Free Reunited (Book 2 of Lost Highlander series) by Cassidy Cayman Page B

his kilt and then took out his pocket knife and handed it to her with a reassuring smile.
    “Dinna worry, ye dinna have to do it yet. I shall just grind the herbs a bit while ye sing something.”
    “Me?” she asked, nervously turning the bone handle of the knife in her hands.
    “Aye, ye must have a better voice than me.” He grinned at her and she knew he wouldn’t start singing for anything.
    Flustered, every song she ever knew flew from her brain. She finally started singing ‘Oh Susanna’, tremulously and barely above a whisper at first.
    Lachlan nodded and began crumpling up the dried herbs, letting the powder fall from his fingertips onto his lap.
    With another encouraging look at her, he said the chant, his deep voice soaring. “Alta timpul vom gasi vom merge, fata din.”
     He reached for the knife and she gave it to him, starting to sing more confidently. Stupidly, she realized she didn’t even know all the words to the song and kept repeating the chorus. It didn’t seem to faze Lachlan and he pricked his finger and let a drop of blood fall onto the powdered herbs.
    He waved the knife at her hand and she held out her forefinger, which he delicately poked with the razor sharp point. Excitement mingled with apprehension as she watched one perfectly round drop fall onto the herbs.
    He wrapped his hand tightly around hers and she tried to think about two hazy people in the distant past meeting and falling hopelessly in love. It was harder than she thought, since she didn’t know a thing about them, but her desperation to remain alive was certainly real.
    She stopped singing abruptly, right in the middle of ‘don’t you cry for me’, and they stared at each other. Lachlan closed his eyes and she followed suit. A moment later when she opened them, he was still kneeling on the ground, bits of dried green herbs dusting the front of his kilt. She let go of his hand, looking around at the forest.
    The trees and the path all looked the same. She craned her neck and saw the tower in the distance. For an almost three hundred year span of time, she really felt the surroundings should look different.
    She jumped up and ran up the path to the edge of the forest, and saw the castle looking exactly the way they had left it half an hour ago, down to the nineteenth century brick addition.
    “Did we not go far enough back?” she asked, wishing Evie had let them take binoculars.
    Lachlan came up behind her and rested his hand on her shoulder. She twisted around to find him frowning at the castle. He pointed in the direction of the crypt and pulled a small set of binoculars from the folds of his kilt, looked down the hill, then handed them to her with a shake of his head.
    “I can’t believe you took those,” she said.
    He shrugged. “They’re a wee marvel. I couldna resist.”
     She looked through them, past the crypt to the storage shed. Outside the shed, parked neatly in a row, were the three golf carts the groundskeepers used to get around the property.
    “We didna go back at all, it seems,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.
    She rested her head back against his chest.
    “It has never failed to send me somewhere before, even if it wasna right,” he said, pulling her close. “I dinna understand it.”
    “It’s me,” Piper said. “It didn’t work because of me.” She turned and pressed her face into his chest. “Maybe it’s already started. Maybe I’m already starting to disappear.” She felt the panic rising and clung to him.
    Lachlan took her by the shoulders and pushed her back so he could look down into her eyes. He gave her a small shake.
    “No,” he said simply, then leaned down and kissed her.
    It was a soft, searching kiss. She had to hold onto him to keep from sinking to the ground. He rested his forehead against hers for a moment, then lifted his head.
    “Ye are still here, my love. I willna let ye go.”

Chapter 9

    Pietro dropped the pitchfork he was holding and the last thing