Reckoning (Book 4 of Lost Highlander series) (3 page)

“Why are you crying?” she asked harshly, her throat almost completely closed up.

Big, fresh tears rolled over Evie’s lower lashes and she made a sound like a rusty spigot being turned for the the first time after a long winter.

“I’m sad,” she said, wiping futilely at the steady stream of tears. “I just wanted you to be happy. This isn’t—” she wrung her hands and shook her head. “It isn’t the right ending.” Her voice broke and she dropped her chin to her chest. “I’m so sorry, Pipes.”

“I can’t,” she said, gripping Evie’s shoulders. “So you can’t either.” She brushed away the few rogue tears that managed to escape and tried to steady her shaking limbs.

Evie looked up at her with dismay written all over her glamour girl face. Her eyes were as red as her hair and wide with worry. Piper rolled her head around to try to ease the stress in her neck, then waved her hand at all the books that were on the table.

“We have a lot of work to do, remember?”

They had set out to learn everything they could about Daria, her evil-spirited ancestor who was now a literal evil spirit and was probably possessing Piper. That train wasn’t stopping anytime soon.

“But shouldn’t we …” Evie started and swallowed hard.

Piper expelled a long shuddering breath. “Yes,” she said, her voice a tiny squeak. “We’ll take something to the crypt—” she stopped short.

Oh no, this was it. A stark,  cold pain began to splinter outward from the center of her chest, squeezing at her vocal chords and wrapping around her midsection so she couldn’t take a full breath. She stood there gaping, at war with the sadness, sure that if she gave in, it would kill her.

“Come on,” Evie said, taking her under the elbow and steering her toward the stairs. “You can get some sleep while I read some more. We can stuff you full of Benadryl. Good lord, why don’t you install an elevator in this heap of rubble?”

Evie kept up a steady drone of meaningless babble as she helped her into her bed. She crammed some pills in her mouth and made her drink some water to get them down. “You need to sleep,” she said. “It’s been days.”

That was true enough. She’d been so distraught over being mysteriously sent back to her own time without Lachlan, had missed him so much, and then been plagued with bizarre nightmares when she was able to drift off, she’d mostly just stopped trying to sleep.

Instead, she stared out at the star riddled Highland sky each night, memorizing the outline of the mountains and convincing herself that any moment she’d see her big kilted man appear from behind the stable, or hear him crashing around on the fifth floor.

Whatever Evie gave her must have done the trick, because she didn’t hear her leave the room. She vaguely felt Hoover, the sheepdog pup she had grown to love, jump on the bed beside her. She flopped her hand into his soft fur and fell into a fitful slumber.

Once again she found herself walking with determination through the halls of her castle. She recognized everything, every candle sconce and faded wallpaper design, though none of it was the same as it was now. It was old-fashioned, yet modern at the same time.

She passed what was now her study and heard the sounds of a staticky radio. No matter how hard she tried, she never deviated from her path in this particular dream. Each one led her to a room lined with books, where she removed some from the shelf to reveal a safe built into a cubby behind it. She looked at the combination dial and knew exactly which way to turn it. Reaching out, she felt the cool metal of the dial beneath her fingers.

And sat straight up in bed, drenched in sweat, jaw aching from grinding her teeth. Her curtains were half open and it was nearly dusk. She must have been out for several hours. Hoover yelped, but quickly settled down when she petted him.

She looked down at her hand, still feeling the smooth metal of the safe. There was a beat while she recovered from the dream and shook off her sleeping pill haze before she remembered what they’d learned earlier that day.

Desperately, she dug around under her pillow to find the little square box she kept there. Snapping it open, she took out the ruby ring and slid it on her finger, holding out her hand so the exquisite gold filigree glinted in the last bit of light. The ruby’s sparkle was muted by the tears that welled up in her eyes.

“Do you think he’s gone, Hoover?” she asked quietly, in case Evie was staking out her door. The dog thumped his tail at hearing his name and she nodded. “I hope you’re right.”

