Page 14 of Only a Breath Away

“Nae worries, I was nervous, I jumped tae a place farther away.” I could see Fraoch and Ben, I assumed more were in the house. “Where is Kaitlyn?”

“She’s not here, she and James were captured when we were in the thirteenth century.”

Och. “Where?”

He said, “Just outside of Stirling castle. Where were you?”

“At Stirling castle.”

I looked around at the gorgeous blue sky, the floating dock, and the lapping lake. “Madame Beaty, will ye watch the bairns while we go in tae discuss?”

Beaty said, “Aye, but I heard ye were bringin’ a dog with ye?”

I laughed. “Ye already heard about m’surprise?”

Archie and Ben ran up. I hugged them both and crouched down when Archie held on around m’neck and seemed tae weep that I was finally home. “Och I hae missed ye.”

“I missed you too.”

“I am a king now,anotherking.”

Archie wiped his eyes and said, “Och it sounds like a lot of trouble.”

I laughed.

He said, “We heard your dog was really great, didn’t we, Isla?”

She nodded her wee head against my shoulder.

“Haggis is verra braw. He is back at Stirling castle, guardin’ for me. I will introduce ye soon enough—”

Archie said, “Where is mom? We were going to see you and…”

“That is more complicated, Archibald. I need tae discuss this for a moment with Uncle Fraoch and Chef Zach. She is in the thirteenth century, I just hae tae go get her.”

He blinked, his face screwin’ up a bit as if he would cry again, but he swallowed it down and nodded instead.

I said, “Ye hae tae be strong on it, Archibald, ye ken there are risks when we are time-traveling. Good outcomes can be difficult and complicated tae find. We hae tae ‘work the problem’ as Colonel Quentin would say. It will help me if ye are strong for Isla, Zoe, and Ben.”

Zoe toddled up, holding Emma’s hand, and said, “N’wee!”

Emma explained, “That’s how she says her name.”

I said, “Ye are speakin’, wee’un, verra well. That is a perfect way tae say yer name, because ye are a verra wee, little one.”

We left the kids and went into the house.

Everyone sat down and Zach said, “First, before we get serious, I have to ask the question on everyone’s mind: what’s up with the clothes, Magnus?”

“What,this? Tis the ordinary garb of the time, inna it funny?” I pulled the tunic out and curtsied.

Emma laughed, “No kilts back then?”

“Nae, they haena been used yet.”

Zach said, “You know what would be crazy? Ifweare the ones who invented kilts in some weird kind of time loop. Maybe Scotland was never going to have kilts, until one of us went back in time to the thirteenth century in a kilt, and then the men back then liked the kilt and—”

Fraoch grinned. “Och, it could be, Zach. Archie came tae visit wearin’ a kilt and Caillean greatly admired it. What if he started wearin’ one? What if the history of the kilt in Scotland was started by Magnus’s son when he visited from the twenty-fifth century.”

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