Reckoning (Book 4 of Lost Highlander series) (10 page)

Piper nodded. “No, she never gets sick. No weird twitches or bizarre extra limbs, either.”

“Shut up.” Evie opened the diary. “So, grandma Rose loved this guy from the past? Why’d she come back at all, I wonder? Though I’m glad she did, of course. It just seems like such a sad ending.”

Piper gave her a look. “Daria,” she said. “Daria’s why she came back. I think she might be the one who pulled her to the past in the first place.”

Evie scooped Magnus out of his bassinet and began to pace with him propped up on her shoulder so he could see around him. She spoke in a soothing, calm voice even as her brow furrowed in confusion. “I don’t know where to start. How? Or why? Okay, how. How could Daria be in 1770 when she was killed in 1729?”

Piper shrugged. “No idea. It hurts my brain to even guess.”

“She wasn’t dead yet,” Sam said without opening his eyes.

They both waited for him to continue, Piper thinking she might toss the heaviest book within her reach at him as he sat up and took his time stretching.

“Come on, Sam,” Evie said, still using her baby-soothing voice, completely undermining all the urgency that Piper felt.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked. “Talk about brain ache. I’m not sure I can explain it as I barely understand it.” He rubbed his eyes and continued. “So, we think the timelines are all concurrent, right, give or take a few months?”

Piper nodded. When Lachlan left the first time, on his side he’d only been gone six weeks, while she had lamented in loneliness for six months. There had been a loss of eight months that they couldn’t account for, on which Piper alternately blamed Daria and her own lack of spellwork ability.

“Daria was killed in our 1729, right?” Sam went on. “The one we went back to, from this time? Well, you have to remember, your granny was traveling from a different starting point, years before this one. So even though she ended up in 1770, from her starting point Daria would still be alive. In
that
 1729. Daria would still be able to travel about making trouble.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and made a pained noise. “Does that make sense to anyone but me?”

“Maybe,” Evie said, putting Magnus back in his bassinet.

“Not really,” Piper admitted. “But I’ll go with it. Because it’s clear she was there, screwing around with my family again.”

 With a glance at the clock, Sam muttered something about the shop going to hell without him. “I really should get on,” he said.

Piper shooed him away. He’d been a great help. She couldn’t expect him to stay any longer. He packed up Magnus’s things and promised to bring the baby back after dinner, then seemed to remember something.

“Erm, actually, I guess it’s Thursday isn’t it?” he asked Evie hopefully.

Her face fell. Piper realized this was their custody arrangement and it was Sam’s turn to keep him overnight, or for the weekend. It was dumb and wrong and Piper had to turn away. She considered running down to see the horses so she didn’t have to see the long goodbye, but Sam made his exit with Mags mercifully quickly.

Evie had a lemon-sucking look on her face when she turned back around.

“What is it?” Piper asked. Had Sam asked her to move back in with him the night before and been shot down?

Evie wriggled as if her skin was too tight. “Nothing,” she said. “Just. Ugh. Nothing.” She looked at the empty bassinet and sighed. “I’m going to read the diary, is that okay? I’m dying to know everything.”

“What little there is to know,” Piper said, sliding back onto the bench. She rested her chin in her hand.

“Are you kidding?” Evie asked. “We learned so much. Your grandma went back in time before she ran off to America. Your mother was born in 1771.”

Yes, everything in the diary had been fascinating. She was glad her grandmother had found happiness, if only for a short time. What little she knew of her, she had never seemed content.

Daria had stolen that happiness, chased her from her land and heritage, from her true love, and made her fearful and bitter so that she alienated herself from her own daughter, never knew her granddaughter.

“And Daria was there,” Piper reminded Evie.

Evie grunted, but didn’t look up from her rapt absorption in the diary. The disappointment left a solid ache in Piper’s stomach, sure that there would have been answers in it. But she didn’t understand how any of it could help her fight Daria’s spirit.

Was that the lesson her grandmother had wanted her to learn by having her find the diary? Never expect a happy ending, because Daria was always there.

