All The Time You Need (34 page)

Annie read the words her grandmother had written over and over again, as if she might garner some new meaning from them if only she read them one more time. No matter how she tried to spin what Nana Ellen had written, there was only one meaning that she could see. The carving on the rock outside, the heart within a heart, had been done as a message to Ellen after she’d returned from her visit back in time. And, just as Lissa had claimed, Aiden had made the heart Ellen had worn. But he’d made it after Ellen had returned to her own time, not before.

As the implications of Annie’s new knowledge sank in, she hopped off the bed and slid her feet into her shoes, running for the front door almost before her shoes were on.

Had Alex, in the tradition of his grandfather, sent a message to her?

She stopped for a moment at the rock, assuring herself that the jagged line through the original heart really existed. She hadn’t simply imagined it there. It was real. And it was old. Centuries old.

Annie began to run, toward the forest and through the trees, dodging branches and bushes as she hurried toward her destination. Her grandmother had written that she’d found Aiden’s gift tucked away in the bench, and there was only one bench that Annie could think of that her grandmother could have meant.

By the time Annie reached the gate to the old arbor, she was forced to stop, leaning over, gasping for air. Her breath came in rough, winded pants, and her heart beat as if it would pound its way right out of her chest. Still, she paused only long enough to catch her breath before approaching the stone bench.

Now that she was here, a panic set it, clawing its way up into her throat. Whether the fear was that she’d find something or nothing at all, she couldn’t say, only that she had to force herself to take the last two steps and drop to her knees beside the big stone seat. With a shaking hand, she reached for the heart-shaped hole to probe deep inside.

When her fingers encountered the small bundle, she closed her hand around it and pulled it out, clutching it tightly in her fist.

It was from him. It had to be. The hole had been empty when she’d taken the stone heart out just a week ago.

Slowly, she opened her hand and stared at the little bundle resting in her palm. It appeared to be tied up with some sort of string or perhaps leather, too deteriorated over time to tell for sure.

She wouldn’t open it here. At the cottage, she could take her time and use more care to peel back the covering.

If she could survive the wait.

* * *

Annie’s journey back to Bield Cottage from the arbor felt as if it took her longer than anytime she’d made the trek so far. Likely it was the small package clasped in her sweaty palm that made it feel so.

After digging around in the desk drawer, she found a small pair of scissors and carried them with her to the table. She sat, unmoving for several minutes, working up the courage to confront whatever she might find within the package.

Slowly, carefully, she snipped the bindings and unwrapped three different layers of what appeared to be ancient oiled leather. Inside the final layer she found the item that had been so carefully packaged. A small heart made from twisted metal, a twin to the one she wore. The one Aiden had made for himself, perhaps?

“What are you trying to tell me, Alex?” she whispered, sitting back in her chair.

The entry in Nana Ellen’s journal said that she’d found Aiden’s gift, just as Syrie had predicted. What was it that Syrie had known that allowed her to make such a prediction? What might the odd little woman know now?

Whatever Syrie knew, it was more than Annie knew and that was all that mattered.

She dumped the contents of her purse out on the table next to the small metal heart and dug through the papers until she found the one she wanted. The one with Syrie’s telephone number scrawled on it.

“I need your help,” she said when her grandmother’s friend answered.

“Annie?” the woman queried, pausing for only a second. “Oh, dear. It is you, isn’t it? I’m taken a bit off guard by your call, my dear. I’d hoped you might have found what you were searching for and stayed with…well, here you are. What is it you need of me?”

“You know, don’t you? You know where I went,” Annie said. “
When
I went.”

Silence greeted Annie’s comment, so she chose to continue without waiting any longer.

“I think I might have made a terrible mistake. Coming back, I mean.”

Annie waited through the other woman’s silence this time.

“You just might have,” Syrie said at last. “Tell me everything that’s happened and we’ll see if we can’t figure out what you want to do next.”

Annie spent the next several minutes going over everything that had happened to her from the moment she’d first entered the arbor. The weeks at Dunellen, her marriage to Alex, her coming back to this time. Everything, right up to and including the tiny package she’d found in the arbor.

When she finished, Syrie’s first response was a long sigh.

“Why is it that the pleasures of youth are wasted on the intellects of the young? You silly girl. Don’t you realize your husband was telling you that he loved you in the only ways a man of his time would think necessary? Alexander MacKillican was never…what is the word you girls use nowadays? Oh, yes. I remember now. That man, in fact none of the men in that century, were beta hero types. They were alphas. That was simply the way of the world.”

“I know that,” Annie said, a touch of indignation coloring her voice.

Did the woman honestly think she didn’t know that? Of course she knew it. At least,
now
she did.

“Then what do you think you should do about all of this?” Syrie asked.

What
should
she do as opposed to what
could
she do? Annie hadn’t the least idea of what she should do. She only knew what she wanted to do.

“If I had it all to do over again, I’d stay with Alex.”

“You would, would you?” Syrie asked, doubt ringing in her voice. “You’d give up everything you have here? Your family, your daily conveniences, all that which you take for granted in your modern life? You’d give all that up just to be with him?”

“If I could,” Annie said, knowing she spoke the truth. “In a heartbeat.”

“Then I fail to understand your dilemma, my dear. What’s stopping you?”

What was stopping her?

“I guess I didn’t think I’d be able to. Nana Ellen didn’t go back to her Aiden, so I guess I thought it was a one-time thing.”

