An Enchanted Spring: Mists of Fate - Book Two (31 page)

Emma carefully refolded the letter, smoothing the edges as she went, and placed it back in its envelope. Mr. O’Rourke poked his head in the door.

“Can I get you anything, Mrs. MacWilliam?”

She nodded and took a shaky breath. “My family, please.”

“I’ll bring them in,” he said. A moment later, Reilly and Colin entered, and she felt her chin quiver.

Reilly opened his arms, and she flew into them. He held her, avoiding her recovering shoulder, and let her cry for as long as she wanted.

• • •

Colin stared out the window of the small cottage, watching Emma as she sat motionless on the cliff. The wind whipped her hair around her, but she was as still as stone as she stared across the sea.

“A storm’s coming,” Reilly noted, glancing at the dark clouds rolling toward them. “I hope this shack can hold up.”

“Aidan custom-built this house,” Colin said. “I’m sure it will withstand a storm. He did like to be prepared for anything.”

“That he did,” Reilly agreed. He watched Emma for a moment. “Except, perhaps, this.”

“Yes,” Colin agreed quietly, “except this.”

Emma’s grief was almost palpable. She ate, but only enough to survive, and only at the prodding of Colin or Reilly. She functioned—she did some work for Colin, agreeing that she needed to occupy her mind, but every assignment he gave her she completed in record time. When finished, she would spend the rest of her day outside, staring at the sea, lost.

“If only there was some way to bring him back,” Colin said for the umpteenth time. “What good is our power if we can’t use it to heal people?”

Reilly placed a hand on his shoulder. “Col, have I taught you nothing over the years? It can’t be used for personal gain. O’Rourkes can only travel when the line is in danger.”

“I know,” Colin replied. “But look at her. She’s devastated. And I can only imagine what Aidan’s going through; he has no idea what happened to her.” He paused. “Why is it that you never told Aidan that he could just hop the open time gate near your house?”

Reilly didn’t take his eyes off Emma’s profile. “If I closed the gate, he never would have met Emma. He had to meet Emma.”

“Are you a time bender to the future?” Colin asked. “Tell me, Reilly. Because I need to know if this works out.”

“I can’t go to the future, Colin. I’m just a man.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“I suggest not trying.”

Colin dragged a hand through his hair, his attention back on Emma. “I don’t know how to help her. Nothing we’ve done has worked. Is she doomed to live this way until she dies? Is that what the Fates want for her?”

“I don’t pretend to know what they want,” Reilly said, bitterness in his tone. “They change their minds so often, I can’t keep up.”

“It’s always just a matter of time until they change them again.”

“Everything is a matter of time with us,” Reilly replied wryly.

“Hopefully what I have next will help distract her.”

“Another Celtic Connections assignment?”

Colin nodded. “We’re ready to start in the UK and Ireland. But I need some positive press from the natives, so to speak.”

“You’re turning to the paparazzi?”

“I’ll let Emma determine that. But we need some locals on our side.”

“What happens if they’re not on your side?”

“Then I’ll do whatever it takes to lead them to the light,” Colin quipped with a smile. It faded as he looked back at Emma. “I wish I could do more.”

“I understand the sentiment,” Reilly murmured. “Good luck. Let me know if she needs anything.”

Colin gave a wave and headed out the front door.

Reilly left through a time gate.

Swords clashed, and Aidan threw himself into the fray, not caring if he was marked or killed. Steel met steel in a clash so intense his hand ached.

He recognized that he needed to feel something—anything. A piece of him had died the day Reilly carried Emma away. He doubted he would ever fully recover.

Nioclas swore. “Aidan, get yourself out of there and let my guards train! I don’t want them worrying about killing you, with your mind in places it ought not to be!”

Aidan shrugged. “If they kill me, it’s just practice, Nick. Accidents happen. I wouldn’t hold it against them.”

“Don’t let my wife hear you speak as such,” Nioclas warned. “She’ll string you up by your toes until you take the words back. Come, let’s walk.”

“I’ve no need of exercise.” Aidan sheathed his sword.

“Let me rephrase. I order you to walk with me.”

Aidan rolled his eyes. “Aye, I’ll go. But only if you drop the laird act.”

“We’re going back into the forest.”

Aidan braced himself. “For what purpose?”

“Your heart is broken,” Nioclas announced.

“You want to talk about this now? Six weeks after the fact?”

“I didn’t think you were ready before,” Nioclas explained. “But now…”

Aidan swore, then followed his laird out of the castle walls.

“This reminds me of how you acted when you were ten-and-three, and didn’t want to clean out the stables,” Nioclas chortled as they walked. “You were so angry at me. Thought you knew everything.”

Aidan smiled at the memory. “You never lost your patience with me.”

“I never did,” he agreed.

“I owe you everything, Nick. I don’t think I ever thanked you for saving me. From Burke, or from myself.”

Nioclas’s eyes looked wet. He started coughing and muttering about the inordinate amount of dust in the air. “If you had the chance to go back, would you?” Nioclas asked, wiping his eye under the guise of scratching it.

“Moot point.”

“It’s more than your heart that’s broken, Aidan. It’s your soul. I have tried to put myself in your shoes, and I must admit, the pain I imagined was too much for me to handle. I cannot fathom how you’re managing.”

