “And what a bonnie name it is,” but I don’t register it.
Because I see a name in my mind’s eye. Or rather, a first initial.
“R MacGregor,” I whisper.
“Mo chridhe.” He looks alarmed as he draws back to get a better look at me. “You’ve gone stiff as a post. We don’t need to talk on marriage if you’ve not the wish to.”
“No, no, it’s not that. I just…” A violent shiver runs through me, goose bumps rippling across my skin. “I saw a grave on Campbell land. Under the apple tree.”
Callum stills. “Whose?”
I swallow hard. “R MacGregor, 1622.”
His whole body goes rigid. “Are you certain?”
I nod.
His voice drops. “Love…might you have read it wrong? The stone will have weathered—”
“I know what I saw.” My pulse pounds. “The whole thing freaked me out. And I remember every grave, every word. Vividly.” The sightless angel. The dere mother, infant at her side.
“1622 will soon be over. And the Campbell shelters no other MacGregors. Only Donag and myself.”
“And me. R MacGregor.”
“I’ll not let any harm come to you.” The wool crunches as he bolts upright. “So long as I draw breath, Rosie MacGregor. I swear it.”
“You sound so dire.” I try to laugh it off, but it comes out a shaky puff of air.
I lay back down, tugging the wool back into place.
“Now come on, before it gets cold again. Seriously, Callum. The past, the future, it must be changeable. Think about it. Just me coming back has probably already changed things. Nothing bad will happen to me. We’ll stay together.
And soon we’ll find a way to leave here. Together.”
Callum stiffens. But he’s no longer looking at me. His eyes are trained into the distance. His breathing changes—quieter, controlled. “Wheesht,” he whispers.
The air shifts. Something in the night has changed.
He gently sets me aside, extricates us from his plaid, and stands up. The only sound is him winding the heavy, crunching wool around his waist and buckling on his sword. Then the hiss of steel as he pulls it from its scabbard.
I get to my knees, but I’m trembling now. Because I sense it too. The air is thick with it. The acrid, resinous stench of a pine pitch torch. The crackle of branches, intermittent, like someone trying to approach quietly.
The back of my neck prickles. I feel the weight of unseen eyes.
Callum steps in front of me. His voice is sharp as a blade. “Show yourself.”
A man steps from the trees. Then another, and another. Flickering torchlight dances across their features, revealing faces I recognize.
Campbell faces.