Chapter 12 #2
She never took offence though. After all, to the outside world, she did live an abnormal life.
She spent years in her little cabin, living as much as she could off the land, learning and doing as many handyman jobs as she could, all in preparation for the journey she was now undertaking.
Even though some of the men from town had taken her out and liked her company, she was never once tempted into a relationship.
And she thought she was doing quite well in the seventh century, until Horland got under her skin.
She didn’t know when it happened, but if she was honest with herself, she began to care about him way before the kiss.
She had started seeing him differently, and not just as a means to get to her father.
She wanted to be friends with him and she wanted to help him, but he had to let her in more, he had to trust her and if she told him the truth, he wouldn’t be able to believe her; he’d not trust anything she said again.
She let out a sigh and turned back to the girl. The poor little thing was once again so exhausted, she’d fallen asleep.
Bree thought she and the child suited one another. Neither was normal in the usual sense of the word. Then again, the little girl adored Horland, so perhaps Horland wasn’t as normal as he thought either. Maybe the three of them were somehow brought together to help one another.
After covering the girl with her coat, Bree set about making a fire.
She cleared any leaf litter away and as she built the fire, she tried to remember her father.
Glimpses of him, smiling and swinging her above his head, flashed through her mind, but she wasn’t sure if they were real memories or ones, she’d embedded from the many pictures her mother and Aunt Di took.
A clear vision of her lying on a bed between her mother and father came to mind. Both parents were tickling her, and she was laughing uncontrollably.
Her mother stopped and held her father’s hand. “Stop,” she said. “She can’t get her breath.”
“Are you all laughed out?” her father asked Bree.
Bree shook her head. She didn’t want them to stop but instead of tickling her, her father kissed her forehead, then leaned over and kissed her mother.
Bree lay there looking from one to the other as they gazed lovingly into one another’s eyes.
Love filled their faces when they looked at her too.
It was the most beautiful scene imaginable, and Bree felt that love charge the air in the room and fill her heart.
“Briana?”
Bree looked up and Horland’s concerned eyes gazed down on her. She only just realized she’d been crying and wiped the tears from her face. She glanced at the pile of what looked like dirt in his arms.
“Have you been collecting worms?”
He shot her a confused frown and looked down into his arms. “No. They are carrots.”
“Yum, I love carrots. Here, give them to me so I can clean them.”
He dropped them on the ground and tended to the fire.
Bree made out like she was concentrating on the carrots, cleaning them by wiping the dirt off as best she could.
Horland watched her and something about his stance and facial expressions told her he wanted to ask her about her tears.
She didn’t want to talk about it. She placed the carrots onto the cooler part of the fire off to the side of the flames and used that to make for an entirely different conversation.
“It doesn’t matter if the skin burns a bit, the insides are what we want. ”
“I was going to boil them.”
“Oh. Sorry. This way takes longer but it tastes better. You’ll see.”
Unable to keep still, she stood up, wandered to a shrub, and randomly pulled off some leaves. Horland joined her. “That is a briar. Squash the leaves and smell them.”
She did and sniffed. “Hmm, it smells like apple.” Taking more leaves, Bree crushed them into her palms and rubbed her hands on her neck. “Do I smell like apple?”
Horland bent close to her neck and sniffed deeply. “Yes,” he said, his voice deep and low in his throat.
Bree’s stomach fell at the sound of his voice so close to her ear.
But when he moved even closer, his warm breath breezed across her skin.
With her heart in her mouth, a shiver of anticipation coursed through her.
Was he going to kiss her again? Should she move away?
But her feet were stuck, and her pulse quickened as he turned his head so that their lips were so close all she had to do was sway forward a smidge and they would touch.
He cleared his throat and stepped back.
She looked at him and immediately wished she hadn’t because heat rushed into her face at the depth of emotion in his eyes.
She knew then she would have liked him to kiss her once more...so why didn’t he?
He eyed her curiously.
“Why were you crying?”
She plucked another leaf and shrugged. “Just thinking of old times.”
“Old times?”
“Yes, you know. My childhood, stuff like that.”
“Did you not have a happy childhood?”
“I can’t really complain. My parents loved me and when they left, my grandmother loved me, and when she died, my aunt and uncle loved me and raised me. No, I never went without.”
“Where did you parents go?”
“My mother died and Garlain—” She coughed hard and fast in the hope of covering her mistake.
Horland patted her back. “Are you unwell?”
“No, I must have breathed in some pollen. I might be allergic.”
She chanced a glance at his face. His jaw was set hard and his eyes narrowed into slits. He had definitely heard her slipup. She quickly racked her brains, trying to find a word that rhymed with Garlain.
“Why would you say Garlain’s name?” His tone was low and threatening.
“I didn’t. I meant to say Gaplain, that’s what I called my father, Gaplain.” She wished she were much cleverer at that moment, but that was all she could come up with. “My mother died and Gaplain had to return home to his... ah, his work.”