“I don’t have a choice,” Aidan said hollowly, “so I make do.”

“When you disappeared all those years ago, it nearly destroyed me. And when you returned, I thought that, were I to lose you again, I wouldn’t be able to survive it. But I was wrong, Aidan. Seeing you like this, so broken, is killing me.” He stopped walking and grasped Aidan’s shoulders. “If given the chance, I need to know that you would take it. That you would return to your other world, live a long and happy life together. That you would make a family, create a clan, live in peace…I need to know, Aidan.”

“Aye,” Aidan choked out, “I’d take it, you bastard. But I don’t have that choice!”

“Then, brother mine, I wish you well. Godspeed, and may we see each other in the next life.”

Aidan looked at him, confused, then he heard something behind him. Reilly leaned against a tree, ankles and arms crossed.

“I will pay dearly for this, MacWilliam, so for you to make up for that, you will vow to your brother, here and now, that you will spend the rest of eternity making that woman feel loved. Every. Single. Day.” Reilly held out his hand, fingers splayed open. “Vow it, and I’ll bring you back to her.”

Aidan locked eyes with Reilly and slowly nodded his head. “I vow it.”

Reilly looked at Nioclas. “I want it noted that I’m doing this for Emmaline, not this arse.”

Nioclas managed a smile. “Aye. Duly noted.”

They were gone immediately.

• • •

Aidan saw Emma first, and his heart pumped faster, harder. His breath came in short gasps, and he tried, in vain, to steady his breathing.

She was here.

Emma sat on a flat outcropping. The winds of the North Atlantic whipped the loose strands of her hair. Her arms were wrapped protectively around herself, and all Aidan could sense was her loneliness.

As he approached, the wind carrying his footsteps away from her ears, his concern skyrocketed. He saw her closed eyes were swollen from tears, and her nose and cheeks were red. Her frame was smaller; whether that was from the injury Reilly told him she had sustained or the fact that she was barely eating, he didn’t know, and with a start, he realized it was more than loneliness that enveloped her.

It was grief.

Even over the roar of the wind and the crash of the waves below, Aidan could hear his heart shatter. He had done this to her. If he had left her alone from the start, she wouldn’t be sitting here, outside his house, overcome by emotions she should never have to feel.

He vowed, then and there, that if she let him, he would spend every day of the rest of his life making it up to her. He swallowed past the sharp lump in his throat, and sent a prayer flying that she would find it in her heart to forgive him for his transgressions. He knew he didn’t deserve her, and she certainly deserved better than him, but he couldn’t imagine living without her in his arms, or his bed, or his life.

He needed her more than he needed to breathe.

She drew a shuddering breath, tearing him from his thoughts, and her eyes fluttered open. She blinked and slowly turned her head.

He saw her take a breath, and he held his own in response.

• • •

Emma caught sight of a man standing to her left. She turned slightly, and her breathing stopped.

The wind tore at his black hair, his eyes a stormy, tormented green. His jaw had at least a week’s worth of scruff; his hands were fists at his side against a blue and silver léine, and as the wind whipped into a frenzy, her heart stuttered.

His name came out of her mouth, and she felt her world start to spin dangerously out of control. Her breath returned in short gasps, and she clutched herself even tighter, unsure if he was a figment of her imagination.

If he was, she never wanted to see reality again.

Then he was next to her, his arms open, and she launched herself into him with a guttural cry, her sobs muffled against the soft tunic. He was stroking her hair, whispering Gaelic in her ear, and she couldn’t formulate any thought beyond—

He came back
.

His lips found hers, and she was crying, kissing him, practically climbing him. He leaned back, let out a loud laugh, and then gazed down at her, love shining from his eyes.

“Are you really here?” she choked, furiously wiping her tears away so that she could be sure.

“I am,” he confirmed.

“How?”

“Turns out O’Malley isn’t as big of an arse as I thought he was.”

Emma grinned, then wrapped her arms around Aidan and pressed her lips to his. He kissed her hard, then led her back toward his—their—cottage.

“There’s a storm coming,” he noted, looking over his shoulder at the dark clouds gathering in the distance.

“I know just what we could do until it passes,” Emma shouted over the wind.

“I thought you would want to talk?” Aidan replied, a grin spreading over his face.

She threw her head back and laughed. “You’re really here!” She choked on a sob. “I thought I’d lost you forever.”

“You will never lose me, love.” He kissed her nose as the first fat raindrop landed on her shirt. “I’m yours forever.”

“About that…it seems we’re married in this time, too,” Emma managed to get out. She drew a deep breath, trying to control her emotions.

His eyes twinkled. “Ah. You received my letter.”

She nodded, and when he opened his mouth to speak, she placed her fingers over his lips, silencing him.

“It’s all in the past, Aidan. You showed me that I’m finally ready for a future.” Emma gazed at him. “I let myself fall, Aidan. You’re ready to catch me, right?”

He swept her into his arms and rested his forehead against hers. His green eyes blazed as he stared into hers. “I’ve been ready since I met you, Emmaline. Don’t you see? I’d wait an eternity for you.”

“You don’t have to,” Emma whispered against his lips. “I’m yours. Then, now, and forever, Aidan. I love you.”

His lips captured hers, and he carried her home.

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