Morna's Legacy 04 - Love Beyond Measure (22 page)

“No, I doona know who me real father was. Me mother worked for the McMillans and when she became pregnant, they protected her. After she died giving birth to me, they took me in and raised me as their son.”

I pointed to his red, curly mane, which was already starting to grow rather unruly, despite the recent cut it had received. “I should have realized, with the red hair and all. You look nothing like Baodan.” He nodded but said nothing so I removed my socks in preparation for the next question. “Okay, would you rather be hot or cold?”

“Cold.”

Fair enough. I removed my shirt. “Next question. What’s your biggest pet peeve?”

His brows pinched in again. “I doona know what a ‘peeve’ is, lass.”

“What’s the one thing that drives you crazy? That you can’t stand?”

“Ah. The sound of rain.”

My hands flew up in surprise and my voice came out all high and pitchy. “What? Who doesn’t like the sound of rain?”

“Me, lass. The sound of rain makes me think of water, and I doona like to swim. That and it always makes me need to relieve meself something dreadful.”

“That is so weird. Sorry, but that’s one strike.”

“What do ye mean, by strike?”

I was really going to have to cool it with the modern references. “It’s a sports thing. If you get three strikes, you’re out.”

He lifted off of his hand suddenly and swung himself so that he sat up on the edge of the bed. “Out, lass? Are ye giving me some sort of test? Ye do know that ye’ve already agreed to marry me, aye?”

“Yeah, but two more strikes, and I’m gonna have to back out.”

“’Tis no an option, Grace. Just remove your bottoms and ask yer next question.”

I winked at him. “Okay, I think this is my last question, actually. Then maybe you can just remove everything else. That sound okay?”

His eyes were locked on my bra and the cleavage it produced between my breasts. I assumed he didn’t mind me handing over the task to him.

“Okay, what do you think the word ‘girlfriend’ means?”

“’Tis a strange question, lass. Doona ye think the name itself tells its meaning. It refers to lassies who are me friends.”

My finger went up like a corrective school teacher. “Wrong. I know that’s not a word used here, so it’s okay, but let’s just clear that up right now. Your girlfriend is what I was to you right before I became your fiancé. The first time you used that word in front of me, I thought you were gleefully admitting to sleeping with your brother’s wife.”

His lusty, half-closed eyes, suddenly opened to the size of saucers. “Ach, I dinna ever mean that.”

“Yeah, I know. Now come here.”

He stood and moved over to me, reaching around to the clasp of my bra as he reached me. I leaned up to kiss his neck, trailing kisses up to his ear so that I could whisper into it.

“I have one last question. Bottom or top?”

Sleepless nights filled with love making differed greatly from sleepless nights in the office working on magazine articles or sleepless nights tending to a sick child. When the sun rose the next morning and my eyes had yet to close for a single minute, I realized that while my body was beyond exhausted, my mind was alert and happy.

“What’s the plan for the day?” I rolled to face him, Eoghanan’s deep green eyes piercing into my soul.

He said nothing for a moment, and I could sense that he hesitated. “No verra much. If ye doona mind, I’d like to make the announcement of our coming marriage today.”

I didn’t mind at all. If Vegas was only an airplane away rather than several hundreds of years, I would have suggested we marry the very next day. I moved to run my hands through his hair, kissing his nose as I snuggled into him. “I don’t mind at all. How soon can we be married? I mean, I’m not very familiar with how weddings work here.”

He rolled over onto his stomach, propping himself up on his elbows as he looked down at me. “As soon as ye wish, lass. I dinna wish to rush if ye wanted to take some time, but I’d marry ye today if I could.”

“Today? Could things be arranged so quickly?” I closed my eyes and smiled, delighting in the feeling of his fingertips as he ran feather light touches up and down my bare arm.

“’Tis no so much to arrange, but I’m afraid I must leave for a day or two to make special preparations.”

“Preparations for what?” Fear that I’d managed to lock away for the night crept back. “You’re not…Eoghanan, I don’t want you to go after her.”