***

Later that evening, after having to pretend not to hear an uncomfortable phone argument Evie had with Sam, she got her to admit he’d asked her to move back in with him. They went around and around, until Evie finally agreed to give it a chance.

Piper was more relieved than she wanted to admit, even to herself. She wanted Sam and Evie to get back together, but she also wanted everyone to be a safe distance from her.

Mellie dragged herself in shortly afterwards and began tiredly pulling items from the refrigerator. The girl worked endlessly, putting herself through a nursing course, and doing double duty as Piper’s live-in housekeeper and chef.

Piper adored her, and Mellie loved living in the castle. She had admitted to dreaming about it when she was a little girl. It was going to be difficult getting her out without hurting her feelings, but Piper couldn’t have her be the sole target of her possible evil intentions.

“Put it all away, Mel,” Piper said. She knew she’d have to find a way to get her to leave, but it didn’t have to be tonight. “We’re celebrating.”

“No we aren’t,” Evie said, giving her a death glare.

“What is it?” asked Mellie, putting away the food.

“Evie’s moving out,” Piper said, her voice cracking. Well, damn. That was unexpected.

Poor Mellie’s face crumpled and she looked studiously at the bar.

“She’s moving back in with Sam!” Piper explained quickly, knowing she’d be unable to handle Mel’s tears.

“But that’s wonderful,” she said. “That is good news. You know I could whip up a pizza faster than we could get one up here from town.” She hurried to the pantry and brought out a ready-made pizza crust. “They’re quite good, I promise,” she said.

“Listen,” Evie said, full drill sergeant voice in effect. Mellie paused in unwrapping the crust. “Oh, I’m happy to eat homemade pizza, but this isn’t a celebration.”

Mellie frowned. “You’re not moving back in with Sam, then?”

Piper couldn’t help grinning at Evie’s discomfort. “Wait, you aren’t?” she asked meanly.

She couldn’t help it. It felt good and normal to tease her best friend. If she wasn’t mistaken, she might have even felt a bit hungry.

“Yes, but you know it’s just temporary. We aren’t getting back together.”

Mellie grinned as she sliced mushrooms with ninja speed. “I had that tiramisu I put in the freezer, but if it’s not a celebration, I guess we don’t have to have it.”

“I give up,” Evie said, throwing up her hands in defeat.

They ate the fattening feast in Mellie’s room, the only room that had a working television, and watched old episodes of Project Runway. They stopped teasing Evie and caught up with village gossip, of which Mel was a master, Evie her apprentice.

They didn’t talk about the past or old manuscripts or family secrets. For about an hour, Piper felt light. Full of food, which she ate mainly for the taste and was now uncomfortably stuffed, but for the first time in a long time, she felt lacking in darkness. She didn’t feel afraid for herself or anyone else.

When Mel began to nod off over her dessert plate, Evie and Piper took the dishes and snuck away, turning off the tv and the lights on their way.

“That was fun,” Evie said at the second floor landing. “I’ll miss nights like this.”

“No you won’t, because we’ll still have them.”

Evie nodded and headed to her own room, Piper turning in the opposite direction to hers. When she opened the door, her heaviness began to return. By the time she changed into her nightgown, the familiar sadness had enveloped her once more.

That’s okay, she thought. She could learn to live with it. At least she got a little break.

Hoover whined at the door until she let him in, glad she didn’t have to be alone.

Evie was on fire trying to find more information about grandma Rose. Piper felt vaguely guilty for being so lethargic and unhelpful. Evie tore through the new boxes when she came over every morning, only taking breaks to feed or entertain Magnus. On the days the baby was with Sam, she barely looked up from her research.

“I’m at an impasse,” she admitted, after a marathon stretch of burying her nose in a giant book of genealogy. The midafternoon sun made her recoil and she put her hand up to her eyes to shade them.

“You’re turning into a mole,” Piper said.

