Free Reckoning (Book 4 of Lost Highlander series) by Cassidy Cayman Page A

Finley was grown and on her own, with barely a Christmas card until her new husband called to say she’d died of a heart attack. Piper was only two at the time and didn’t remember any of it.
    Leaving her first child and the love of her life behind must have badly traumatized her. Rose must have tried to be normal after she came back. She’d remarried when she first came to the states, but Piper’s grandfather died in an accident right before Piper’s mom was born. Rose just had some really crap luck.
    Piper flipped carefully through every last page of the diary, but there wasn’t a single word more, not even a smudge.
    The bedroom door swung open, nearly causing her already taxed heart to stop completely. “What?” she snapped, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
    “You need to see what we found,” Evie said. “Get downstairs.” She pirouetted dramatically out of the room.
    Pulling the first things she could get her hands on out of the wardrobe, Piper got dressed and went to meet Evie in the kitchen. She greeted her with a smug smile, sure that whatever Evie thought she had, it could never rival what Piper had learned from the diary.
    Sam sat at the table, his head on his folded arms, sound asleep. Magnus kicked at a toy that Evie had rigged to dangle above his bassinet.
    “Did you stay up all night?” Piper asked, wondering how long she’d actually slept. It didn’t feel like much, but the clock said ten in the morning, a surprisingly late hour.
    “We took turns sleeping,” Evie said absently. “Sam’s just a lightweight and passed out again about half an hour ago.” She stabbed her finger at the original page he’d been called over to translate, then swept her hand over a few others, her face turning bright red with anticipation. “You won’t believe what we found out.”
    “Grandma Rose went back in time and had a baby?” Piper asked, not the least bit ashamed to steal her thunder.
    Evie’s eyes widened and she sat down on the bench. “So you know? It was in the diary?”
    “Yes. She came back because of Daria.”
    “Whoa, what? Daria was in that timeline?” Evie glanced at Sam, but her shocked yelp didn’t wake him.
    “That’s why she left,” Piper said. She couldn’t believe she was hungry, for the first time in weeks, and went to the fridge to forage for something until Mellie got home from her nursing classes. “I don’t know what happened to the baby, though.”
    She turned around with a jam jar and the butter dish in her hands and the look on Evie’s face made her appetite shrivel. She put everything back and sat down at the table.
    “You know?” she asked.
    “Yes,” Evie stammered. Her hands shook as she spread out the papers in front of Piper, their translations carefully written out on separate sheets. “The baby was your mother.”

Chapter 7

    Lachlan checked his brother’s arm and shook his head, half in disgust, half in defeat. The knife wound was little more than a scratch, but it was alarming that Quinn had been attacked at all.
    The Glens were getting impatient in their anger. Ever since the disappearance of the man who spied on them in the woods, the suspicion level had risen tenfold. Quinn wasn’t doing anything to help. He was useless at maintaining a low profile, couldn’t hold his tongue to save his life, and wherever he went, women fell all over him.
    “Are ye sure this wasna a jealous husband?” Lachlan asked.
    He straightened the bandage and thumped his brother’s arm just above the slice, unable to hold back a smile of satisfaction at Quinn’s wince of pain.
    “I dinna think so,” he said, rubbing his arm. “It could be someone I beat at cards. I dinna know.”
    He had the audacity to scowl at Lachlan, who wanted more than anything to hit him again, and harder, but he needed to keep a united front for Pietro’s sake.
    They were both growing sick of living amongst the Glens, Pietro most of all. A fortnight had passed since the