“Does ‘pull it off’ mean can ye make people believe ye are Scottish?” Deirdre asked, her face turned toward his and not a hairsbreadth between them. He wanted to kiss her plump lips. Maybe nip at them a bit, too. Christ, he hadn’t slept with everything with a heartbeat, as his mom and brothers thought, but he hadn’t been celibate, either. He shouldn’t be so turned on by a pair of lips, but they were lovely, bow-shaped, generous, make-a-man-forget lips. That was it. He needed to forget as he always did, but the idea felt impossible.
“Reikart, did ye hear me?”
He jerked his gaze from Deirdre’s lips to her eyes. Not much better. She had seductive eyes without an ounce of the makeup that the women in his time used to achieve the same look. Her thick lashes were like a curtain that she drew up to let him take a quick glimpse inside her head. He saw curiosity and nothing more, which was a damned good thing because if Deirdre felt the draw to him that he was feeling to her, it would complicate matters way too much.
“Reikart!” his mom snapped.
He glanced swiftly at his mom, catalogued her knowing expression, and looked back to Deirdre. What the hell had her question been?
“I asked ye if ‘pull it off’ meant ye could make people believe ye are Scottish?”
“Yeah,” he said, feeling like fifty shades of stupid. For a guy known for his game, he’d apparently left his ability to play in the twenty-first century. Not that he needed game. He didn’t. He was not going to attempt to sleep with Deirdre Irvine.
“I think,” Grace said, sitting on a log and crossing her feet at the ankles, “that the two of ye will need to spend some time together practicing Reikart’s accent, and ye can correct him when he says words that may call attention to him.”
“I’ll do that with him,” Mom said, glaring at his aunt. She thrust a piece of rabbit at her sister. “Put this in yer mouth.”
Grace snorted, and Reikart grinned. “It’s really weird to see you and Aunt Grace bantering the way us guys do.”
His mom grinned. “I suppose it is.”
As they ate, Reikart, his mom, his aunt, and his uncle all exchanged funny stories of life with their siblings. It wasn’t until dinner had come to an end that he realized Deirdre had sat there without saying a word. He didn’t comment on it then, not wanting to embarrass her, but after his mom and aunt had gone to their pallets to sleep and his uncle went to stand watch, Reikart finally broke the silence. “Were you, your brother, and your sister close?”
Deirdre bit down on her lower lip, and after a pause, she nodded. “Once we were verra close. I had thought we still were, but I’ve come to realize I did nae know Yearger’s mind anymore. And well, as for my sister, I… Well, I…I lied to myself.” Her voice had dropped to a mere whisper, and if she had not been sitting on his lap, he would not have heard her.
“She doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge,” he said.
“Nae outwardly, but inwardly…” She shrugged. “A trust once broken is hard to repair completely.”
“And that’s why you’re willing to risk your life going to the English court? To repair what you think you broke between you and your sister?”
Deirdre’s gaze locked with his. “Aye.” Her brows suddenly dipped together. “Why are ye willing to go and risk yer life? What did ye break?”
“Besides myself?” The words slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them. Why had he said that? In the four years since Amanda’s death, he’d not admitted he felt broken to anyone, not even his therapist. Deirdre nodded, and he tugged a hand through his hair, suddenly self-conscious. “Never mind about that. I’d go to hell and back if I had to for my parents and my brothers.”
“I’d do the same for my sister,” she said, her voice low but fierce. “I need to prove it, though.”
He understood that.
“If we get the cross, what will ye do? Send yer mother back, as ye said?”
“Yeah. My dad is really sick. He may die, and the doctor—”
When she frowned, he searched his mind for a way to explain. “A doctor would be a healer in your time.” When she indicated for him to continue, he said, “The doctor told us that my mom talking to my dad might bring him out of his coma, which is a deep, unnatural sleep. That’s how my brothers and I ended up going to my dad’s house, finding the original cross, and saying the chant that first sent Rhys through time. Until that night, none of us believed what my dad had been claiming since the day Mom disappeared. He tried to tell us that she’d been snatched back through time to where she came from, but we just didn’t believe it.”
“It is verra hard to believe,” Deirdre agreed.
He laughed at that. “Wait until you see someone disappear before your eyes. It’s hard to deny the truth of it then.”
“Aye,” she agreed with a yawn. “It’s hard enough to try to continue denying it now seeing how old Shona has become in such a short time.”
“Were you trying to deny it still?” he asked.
“I thought to, but when I considered the alternative, that ye are a hand of the Devil, and yer brother, too, and then I’d have to add Shona, or mayhap Shona could just be bewitched?” She pursed her lips, her nose scrunching adorably as she clearly pondered the situation. “And then of course, my sister would have to be bewitched, and yer aunt, and yer uncle.” She shook her head. “And hands of the Devil would nae be saving me from Algien, so I’m left with accepting the impossible, which I think means my sister may well leave me soon.”
He could feel a shudder go through her. He hadn’t considered it until this moment, but if her dad was gone, her brother was gone, and then her sister went away, she would be left here in her time alone. He wanted to push away the growing need to protect this woman, this stranger, but he couldn’t. Something in him, the part of him that he was supposed to have severed, where he made real connections with people, was trying to come back to life. He didn’t want it, and yet…
“Where is your mom?” he asked. Personal questions were a slippery slope. One question was putting one foot on the slick path of getting to know someone. Why the hell had he stepped onto this path?
