Page 139 of Dark Rival

He was reading her mind, because he smiled. “Aye, lady, I’m yer brother, Guy Macleod.”

Allie breathed hard. She looked at him, thinking about the fact that he was a powerful man she could depend on—her only family in this time. Aidan had stayed at Carrick, but she knew he was ready to go home to his small son. Guy was a stranger, but she needed him. “Thank you,” she managed to say, realizing she might break down at any moment. “Thank you for coming.”

He studied her for a moment. “Do ye wish for me to call ye Ailios or Allie?”

“Allie,” she said, because there was only one person whom she wished to hear the name Ailios from. “I need Royce,” she heard herself say brokenly.

His slight smile vanished. “It has been five days since he was last seen outside Eoradh in the sixth century. T’is time to grieve.”

“No! Is that why you came? To tell me to give up hope?”

“Yer my sister. I came to invite ye to Blayde. I have a wife an’ she can comfort ye.”

“I am not leaving Carrick,” Allie cried. Tears fell. “I appreciate your offer. I can’t leave…not yet.”

He said carefully, “If Royce could return, he would.”

Allie began to cry.

Guy Macleod laid his large hand clumsily on her shoulder. “Ye need to come with me to Blayde,” he said. “Yer my sister. T’is my duty to care for ye now.”

Allie shook her head, backing away.

He became coaxing. “My wife is very kind. Ye’ll like her.” He hesitated. “She’s from yer time.”

“I have to wait for Royce,” Allie tried desperately.

“Then wait with me and Lady Tabitha at Blayde.”

She shook her head to clear it; she couldn’t have heard him correctly. “I beg your pardon. You didn’t say your wife’s name is Tabitha?”

He seemed perplexed. “Aye, I did. Ye’d like her greatly—everyone likes Lady Tabitha,” he said.

She was in disbelief. “Not Tabby…my Tabby?”

“I dinna ken.”

“Is she dark blond and beautiful, a good hand taller than I am? Does she cast spells?” Allie cried. “Does she use Tarot? Did you find her in New York?”

Guy’s eyes went wide. “Keep yer voice down. She’s no witch. But aye, I found her there in the year 2008.”

Allie simply stared, stunned.

ALLIE STOOD at the canopied entrance of her Park Avenue home.

The city hadn’t changed. Park Avenue was bumper to bumper with yellow cabs and luxury black sedans. Horns blared. Pedestrians rushed up and down the sidewalks. The center of the street was abloom with flowers. No litter marred the clean, swept sidewalks.

It was September 21. She could have returned home at any time, but it had seemed appropriate to return two weeks after Royce had been murdered by Moffat at modern-day Carrick—because she’d been waiting in the fifteenth century for two weeks for him to return.

Royce’s Fate was engraved in stone. Moffat had been meant to murder him, and apparently, he had done just that in 1430.

It was hard to grasp the fact that Royce was dead. Worse, she was convinced she had caused his death a second time. If she hadn’t gone back in time to save him, none of this would have happened, would it? And he would have lived another six hundred years.

Her heart shrieked at her in protest. Her heart would never believe him dead. Her heart would wait for him forever.

She was deeply depressed, grief-stricken. She had even considered going back to Ruari in the sixth century, but what if she caused his death then, too? It had become time to be sensible. He was dead, for there was no other explanation for his absence. She would mourn forever—but her place wasn’t the fifteenth century. Of course it wasn’t. Her place was the twenty-first century.

Her father and her brother, Alec, had to be sick with fear over her disappearance. But Allie just stood there, unable to move forward, staring at the glass doors of the entrance to her apartment building. Aidan touched her elbow. He had insisted on taking her home. “Maybe I should wait a moment,” he said. “To make certain ye find yer family well.”