“No, lass. I am no afraid of the witch, Jinty. Without me brother to act as her puppet master, I doona think she is capable of real harm. Though should I get the chance to end her life, I will do so for all the pain she helped bring upon this family. ’Tis only that I wish to prepare a surprise for ye. Baodan and I will leave this afternoon.”

I knew it was ridiculous. I was too grown to allow such a notion to find a resting place in my mind, but the thought of him being away for a mere two days made me rather sad. “Must you leave? In the middle of the gathering?”

“Doona worry yerself, Grace. The gathering will last for weeks. Few will even notice our departure. Eoin and Arran will be here to care for things in our absence. Trust me, when ye see what I’ve planned for ye, ye will be glad I left.” He flipped over onto his back and stood rather abruptly. “In the meantime, I need ye to stay here a moment while I check on yer other surprise.”

He dressed quickly and left, leaving me with a mind full of confused wonderings. He’d not left my side all night. How could he have so many plans already in place?

He didn’t leave me long to imagine what he had planned, arriving back in the doorway within a matter of minutes, the largest smile I’d ever seen on his face.

“I think ye best get dressed, Grace.”

I stood and did as he asked. His excitement roused my curiosity greatly. “Okay, what is it? What have you done?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “’Tis no so much what I have done, but Morna. Ye see, I had a conversation with wee Cooper before we traveled back here, and he spoke of a man verra important to ye all. When I told Morna of him, she promised that she would check in often to see how things progressed between us and should they lead to marriage, she would send ye, Cooper, and Jeffrey a gift. Yer gift has arrived.”

Surely he couldn’t mean what he made it sound like. The man who the three of us leaned on more than any other and the last missing piece in our little puzzle couldn’t possibly be here.

I fumbled with the laces in my anticipation and eventually spun my back toward Eoghanan, lifting my hair and pointing to my back. “Help me, please.”

He obliged, working quickly with the laces. “There. Ye are properly covered and free to go and see yer surprise. I hope ye are no disappointed.”

I hoped so, too. He’d built up to it so much, making me believe it could only be one thing, that I knew if it wasn’t I would have a difficult time masking my disappointment.

I walked quickly down the hallway, unsure of just where my surprise lay. Then I heard it—the same voice that I’d gone to my entire life for guidance and comfort, the same voice that Cooper loved second only to mine and Jeffrey’s.

I turned the corner and nearly wept. There, with Cooper clinging to him, grasping his neck so tightly I was surprised he could breathe, stood Bebop.

*

“So one day, I was sitting on my back deck fishing, and I closed my eyes for just a moment,” Bebop winked at me, “resting my eyes as I do, and the next moment I’m sitting in a stranger’s living room with an old man and woman staring back at me.”

He had us all enraptured, Cooper, Jeffrey, Eoghanan and me all standing around him, listening intently to his tale of how Morna had brought him here. He had the unique ability to tell any story, even everyday stories that weren’t truly as interesting as the one he told now, as if they were the grandest of tales.

No wonder my son had such a vivid imagination and that he’d developed an early love of books. Who wouldn’t with a grandfather like that to tell you stories? He was the sort of man one could listen to for hours.

Bebop, whose real name was Charles Oakes, was a good decade older than both of my parents. He and Maggie had given birth to Jeffrey later in life, after over a decade of trying to have children. Bebop stood the same average height as Jeffrey, about five-seven, although his shoulders now hunched a little, making him look shorter than he really was. An avid cyclist, he was in phenomenal shape for a man his age, but he still looked very grandfatherly—like a surprisingly sprite Gepetto.

He still had a full head of hair but it was entirely gray, and he wore a pair of spectacles that often lingered on the end of his nose. He continued relaying his tale, laughing as he spoke.

“Well, I’ll tell you. For a moment I thought my mind had either caught up with the age of my body, or I’d had a heart attack sitting right on my deck and heaven was just very different than I’d ever imagined it.”