He clasped his hands around her upper arms and made her face him. “You lie. You said Garlain. Why?”
Bree watched the rise and fall of his chest; his breaths were short and rapid.
He wasn’t stupid but maybe he could believe other men were given that name.
“You’re right. I said Garlain because that’s my father’s name.
I didn’t want you to know because of how you feel about your friend, so I’ve tried not to say. It’s strange, but coincidences happen.”
He placed his fingers under her chin and lifted her face.
She looked at him and her heart flipped.
His gaze pierced hers and she was caught in the near blackness of his eyes.
Even darker ribbons swirled with emotion and she was sure she spotted a flame of desire.
His gaze drew her forward but the moment she stepped closer, he stepped back, his beautiful warm eyes turned cold. He wasn’t going to let it go.
“I don’t believe you,” he grated. “Tell me the truth. How do you know Garlain, and do you know Patricia also? Who are your aunt and uncle?”
Oh boy, he was quick. He’d already had most of it worked out.
“Fine, my aunt is Dianne and my uncle’s name is Mark.” She twisted out of his grasp. “Happy now?”
“Patricia is also your aunt?”
“That will be a no.”
He grunted. “Patricia is Dianne’s sister, so she must also be your aunt.”
Bree couldn’t come up with an explanation that he would believe, and she knew he wouldn’t let it go so let out a great sigh. “Fine. You were going to find out sooner or later anyway. Garlain and Patricia are my parents.”
“This is no time to jest. Tell me the truth, all of it.”
His hard stare told Bree he thought she was crazy, and she knew she sounded exactly like that. His expression also told her he wouldn’t believe her, no matter what she said. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me, so why don’t we just wait to see Garlain and he can tell you everything.”
“I will not wait.”
“Horland, you’re doing my head in.” She wished she’d never said anything. Nothing she could say would make him believe her. Why didn’t he just leave it alone? “You won’t believe or even understand anything I say so why should I even bother talking?”
He rubbed his temples. “Tell me and I will try to understand.”
Bree screwed up her nose. She hoped he’d do more than try to understand, she hoped he would trust that she was telling the truth.
“Okay. Here it is then. My mother travelled back in time with Aunt Di and Uncle Mark. After she won that archery competition, she stayed at the palace with Mark and Dianne.”
“I and many others were there that day.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You could have been also there.”
She shook her head. “Honestly, I wasn’t.
Anyway, Patricia and Garlain fell in love.
The king blessed their union. Not long after they married, Patricia, my mother, became sick.
” She swallowed the grief and continued.
“No one in Pradwick knew what the sickness was, but Garlain suspected something awful. He insisted Mark and Dianne take my mother to their time so Patricia could see a modern doctor. The king and Princess Leeta advised he should do what was best for his wife. He did and by the time Mom was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer, she found out she was pregnant with me. She refused treatment until I was born. She didn’t want the medicines hurting me.
” Bree’s eyes filled with hot tears, but she ignored them. “It was my fault she died.”
Horland’s eyes softened, but he commanded, “Continue. What is this cancer?”
“It’s a horrible disease and it can be fatal. Anyway, once I was born, Mom started the treatments, but it was too late—the best the doctors could do was prolong her life for a short time. I got six years with her and Dad, six years and I can hardly remember any of them.”
Her heart ached at what memories she could remember, and she couldn’t stop the tears raging from her eyes any longer. She sobbed into her cloak.
“Why would your father leave you?”
“He wouldn’t even try to fit into our time, not without his wife by his side.
He wanted to come back here, to his time, and he did want to take me, but Aunt Di encouraged him to leave me with her until he felt better equipped to look after me.
She said Garlain’s time”—she held out her arms, indicating the now—“wasn’t safe for me.
Garlain, thinking about how Patricia could have been saved if her illness was caught earlier, agreed, saying he could not stand to lose me if I too became sick.
He wanted me to stay where the doctors understood medicine better.
Aunt Di promised Garlain I would travel back in time to see him when the time was right, and here I am. ”
“That is not possible. Garlain and Patricia left Pradwick no more than two years ago and Garlain returned alone a year after.” He shook his head. “Their child would only be one year old. An infant.”
Bree gazed at Horland. She could almost hear his brain turning over everything she had said.
She understood him having trouble believing her.
He was looking at someone not much younger than his friend, a someone who had just stated they were his friend’s daughter.
Of course, it would be impossible in normal time, but Bree, her mother, her aunt and uncle, and even her father for that matter, were not of normal time.
“Time is weird like that, Horland. For me, many years passed but when I travelled back in time, I arrived in the here and now. That orb you stole is how I got here. Mark and Dianne set the coordinates on the orb so I guess I’m where I’m supposed to be, although I’d really like to talk to them right at this moment.
What can I say? That’s how the orb and time travel works.
” She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers. “Can I have it back, please?”