Redeeming Vows (MacCoinnich Time Travel Trilogy #3)(35)
Author: Catherine Bybee

“What the hell is happening?” Todd asked.

Smoke rose from the keep, above the fog that thickened before their eyes.

“Grainna,” Ian whispered.

“Oh, God.”

Ian swiveled toward the tent to see his wife trembling.

“What, love?”

A single tear drifted down her soft cheek. “Don’t ye feel it?”

He started to shake his head when knowledge flooded his mind. “Fin.”

“Mom.”

“Oh my God.” Tara stepped into her husband’s arms. “They’re gone.” ****

The world ground to a quick halt, jarring Liz so hard her head felt as if it were going to split in two.

Her ass on the other hand felt cushioned as if she’d landed on the softest pillow ever made.

Fin grasped her closer, cutting off her air. “Ease up,” she said before opening her eyes.

She took one look around the room, her room, where pictures of Simon as a baby hung on the wall, a clock ticked away the hour and a worn-out TV sat on a dusty dresser. Liz opened her mouth and screamed.

Fin clamped a hand over her mouth.

Panic swam up her spine.

The door to her room burst open and a strange, shocked-faced woman stared at them. “Oh my God.

It’s true. Son of a—”

Fin recovered first, drawing the sheets over their naked bodies.

The woman’s voice nearly screamed. “You are real, right?”

Liz nodded.

“Where are we?” Fin asked.

“Elizabeth McAllister’s apartment.”

“My apartment.” The stranger and she spoke at the same time.

“You are her?”

Liz released a breath and willed her heart to slow. “How did we get here?” And how the hell were they going to get back.

Fin shook his head. “Grainna.”

Of course, it had to be. “But how?”

“Ye wished for this bed, remember?”

With his words came the realization that her wish had been granted.

“Simon! Oh, God, Fin we need to go back.” She started to shake.

This couldn’t be happening. She wanted to be home, but not without her son.

Not at the expense of their entire family.

“Shhh.” Fin wrapped his arm around her in comfort.

The woman at the door approached. Fin found his sword and quickly raised it toward her.

Her hands shot in the air. “Down, cowboy. I’m not the enemy.”

Liz pushed his hand aside and helped him lower his weapon. “Who are you?”

The woman’s unruly red hair shook when she laughed. “I’m sorry, I’m Selma. Selma Mayfair.”

How did she know that name? Liz knew she’d never spoken to this woman before. Then recognition hit her hard. “The book.” Seventh Sense, her bible on Druids that sat back in the sixteenth century, buried in the wall of her room there.

Selma smiled and shifted her gaze to Fin’s naked torso as her cheeks flooded with color. “I guess maybe you two should get dressed.”

The door closed behind her, giving Fin and Liz privacy.

“What are we going to do?”

Fin kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know, lass.”

“I didn’t want this. I mean, I did, the bed, the privacy. But not this way.”

“I know.”

Her heart started to crumble. She reached to Simon with her mind, knowing he couldn’t answer her back. As tears stung the back of her eyes, Liz forced them back. “That witch. I swear if I ever get my hands on her, I’ll rip her neck from her shoulders with my own hands.” Liz pushed out of the bed, grabbed her gown, and struggled into it.

There had to be a way. Some spell to get them back where they needed to be. Hadn’t Tara forced Grainna back to this time without the stones? If she could do it, so could Liz. She just needed to focus.

Fin stared at her from the bed.

“What are you waiting for? Get dressed! We can’t stay here.”

Chapter Sixteen

Fin ducked his head through the door leading to second room of the apartment, making certain it was safe before allowing Lizzy to follow. He’d seen this apartment before, the one night he’d spent in it well over a year prior. His task then was to drop Lizzy and Simon off in this century and go home. Fin ended up staying and defending his sister’s honor against Todd.

He smirked at the memory of Todd opening the door of his home and meeting Fin’s fist. The man hadn’t seen him coming. In the end, Grainna had kidnapped Simon with the intention of returning to the sixteenth-century and regaining her power. All of them ended up traveling through time, and half the stones that gave them the ability to travel through time were now in Grainna’s possession.

Without them, Fin held no knowledge of how to return home.

Selma paced the main living space of the dwelling but stopped moving once he and Lizzy walked into the room. Her gaze swept over the both of them with a mixture of awe and excitement.

Fin wondered who the lass was, and how she had come about being in Lizzy’s apartment.

Lizzy must have been asking herself the same questions because she wasted little time with petty conversation.

“I don’t want to sound rude, Ms. Mayfair, but what are you doing here?”

The woman shook her head, her green eyes wide. “Waiting for the two of you.”

Lizzy’s gaze shot to his, her confusion palatable.

“But we don’t know you.”

“I know, crazy huh?” She stood and made her way into the kitchen and opened the icebox. “You guys have got to be hungry.”

“We’ve no time to eat. We need to get…home.”

Selma removed brightly colored containers from the icebox. “You mean sixteenth-century Scotland.”

“How do you know this?”

She blew out a breath with a laugh. “Because you told me.”

“Ms. Mayfair, can you stop what you’re doing and fill us in on what you know?” Lizzy’s raised voice caught the woman’s attention.

“Call me Selma. And I’m getting there. You might as well make yourselves comfortable. You’re not going anywhere. At least not now.”

Fin didn’t like the certainty in the woman’s tone. It was as if she had knowledge of their future they did not.

Selma stepped out of the kitchen and handed him a bright red metal object. The material seemed to hold some type of liquid but he hadn’t a clue as to what.

Liz placed her container on the table and reached for his. She snapped something on the lid and handed it back to him. “It’s a soda. You drink it.” Fin brought the strange glass to his mouth and sipped. His nose fizzled as the icy, sweet concoction slid down his throat. He’d never tasted anything of its kind. When he and Duncan had visited the future before, they only spent time at Grainna’s Renaissance Faires, and the only beverages available to them there were strikingly similar to what his time offered.