Page 47

Chapter 18

“The day my parents died was the worst day of my whole life,” she said.

Every word scorched her throat like hot embers. Angus froze and pulled his fingers away from her, looking at her intently.

“I was twelve,” she said, her chest aching from the memories. “My brother, David, was only five, and we stayed with my aunt while our parents were away at a conference in Scotland.”

“Conference?” he said.

“Yes. They were both university professors. My mom was a historian and my dad a biologist. They worked at the same university, and my mom was the vice dean. Do you know what a university is?”

“I ken what a university is,” he said through gritted teeth. “If I canna read it doesna mean I’m a simpleton.”

Right…she remembered something about the first university in the world being established in the eleventh century in Bologna, and her own alma mater was next, just a few years later…

“Have you heard of Oxford University?” she said.

“Aye.”

“Right. So that’s the one I study at.”

He took another clean, dry cloth and covered her wound. It stuck to the fat salve and didn’t fall away. He stood. “Ye may dress yerself again.”

As she tugged the shoulder of her dress up, he walked around the post of the bed, then gathered his medical supplies and put them back into one of the chests. When he closed it, he sat on it, leaning with his elbows on his thighs.

“So, are ye saying Oxford University still exists in…what year?”

“Two thousand and twenty-one,” she said. “Yes, it does, and it’s one of the best schools in the world. There are thousands of universities in the twenty-first century.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “If that is true, it must be a world of knowledge.”

“It is.”

He nodded. “I like the sound of that. And yer mother—a woman—was a teacher in one of them?”

“Yes…and one of the most renowned in the world. She was a smart woman.”

“She has a smart daughter.”

Rogene smiled. “Well, I’d like to think so. But I also want to keep her memory alive and honor it by proving one of the most outrageous theories that she had. And, thanks to you, I see that she was right.”

“How did she die?” he asked. “Them both, how did they die?”

Rogene swallowed a hard knot and looked at her hands. She was clutching the fabric of her dress without realizing. The salve was working its magic, and her wound was now itching more than hurting. She took a long breath in and allowed the memory to take her, with all the pain and horror of that day.

“They were in Scotland. My mom was a keynote speaker at a conference. My dad went along, to be with her.” She chuckled as tears burned her eyes. “They were so in love. I don’t remember them fighting, ever. Though I’m sure they did. Kisses, hugs, those special smiles people give each other when they share more than just private jokes but private thoughts and private memories…”

She threw a quick glance at him as she wiped away a tear.

“Now, thinking about it, I don’t know why I fought with David, you know, the way siblings do. Why I sometimes acted like my parents not letting me watch a late-night TV show was the worst thing in the world. Had I known that all those precious moments, those twelve years were everything we’d ever get, I’d—” Her voice broke and her vision blurred. “I would have never spent a minute arguing or acting out. I’d have kissed them and hugged them and asked them about their lives.”

She shook her head. “We never know how much time we have with our loved ones.” She looked at him. He was blurry, and she wiped her eyes. “Because they can be taken away at any moment.”

He blinked, the muscles over his cheekbones tightening. He stared at her with grave intensity, as though stopping himself from covering the distance between them and taking her into his arms.

She sniffed and sighed. “My mom told me about history, about the Middle Ages, about Scotland. She made me fall in love with it, too. The books I read—Ivanhoe by Walter Scott, Lancelot, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and other historical fiction… I dreamed I’d walk the dirt-packed streets and go to a medieval market and see noble knights and ladies and dance at a feast… I suppose I’m living that dream now. Though it’s not as romantic as I’d have thought.”

He kept staring at her, and, if she was right, he seemed less skeptical. There was empathy in his eyes, and he seemed more relaxed.