Page 75 of Wild Highland Rose
Then suddenly, in that room, at the Cloisters, he had felt comforted. As though God himself had reached down from heaven to embrace him. The moment was as real now as it had been twenty-five years ago. And here he was again, only this time the chapel was the real thing.
He waited in the dark, waited for some kind of sign, for comfort or release, but there was only silence. He sighed. He'd probably had more than enough miracles in one lifetime. He winced. Make that two lifetimes.
"I thought perhaps I'd find ye here."
Cameron turned toward the sound of the voice. The shadows of the chapel hid the owner, but he recognized it nevertheless. "You can drop the accent. I know who you are. Or should I say, who you aren't."
"The accent is real. As real as I am. Dinna forget that I've been here for many years. Whoever I was, she is only a part of the distant past now."
"Don't you mean future?" he asked dryly. He heard her begin to make her way across the room. "You should have a light, it's dark in here."
She chuckled and he immediately recognized the error of his words. "I've no use o' a light, lad." Grania stopped in front ofhim, resting a hand on his shoulder. "I've been worried about ye."
"Really? And what exactly are you worrying about? The fact that all the inhabitants of Crannag Mhór think I'm a sorcerer? Or perhaps you're concerned that I now know definitively who I am? Or maybe you're worried that I've discovered who you are?" He paused, shocked at the bitterness in his voice.
Grania moved slowly around the bench and settled beside him, a hand comfortably on his arm. "I do care, ye know."
"If you cared so much, why didn't you tell me who you were?"
She sat for a moment and then answered, her voice trembling a little. "I dinna tell ye because I've never told anyone. Old habits die hard, I guess. And you never gave me reason to believe ye knew you were no' from this time."
What she said was true enough. He'd purposefully kept his knowledge of the twenty-first century from her. He felt some of his anger slip away.
"Do ye know who ye are then?"
He sat forward, threading his hands through his hair. "Yeah. I do."
"All of it?" Her voice was at once soothing and probing. "Do ye remember what happened to bring you here?"
He sighed. "No. I have memories from as far back as when my mother died, but nothing at all about what happened to bring me here."
"Your mother died?"
He sat back again, closing his eyes. Somehow, it seemed easier to talk that way. "Yeah, when I was eight."
"I'm truly sorry." She patted his knee. It was comforting in an abstract sort of way.
"It was a long time ago. I've learned to live with it."
"Have ye other family?"
"No." He paused, trying to think how to frame his next words. He'd spent the past few hours dealing with his guilt and he wasn't sure he wanted to share it with anyone else. "My father's dead, too." There, he'd given her the truth, to a point.
"Ah, no siblings I take it."
"Nope. Just me."
"I had five."
"Siblings?"
"Aye, four brothers and a sister. My folks were Irish Catholic. I'm surprised there weren't more."
"It must have been a lively family." He wondered what it would have felt like to grow up with other children. A hell of a lot less lonely most likely.
"I think it probably was. I dinna know really. I ran away from home you see. We were poor and there was always more work to be done. I wanted more for myself and so I left one day and never looked back." There was a wistful note in her voice.
"But you miss them now?"
