Time Masters Book One; The Call (An Urban Fantasy, Time Travel Romance) (10 page)

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Maggie Whittard asked again as she sat on the bed. “Are you up to going to town today?”

 
Shona gazed at her mother and prayed her face had looked like a normal human being’s when she entered the room. She assumed so, as the woman was not screaming in horror. “What… what about Julia?”

Mag
gie’s dark eyes grew soft before she gave her
a gentle smile. “It’s Saturday. Julia doesn’t tutor today.”

Shona looked at the handful of quilt, i
ts soft colors calming her. “Oh,” she began numbly.
“
I forgot.”

Maggie studied her a moment as if weighing something, then the look was gone. “I think,” she began as she shifted her position, making the bed creak slightly, “that you
need to get up and dressed. Th
en you and I
a
re going to go out for breakfast. After whi
ch we can
go round up Kitty-kat, if you like, and do a little shopping at the mall.” Her dark eyes sparkled, coaxing a smile from Shona who slowly pushed aside the dream, the longing slipping away, alm
ost as if her mother could chase it off
.

“I would like that.” Shona whispered. Maybe getting out would calm the rest of her nerves.

“Good. You’ve been studying too hard and could use the break.” Maggie sprang to her feet and spun to face Shona like a cheerl
eader, sending her dark hair fl
ying. “We do the town today!”

Shona raised a brow at her.

“Too enthus
iastic for you?” Maggie teased then sobered.  “Yes, well.  I’ll just mosey along and let you get ready.”

Shona smiled and marveled at her mother. She hoped she looked as good when she reached forty-eight. Maggie Whittard was a stunning woman and everyone whom she met always told Shona and her father just that. She was a
lso the proud possessor of a fi
erce Irish temper, a classic trait Shona was thankful she had not inherited, though many assumed she did using her multi-colored reddish hair as the indicator. “I will have to give Kitty a call and see what she is doing,” she replied. “Who knows what she is up to today.”

Maggie calmed at the thought, a pained look on her face. “You do that.” She turned to leave the room, then looked back, her face full of an emotion Shona couldn’t quite recognize.

“Is something the matter?” Shona asked, concerned. “Or are you just dreading Kitty?”

“No, nothing’s wrong. Call Kitty. I’ll be downstairs…” she wriggled her eyebrows playfully, “w
restling with your father.” She then
bounded out of the room.

Shona rolled her eyes, got wearily out of bed, and looked around for the faded jeans she
had thrown off the night before. She could still feel the
lingering
eff
ects of the dream, but th
ey were not too unpleasant as yet
; the alarm clock having
wakened her before the dream had the chance to turn bad. For that she was grateful, and patted the clock in a silent thank-you before getting dressed.

Downstairs, Shona’s father sat at the kitchen table looking slightly disheveled, evidence her mother had indeed been wrestling with him while getting herself ready. Shona looked at him, one eyebrow raised in question.

Evan Whittard took it as an accusation. “Hmmph,” he grunted into his morning paper. “Wait until you’re married. You’ll look like this, too.” He glanced at her. “Now and then, anyway.”

The candid statement brought up her other eyebrow. She swallowed and quickly turned away. Evan peeked at her over his paper and chuckled to himself. He loved to make her blush; heaven knew he couldn’t make his w
ife do that.
“So buttercup, where are you off to today?” he asked still amused.

Shona
abruptly
stopped her digging throu
gh a cupboard full of fancy tea
cups and saucers. He’d not called her ‘buttercup’ in years. “Breakfast, Kitty, shopping.”

“Sounds like a fast day. Want to slow it down a little for me?” His paper rustled as he spoke, the sound loud in Shona’s ears.

“Breakfast, I do not know where. Kitty, I do not know what time. Shopping…” she looked at him and smiled broadly, a monumental feat of late for her. “I do not know
how
much
.”

Evan groaned, folded his paper and slapped it on the table. “You’
ve been hanging around that darn Kitty
too long. If you and your mother are taking that spendaholic with you, make sure you get an early start. It takes
that kid three hours just to fi
gu
re out what store to go into fi
rst. And then she never stops! I feel sorry for the poor bast…”

“Dad!” Shona exclaimed, shocked and a little hurt at his sudden attack on
her friend. Although it was
all
true
.

“All right.
But I still feel sorry for the poor…
guy
that ends up married to her. I hope he’s got good credit.” He picked up the paper again and hid behind it, pretending to read.

Shona, satisfied
she had quelled the little verbal foray against Kitty, turned to the tea canister.

“He’s
gonna
need it,” came her father’s mumbled statement from behind the paper. Shona turned again and eyed him, or at least the top of his graying head, the only thing showing above the paper’s rim. Coward.

“I heard that,” she said flatly
.

 
Evan Whittard peeked over his paper, his blue eyes glistening, and grinned. “I know.”

Shona promptly threw a tea bag at him, hitting the paper instead.

“Oh boy! Are we picking on your father this morning already?” Maggie asked, coming into the kitchen in time to see the tea bag land with a small thump on the table.

“You forget you already did?” Evan retorted. “No fair two against one.”

