Immortal Desires (Well of Souls) (19 page)

Ian was a large part of her happiness but Deanna also enjoyed the lifestyle, where family was at the center of everything. She belonged here in a way she'd never felt anywhere else.

She stuck her head out the window and let the cool breeze caress her face. Looking down into the bailey, she watched Ian practicing with the other guards, admiring the flex of muscle as he swung his sword in graceful arcs.

After awhile Deanna moved over to the chest in the bedroom and opened it, removing the cloth bundle from inside. She unfolded it on the bed and let her hand brush across the crimson material of her wedding dress, hardly daring to believe that today was her wedding day.

People had been arriving for days to witness the sunset ceremony of their Laird and Lady, camping out wherever they could find a spot. Ian had ensured the kitchen was well stocked and the cooks had been baking all week to feed everyone. She loved his caring attitude toward his clan.

Mairi wouldn't be attending, which saddened Deanna. She'd come to enjoy her company and would have liked to have shared the day with her. The poor girl just found out she was pregnant but was having such a hard time with sickness that the midwife advised against long travel.

Deanna both envied her and was secretly relieved that she wasn't yet pregnant. The thought of being a mother so young terrified her, although most women her age already had two or three children in this time.

She gnawed at her lip, trying to push back the growing fear that she wouldn't be able to give Ian the heir he needed. What if history repeated itself and he was still the last Laird of his clan, despite the fact that she had traveled back in time? Maybe this was a time loop and she was the cause of the downfall, preventing him from marrying another.

Stop it!
Deanna gripped the bedpost to still her trembling hands. All of this self-doubt was nothing more than pre-wedding jitters.
Nobody can see what their future holds. I can't waste my days on this earth embroiled in useless speculation. It is what it is.

The battle inside her head grew calm, defeated by cold logic. Deanna took a deep breath and smiled at her folly of always seeking an answer. Sometimes there just wasn't one.

She shared the noon meal with Ian, their fingers entwined as they spent these last moments together before the wedding. Deanna stifled a groan as she thought ahead to the hours of primping she'd be subjected to by the various women in the keep who wanted to ensure her lovely debut. She snorted softly and Ian raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

"It's nothing. I just don't understand why everybody wants to dress me today. I'm perfectly capable of managing on my own. I feel like a Barbie doll."

"A what? No, dinna tell me. I wouldna understand anyway. It's tradition for the women, 'tis all. They like to gossip with the bride. You'll enjoy it." He gave her a slow kiss that melted any objections she might have made.

He was right, of course. She thought of it as a 16
^th
century version of a bachelorette party and felt better.

They parted and Deanna stepped outside to feel the sun on her face. She paced along the wall of the keep, nervous but not able to say why. A young girl stood at the corner of the building, seemingly waiting for her approach. Deanna felt compelled to greet her, though she didn't recall ever seeing her before.

The girl looked up at her with a shy smile and took Deanna's limp hand in hers. "It's time. Cailleach awaits you in the graveyard."

Her girlish lisp belied the power of the strange words. Deanna couldn't seem to form a coherent thought as she walked down the hill. Looking over at the graveyard, she could see the old woman standing amongst the headstones. Her feet moved with a will of their own, even as her body protested the call with a trembling she couldn't control.

Deanna came to stand in front of the woman, remembering her last encounter with the Cailleach. She'd almost died that time. Was the old witch here to finish her off?

She found her voice at last, stuttering as she stood ten feet away from her. "W-what do you w-want?"

"I have a wedding present for you. Would you deny me?" The Cailleach moved closer, her breath chilling Deanna with the north wind.

A fog developed around them and she wanted to run but her feet wouldn't move. Frost began to cover the ground and icicles formed on the headstones. Deanna's heart beat with a frantic tempo; a song of lost love assailed her ears through tree branches suddenly barren of leaves. This couldn't be happening—not on her wedding day.

"Your time here is done."

Deanna wanted to ask what she meant but she couldn't catch her breath. The air froze inside her lungs as she inhaled. A raven cawed somewhere in the mist but remained invisible. All she could see was the Cailleach's hand reaching out to her, a bundle of cloth clutched in bony fingers.

She took the bundle against her will and unwrapped the cloth, squealing what was left of her breath out as she looked down in horror. The brooch lay in the palm of her hand, the sapphire and rubies glinting with a frosty light.

A funnel whirled around her, tossing Deanna first into the air, then swallowing her into an abyss where no light shone. When she at last stood upright again, she couldn't believe where she was. Her reflection blinked back at her from the mirror, the white wedding dress and veil perfectly smooth. She'd traveled back to her wedding day—with the wrong groom.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

San Diego, April 2011

Deanna stared at the brooch still clutched in her hand, no longer buried in the graveyard for her to find next year. What did it mean…that none of it had ever happened? That she couldn't go back?

Biting back a shriek that would surely damage her vocal cords, Deanna spun around and found Kate talking with the bridesmaids. A lump formed in her throat at the sight of her old friends but it paled in comparison to the pain shredding her heart into tiny pieces.

"Has Nick sent you a text yet?" She must look wild-eyed because Kate glanced over at her in alarm.

"Are you okay, honey? You're not going to be sick, are you?"

"A text." Deanna kept her teeth clenched. She did feel sick, more than Kate could ever know.

"Nick's already waiting for you in the front of the church. Why would he text me?"

Her legs slid out from under her. Deanna landed on the floor in a heap of white satin. It wasn't the same. This time Nick was really waiting to marry her. She could have her old life back; the one she'd thought was so perfect. Just get up and walk down the aisle.

