Maybe, just maybe, hearing their mother’s voice again would bring their father back too.
He had to hope.
“I’m sure.” He began taking off his dress shoes. “Thank you, Jeremy.”
“Good luck, cuz. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”
Ian pulled off his socks next and then dumped the jeans, T-shirt, and hoodie out from his bag. What was one supposed to wear to time travel, anyway?
Certainly not a suit.
“Take care of him.” Ian would not get emotional again. He and Reik had already visited the hospital to say their goodbyes to a father who couldn’t hear them.
“Will do.”
This time, the silence wasn’t broken by his cousin’s voice. Jeremy had hung up.
Ian finished changing, and before his brother could get too far ahead of him—if that was even how this worked—he grabbed the cross and took a deep breath.
He’d only been this scared three times in his life.
The night they’d learned their mother was missing. The day they’d gotten the call that their dad was in the hospital. And the first time one of his brothers had disappeared before their eyes. And now he was about to follow in his older brothers’ footsteps, as he’d always done, for better or worse.
Ian’s hands refused to stop shaking. What a chickenshit he was.
Just say the words.
He didn’t need the slip of paper anymore, Ian knew them by heart. He’d listened to Reik’s recording of the words over and over again. His brother hadn’t thought he was listening—it wasn’t something he was known for in the family—but this time, he had been all ears.
Roll theghon the last word.
“Talamh, èadhar, teine, usige ga thilleadh dhachaigh.”
If you are a lover of historical romance, especially highlanders, I think you might like my Highlander Vows: Entangled Hearts series. There are ten books in the series, and you can read a sample chapter of the first book,When a Laird Loves a Ladyright here.
Chapter One
England, 1357
Faking her death would be simple. It was escaping her home that would be difficult. Marion de Lacy stared hard into the slowly darkening sky, thinking about the plan she intended to put into action tomorrow—if all went well—but growing uneasiness tightened her belly. From where she stood in the bailey, she counted the guards up in the tower. It was not her imagination: Father had tripled the knights keeping guard at all times, as if he was expecting trouble.
Taking a deep breath of the damp air, she pulled her mother’s cloak tighter around her to ward off the twilight chill. A lump lodged in her throat as the wool scratched her neck. In the many years since her mother had been gone, Marion had both hated and loved this cloak for the death and life it represented. Her mother’s freesia scent had long since faded from the garment, yet simply calling up a memory of her mother wearing it gave Marion comfort.
She rubbed her fingers against the rough material. When she fled, she couldn’t chance taking anything with her but the clothes on her body and this cloak. Her death had to appear accidental, and the cloak that everyone knew she prized would ensure her freedom. Finding it tangled in the branches at the edge of the sea cliff ought to be just the thing to convince her father and William Froste that she’d drowned. After all, neither man thought she could swim. They didn’t truly care about her anyway. Her marriage to the blackhearted knight was only about what her hand could give the two men. Her father, Baron de Lacy, wanted more power, and Froste wanted her family’s prized land. A match made in Heaven, if only the match didn’t involve her…but it did.
Father would set the hounds of Hell themselves to track her down if he had the slightest suspicion that she was still alive. She was an inestimable possession to be given to secure Froste’s unwavering allegiance and, therefore, that of the renowned ferocious knights who served him. Whatever small sliver of hope she had that her father would grant her mercy and not marry her to Froste had been destroyed by the lashing she’d received when she’d pleaded for him to do so.
The moon crested above the watchtower, reminding her why she was out here so close to mealtime: to meet Angus. The Scotsman may have been her father’s stable master, but he washerally, and when he’d proposed she flee England for Scotland, she’d readily consented.
Marion looked to the west, the direction from which Angus would return from Newcastle. He should be back any minute now from meeting his cousin and clansman Neil, who was to escort her to Scotland. She prayed all was set and that Angus’s kin was ready to depart. With her wedding to Froste to take place in six days, she wanted to be far away before there was even the slightest chance he’d be making his way here. And since he was set to arrive the night before the wedding, leaving tomorrow promised she’d not encounter him.
A sense of urgency enveloped her, and Marion forced herself to stroll across the bailey toward the gatehouse that led to the tunnel preceding the drawbridge. She couldn’t risk raising suspicion from the tower guards. At the gatehouse, she nodded to Albert, one of the knights who operated the drawbridge mechanism. He was young and rarely questioned her excursions to pick flowers or find herbs.
“Off to get some medicine?” he inquired.
“Yes,” she lied with a smile and a little pang of guilt. But this was survival, she reminded herself as she entered the tunnel. When she exited the heavy wooden door that led to freedom, she wasn’t surprised to find Peter and Andrew not yet up in the twin towers that flanked the entrance to the drawbridge. It was, after all, time for the changing of the guard.
They smiled at her as they put on their helmets and demi-gauntlets. They were an imposing presence to any who crossed the drawbridge and dared to approach the castle gate. Both men were tall and looked particularly daunting in their full armor, which Father insisted upon at all times. The men were certainly a fortress in their own right.
