Chapter 41 #3
“I want Kaitlyn’s opinion.”
“There’s no reason to be rude,” Kaitlyn said. “If they have it, they might use it to impregnate ten, twenty, thirty women? For what purpose? Maybe Erik wants you to track him down to reclaim it. Once you’re in the same room, you’d have to settle things between you.”
Elliott furrowed his brow. “Pick one. Does he intend to use it? Or does he want me to travel to his time?”
“The likelihood of each outcome is equal. If you’re a betting man, the questions have even odds.”
“And ye know that because ye’re a barkeep’s daughter and hired out as bookie during boxing matches in the saloon’s basement.”
“How’d you know?”
“I didn’t.”
Kaitlyn didn’t bat an eye at his smug response, but she afforded him a small smile, as if saying, “I’ll give you that one.”
“If you go to Erik’s time, I’ll go with you,” Clay said. “If we both go, the Elders might consider our request more favorably.”
“Just so everyone is clear, no one goes without me,” David said. “I am the vaengr.”
“If you, David, and Clay go to Erik’s time, you can’t go without JC. And just to remind you… You can’t make the trip without telling your Council,” Kenzie said.
“Who’s on the Council?” Kaitlyn asked.
“That’s where it gets confusing,” Kenzie said. “Elliott is the Keeper, David is the vaengr, and Rick is the moral compass. Other members are Tavis, Mark, Ensley, and Penny, and now we can add Clay. But do we really need a Council now, Elliott? I don’t think so.”
This conversation could go on all night, but Remy had other plans. “Can we move on? Skye and I need to visit Archibald, and I have a question on a different topic. What’d you discover in Dallas? Did Edith ever use the brooch?”
“We don’t know,” Kenzie said. “She didn’t leave a closet full of clues like Archibald. We retrieved several photographs and letters, but found nothing to explain Edith’s life. Like how she got from Inverness to Dallas, with a lengthy stay in Australia.”
“Archibald told me he dated an Edith Robertson in Inverness,” Clay said. “Maybe he knows why she left and where she went, assuming it’s the same woman.”
“I’ll ask him.” Kenzie opened one of the two folders on Braham’s desk and carried it over to the conference table.
“Here are some pictures I found in the house.” She spread them out.
“There are early pictures of Edith with Alistair and then wedding pictures of Alistair and Sheena, but no clues about the brooch.”
“Is Alistair a common name in Scotland?” Skye asked.
“The name has strong Scottish roots,” Kenzie said. “It’s derived from the Scottish Gaelic form of the name Alexander, and it’s an Anglicized version of the Gaelic name Alasdair.”
Skye picked up a black-and-white photograph. “Is this Edith?”
“Yes, it is. Did Remy or Clay mention they were looking for the Robertsons?” Kenzie asked.
“They both mentioned it.” Skye’s fingers traced the edges of each photograph, lifting and examining one after another until a particular image made her pause.
A visible wince tightened her expression as her gaze settled on a picture of a young woman, her hands suspended above the piano keys. “Who is this?”
“Sheena as a teenager. Why?” Kenzie asked.
“She looks just like my mother. But her name was Jane, and she never played the piano. When was this taken? The 1960s? My mother died decades before someone took this photograph.”
Braham stepped over to his desk, picked up the other folder, and returned to the conference table. “I have other pictures of Sheena. Do ye want to see them?”
“Sure.”
Braham handed her the folder, and she opened it. “This is her?”
“Aye.”
Skye flipped to the next photograph. “These people look just like my parents. Are they related?” Skye’s brow furrowed in a mask of confusion.
A cold knot tightened in Remy’s gut. He saw where this shit show was going. It was a train wreck in slow motion, and he was trapped in the front seat, unable to brace for impact or protect Skye from the spiraling mess headed her way.
“I believe,” Braham said, “that the Robertsons and the Marshalls are the same people.”
“That’s impossible. How could my parents be in Inverness in the 1970s and Chicago in the 1900s?” Skye squeezed her eyes shut and gave her head a deliberate shake, as if trying to dislodge a thought or unwanted image.
Remy’s temper surged, but he swallowed it hard. This wasn’t about him. Not right now. He tightened his grip on Skye’s hand, grounding her first.
“All right,” he said, voice clipped. “Tell her—carefully.”
“Before we came in here, Marcelle confirmed she’d seen a picture of your mother, and the woman in that photograph matches the woman in these.”
Surprise sketched across Skye’s cheeks as her gaze burrowed in on Braham. “You knew who I was when I arrived. That’s why you looked so puzzled.”