Cooper leaned back, still in Bebop’s arms and gripped either side of the man’s face, as if he couldn’t believe he was really here. “So how did she make you believe everything? These two,” he pointed to me and his father, “had a real hard time with it.”

Bebop leaned in and pressed his forehead to Cooper’s, speaking only to him. “Did your mother read you the story that your Dad and I picked out for you?”

Cooper nodded, their foreheads still touching. “Yeah, I loved it, Bebop. When I first saw E-o, I thought maybe he was like that little prince in the book, and he’d come here on a spaceship.”

Bebop, pulled back, his cheeks still framed by Cooper’s little hands. “Well, I’m not ruined like the grown-ups in the book. I can still see things like a child. I’ve always believed in a bit of magic.” He turned his head to the side to look at us ‘ruined,’ grown-ups. “But, I’ll tell you. I don’t know if I could have dreamed up something like this. How very exciting. Now,” he shifted Cooper into his left arm and reached up to grip his head with his right hand. “I need someone around here to give me something to help with this bloody bad headache.”

“How’s my sweet girl doing? You look stunning.”

I turned and threw my arms around Bebop, still stunned and delighted at his sudden appearance here. “I’m great. How’s your head?”

“Oh, that,” he dismissed it with his hand, “much better actually. I have to tell you Grace, the last time I saw you in a dress about to walk down the aisle, the sight made me ill.”

I snorted, laughing into his shoulder. It had made me ill as well. “Geeze, thanks.”

“You know what I mean, Grace. My heart was broken for you that you planned to do something so foolish as to marry my son. This is very different. I don’t pretend to know the man you plan to marry, but it feels very right to me. And my gut is always right.”

It was. Bebop’s advice was something I’d never taken lightly.

“Thank you. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re here. It seems rather impossible to me.”

“Less impossible to you than me, I imagine. Childlike I may be, but truthfully, all of this is a lot to take in.” He paused, releasing me so that I could take one last glance in the mirror. “Can I tell you a story?”

I would never turn down a Bebop story. “Of course you can.”

“Good. Are you ready? I’ll tell you while we walk down if you are.”

“Yes.” I smiled and looped my arm in his.

I wasn’t altogether sure where exactly the wedding would take place. We’d announced our impending nuptials the morning after Bebop arrived, but had decided to have a private ceremony with only the closest of family. Cooper, Jeffrey, and Bebop on my side. Baodan, Mitsy, and Kenna on Eoghanan’s.

As a result, there’d been very little to prepare, and I gladly allowed Eoghanan to plan all of the little surprises he seemed so intent upon.

As we moved down the hallway from the bedchamber where I’d readied myself with the help of Mitsy and Kenna, Bebop began his story. “Do you remember what I told you when you were pregnant with Cooper? When you were so worried that you would be a terrible mother?”

I smiled, he had no way of knowing just how well I remembered every word of what he’d told me that day. “Of course I do.”

“Maggie hated that story. It was what I used to tell myself every time she miscarried. For all those years that we tried to have a child, I would rationalize the loss by saying, ‘that soul wasn’t meant for us. Ours is coming.’ I could always tell it made her angry. She felt that me saying that made it seem like children born to abusive, cruel parents were meant to be placed in such situations, and she couldn’t stand it. Of course, that’s not how I meant it. It’s just something that made me feel like I hadn’t lost something; that the person meant for me was still on its way to us. And of course he was—Jeffrey.”

By this point we were already nearing the main doorways of the castle, and it surprised me to find the hallways and other rooms entirely empty. Either there would be many more guests at our wedding than I anticipated, or they’d been instructed to clear out until after the wedding. I hoped it was the latter. Still, I could tell we neared our destination, for Bebop slowed his pace markedly, clearly not finished with his story.

“As I said, Maggie hated when I would say that, taking my words too literally when they were only meant to soothe my heart each time after a new loss. She never said anything about it though until after you had entered our life.”