Page 31

The kitchen was rich with the scent of braised onions, garlic, and spices. Ten-year-old Mandy, her dirty hair freshly brushed, a new secondhand dress on, sat at the kitchen table decorating gingerbread men.

A tiny artificial Christmas tree stood on the table. It was the only one they had in the house.

“Crazy Mary?” Kate giggled, giddy with excitement to have Mom all to herself for today. No work. No hurrying. Just a family day. “Hear that, Mandy? Crazy Mary!”

Mandy giggled in response, too. “It doesn’t sound too yummy.”

“Ah, it will be.” Mom scratched her chin and looked dubiously at the meat. “If I manage to remember the recipe. Kate, write it down so that you don’t have the same problem in the future. I think we prepare the oatmeal-and-spice stuffing first. Then the honey-mustard glaze. We need to tenderize the chops with this.” She raised a mallet. “Do you want to do it, Kate?”

“Sure!” Kate took the mallet and it sank in her hand. She was eager to show she had been everything Mom wanted her to be—not a burden. Capable of feeding them, washing the dishes, cleaning the house, doing homework with Mandy, and not getting sick. The only thing she never managed to do was her own homework, but somehow, she was getting by. She was never going to be a rocket scientist anyway.

Mandy giggled again. “Is that why it’s called Crazy Mary? Because you have to beat the meat?”

Kate laughed. “You’re a Crazy Mandy.”

Mom echoed the laughter. “No one’s crazy, girls. I have no idea why it’s called that. Grandma never said. But she did say the recipe was passed down from generation to generation. I’d love to know how it started.”

Back in the medieval kitchen, with the creator of the lamb roast, Kate’s chest squeezed in a sweet ache of loss. That must have been the only happy memory from her childhood.

Wait… Mom had said the recipe was passed down from generation to generation. Did that mean all of her memories happened in the future? When Manning, Cadha, and Ian were long gone?

And if Manning had created the recipe, was Kate related to him after all?

Kate’s head spun and the floor shifted. No, no, no. That head injury must have been worse than she’d thought. She needed a breath of fresh air. The smells of scalded chicken, pies, and meat suffocated her.

“Excuse me.” She wiped her hands on her apron and left the kitchen.

“See what ye did…” Cadha’s words trailed off as Kate walked out of the house and then out of the yard.

Kate didn’t know where she was going. Tears filled her eyes and blurred her vision. Her chest hurt and her throat clenched in a painful spasm. Eventually, she found herself on the coast of the loch, the rocky soil mixed with reeds and grass.

Someone was there. She looked up. Ian.

Shirtless, his bare back glistening with sweat in the sun, he bent over the water. His biceps bulged as he washed a piece of clothing, the muscles on his side working.

Looking at him, Kate forgot how to cry. She even forgot how to breathe.

He wrung out the tunic, his muscles playing under the soft, ginger-colored hairs on his arm, and put it next to him in the small pile of wet laundry.

Then he looked at her and frowned.

Kate wiped her eyes.

He stood and walked to her, concern on his face.

“Are ye all right, lass?”

Oh, how could she be all right when he was about to stand right in front of her, with his glorious pecs and his six-pack covered in soft red hair? A sweet ache pierced her lower belly.

“I—”

“Why are ye crying?” He gently lifted her chin up and looked into her eyes.

The concern in his gaze warmed her. In fact, he was all warm, with cute freckles on his shoulders. The sweet ache pierced Kate’s heart now.

“I just remembered something about my family.”

“Oh, aye? That’s good. What?”