“I was expecting yer parents to come home with Remy,” Braham said. “But when I saw ye, I suspected ye were related, but I wasn’t sure. That’s why I asked Marcelle if she’d seen pictures of yer parents.”
“Ye should have said something to me,” Remy said.
“Ye were in surgery, taking care of Archibald.”
Kaitlyn arranged the photographs in an array across the table, her gaze sweeping over each image. “You look exactly like your mother. You could be twins like Roisin and me. Out of curiosity. What was Sheena’s maiden name?”
A shadow fell across Braham’s features. “It was Marshall.”
The evidence of her parents’ use of her mother’s maiden name was crushing.
Her single nod shattered the dam she had held back.
A torrent of tears spilled relentlessly over her lashes and streamed down her face.
Witnessing her distress, Remy pulled a fistful of tissues from a nearby box and extended them to her.
She melted into his embrace, consumed by a tide of grief that she muffled against his shoulder.
Remy held her fast, silent tears streaming down his face as their sorrow intertwined.
Elliott disappeared from the room and re-emerged moments later, bearing a goblet filled with ice water, setting it down with a soft chime of ice against glass.
As Skye’s tear storm finally subsided, Marcelle, Kaitlyn, and Kenzie surrounded her with a wave of comfort.
Their embrace of the woman Remy loved soothed the edges of his emotion.
He had known they would accept Skye, but to see them shedding tears of their own—tears mirroring Skye’s pain—was a powerful testament to the unbreakable bond among the MacKlenna women.
Skye pressed her hand to her chest and regained control of her voice. “Thank you.” A fragile smile graced her lips. “I’m okay now.” Leaning in, she gave Remy a soft, reassuring kiss. “I hope if you ever need me like that, I’ll be there for you.”
“You’ll never be alone here, Skye.”
“Unless you want to be,” Kenzie added. “We have a special place we go to have uninterrupted alone time. We’ll share the location with you.”
“Don’t let her fool you,” Remy said. “There is no privacy here. Everybody knows your business. If you want real privacy, you’ll have to leave town.”
Skye chuckled. “For someone who has never been anywhere, I might need to find privacy once a month.”
“Spin the globe, darlin’, and put a pin in it. The world is your oyster.”
“Skye, I’m sorry if it seems like we blindsided ye,” Braham said.
“Seems?” Remy demanded, his voice hardening as his temper flared again. “There’s no seems about it. It’s a fact!”
“That wasn’t my intent. If we’d waited to tell ye when we had more information, ye would’ve been pissed because we didn’t tell ye.”
“Right now, I’d rather be yelling at you for withholding information than pissed because you didn’t,” Remy grumbled.
“For you, Remy, confrontation is more manageable than simmering resentment. I get it. But we’re all trying to figure this out.
If you don’t want to be part of the solution, then stop being part of the problem and go find a game to watch.
” Kenzie returned to her chair, swiping her damp eyelashes before hurtling a remote control, which he snatched out of the air.
“Thanks, Lady McBain. You wrapped that up with a bow.” He let a slow grin erase some of his foul mood.
Kaitlyn and Marcelle returned to their seats, dabbing at their tears with crumpled tissues. Kaitlyn asked, “Did your parents ever mention living in Scotland?”
“They told me about arriving in Chicago and living with a family who helped them get established. They never said where they came from,” Skye whispered, her voice trembling, her gaze distant and unfocused. “I always assumed it was a town somewhere outside of Chicago.”
“If your parents were Sheena and Alistair Robertson, they were stuck in the past and knew they probably would never go home. Why burden you with their history? Would you have wanted that?” Kenzie asked.
“Knowing that Tony told Kaitlyn about Remy and Patrick, even though he knew they wouldn’t come back, hurts me. Why couldn’t my parents have trusted me with the truth?”
“Did they seem troubled to you?” Kenzie asked.
Skye withdrew a fresh tissue from the box and dabbed the dampness from the corners of her eyes. “They were very much in love, happy, and we were happy together.”
“Even as you grew up, you never recognized wistful moments like they were recalling a special time or event?” Kenzie asked.
“I don’t recall ever experiencing that. I’m very good at gauging character and understanding hidden motives. If my parents were struggling with hiding the truth from me, I can honestly say I never saw it.”
“I bet Remy, Marcelle, and Clay had you confused,” Kenzie said.
“Completely baffled,” Skye said with a small chuckle.
“They’d share private jokes that sailed over my head, and they have a peculiar way of talking.
I assumed it was because Marcelle and Remy grew up together, and I chalked it up to being unconventional performers.
” She smiled at Remy. “I didn’t discover they were time travelers until thirty minutes before I arrived here. ”