Page 122 of A Scot on the Rocks

Ewan laughed from the ladder. Jamie turned to give her a look that promised repayment, and Olivia lowered her eyes to the hem she was sewing before he caught her smiling.

She’d often thought of the morning beside the fire, of Jamie confessing that he’d loved her from the moment he’d noticed her boots, and of the kisses that had followed. She could still remember how carefully he’d touched her cheek with his good hand, as though he’d wanted her for so long he scarcely trusted his own good fortune. The memory made her smile at unexpected moments, though she hadn’t expected love to make every difficulty vanish, and it hadn’t.

There were still cold mornings, damp sheets, unfamiliar customs, and evenings when she would have given half her winnings to hear the clatter of plates in Grandma’s pub. But Jamie had stopped holding himself at a distance. He kissed her temple when he passed behind her chair and had developed a thoroughly distracting habit of stealing another kiss whenever he found her alone. He made room for her at his side whenever he spoke of plans for the winter, and once suggested, with far too innocent an expression, that she might advise him on a new hiding place for the imported goods the patrol had failed to find.

“With your permission?” she’d asked.

“With your considerable expertise,” he’d replied.

Olivia was still smiling at the memory when the patch of sunlight disappeared, casting her sewing into shadow. She looked up, expecting one of the men to have come through the archway, and instead saw an old woman standing where the ruined west passage opened into the courtyard. Her heart fluttered as dread spilled through her.

The goddess wore a midnight-blue cloak sewn with tiny points of light. Silver hair moved about her shoulders although the air beneath the arch was perfectly still, and a blackthorn stick rested in one weathered hand. Her dark eyes settled on Olivia with the patient attention of someone who’d never worried about being late for anything.

Olivia rose so quickly her chair scraped the stone.

“You.”

The Cailleach inclined her head.

For weeks Olivia had searched every crowded road and lonely hillside for the woman who’d sent her through time. She’d finally stopped expecting to see her. Yet here she was, standing among Jamie’s walls as though she’d merely come to inquire after the weather.

“Where have you been?” Olivia demanded. “I’ve been looking for you since the tunnel.”

“Ye’ve been busy, lass.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

The old woman’s gaze moved toward the roof where Ewan had been working. He’d gone to fetch a whisky and was nowhere to be seen.

“The castle fares better than it did.”

Olivia clutched the edge of her shawl. “Why are you here?”

“Because the road that brought ye here is open once more and it’s time to choose.”

The sky changed before Olivia could answer. A cold gust swept through the courtyard, sending her sewing tumbling across the stones. Clouds gathered so quickly that the bright morning might never have existed. She looked toward Jamie, who had set aside the board he’d been holding.

“Olivia?” he called.

She took a step toward him, then stopped as a pale shimmer appeared inside the ruined arch behind the Cailleach. It was no wider than a doorway at first, its edges wavering like heat above a summer road, but through it Olivia heard something that made her knees go weak.

Traffic.

For a moment she could hear the distant rush of tires on wet pavement and the blare of a horn. A world she’d been trying to remember without grieving for it had opened before her as suddenly as the tunnel had swallowed her.

Jamie came down from the steps and crossed the courtyard. He saw the old woman at once, and for an instant Olivia expected him to offer one of his easy greetings, the sort that made strangers feel they’d known him all their lives.

“Who are ye?” he asked.

“An old woman passing through,” the Cailleach answered.

Jamie glanced toward the shimmer gathering beneath the arch, then back at the silver hair stirring though the air was still. The sudden cold, the darkening sky, the blue cloak with its scattered stars, Olivia watched the pieces settle into place for him. His smile disappeared, and he looked at the old woman with an expression Olivia had never seen on his face, even when the excisemen had come into the castle with loaded muskets.

“The Cailleach,” he said softly as he crossed himself, then bowed his head. It was a small, instinctive gesture, but coming from Jamie Campbell, who’d cheerfully argued with half the men in authority he’d ever met, it startled Olivia more than the rising storm.

“Forgive me, my lady. I didna ken ye.”

The old woman’s dark eyes rested upon him. “Ye ken me now, Jamie Campbell. Lift yer head.”