Page 19 of A Thistle Beyond Time
“Your brother-in-law?”
“Aye. Robert MacKenzie. He’s married to me sister, Irene.”
“I see. Does he pay you to do this?” she wondered aloud.
“Aye. Why do ye ask, lass?” Cormac questioned.
“I was just curious. You don’t seem to have any money.”
“Edna said me coin would be of no use here.”
Edna again. Who was she and what was her part in all of this? “And where did you say you lived?” Jenna asked.
“I live at Breaghacraig, with me family,” Cormac replied.
Jenna was chewing on her bottom lip, wondering how she could discover if he was lying. So far, he seemed to be telling the truth. He wasn’t evading her questions and he didn’t hesitate with his answers. The fact that he claimed he was from another time troubled her. To top it all off, he expected her to believe his story.
“Cormac?”
“Aye, lass.”
“You said you’re a captain. Does your brother-in-law have an army, or something?”
“Aye.”
“Wow. Really? Why does he need an army?” An army of his own, in this day and age, seemed highly suspect.Cormac’s story is getting stranger and stranger by the second.
“To protect his family, his home, and his lands,” Cormac responded.
Jenna sat quietly in the backseat, petting Chester and pondering Cormac’s answers.
“Is all well with ye, Jenna? Ye seem to be full of questions. Have I answered them to yer satisfaction?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I’m just curious about where you come from. That’s all.”
“’Tis fine. Ye may ask me anything, and I will always tell ye the truth.”
“I appreciate that, MacBayne.” She dismissed him by focusing her attention on the dog and let him go back to quizzing Dylan on the way everything in the vehicle worked. She had decided she would maintain her distance, by referring to him as MacBayne. She would reserve the right to call him Cormac, for times when it worked to her advantage.
* * *
Sitting next to Dylan in the front of the truck was an education for Cormac. He was happy that he could ask anything of Dylan, and it would be answered without judgment. Jenna, on the other hand, was a puzzle he was having a hard time deciphering. One moment she was all sweetness and light – and the next she was calling him MacBayne and snarling at him. Rather than dwell on it, he focused his attention on the wondrous bridge they were crossing. He had never seen anything like it and he was craning his neck in all directions to get a better look, as they passed beneath the grey steel towering above their heads. He would have such amazing tales to tell, upon his return home.
As Cormac turned to watch the view through the back window, he noticed Jenna staring at him with a most unhappy expression on her face. He caught her eye and she smiled half-heartedly in his direction.
“What time is everyone coming over, Dylan?” she asked.
“Some people are coming earlier, around six. The one’s with kids – you know. Then everyone else will be there later.”
“You have everything arranged, right?”
“No worries, Jenna. It’s all taken care of. The only thing I have to do is get a keg delivered and we’re good to go.”
Cormac wasn’t sure what they were talking about, and he raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question to Jenna.
“We’re having our annual end of summer party tonight,” Jenna explained.
He nodded in response somewhat worried about dealing with a lot of new, modern strangers he didn’t know.
