Chapter Two
“I’M COMING,” a womancalled through the fog. “Where are you?”
He knew her voice. Had heard it before.
When, though?
Where?
Who was she?
“I am here, lass,” he replied, knowing she was close. Yet when he reached out to touch her, there was nothing there. “Can ye not see me then?”
He walked around the tall standing stone, convinced she must be on the other side. But she wasn’t. She never was.
“I hear you as if you’re standing beside me,” she called out before she whispered, “Ifeelyou.”
He inhaled deeply, drawing in her sweet, womanly scent. Maeve? No, that wasn’t her. Or was it? Could it be? He missed her so.
“You’re here somehow, aren’t you?” the woman's voice echoed, fading away. “I just can’t see you...”
“Iamhere,” he called back but knew it was too late.
She was gone.
He raced into the fog, eager to find her, but jolted awake instead.
“Where am I?” he whispered. Not for the first time since this all began, he had awoken not where he fell asleep in wee King David’s holding but at the Ring of Brodgar Stonehenge. He blinked once, twice, caught in a surreal otherworldly dream state before everything shifted, and he was at a Stonehenge he hadn’t seen in years.
America’s Stonehenge.
He had arrived in the twenty-first century.
Snow blew on an icy wind, and sunlight vanished behind dark, rolling clouds.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, grateful his magic worked enough that he could chant himself into appropriate clothing. Most especially a heavy jacket. It was jarring enough being whisked through time in one's sleep, never mind from a warm bed into a cold New England winter.
If only his magic had warned him first. But alas, in its fluctuating state, he was out of luck. There was nothing worse than his wizardly powers draining like this. It was as though a piece of his soul was tearing away. As if he were only half a man. He could only pray his magic returned to normal in the end. He dreaded to imagine life if not.
Yet supposedly, there was only one way to see his magic stabilized.
Find his Broun.
So he started through the snowy forest toward the colonial, hoping Julie was already here. His great-granda Grant had assured him she would be. Tiernan was okay, and all was well. Yet he knew the moment the house came into sight, neither Julie nor Tiernan was there. A strange sensation rolled through him when he narrowed in on the upstairs window.
Shewas there.
The woman lost in the fog.
He knew it like he knew nothing else.
“Chloe,” he murmured. Not Maeve. Yet he swore she was there in the fog too. That she might, by the grace of God, come back to him. That she hadn't wasted away and lost her life to illness.
He stepped into the shadows when Chloe appeared at the window. Though unable to make out her features, he knew she wore the Claddagh ring meant to draw him to her. He closed his eyes and shook his head, speaking to the woman he loved rather than the stranger he was destined for.
“I will do what I have to do, Maeve,” he whispered. “But, I will never love another as I did ye.” He shook his head, hoping she heard him from the afterlife. “Never.”
“You better not pretend to love your destined Broun,”Julie’s words echoed in his mind.“That wouldn’t be fair.”
