Chapter 10
Natalie paced her tiny apartment in Boston.
Outside her window, the city hummed. Sirens, footsteps, a dog barking somewhere down the block. It should have felt familiar, grounding. Instead, the noise only made the silence inside her louder.
The hum of the refrigerator startled her. The walls felt too smooth, too white, the air too sterile after weeks of peat smoke and heather. Even the city light seemed artificial, missing the honest darkness of the Highlands.
She ran her fingers along the curve of the silver brooch on her nightstand.
Its surface was cool, but when she closed her hand around it, warmth pulsed faintly beneath her skin.
For a moment, she swore she smelled peat smoke, that sharp, earthy scent that clung to Ian’s plaid and lingered on her hair.
Maybe it had all been a dream. A fevered escape from loneliness and too many late nights with a glass of wine and an empty apartment. But the thought didn’t sit right. Dreams faded. What she’d felt there hadn’t.
The way the wind tasted on the ridge above the loch. The way Ian’s voice wrapped around her name was like a promise. Even now, her pulse quickened just remembering.
“Was it real?” she whispered into the quiet. The silence offered no answer, only the steady ticking of the clock, marking time she no longer belonged to.
And there was the brooch. Where had it come from if not from Ian?
A gust of wind rattled the glass. She looked up, half expecting to see the mist rolling off the loch outside her window instead of the neon glow of the city.
It had been two weeks and six days since she’d returned, and now she was more than ready to go back.
She’d called the museum in Scotland and given them her two-week notice, finishing up her work only days ago.
They’d been such a fabulous place to work.
She’d visited twice a year and worked remotely from the U.S.
the rest of the time. A sad sigh escaped her. Her job had meant so much.
Her heart leaped, nearly bursting from her. Now she’d be living it! Giddiness bubbled up in her chest, and her hands came to her face. She’d asked Ian to give her three weeks to settle things at home, and then he could call her back to his time.
She’d visited with her parents and friends and told them she’d be traveling to work permanently in Scotland.
They’d been excited and planned to see her.
Natalie had nixed that idea, letting them know she’d be traveling quite a bit and working on various digs.
She wouldn’t be accessible for quite some time.
Lucky for her, both of her parents worked, and she rarely visited with them anyway. She was an only child, so she didn’t have to worry about siblings. Carrie was the one she worried about most. Her best friend had been crushed. Could she tell her the truth? Telling her would be risky.
This was her last night in her apartment, and Carrie would be here any minute.
Since Carrie’s living arrangements had been with her parents, Natalie had asked her to sublet the apartment.
Carrie was ecstatic about the opportunity.
The setup worked out well for both of them.
The times Natalie did come back to visit, she wanted to have a place to stay and a place to keep her things should she need them.
Maybe she should tell Carrie, and if something happened, at least one person would know. But what about her parents?
She’d have to deal with them later. When she and Ian had discussed it, she’d told him she would have to visit her family at least once a year.
He’d understood, and if they could figure it out, he would come, too.
She was too nervous to let him, though. The power of the brooch would bind the lovers together.
If they were already together, who was to say it would work, and if they were in 2008, what would become of his people?
A loud knock at the door alerted Natalie to Carrie’s arrival. Time to do some explaining…
“Carrie.” Natalie exhaled. “God, I didn’t even hear the elevator.”
Carrie grinned, holding up a bottle of wine. “Because you look like someone who’s forgotten the existence of both sleep and carbs. Are you okay? You sort of disappeared for—what—two weeks? No texts, no calls. I was about to file a missing-persons report.”
Natalie stepped aside. “Come in.”
Carrie flopped onto the couch, scanning the apartment. “Everything looks the same, but you don’t. You’ve got this…” She gestured vaguely. “Glow. Like you joined a yoga cult in Scotland.”
Natalie laughed, though the sound came out shaky. “Something like that.”
Carrie poured wine into two wine glasses she pulled down from the cabinet. “So? Tell me. You went off the grid, and now you’re back with a glow and a thousand-yard stare. What happened?”
Natalie hesitated. How did she explain a world of stone keeps and torchlight, of men who still believed in honor and ghosts that bent time? “It’s going to sound insane,” she warned.
“Good. Insane’s my favorite genre.”
Natalie took a sip of wine for courage. “I went somewhere. Not just geographically. I don’t even know how—it was like time folded, and I fell through the crease. I met someone there. Ian.”
Carrie raised a brow. “Ian. Please tell me he’s not another musician.”
“He’s… definitely not.” Natalie smiled faintly. “He’s real, Carrie. As real as you sitting here. But he’s not from here. Or now.”
Carrie stared, a flash of concern on her features. “You’re telling me you met a Highlander in… the past?”
“I know how it sounds.” Natalie rubbed her temple. “But when I close my eyes, I can still feel the wind off the loch, smell the peat smoke. I can still hear him saying my name.”
Carrie leaned forward, voice softening. “Honey, maybe it was a dream. You’ve been under so much stress—”
“It wasn’t a dream.” The words came out sharper than she meant. She looked down at her hands, then slowly pulled the brooch from beneath the pillow. “This is how I got there. Or back. Or whatever you want to call it.”
Carrie studied it, frowning. “It’s beautiful. Old. Probably worth a fortune.”
“It’s not about that.” Natalie closed her fingers around it, feeling its warmth again. “When I hold it, it’s like I can feel him reaching for me.”
Carrie’s skepticism faltered. “You really believe this.”
Natalie met her friend’s gaze. “I don’t just believe it. I know it. I love him, Carrie. And I can’t stay here pretending this world fits me anymore.”
Carrie was quiet for a long moment. “You’re serious.”
“I am.”
Carrie sighed, half-amused, half-resigned. “Only you would time-travel and come back with better hair and a tragic love story. What are you going to do?”
Natalie glanced toward the window. The wind had picked up, rattling the glass like distant thunder. “I’m going back.”
Carrie set down her mug. “Nat—”
“I have to. He’s waiting for me.”
Something in her tone must have convinced Carrie, because she didn’t argue further. She stood, pulling Natalie into a hug. “Then promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“If you see some hunky Highlander with a sword, tell him your best friend says he’d better treat you right.”
Natalie laughed through the lump in her throat. “I will. And I’ll find a way to get a message to you. Somehow. So you know I made it.”
They sipped their wine as Natalie told her about Scotland and Ian, and when it was nearly midnight, the wine gone and a half-eaten pizza sat cold on the counter, Carrie squeezed her hand, then stepped toward the door.
“You’ve always chased stories, Nat, but this…
this sounds like something out of one of your Gaelic myths. ”
Natalie smiled wistfully. “Maybe myths start because someone once lived them.”
“And you think that’s you?” There was something sad but also resigned in Carrie’s gaze.
“I don’t think. I know. When I close my eyes, I can still hear the wind in his voice.” Natalie hugged her friend, knowing that she didn’t completely understand, but one day she would.
After Carrie left, a sudden draft slipped through the window, lifting the papers on her desk. For a heartbeat, she swore she heard the echo of pipes carried on the wind, low, distant, and familiar.
Natalie lay down on the bed, the brooch clasped tight in her hand. Outside, the city wind howled between the buildings, low and hollow, almost like a voice.
Ian.
The sound brushed against her mind, faint but certain, as if carried from across centuries. She closed her eyes, breath trembling.
“I’m coming,” she whispered.
Light flickered at the edge of her vision, soft, then blinding. The world tilted.
And the next heartbeat, the city was gone.