There was nothing to think about, really. She wasn't that person anymore. Even if Ian was lost to her—she choked on that thought, not willing to go there yet—she couldn't go through with this marriage.

"The wedding's off. Get my father in here."

Kate looked at her like she'd sprouted horns but hurried over to the door and stepped outside. Deanna tore the veil from her head, remembering the last time she'd done that as the pins ripped strands of hair out—again. Her father rushed in and helped her up from the floor. Deanna laughed and cried at the same time to see his face again. Yes, they all must think she'd lost her mind. It didn't matter. None of it did.

"Are you okay?" Her dad hugged her close, awkwardly patting her on the back. "Did you fall?"

"I'm fine. We'll talk about it later." She hesitated. She couldn't just walk out the door and leave Nick with no explanation. When he'd done the same to her—in that other life—it had been the worst kind of rejection. He deserved to hear it from her, face-to-face, even though he'd think of her as the worst kind of slime to crawl out of the sewer. She deserved that too.

"The wedding's off, Daddy. I'll come over later and talk to you about it but first, would you send Nick back here, please?" She drew in a shuddering breath and tried to compose herself as he studied her face.

"If you say so…but I'll be right outside this door if you need me." His face took on a fierceness that she'd never seen before. It showed his Scottish roots. Her heart bled a little more at the reminder.

"Thank you but I'll be fine. I love you." Her arms wrapped around his broad shoulders. He'd always been there to watch over her, no matter what.

"I love you too, kitten." He hadn't called her that since she was ten years old. Deanna pushed the thought away before she started bawling.

Nick walked through the door in a snit, tugging at his tux jacket and frowning at her. "What's up? Everybody's waiting." He surveyed the empty room. She'd already sent the bridesmaids out the side door so they could talk in private.

Deanna studied his demeanor, wondering what she ever saw in him. He hadn't asked if she was okay, only announced that everybody was waiting. She led him over to the uncomfortable folding chairs and perched on one.

"I'm sorry but I can't marry you." There. She'd said it. She started to twist the ring off her finger but his hand shot out and covered hers.

"What are you talking about? Do you know how much this wedding cost?"

Deanna gave him a sad smile. No talk of love lost…only money. "I'll pay you back somehow." It was only fair. After all, this circus had been her idea of a dream wedding, even if he'd gone along with it.

The smoke from bonfires played in her mind. She could almost smell the burning wood. Her dream wedding lay five hundred years in the past, nothing but cold ashes scattered on the wind now. She got the ring off and handed it to him.

"I wish you well, Nick." She stood up and his eyes raked over her wedding dress as if he wanted to snatch it off her body and march it back to the store.

"Yeah, you too." He ended the sentence with "bitch" as he neared the door, brushing past her father without a word to him.

"How did he take it?" Her dad asked as he closed the door behind him. His worried eyes focused on her as if he expected her to collapse at any moment.

"Only his wallet was hurt." She gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I have some things to tell you, though. Can I come over to the house later?"

"I'll make my world-famous spaghetti for you." He smiled then glanced down at the brooch she still had in her hand, the jewels sparkling in the overhead lights. "What's that? It's a beautiful piece. Celtic, isn't it?"

"It's a curse," Deanna replied softly, her vision swimming before her. "I'll tell you all about it at dinner."

Deanna changed clothes and headed for the beach, just as she had the last time. Everything looked foreign to her now. The crowded streets filled with traffic and tall buildings sandwiched together, the noise of people talking on cell phones as they brushed by others without a nod in passing. Everyone rushed past in their isolation—as nothing more than a crowd of strangers. Deanna wiped her hands on her jeans and closed her eyes against the turmoil. How would she ever fit in again? She'd never felt more alone in her life.

She fingered the brooch, safely pinned to the inside of her pants pocket. It was her only link to Ian and her only chance of getting back to him. Deanna had no idea if it would work but she had to try.

***

Highlands, August 1505

Isobel rushed through the bailey, obviously looking for him. Ian could see her panic, even from this distance. He and Tomas both ran toward her while Ian's heart froze with fear. Something was wrong and it had to do with Deanna. Was she hurt?

His mother's face was pale with shock as he reached her, with eyes like two emerald holes staring at everything and nothing. She'd had a vision then, the blankness a telltale sign of her Sight.

"What did you see? Is Deanna all right?"

"The Cailleach," she gasped. The name pierced his soul as his mother shook. "She had your brooch and Deanna disappeared as she held it."

"We'll search the grounds," Tomas said and ran off to organize the guards.

Ian stared after him, his mother sobbing quietly against his chest. He already knew they wouldn't find Deanna. She was gone five hundred years into his future and beyond his reach.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Boulder, August 2012

"Where is she? She didna come back here." Ian stormed into Robert's office and kicked the door closed. "I canna sense Deanna anywhere."

Robert leaned back and studied Ian as he paced, gathering his thoughts before he spoke. "Do you remember what you said to me when you begged me to send her back? You said you were willing to let her make her own choice."

He watched Ian's mouth drop open and the man's shoulders sag. Robert hated to see the proud warrior defeated this way but it couldn't be helped. Events beyond his understanding dictated it.

"She chose to leave? I dinna believe that. It was to be our wedding day. Isobel saw the Cailleach. Deanna must have been tricked." Ian turned on his heel and left, closing the door quietly behind him this time.

Shutting his eyes, Robert let recent events drift through his mind. Hadn't Ian already proved his willingness to the Council? Why try to break his morale? Robert hadn't particularly liked this plan to begin with but it wasn't his decision to make.

It might make the Council more amenable to a plan that Robert had recently worked out, though…if everything fell into place in the right order. Time shifted so easily on this mortal plane. The moment would have to be perfect.