Chapter 21 #2
The vision shifted, showing me appearing back in my own time.
Stumbling away from the bookshelf, confused and disoriented, trying to explain where I’d been.
Jenna and Marcus exchanging glances as I told my impossible story.
Doctors asking careful questions about head trauma.
Therapists with kind eyes and prescriptions for medications I didn’t need.
Everyone who loved me trying to understand what had happened, unable to accept the truth because the truth was impossible.
I saw myself going back to work at Coastal Adventures Tours. Sitting at my desk, answering phones, booking other people’s vacations while staring out the window. The same sad desk salads. The same spreadsheets. The same careful, controlled life I’d built to protect myself from being hurt again.
Safe. Comfortable. Empty.
The vision showed me months passing. A year.
I watched myself try to move forward, try to forget.
Saw myself on dates that went nowhere because I kept comparing every man to someone with storm-gray eyes and a Scottish burr.
Saw myself wake up in the middle of the night, reaching for someone who wasn’t there.
I saw Jenna’s wedding—me in a bridesmaid dress, smiling for photos while my heart ached. Marcus getting promoted and moving to New York.
Everyone moving forward except me.
I saw myself grow older. Not dramatically—just the small accumulations of years. Lines around my eyes. A tiredness that never quite went away. Success at work. Promotions. Praise. The kind of life that looked good on paper.
But at night, alone in my apartment, I saw the truth.
The way I’d stare at that photo of the stone circle and wonder if I’d dreamed it all.
If Brodie had ever been real. If I’d given up the only thing that had ever felt like home for a safe life that would never quite fill the space he’d left behind.
I saw myself at forty, then forty-five, successful and accomplished and so achingly alone. Going through the motions of a life that fit perfectly on the outside but never quite fit on the inside.
And I understood, with a cold certainty, what I was seeing.
My future. The life I could have if I went back.
Safety and certainty and everything I’d known.
Hot showers and pizza and movies and cars that didn’t need horses.
Lights at the flick of a switch. Phones that connected me to anyone in the world.
All the marvels of modern life that I’d taken for granted.
Everything.
Everything except him.
The vision shattered.
I pulled my hand from the stone, gasping. Brodie caught me, steadied me, his face stricken as he looked at me.
“I saw it,” he said roughly. “Your world. The things ye can do there, the life ye could have. Maddie—”
“Did you see the rest?” I grabbed his shirt, fisted the wet fabric between my fingers. “Did you see what happens if I go back?”
“Ye’d be safe. Ye’d have your friends—”
“I’d be alone.” The truth came out. “I’d spend the rest of my life missing you. Heartbroken. Wondering. Wishing I’d been brave enough to stay.”
The Cailleach stepped closer, her ancient eyes reflecting the stone’s fading light. “Choose, child. The threshold willna hold much longer.”
I looked at the stone, its markings pulsing slower now, the light beginning to dim. One touch and I could go home. Back to coffee makers and wifi and convenience. Back to safety and certainty and everything I’d known.
I looked at Brodie. At the scar through his eyebrow and the way he was trying so hard not to let me see how much my leaving would destroy him.
The choice was simple.
“I’m staying,” I said.
“Maddie—”
“I’m staying.” My voice was stronger now. “I don’t need more time to think about it. I don’t need to see anything else. You’re my home, Brodie. Not that apartment. Not that life. You.”
“Ye dinna ken what ye’re giving up.” His voice cracked. “Your friends willna know what happened to ye. They’ll spend the rest of their lives wondering if ye’re alive or dead or suffering somewhere. How can ye—”
“Because my parents raised me to be brave.” I cupped his face between my palms, held him steady. “Before they died, my dad taught me to choose joy over fear, love over safety. And I know—I know—that if he could see you, see us together, he’d tell me to stay. Even if it killed him to say it.”
Thunder rumbled, softer now. The storm was passing. The stone’s light had dimmed to a faint glow, its markings barely visible.
“Are ye certain?” Brodie’s hands came up to cover mine, his grip almost painful. “Once it goes dark, there’s no going back.”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything.” I smiled through my tears. “I love you. I choose you, and I choose this life, this time, this impossible chance we’ve been given. I choose us.”
His hands came up to frame my face, his grip trembling. Hope flooded his features—raw and unguarded and absolutely devastating.
“I love ye,” he breathed. “Maddie, I love ye so much—”
I kissed him.
Not gentle. Not careful. Desperate and claiming and full of everything we’d survived to reach this moment. Rain poured over us, thunder rolled, and behind us the stone’s light flickered once, twice, then went dark.
The threshold was forever closed.
I felt it in my chest—that final snap of connection, the last thread to my own time severing cleanly. No going back. No second chances. I was here now, in 1693, for the rest of my life.
And I didn’t regret it for a single second.
When we finally broke apart, breathless, Brodie pressed his forehead to mine. “Ye’re stuck with me now. For better or worse.”
“In sickness and health,” I added, my voice shaking with tears and laughter and overwhelming relief.
“Until death do us part.”
“Until death do us part,” I agreed.
The Cailleach cleared her throat. When we looked, she had shifted back to the old woman from the beach, her storm-gray eyes warm with something that might have been approval.
“The choice is made,” she said. “The threshold is sealed. What lies ahead is yours to claim.” She stepped closer, her weathered hand reaching toward my swollen ankle. “But first—ye’ll need your strength for what comes next.”
Her fingers brushed my ankle, and warmth flooded through the joint. The constant ache that had plagued every step since the widow’s interrogation vanished. The swelling melted away.
“And ye, lad.” The Cailleach turned to Brodie, her hand hovering over his shoulder. “Ye’ve carried enough scars from that woman’s cruelty.”
She touched his back, and Brodie sucked in a sharp breath. The pain from the whip—the ones that had made every movement agony—disappeared. I saw it the moment he rolled his shoulders experimentally, his eyes widening.
“Thank ye,” he said roughly.
The Cailleach nodded. “Ye’ve earned your freedom. What ye do with it is yours alone.” She gestured toward the trees. “But I’d suggest ye claim it elsewhere. The boy will send guards soon enough.”
Then she was gone, dissolving into mist and rain as if she’d never been solid at all.
“Scotland,” he said. “We talked about going to Scotland. To my family. Thomas told me there’s a merchant ship in Port Royal—the Mary Catherine.
Her captain’s looking for crew to work for their passage to Edinburgh.
” He paused, glanced at me. “But I need to make a stop first. Before we reach the port.”
I understood immediately. Renard’s hiding place. The gold and jewels he’d told me about. “You think it’s still there?”
“Only one way to find out.” His jaw was set in that determined line. “We’ll need coin for passage. For starting over in Scotland. If Renard’s cache is where he said it was—”
Brodie grabbed my hand.