Tears filled her eyes. “No one has ever said that to me before.”
“They’re all pigheads.”
She breathed easily against his skin, her breasts caressing him slightly as her rib cage moved. She traced her finger down his chest.
“Tell me about yer home,” he said. “Tell me about the far away.”
His lungs stopped working as he waited for her answer. This all felt too good to be true. He’d need to take her back to Inverlochy. Destiny wouldn’t let her be his forever. If God was willing, Ian would protect his lands against the Sassenachs. But then she’d be gone, too.
And that would be his punishment for the countless deaths he had caused so that he could live. For keeping the lass here, despite knowing that the enemy was coming. For these selfish acts.
Kate briefly closed her eyes, gathering her inner strength. She needed to go to save Deli Luck, she needed to go to take care of her sister and her nephew. She needed to take part in that TV show if it wasn’t too late.
Sooner or later, this magical dream where she had fallen in love with a Highlander would be over. And Ian had told her the truth about himself. He’d told her the most difficult thing he’d ever done.
She wanted to tell him the truth, too, no matter how crazy it would sound, no matter if he believed her or not. It was important that she was honest with him.
Because that was what they were. Honest with each other.
Would he believe her? Her purse with the only objects she had from her time was now with the English; otherwise, she could have shown him the date on the bottle, and the money, and the credit cards. He wouldn’t have doubts then.
But he’d asked her, and she’d tell him.
Kate pushed up from his chest and propped herself with her hand on the bed. She gathered the blanket to her chest to cover her nakedness and also as a gesture of protection, to shield herself from the pain she was about to inflict on both of them.
“I must tell you where I really come from, Ian,” she said. “But you may not believe me. In fact, you most probably won’t.”
He frowned and sat straight up, all easiness gone.
“Do you remember I told you I was from so far away you wouldn’t believe me?”
His gaze grew so intense, his eyes were like black coals in the semidarkness of the room. “Aye.”
She swallowed. “It’s not the distance that’s far. It’s time.”
He shook his head. “Time?”
“When you found me in Inverlochy, I had just traveled in time. I was born in 1989 in another country, the United States of America.”
He narrowed his eyes, studying her as though he was struggling to understand her.
“What are ye saying, lass?”
“In Inverlochy, there’s a rock… It was carved by the Picts, and there’s some sort of magic that allows people to travel through time.”
He shook his head again in disbelief.
“Lass—”
“I know, it sounds crazy. But however crazy it is, it’s true. Back in 2020, I met this woman—Sìneag. She told me about the legend of a rock that opens a tunnel under the river of time. In 2020, Inverlochy stands ruined, and I—”
She remembered the rude advances of Logan Robertson.
“I slipped and fell and hit my head. I think I had a concussion and probably that’s why I lost my memory. But I remember crawling through the darkness, disoriented, panicked, looking for a way out. And there, in the darkness, glowed that carving of a river and a tunnel, and there was this handprint in the stone. And I laid my hand there. I touched it. And I felt like I literally fell through the stone.”
She sighed. “The next thing I remember, is you.”
She let out another long breath.
There. All of the cards were on the table, and it was up to him whether he’d pick them up or not.
Ian blinked. “I want to believe ye, I do. Aye, that does sound like madness. Or like ye hit yer head verra hard. But I…” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “Ye havna judged me or rejected me after I told ye the worst part of my life. And I wilna judge or reject ye, either. I see ye believe ye are from the future. I will assume—at least for now—that ye are.”
Kate squeezed his hand.
“I believe the Highlands are full of magic, and we are a superstitious people. We still believe in faeries and kelpies and loch monsters. Mayhap, there’s the time traveling rock somewhere in Inverlochy.”
Kate smiled, lightness filling her chest. Did he really believe her? “Thank you.”
“Aye. Well. Yer strange manner of speaking. Yer unique cooking. The strange materials in yer purse.”
She nodded. “Yes. It’s all modern. I can’t help it. That’s what I know from back home.”
His face went blank. “Home…”
Kate’s smile fell. “Home.”
“Tell me about it.”
Kate looked at her hands.
“Home is with my sister, Mandy, and my nephew, Jax…”
She then told him everything. Even about her workaholic mom. Her childhood full of neglect and struggle. About Mandy’s depression. About Deli Luck.
Kate remembered the day Mandy and she had bought the restaurant.
They’d walked into the building, and Kate’s head had spun from happiness. There was nothing in there, just empty walls, big windows, and hardwood floors. It smelled like dust.
“I like the blinds,” Mandy said, looking at the windows. Jax, who was three, sat in his stroller and played with a police car that went wee-oww wee-oww.
The sun shone through the windows and the
