A Highlander’s Homecoming Read Online Free Page A

relatively secluded clearing not far from the ruins of where his family keep had stood in the thirteenth century. He and Leah, dressed in authentic garb for where they were bound, sat on horseback, waiting for the moment they would travel into the multicolored lights of the Faerie Magic.
    Robert cocked an eyebrow and leaned down toward the two women, waiting for whatever they wanted totell him. He knew there was no rushing them. Cate would finish in her own good time. From the looks she and Mairi exchanged, this clearly concerned something the two of them had already discussed.
    “You do understand that there are no guarantees for how the Faerie Magic works, right?” Cate glanced to Mairi once more.
    “And you realize we’ve little control over the process if the Magic itself takes over,” Mairi added as her fingers worried at her long blond braid. “It’s no at all a scientific process.”
    Robert nodded, watching both of them closely. He knew them too well. There was more. He could feel it in his bones. “I never thought it was. And?”
    Cate needlessly cleared her throat. “You’re going back to a time when you’re not supposed to exist. If the Magic seeks to equalize what should be with what is, you could be in real trouble. There’s a chance that because of your unique situation you could be in even more danger than anyone else who might go back.”
    “Mairi survived the same herself, did she no?” This woman standing in front of him had returned to a time where she wasn’t supposed to exist, either, and she’d come back from it unharmed.
    Cate glanced to Mairi, who avoided his gaze, instead looking down at the braid she held in her hand. Nerves? That wasn’t a sign he liked to see from women as powerful as these two.
    “It’s not quite the same, Robbie.” Cate shook her head and took a deep breath before continuing. “When we pulled Mairi from the past, we did so under the assumption that she
would
be killed. Nothing had actuallyhappened to her yet. You had already received a mortal wound. There was no doubt as to what your fate would have been if we’d left you behind. It was only by bringing you to our time, by getting you immediate medical attention that didn’t even exist in your time, that your life was saved.”
    Mairi stopped twisting the end of her braid long enough to add, “We just can’t be sure what will happen. You know how Pol always says we can’t change history, only alter the circumstances? Well, yer being alive in that time is no what history had in store for you. If you want, Robbie, there’s still time to change your mind about going. One of the others can take Leah back.”
    Robert snorted his derision, smiling down at the women in an attempt to reassure them. “If that’s the problem, then we’re simply looking at it all wrong. Instead let’s choose to think of my being there as a small alteration of history’s course, no an attempt to change it. How’s that work for you? There’ll be no changes in our plans at this late date. My decision’s firm. I’m the one who’s going, so let’s get on with it.”
    Robert gritted his teeth against his irritation. Wasn’t that just a lovely bit of news they’d saved up for him? Not only was he staring down the possibility of never being able to return to the time he’d come to love and think of as his own, but now he’d also need to keep an eye out for the Magic trying to eliminate him entirely from the spot where he was headed. So bloody typical of the damned Fae. Their magic was as fickle as a redheaded woman.
    No matter. He didn’t need a lot of time. Just enough to settle Leah and to keep his promise to Thomas.Surely he could manage to stay alive long enough to accomplish two simple tasks.
    “Okay, then,” Cate said loudly as she and Mairi backed away from the horses and toward the trees where Cate’s young daughter, Rosie, waited. “You have Leah’s envelope with directions to Dun Ard, right?”
    “I don’t