She gave the dog a long look, wondering how much he understood. It was bad enough that Evie was on pins and needles around her, probably afraid she’d go full-witch at any moment and conjure a hurricane inside the house or something. She couldn’t bear it if Hoover was scared of her, too.

For the most part, she pushed down any sense she got of whatever it was that happened when Lachlan killed Daria. If that cow had truly possessed her somehow, she wasn’t going to make it easy for her to take over her soul. She certainly didn’t want to use any of the powers she felt stirring around beneath the surface.

But the longing she felt for Lachlan made her remember something Daria had said about seeing her lover Brian. After all, they were time traveling witches, for God’s sake. A little thing like being dead in one time shouldn’t make a difference to such a person. Well, unless that person wanted to stay sane.

Evie pushed the door open and peeked around it, bringing the smell of cooking with her. Hoover stood up and wagged so forcefully his whole body shook. When Evie saw she was awake, she came into the room, loaded down with a huge silver serving platter.

“Were you staking out my room?” Piper said, quickly taking off her ring, stuffing it back in its box, and shoving it under her pillow. She didn’t know why she wanted to keep it a secret, but she only wore it when she was alone. Maybe it was because Lachlan hadn’t actually been able to give it to her.

“Not a full stake out, just occasional passes. Look what Mellie made us.”

She set the tray on the bed and whipped off the cover with a flourish. A perfectly golden roast chicken surrounded by tender carrots and potatoes sat in the middle of the tray. Off to the side was wild rice with saffron and almonds and a dainty looking salad of field greens with marinated button mushrooms.

With a flick of her wrist and a dramatically raised eyebrow, Evie lifted a cloth to reveal a sinful looking bread pudding just oozing with caramel. “I don’t know why that girl wants to be a nurse,” Evie sighed.

“Where’s Magnus?” Piper asked. She loved her godson. His little serious face always put a smile on hers.

Evie closed her eyes before answering. “Sam’s bringing him home in a little bit,” she said in her closed off tone. “I have a new theory,” she said. “Actually, I’ve been tossing it around in my mind for a while now.”

Piper was grateful enough to Evie for not making her have feelings earlier, that she decided to ignore the abrupt change of subject and not nag her about getting back with Sam.

She pushed her food around on the plate, taking a few bites because it was so scrumptious, but she hadn’t actually felt anything close to hunger in weeks. She knew Evie noticed, but she didn’t mention it, and once again Piper was grateful.

After Evie gobbled up the heavenly chicken dinner, she ran out of the room, returning several minutes later with a stack of books up to her nose. She dropped them on the bed and plopped down next to them.

“All these have to do with your new theory? What were you looking for?” Piper groaned at the sight of them.

“Mentions of Daria, mentions of Lachlan.” She paused and rifled through the piles. “Mentions of your grandmother,” Evie finished excitedly. “Look here.”

“Why were you looking for mentions of my grandma?” she asked.

Piper’s grandmother Rose ran away from the estate when she was only sixteen, never to return, never to speak of the estate to her only daughter. She died when Piper was a toddler, and except for listening to the occasional gripe from her mother about how secretive she’d been, Piper never gave her much thought.

Evie was silent for so long she was about to repeat the question. She looked up to find her holding out a ragged piece of parchment, a look of triumph in her eyes.

“Because I found something that mentioned her,” she said. “It’s in Gaelic, but that’s her name for sure.”

“You keep acting like she’s important, but it’s not the right era.”

Evie sighed and rubbed her eyes. “I think she is important. Listen, I had dinner with Herb one night during the eight months you were gone, and he told me Fenella was set to donate everything to a conservation foundation. Everything. Then she all of a sudden left it all to you.”

Piper wanted to back up and discuss Evie having dinner with Herb, but knew she would get a serious smackdown. Instead she focused on what Evie seemed to think was the issue at hand. “Why’d she do that?”

