Chapter Eleven
Joey
The MacTaggarts have taken all the available normal chairs, leaving me with nothing to sit on except some kind of weird box that has spiky things shooting up from both sides. Oh, there's also a super uncomfortable engraved back. To top it off, I barely fit on this contraption, and my ass is already starting to hurt. Not sure what the medieval term is for this hard, wooden thing I'm sitting on. But hey, I'm used to bad furniture and the hard stares of angry men. Nothing Kieran MacTaggart says or does will tick me off.
Probably.
Two more people have entered the room. Kieran nods to the newcomers and introduces them. "Joey, ye might as well know the names of these folk. Meet Dale and Norma Vescovi, Rachel's grandparents. Normally, the first daughter would be named after her mother's mother. But we altered that tradition for our lass. Alyssa chose the name---Rachel Morainn MacTaggart."
Alyssa smiles at her husband lovingly, then glances at me. "Morainn was the first name of Kieran's mother who died a long time ago. She was from the Ross clan."
"Nice to meet you guys," I say to the gray-haired couple. "Were you sucked into the past by magic too?"
"Sort of," Dale confirms. "Kieran's aunts brought us here so we could be with Alyssa."
"Why didn't Alyssa take the MacTaggart name?"
Alyssa herself responds. "Kieran insisted on using the traditional Scottish way in which the wife keeps her family name."
I shift my weight, trying to find a position on this wooden torture device that won't give me sciatica. Rachel catches my eye from across the room and gives me a sympathetic smile. I return it with a half-hearted smile of my own, hoping my discomfort isn't too obvious.
Back in New York, I had cash in my pocket. Guess that's gone now. Even if I could wish for my money to magically appear, what would I do with it?
Kieran MacTaggart's deep, snarly voice snaps my attention back to the gathering. "You have brought peril to my kin, Joseph Finnegan, and I will know what your role is in the dark magics that brought you here."
"Dark magics? You've gotta be shitting me." I gesture at my modern clothes that are slightly battered. They've always been like that, since I could only afford junk I bought at thrift shops. Mobsters aren't known for their magnanimous nature. "I don't know jack about supernatural crap."
Kieran's eyes narrow, and I swear I can see the veins in his forehead pulsing. "You mock our ways, outlander?"
"No, not intentionally," I backpedal, realizing I've stepped in an invisible pile of manure. "I'm just...confused. Where I come from, magic isn't exactly a daily occurrence."
Rachel turns to her father. " Athairich , Joey speaks the truth," Rachel says. "He's as bewildered by all of this as we are."
I throw her a grateful smile, but Kieran isn't mollified.
He leans forward, his massive frame casting a shadow over me. "Bewildered or not, your arrival has set in motion circumstances we do not yet understand. The winds whisper of change, and not all change bodes well."
A chill runs down my spine. I've faced down mob enforcers who were less menacing than Kieran MacTaggart when he glares at me. Still, his attitude doesn't scare me the way he must've hoped it would.
"Look, I understand what you're saying, Mr. MacTaggart," I tell him. "You're worried about your family, I get that. But I swear, I'm not here to cause trouble. I just want answers---about how to get home, whether I can ever blend in here, stuff like that."
"You will call me laird, ye cacan ."
If I plan to go home somehow, I probably shouldn't have let his daughter fuck me. Well, my judgment has never been the best.
Kieran's eyes narrow further, if that's even possible. "And how do we know you speak true? How do we know you're not in league with our enemies? The ones we cannot yet identify?"
I can't stop the bitter laugh that spills out of me. "Trust me, big guy, I've got enough enemies of my own without adding yours to the mix."
Rachel steps forward, lifting her chin. "Father, I believe him. I've spent time with Joey, and I sense no deception in him. I believe his arrival is not a threat. We should worry not about Joey, but about the beings Lachina spoke of."
Kieran's gaze softens slightly as he looks at his daughter, but the suspicion doesn't leave his eyes. "Your heart is kind, gràidh , yet sometimes you are too trusting. We cannot afford to be naive when unknown forces might be plotting against us."