She looked at Evie for a long time, her mouth half open as if she wanted to say something, but not sure. Piper waited, as ever, not in the mood to dig. She might hit a spot that was too sore.

“Listen, I’ve been going over this entire area’s history for a week straight. My eyes are like grains of sand in their sockets. There’s just something weird—” she stopped and shook her head, possibly thinking better of sharing her thoughts.

Piper couldn’t help it, her curiosity was piqued. “Weird how?”

Evie sighed long and hard. “All the clans used to trade with each other. There’s mentions left and right of the Fergusons up until Lachlan was laird. They weren’t especially popular with the Glens, but they showed up at gatherings every once in a while, did a little business here and there. Then after Lachlan, just nothing.”

“The whole thing is strange,” Piper said, keeping her thoughts well separated from her feelings. “The Fergusons not being especially popular is an understatement. They weren’t liked at all. I don’t understand how Lachlan even became the laird.”

Evie shook her head. “But he was. We’ve got that paper that said so, and well, he’s always been down in the crypt.”

Piper flinched and Evie put her hand over her mouth in horror at the realization of what she said, thoughtlessly spouting facts in academic mode. It was true, Lachlan had always been down in the crypt, but he’d also always been with them, strong and vibrant, giving lie to the marble bust that was carved to his exact likeness, standing sentry over his tomb. He’d joked about it before, wondering how he might have ended up there.

Now they didn’t know for sure. They had some paper saying he’d been killed in a battle and had been put in the Glen crypt because for some bizarre reason he was their laird at the time.

“I was thinking about him,” Evie said quietly. “That’s all. And the papers sometimes mentioned a Ferguson.”

Poor Evie was so sensitive. She wanted to grieve properly, help Piper through this terrible time. Piper saw all that on her troubled face and turned away, not ready yet.

“Is that all that seemed weird to you? That the Fergusons stopped coming to gatherings? Maybe they kept to themselves after …”

“Yes, I suppose,” Evie said.

Piper felt a headache stirring. She could easily sink into thoughts of Lachlan. She could spend hours on his beautiful blue eyes alone, the rest of her life could easily slip away, lost in a dream of Lachlan. That would be nice and peaceful, but she didn’t think it would keep her dark nightmares away, or the pressure that continuously built up inside her.

Daria’s voice rang in her ears all the time, taunting her about visiting her dead lover in a time when he was still alive.

‘Ye couldna take Brian from me, I see him when I choose.’
 

If Evie only knew how badly she wanted to do that, she’d never say Lachlan’s name again. Sliding into a fantasy realm where he was still alive wouldn’t help her silence that voice, or the urge to do the unthinkable.

“We need to stay on track,” she said.

To Evie’s eternal credit, she bounced back quickly. “We need to know why you ended up inheriting the castle.” She looked down at her books with displeasure, then brightened. “Call Herb,” she said. “He’s the one who got me thinking about your grandma in the first place.” She dug around the mess on the table until she found Piper’s phone, sliding it over.

As Piper called her lawyer Herb and half-heartedly bullied him for any information regarding why Fenella left everything to her at the last minute, Evie kept scrawling questions on a scrap of paper and shoving them in her face. Piper finally gave up and asked him to come up for a day or two. Besides the mysteries of the past, there were plenty of things going on with estate business she needed to talk to him about.

“Bring everything,” Evie shouted over Piper’s goodbye.

***

Herb was a charming, funny man, lacking in the outer shark-like qualities that would usually be attributed to a senior partner at a prestigious estate law firm. His sweet good looks and friendly smile only covered his inner shark, though. He was a solicitor through and through. He’d had to be brought up to speed when Piper was forced to return to the eighteenth century to rescue Magnus.

Piper gave him the barest details in case she never returned. She hadn’t wanted him to think she’d just abandoned the estate, and between her exacting lists, Herb’s extreme discretion, and Evie’s surprising abilities at running the place, they’d managed until she got back. Herb had taken it all rather well, only thinking she was insane for ten or fifteen minutes before he finally believed her, with Lachlan’s persuasive help.