A sound suspiciously like a snort came from the other end of the line. “Faerie Magic has never been a one-time thing. That arbor is built upon a Faerie circle. Believe me, Annie, when I tell you, the Magic in that place will survive long after you and I are gone. And as for your grandmother, she didn’t go back because she
chose
not to go back. The way was always open for her. As it is for you.”

Then there was nothing stopping her. Nothing standing between her and the man she loved. Nothing…except her own foolish fears.

“Annie? Annie!”

“Yes? Sorry. I guess I was lost in thought for a moment.”

Lost in thought, already planning her trip back to the time where she really belonged.

“There are a few things you should probably do before you go. Arrangements you should make. Someone trustworthy needs to take charge of the property. I’m sure you can understand the importance of that. We can’t allow the arbor to fall into the wrong hands. You should prepare your family for your going, as well. Leaving them with no word would be cruel.”

Syrie was right. There were a million things Annie needed to do before she left.

“I think I know the perfect person to look after Bield Cottage, but I’ll need to speak to the lawyers to set up a trust. And coming up with something to tell my folks might take a little while. Somehow I doubt they’d be too accepting of the truth. There’s just so much to do, Syrie. I don’t see how I’ll have enough time to get it all done.”

“Not enough time?” Laughter like the tinkling of silver Christmas bells rang from the phone in Annie’s hand. “Analise Shaw! Think of what you’re saying. Time is hardly an issue for you. You have all the time you need.”

Chapter 27

Annie felt like an astronaut, going through her countdown checklist. Surely none of them could ever have been any more excited than she was at this very moment.

She’d donned the gown she’d worn here from the past, so that was good. Her slippers, though not completely authentic, were comfortable and sturdy and would last her a good, long time.

“What’s that you’re wearing on your back?”

Syrie stood just outside the open gate, a frown of concentration wrinkling her brow.

“You mean my backpack?” Annie grinned, adjusting the straps on her shoulders. “Just a couple of necessities I thought I might like to have with me. Just in case.”

“Just in case what?” Syrie asked, starting forward but stopping and backtracking, as if she dared not step inside the arbor. “You realize it would never do for you to carry with you items that might survive you. Things which simply couldn’t be explained away if someone were to find them one day.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Annie hurried over to where Syrie stood, throwing her arms around the older woman and squeezing tightly. “There’s not really anything too out of the ordinary. Just a few things that will be used up soon enough. More or less.”

“More or less,” Syrie repeated in that way of hers that made Annie feel as if she owed the woman an explanation.

“Okay, fine. A couple of chocolate bars. I promise I’ll burn the wrappers, okay? A few matches, because I suck at trying to start fires.” Annie thought Syrie almost smiled at that. “A tube of first-aid cream. Some prenatal vitamins. Little things like that. Okay?”

“Prenatal vitamins! Is there something you haven’t told me?” Syrie’s tone conveyed the shock in her expression.

“No,” Annie said with a chuckle. “I’m not keeping any secrets. Don’t worry. I don’t need them yet. But there will come a time when I’ll want them, and I’d like to be prepared. I put them in little paper sacks, so there’s not even a plastic bottle as evidence. Good enough?”

Syrie chewed on her bottom lip as if trying to consider all the implications of the items Annie carried. Finally she sighed, giving up her side of the argument.

“There’s been worse done, I suppose,” Syrie said, folding her hands in front of her. “Go on with you now, Analise. I’ll see to things here as we arranged. You take good care of yourself. And of that Highlander of yours. They take a lot of work to keep them happy, but they’re worth every minute of it. I, of all people, should know.”

With that, the older woman turned and walked away, fading into the trees.

“That’s it, then. All set for takeoff,” Annie murmured, hurrying back to sit down on the bench before fitting the stone heart inside the hole where it belonged.

She was prepared this time when the wind began to whip around her. Prepared for the lights and the noise. She held on to the arm of the bench as the ground began to rumble, her laughter blending in with the heavy buzz of the Magic. Not even the nothingness that engulfed her as she fell weightlessly into the void concerned her this time.

She was going home to the man she loved.

* * *

Though the sun had already begun to peek over the horizon, the arbor still hung heavy with shadows. Not so many shadows that Alex couldn’t tell that it was as empty now as it had been when he’d left through this same gate last night. Fighting back the disappointment he’d grown so familiar with, he unlocked the gate and let himself inside to take up his daily vigil.

“How long do you plan to keep this up?” Finn had been waiting for him when he’d returned to Dunellen last night, his face lined with concern. “Yer sister has told us the stories of yer grandda. The woman he waited for never returned. She could no’ bring herself to give up the delights of her world for the primitive conditions of his. Have you considered that—”

“I’ll allow no’ a single doubt to be voiced in my presence,” Alex had interrupted, stalking off to leave his worried friend behind.

Had he considered that Annie might feel the same way? That she might not be willing to leave her world for his? Of course he had. Through the long days of sitting here in the arbor waiting, his mind had tortured him with every possible outcome, most of them not to his liking. But he couldn’t give up. Not yet. The pendant he’d placed in the hole in the bench was gone, so he had to believe Annie had received his message. Everything was up to her now.

For his part, he would continue to wait, to be here for her if she chose to return.

“When,” he hissed, correcting his own traitorous thoughts.

When, not if.

Still admonishing himself for his own lack of faith, Alex took up his regular spot, on the ground, directly across from the bench. He leaned back against a rock, sparing not a thought to his discomfort. This was the best place for him to be, a place where he would see Annie the moment she returned.