Page 59

Kate pushed up from his chest and propped herself with her hand on the bed. She gathered the blanket to her chest to cover her nakedness and also as a gesture of protection, to shield herself from the pain she was about to inflict on both of them.

“I must tell you where I really come from, Ian,” she said. “But you may not believe me. In fact, you most probably won’t.”

He frowned and sat straight up, all easiness gone.

“Do you remember I told you I was from so far away you wouldn’t believe me?”

His gaze grew so intense, his eyes were like black coals in the semidarkness of the room. “Aye.”

She swallowed. “It’s not the distance that’s far. It’s time.”

He shook his head. “Time?”

“When you found me in Inverlochy, I had just traveled in time. I was born in 1989 in another country, the United States of America.”

He narrowed his eyes, studying her as though he was struggling to understand her.

“What are ye saying, lass?”

“In Inverlochy, there’s a rock… It was carved by the Picts, and there’s some sort of magic that allows people to travel through time.”

He shook his head again in disbelief.

“Lass—”

“I know, it sounds crazy. But however crazy it is, it’s true. Back in 2020, I met this woman—Sìneag. She told me about the legend of a rock that opens a tunnel under the river of time. In 2020, Inverlochy stands ruined, and I—”

She remembered the rude advances of Logan Robertson.

“I slipped and fell and hit my head. I think I had a concussion and probably that’s why I lost my memory. But I remember crawling through the darkness, disoriented, panicked, looking for a way out. And there, in the darkness, glowed that carving of a river and a tunnel, and there was this handprint in the stone. And I laid my hand there. I touched it. And I felt like I literally fell through the stone.”

She sighed. “The next thing I remember, is you.”

She let out another long breath.

There. All of the cards were on the table, and it was up to him whether he’d pick them up or not.

Ian blinked. “I want to believe ye, I do. Aye, that does sound like madness. Or like ye hit yer head verra hard. But I…” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “Ye havna judged me or rejected me after I told ye the worst part of my life. And I wilna judge or reject ye, either. I see ye believe ye are from the future. I will assume—at least for now—that ye are.”

Kate squeezed his hand.

“I believe the Highlands are full of magic, and we are a superstitious people. We still believe in faeries and kelpies and loch monsters. Mayhap, there’s the time traveling rock somewhere in Inverlochy.”

Kate smiled, lightness filling her chest. Did he really believe her? “Thank you.”

“Aye. Well. Yer strange manner of speaking. Yer unique cooking. The strange materials in yer purse.”

She nodded. “Yes. It’s all modern. I can’t help it. That’s what I know from back home.”

His face went blank. “Home…”

Kate’s smile fell. “Home.”

“Tell me about it.”

Kate looked at her hands.

“Home is with my sister, Mandy, and my nephew, Jax…”