Evie shrugged. “Dunno. Neither does Herb. She just changed everything at the last minute. And I mean last minute. Like a few days before she died.”

Piper looked around, wondering what her life would be like if she never found out about her amazing Scottish heritage, if she hadn’t inherited the castle and was still living her free spirited nomadic life. If she hadn’t met Lachlan. She sucked in her breath at the anguish that hit her.

She shook her head. “Still don’t see what any of that has to do with Grandma Rose.”

Evie poked the old parchment. “Maybe this will tell us. Damn Gaelic. We’ll need to get Mellie to read it for us.”

Piper grabbed her phone to call Sam. “Sam’s better. Mellie can’t read anything, you know that.”

Evie made a distressed face but didn’t argue, a mark of how badly she wanted the paper translated. “So here’s the theory I have regarding time travel. I think you can either be a victim of it or be able to do it. Sam and I were victims, but you actually have some control over it, so you have the magic, so to speak.”

Piper rolled her eyes and tried to object, but Evie barreled forward. “I think the magic skips a generation. You have it. Your mom obviously doesn’t. I mean, I love your mom, but there couldn’t be a less magical woman. Fenella most certainly didn’t because she seemed to live a fairly average, though abundant, life.” They stopped to share a giggle. Fenella had not only been filthy rich her whole life, she’d had two extremely hot husbands. “So, do you think your grammy Rose might have had the magic, and that’s why she ran away?”

Piper shivered. “I would have run away,” she said. She wished she could. A new thought hit her. “The land,” she said. “Agnes thought our ability to time travel was linked to the land somehow. Do you think Rose got away, really got away when she left Scotland?”

They sat in silence for a while. Something kept nipping insistently at the back of Piper’s thoughts, the way Evie was insistent about her grandmother.

“When did you get this theory?” she demanded.

Evie jumped at her abrupt tone. “I guess when you first started telling me about what happened with Daria. I started thinking it had to start with someone, and maybe it was generational.”

Piper’s head began to throb. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.

“Pipes, what’s wrong? I’m probably just being stupid about your grandmother. We don’t have to look for stuff about her anymore.” Evie smiled brightly but her eyes were full of concern.

“I don’t think you are being stupid. It’s too much of a coincidence.” Piper shook her head vigorously, then gave up fighting it. “Come on,” she said, taking Evie’s hand and dragging her to a small sitting room that rarely got used, but had been a favorite of Fenella’s when she’d lived there.

When Piper did the renovations, she left this room mostly alone, only replacing a few pieces of mid-century modern furniture with older pieces to make it seem more authentic when the tourists came through. One whole wall was completely lined with books, and as Piper wasn’t much of a reader, they had been largely ignored since she moved in.

Evie stopped in the middle of the room as Piper walked to a row of books and started pulling them out. She turned and looked apologetically at Evie, who scampered over to see what was behind them.

Piper closed her eyes, wished she was wrong and pressed lightly on the wall. A well concealed hinged door popped open to reveal a safe behind it.

“I swear Fenella and her secret safes,” Piper said. “This is the third one I’ve found.” She tried to keep her voice light, but the sinking feeling in her stomach had to have shown on her face.

“How did you know about it?” Evie asked in a hushed voice.

Piper felt her cheeks get hot and she took a deep breath. She swore to herself that she wouldn’t keep secrets from Evie anymore, no matter how awful they were.

“I have dreams. And sometimes I hear stuff,” she said.

Saying  it out loud was worse than thinking it and she wished she could snatch the words back.

To her credit, if Evie was horrified, she kept it to herself. “And you’re just now coming to check it out?” she asked.

Piper had to laugh. “Would you listen to strange voices in your head? Because I mostly try to ignore mine.”

“Well then, why are you checking it out now?” Evie stared at the safe.

“A feeling,” she said. “And I don’t like being alone when I get premonitions like this.”