Page 61 of Desire of a Highlander

She smiled wryly. “Ah, that.”

“Aye, that. I had no right to speak to ye the way I did. I’m sorry. Can ye forgive me?”

Chapter 14

Forgive him? He seriously needed to ask?

“You’re forgiven,” Elodie said, feeling the tension inside her ease a little. “Besides, you weren’t the only one being an arse.”

She’d been stewing over their argument ever since he’d walked away from her. That’s why she’d come here to sit by the stream. She had needed to think. At first she’d been annoyed and hurt by what he’d said but as she’d calmed down, she’d realized that he was right. She expected him to tell her the truth about himself when she wasn’t prepared to do the same.

And she’d also come to realize that the danger outside the valley wasn’t the only thing threatening them. The secrets between them were too.

She took a deep breath. Then, staring straight ahead so she wouldn’t have to see his reaction, asked, “You still want to know the truth about me?”

She felt rather than saw him nod. “I do, lass. I want to know everything about ye.”

“You might not like what you learn.”

His hand settled on her arm, feeling deliciously warm and reassuring. “There is naught ye can tell me that will change the way I feel.”

Are you so sure about that? Elodie thought. I’m not.

“All right,” she said, turning to look at him. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She steeled herself. “There’s a reason I’ve been so secretive and it’s not because that blow on the head gave me amnesia. It’s because the truth is, I’m from the future.”

He said not a word, but he stiffened, and the color drained from his face. In a rush, she carried on speaking.

“I shouldn’t be here. What I mean is, I wasn’t born here. Actually, I was born here. Just not now. Not for many years yet. Oh God. I sound crazy, don’t I?”

Ronan said nothing and now Elodie didn’t seem able to stop the words tumbling from her lips.

“I told you I had a job, right? I was working on a housing redevelopment project.” She shook her head. “No—that doesn’t matter.” She took a breath. “What matters is that I stepped through this shimmery portal thingy and it brought me here. From the twenty-first century.”

She forced herself to stop talking and look at him. Ronan was watching her with an indecipherable look on his face. Disbelief? Confusion?

“I know it sounds mad,” Elodie continued. “I know it sounds impossible. But I swear to you I’m not crazy and I’m not lying. It all started when I met this old woman called Irene MacAskill. She said some strange things and I thought she might be a bit unhinged. But right after I met her I stepped through this shimmery portal thing and it brought me here.”

She finally ran out of words. Silence descended. The only sounds were the distant noises of the Steading and wind in the trees.

Elodie wrapped her arms around herself. “I know how ridiculous it sounds. I wouldn’t believe it either.”

When no answer came, she turned her head and forced herself to look at him again. He was frowning now and Elodie braced herself for his disbelief. His anger.

So she was more than a little surprised when he said, “Ye met Irene MacAskill?”

Elodie blinked. “Wait. I’ve just told you I’m a time traveler and your first question is about Irene MacAskill? Some dotty old woman?”

“Ye dinna understand,” he breathed, shaking his head. “Irene MacAskill isnae just ‘some dotty old woman’. And right before I found ye, I met her too.”

RONAN STARED AT ELODIE in shock.

The breeze whispered through the trees and somewhere overhead a blackbird sang as though nothing remarkable had happened at all.

Yet everything had changed.

She had come from...the future? How was that even possible? It wasn’t. It just wasn’t. On any other day, or had any other person uttered such impossible words, he would have assumed the blow to the head had rattled their wits.

Instead...he found himself believing her. Every word.