I bite my tongue, resisting the urge to point out that trusting me hadn't exactly been Rachel's only motivation for our...interactions. Instead, I tell Kieran, "Look, I get why you don't trust me. I'm a stranger who appeared out of nowhere. But I'm just as lost as you are. If there are dark forces at work here, I have a vested interest in helping to stop them."
Kieran's golden eyes bore into mine. "And why would you wish to aid us? What stake do you have in our affairs?"
I meet his gaze steadily. "Because whatever brought me here might be my only way back home. And if that's the case, then I need to understand what's going on just as much as you do."
The laird's expression remains stern, but I notice a flicker of something in his eyes that might be curiosity. "You speak boldly for one in such a precarious position."
I shrug, trying to appear more nonchalant than I feel. "Bold speech is about all I've got going for me right now."
A snort of laughter escapes Rachel before she can stifle it. Her father shoots her a disapproving look, but I catch the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Very well," Kieran says after a moment of contemplation. "You may stay, for now. But know this, Joseph Finnegan---I'll be watching you closely. One false move, and you'll wish you'd never set foot in the Highlands."
Even I know better than to push my luck in this situation. "Understood, sir. Thank you."
"Only knights are called 'sir' in this time."
Does Kieran have chain mail armor? It wouldn't surprise me since he does have a big sword.
The laird of the castle rises to his full height, towering over me---because I'm sitting down. Even when I stand, I'm a few inches shorter than Kieran. When he strides up to me, where I sit on this horrid chair contraption, he leans over to make sure I get the picture. He's Big Daddy, I'm the flea he can squash under his boot anytime he likes.
He jabs a finger at me. "You will wait here in the solar. Lasses, come with me."
Kieran swings the door open, gesturing for the women to obey his command. Alyssa rolls her eyes as she walks past her husband, and the great-aunts follow her. Rachel hesitates beside my torture chair, biting one side of her lip as her gaze flicks between me and Big Daddy.
Kieran squints at his daughter. "Come, Rachel. Now."
A wistful sigh rushes out of her. Then she walks out of the room, and Kieran shuts the door behind them both.
I'm alone in this room.
The solar is decorated with all sorts of knickknacks that would probably net a small fortune at some high-end antiques auction in the twenty-first century. I'm talking about stuff like tapestries depicting faded scenes of battles. Those hang from stone walls, and a wooden chest in the corner looks like it might contain either priceless heirlooms or severed heads. With my luck, it's probably the latter. But I also see smaller items that I could nab no problem.
Just thinking about fleecing these people, especially Rachel, gives me a strange queasy feeling in my belly.
Since I have nothing else to do, I jump up from the torture chair---which I now realize must been meant to impress important people. That's ironic given my current status as "suspicious time-traveling intruder." I stretch my cramped legs and stiff neck. The room is surprisingly warm thanks to a hearth burning in the corner. It casts flickering shadows throughout the room.
I begin to hear muffled voices from beyond the thick wooden door. The MacTaggarts are arguing about me, no doubt. I've been the subject of many heated discussions in my life, though usually they involved whether I should be beaten or sold to a human trafficker because of what I'd stolen that week.
As I edge closer to the door, I press my ear against the rough wood. Old habits are tough to break, and stolen information has saved my skin more times than I can count.
"---cannot simply trust him because you find the laddie comely, Rachel!" Kieran's voice booms, even through the thick door.
"I trust him because I've seen into his heart, Athair ," Rachel fires back. "My second sight may not be as strong as Great-Aunt Lachina's, but even I can sense he means us no harm."
I flatten my ear against the door but then nearly lose my balance in the process. If Kieran has second sight, I'm cooked. He would surely get a vision of me getting freaky with Big Daddy's little girl. Rachel's an adult, but I doubt Kieran would accept that as an excuse.
"Aye, and what else have ye seen of his heart?" Kieran's tone drips with suspicion. "Or perhaps 'tis not his heart you've been examining so closely."