Maggie planted herself in his lap, putting her arms around his neck. “Here, I’ll protect you, dear. Shona will have to go through me if she wants to get to you.”

Shona turned and stared at them in her odd scholastic sort of way, her voice matching her look. “It seems to me that it is still two against one. Only now I seem to be the one.”

The tone brought both her parent’s attention to her. She stood looking at them, one eyebrow raised inquisitively. Maggie and Evan glanced at each other both knowing Shona’s mood swings were becoming more and more frequent. Hot to cold, surging emotions then nothing. It was something they had been told to watch out for.

Maggie extracted herself from her husband’s lap and stood. “Are you ready?” she asked Shona.

“Yes.” Shona turned toward the counter again, putting back the cup she had taken from the cupboard, abandoning the idea of tea. “Let us go.”

Evan walked them to the door and kissed them both
good-bye
. Shona felt oddly detached at his brief peck on the cheek and wondered why she was feeling that way around him lately. She didn’t feel that way around her Mother. In fact, she was feeling increasingly more comfortable around her, whereas her father ... it was as if he was becoming more distant, or distanced, from her. The relationship had not changed. What could be making her feel this way?

Maggie interrupted Shona’s thoughts as they pulled out of the driveway. “Julia will be by this evening. She said she has something to tell us.”

“Did she say what it was?” Shona asked as they drove down from the west hills of the city into downtown.

“No, but I have a strong feeling it has something to do with that European university she’s been in contact with lately.”

“The one in France?”

Maggie threw a smile at her. “That’s the one. Excited?”

Shona stared out her window and watched the expensive old homes pass by. “I do not really know,” she replied quietly.

“Well, no use jumping to any conclusions until we hear what Julia has found out about them. Let’s not worry about it now.” Maggie looked at Shona. “Are you sure you feel all right?”

“I am sure.” Shona’s voice was weak as she fought fo
r some semblance of control, the
waves of emptiness hit
ting
her harder by the minute. Th
ey had come so fast she could think of nothing to defend herself with. She didn’t want to break down in front of her mother, and cert
ainly didn’t want her mother fi
nding out what was wrong. If that happened, any hope of getting out of her parent’s house and claiming her own freedom would be gone. She concentrated on Julia and the news she held. If Shona could get accepted to this new univer
sity, her dream of going abroad, not to mention just getting out of the house,
could at last be realized.

Shona Elsey Whittard loved her parents, loved her home, her few friends and her music. She had a lot; everything she could possibly ask for, some would say. Except for the freedom to run her own life and make her own decisions. She had so many people telling her how envious they were of h
er singing talent. 
But i
f all her competitors and fellow musicians only knew that Julia and her mother ran the show, made the recital and concert schedules, handled everything from the time she got up until the time s
he went to bed, they might not be so envious.  Or would they? Sh
e
supposed she didn't know or
care anymore
.

What Shona did k
now was,
she was tired of her life.  Other girls her age
, including Kitty, were all in their second year of college while she was still under her mother's and Julia's educational thumbs
.  Other girls
went to parties.  Shona was stuck at home watching
Masterpiece Theater or studying
some sort of
cultural
etiquette
that Julia insisted she learn.  Other girls
dated.  Shona, not really interested in the opposite sex
at the moment
anyway, was still jealous of th
e freedom of choice normal girls
had.  More than once Kitty had made the comment,
"Geez Shona, are your parents planning on sending you to a convent or what?"

 
Or what indeed
,
she mused feeling
as if she was to be sent somewhere.  She could speak four languages
for crying out loud
and was working on a fifth.  She spoke
proper
English.  Something others teased her about.  And she was well tutore
d by Julia as to what was acceptable
for a young lady to do or say
in not only the twentieth century, but the fifteen
th
through nineteenth centuries as well
.  On the other hand, she could also fence and land a man smack on his back in the wink of an eye. 
"Martial arts and fencing are
excellent workou
ts."
Julia would exclaim
along with,
"A girl can't be too careful now a days!  It's best to know how to defend one's self."

Careful?  If she counted, Shona could come up with at least a dozen
ways she'd been taught how to land a man in the dirt
!  A lot of good all tha
t training had done her though when she really needed it …

Shona shuddered and pushed the incident she was about to think of aside
as her mother pulled up in front of their first stop. 
She looked longingly at all the
normal
people inside eating and
chatting away.  She continued to watch the
m as she got out of the car,
choked back
the cold emptiness she'd learn to
battle over the last few months,
and told herself she'd just have to accept the facts.  It was
,
after all
,
the logical thing to do.

There were
no if and
s
or buts.  She wasn't
some astounding
musical sensation to be envied.  She was a freak.

* * *

The W
hittard women ate breakfast
then headed to the town’s northeast side to pick up Kitty. Maggie chatted pleasantly while Shona contemplated where she might need to throw up. The strange a
ll-consuming
emptiness which
often
encompassed her
,
tight
ened its hold every now and then
, threatening to suck the life from her. Just when she thought she could stand it no longer, it would be gone. Or was it?
Logic, logic, there has to be an explanation
! 
She kept telling herself as they drove the last few blocks before finally arriving at their second destination of the morning.