“If by bairns you mean children, then no, I don’t.”
“A man . . . a husband?”
Ali shook her head. She didn’t, not for the last five months. And Drew Sanderson was one person she wouldn’t miss. He was a lying, disloyal slimebal , who not only broke her heart; he did a good job destroying her rep utation while he was at it.
“Mother, father . . . a family of any kind?”
“No,” Ali snapped. She didn’t need this woman to
LORD OF THE ISLES
35
remind her how little she had left behind. “But I have a friend and my career.” Now that just sounded pathetic.
“You can make friends here, lass, and we’re in need of a healer.” The older woman gave her a sympathetic smile.
“No . . . no, I can’t stay here. I won’t.” Ali’s chest tight
ened, panic inching toward hysteria. “Don’t you under
stand? I’m not like you. For God’s sake, I’m from the twenty-first century!” She closed her eyes to keep from crying. Memories of her childhood crowded in on her. The images tormented her. The fear and rejection she’d felt, being shipped from one foster home to another after her mother’s death, mirrored the emotions that now threatened to overwhelm her. “I can’t,” she whispered. “Please, please, just send me home.”
Iain grabbed her by the arm. “Are you sayin’ the fairies stole you from the future?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “Fergus, can you believe it? She’s from the future! Oh, Ali, there’s so much I want to—”
“Quit yer blatherin’, lad. Can you no’ see the lass is havin’
a hard time of it?” Fergus said, watching her with concern.
“Drink this, lass. Come on, there’s a good girl.” Mrs. Mac pressed a cup to her mouth. Ali took a deep swal ow. The liquid burned a path to her stomach, and her eyes watered. She swiped a hand across her mouth. “What the hel is that?”
“Uisge na beatha.” Fergus grinned. “Not many a lass can stomach it.”
“Why doona’ you take a wee nap?” Mrs. Mac sug
gested, patting her shoulder.
Ali shook her head. “No, I’l go and sit with Rory.” She’d see to her patient, and after she reassured herself he would be al right, she’d work on a plan to get out of this nightmare.
“Lass, you canna’ tel my brother about the fairy flag.”
“Why not? Maybe he’l agree to use the flag to send me home.”
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“Nay, I swear to you, he wouldna’ do it. My brother puts the wel -being of the clan above al else. ’Tis why he canna’
find out. He’d kil me if he kent what I did.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t, Iain.” But the look on the faces of Mrs. Mac and Fergus reminded her she didn’t know Rory MacLeod. The man was a warrior, very different from the men she knew. She’d been thrust into a time where brutal ity was an everyday occurrence. One more reason she had to find a way home. The fairy flag was the key, and if they weren’t going to help her, she’d find it on her own.
“Aye, lass, if he didna’ kil me, for truth he’d never for
give me, and I canna’ live with that.”
Ali sighed. How could she fault him when his only crime was that he loved his brother? She knew she wouldn’t be able to make him suffer because of it. “I won’t tel him, Iain, I promise. I know you were only trying to save him. It’s not your fault those damn fairies picked me to do the honors.”
A look of relief lightened Iain’s handsome features.
“You’l forgive me then?” he asked, taking ahold of her hand.
Ali nodded. “You, but not your fairies.”
He pressed her hand to his lips. “Thank you,” he mur
mured.
Mrs. Mac cuffed the back of his head. “There’l be none of that, Iain MacLeod.”
“Can I no’ kiss the lass’s hand?”
The older woman folded her arms across her ample chest. “Nay, she’d no’ be fer you, lad.”
Iain frowned. “And who would you be thinkin’ she’s fer?”
Ali opened her mouth to protest, but before she could get a word out, the woman said, “The fairies sent her fer yer brother.”