I freeze, unable to even breathe. Jesus, has Kieran figured out I did the bump and grind with daughter? Should've kept it in your pants, moron.
"Kieran," Alyssa's voice cuts in, sharp and commanding. "That's enough. I know you're upset, but snide comments are not helpful. Take a breather, honey, before we go back in there."
He grumbles. "I dinnae trust strangers, especially those from another century."
"Oh? You mean like me, hmm? I guess that's why you locked me up in your little dungeon room when we first met." She sighs with mock wistfulness. "Sometimes I miss my pee bucket."
That's what I call too much information.
"Well, I didnae mean---This situation is different, Alyssa."
"Joey is not the enemy---for now. And I trust Rachel's judgment. Our daughter is a smart, capable woman."
I can't help but smile a little. At least someone's on my side.
A long, uneasy silence beyond the door is punctuated only by what sounds like Kieran's heavy breathing. I imagine him pacing like a caged bear, running his hands through his hair while his wife gives him that look that wives across time seem to have perfected.
"The stranger carries strange energies," comes a new voice---older, throatier, with a lilting cadence that makes the hairs on my arms stand up. Must be one of the great-aunts. I haven't memorized their speech patterns yet. "I sense the ripples around him, like stones cast into still waters. But whether he cast them himself or was merely caught in their wake, I cannot yet determine."
"See, Athair ?" That voice is Rachel, and her tone is filled with eagerness. "Even Aunt Lachina doesn't believe Joey is the source of the disturbance."
"She didnae say that that," Kieran grumbles. "Not precisely."
"What I am saying," Lachina's continues, "is that we must look beyond the obvious. The boy may be a symptom, not the disease."
I lean closer, straining to hear more, when suddenly the door swings open. I stumble forward, barely catching myself before faceplanting into Kieran's broad chest.
His eyes blaze with suspicion. "Eavesdropping, are we?"
"No, I was just---" I straighten up, trying to look dignified. "Stretching my legs. That chair is a medieval torture device."
"It's a carver chair," Rachel supplies from behind her father, leaning around his massive arm to see me. Her lips twitch with amusement. "Reserved for honored guests."
"Oh." I clear my throat. "I feel...very honored." And oddly turned on, but I hope Kieran doesn't notice that.
The laird snorts. "Come. We have decided your fate."
"Great," I mutter under my breath as I follow the MacTaggart clan back into the solar. "Nothing ominous about that at all."
The women file in behind me, and I can't help but notice how Rachel's great-aunts watch me with those eerily knowing eyes. Lachina, the one with silver-streaked hair, aims her inquisitive gaze at me like I'm a fascinating insect pinned to a board. Not hostile, just...intensely curious. It makes my skin crawl more than Kieran's outright suspicion.
"Sit," Kieran commands, gesturing to the same medieval torture device---carver chair, whatever---that I'd just escaped.
I eye the spiky monstrosity with disdain. "I'd rather stand, if it's all the same to you."
"It is not all the same to me," Kieran growls, his eyes narrowing. "Sit. Now ."
I clench my jaw but lower myself back onto the damn chair. The wooden edges dig into my thighs as I perch on it like a bird on a thorn bush. Rachel catches my eye and gives me an encouraging nod, which doesn't help with the discomfort but does strange things to my chest.
"We have discussed your situation," Kieran announces, standing before me with his arms crossed over his chest. The animal pelt draped across his shoulders makes him look even more massive. I bet he threw that over his shoulder just to intimidate me. "And while I still harbor deep suspicions about your arrival, we have agreed that you are not to be...disposed of. Yet."
"Thanks. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside now. Maybe we should hug it out."
"Do not embrace me unless you wish to die a gruesome death."
Yeah, I don't think Kieran's going to be my buddy anytime soon. I expect frequent cold glares, the occasional threats of death and or dismemberment, and multiple dunks into the moat.
Oh, yeah, my life totally sucks.