“If you come back,” Reik added, “why don’t you start a nonprofit? McCaim could do more than donate a few dollars here and there.”
A few dollars was actually millions of dollars in charity. But Reik was right. Throwing money at problems didn’t necessarily solve them. More finesse was needed.
“I have a few ideas,” he admitted. “But I wanted to talk to Màiri about it too.”
“If she decides to go.”
He ignored Grey’s hint of sarcasm. “Right. If she decides to go.” He looked around the room, pausing for a moment on each of their faces. Looking for any signs of judgement or anger. “You really don’t care?”
“I mean, we care. But we all like our jobs. You don’t. Big difference.” Reik took a swig from his mug. “After all we’ve been through, if we make it back in one piece . . .”
He didn’t say it, but they all knew what he’d left unsaid.If Mom is there. If Dad is alive.
“We’ll figure it out. Either way, you’re a McCaim. That’s all that matters.”
He was a McCaim.
The youngest of four brothers, the son of a great man and a woman who had not only endured being separated from her family but being tossed hundreds of years into the future. And finally, though it had taken twenty-seven years for him to get there, his own man.
Ian smiled, raising his mug. “To the McCaim brothers. Now husbands, all a bit stronger, and at least one of us, still good-looking.”
They raised their mugs in unison and drank.
“Kind of you to compliment me,” Reik said. If he wanted to claim it, Ian would let him. He liked this version of his brother a hell of a lot more and would have to thank Deirdre when he saw her next.
He still had so many questions. When would they go through? Would he be with them? But for now he was just grateful for this moment, and for the strange twists of fate that had brought them here together.
31
Màiri was,as Ian would say, a nervous wreck.
“You guys ready?” Rhys asked.
Two days after his brothers’ arrival, they all stood in a circle in Laird MacKinnish’s solar, the cross cradled in Reik’s hand. Màiri was most surprised to see Laird MacKinnish’s eyes glistening. Aside from her father, he was the most stalwart man she knew, but Màiri would admit, these were very special circumstances.
A family was being torn apart. Two, actually. And although each of the brothers had traveled back in time once before, and Rhys and Reik had seen their mother make the journey, none of them really knew what to expect. All four brothers had landed back here in different places. Would that happen to them? What if they ended up in different times? Only their mother had gone through twice, but she didn’t understand how it worked any better than they did.
Some things come down to fate, she’d said.
Which was the sentiment they had ultimately decided to embrace after two days of talking and planning that could easily come to naught once they said the chant. They were as ready as they would ever be.
Màiri looked at her father who had been just brought into the fold the day before and clasped Ian’s hand.
They’d said their goodbyes, and she was ready to travel to the future.
Her father had made two promises.
First, to reconsider an alliance with the Bruce. Now that he was at least communicating with the laird of Clan Dern again, perhaps it would be easier for him to relent.
The second promise was one Màiri had exacted from him. Although Alana wasn’t here, much to Màiri’s dismay, her father had given his word to open his heart to her. Alana loved him, and her father, faced with the possibility he’d never see his daughter again, had admitted he felt the same way. She only wished she could have met a brother not yet born.
“Ready,” they said, one by one.
But she wasn’t, not really. Màiri could tell her father did not expect anything to happen. Even Shona’s brothers looked skeptical, despite knowing everything they did about time travel. She suspected they were, as Reik had said,in for a shock.
She exchanged a glance with Marian, who appeared as nervous as she.
“Ready,” they both murmured at the same time.
