Page 57 of Highlander Unraveled
Shona glanced at me; a look that was not hidden from anyone’s view and we both stepped forward to embrace the man. Perhaps he was simply emotional from having time traveled. Goodness knows I was the same way.
Still, my guard was up. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something just wasn’t right.
“Ye wouldn’t’ believe what has happened,” he mumbled. “And, Shona, lass, ye look well. We were worried sick over your disappearance.”
“What about Moira?” Shona asked, her eyes narrowed.
Mr. McAlister nodded. “When she went missing a few weeks ago, I gathered that it must have been time travel. Your neighbor said she’d seen the both of you with two men. I put two and two together, and came by your house each day on the off chance that ye returned.”
“How have ye come to be here?” Rory asked, his arms crossed over his chest.
Mr. McAlister startled, glancing at Rory as if he’d only just seen him standing there. He frowned a moment and looked back at us.
“Does he… know?” Mr. McAlister asked us.
We both nodded and the man breathed a sigh of relief. His gaze was locked on the sideboard. “Can I beg a drink?”
Ewan grunted and went to pour a cup. He brought McAlister one then retreated to pour four more strong whiskies. I pretended to sip mine since I wasn’t sure about a baby, and Shona shook her head, pushing the cup away.
“Ye didna answer my question,” Rory said, eyeing McAlister over the rim of his cup.
McAlister choked on his whisky, and held his hand to his mouth, coughing. Nobody patted him on the back, all of us waiting for him to answer the question.
“Apologies for that, it went down the wrong pipe, it seems.” Eyeing us all warily, he realized we weren’t going to wait much longer to hear his story. Mr. McAlister sighed heavily, staring hard into his cup. “I’ve time traveled before. Many times. This is hard to explain.” He looked up at us both, an apology in his eyes. “Ye see, I’m a time jumper. There are many of us. I can do it whenever I please.”
I ground my teeth, trying to process what he said. He’d practically just admitted that he could have come back in time, at any moment, to find Shona. To find myself. And he didn’t.
“And yet you didn’t help when Shona went missing years ago?” I asked.
“Before ye go jumping to conclusions, it’s not as easy as it sounds. I have to know the exact place and time for it to work.”
“You could have guessed. You could have gone many places,” I said, feeling anger rise and burn in my chest.
“But I could have gone all over the world, thousands of times and never found her,” he said.
“And how did ye end up here?” Rory asked, and I could tell his patience was wearing thin.
“The thing is,” Mr. McAlister said, ignoring Rory. “I’m going to need ye to come home with me, lassies. It’s not safe for ye here. There are other time jumpers, and if anyone were to find out who ye are, which I suspect they already know, then ye could be in mortal danger.”
“We’ll protect what is ours,” Ewan said, standing beside Rory, the both of them looking like a couple of heathen warriors bent on murder. Their fingers were already wrapped around the hilts of their swords. Chests puffed. Teeth sufficiently bared. There was something very sexy in how protective my warrior was of me.
Mr. McAlister shrank back a little, but didn’t change his tune.
He shook his head, hands fisted at his side. He stiffened, even his tallest height coming nowhere near the stature of the warriors. “I understand ye want to keep them, but they are not yours to keep.”
“The hell they aren’t,” Rory roared. “They are our wives.”
Before the argument could come to blows, I stepped forward.
“Mr. McAlister, my sister and I have often appreciated and followed your advice throughout our lives, but in this, I think I speak for the both of us when I say that we don’t want to leave here. This is our home. We’ve made our lives here. We’ve married. We’re starting families.” I pointed to Shona’s belly so as not to get Rory’s hopes up about my own questionable condition. “If we were to leave, we’d need assurances we could come back.”
“Aye, aye, of course. We’ll come right back,” he said.
“I don’t believe you,” Shona said, her voice soft but full of conviction. “You just said we had to leave because we are in mortal danger. You’re only agreeing with Moira to get us to agree with you.”
“Did ye see Emma?” Ewan asked. “Is that how ye knew to come here?”
Mr. McAlister’s gaze shuttered, his eyes roving toward our feet. But that had to be the only reason, if he’d not known where we were before.
