“What about sending me to the past and back again?” Scarlett asked. “You were nowhere near me when that happened.”
“Me either,” Emmy added.
Donell shrugged as if he were tiring of the whole conversation. “In yer bag ye’ll find a gold disk aboot the size of a pound sterling. If ye could find it among all that nonsense ye carry aboot wi’ ye, that is. ‘Tis a marker I slipped in there when we first met. Wi’ it, I can track or move ye anywhere from my home base.”
Appalled, Scarlett wanted to dig it out of her purse immediately and stomp it into bits. She might feel for Donell now, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to be able to yank her chain whenever it pleased him.
“Why? Why have you done all this?”
It was the final piece of the puzzle. The final question she had for him. The one they all had.
“I’ve had a second chance to set my failures to rights,” he said, which was no answer at all. “’Tis no’ for ye to ken or to worry aboot. I’ve spent years browsing through time. Tweaking this and that to set time straight. I look at ye and I’m proud of what I’ve done. Proud of ye.”
“And our baby?” Claire inquired, returning to Hugh’s bedside. “Hugh insists our baby is part of all this.”
“Aye, lass. It is.” Donell nodded, his elfin features folding into a smile for the first time. “Because of yer bairn, my time will be saved. Billions of people saved.”
One over the other, they all besieged him with more questions, but Donell was finished with being so forthcoming. They had the necessary answers, he insisted. More than they really needed to know.
“Now the time has come to send ye all back home,” he said at last. “Then I believe I’ll take a much-earned vacation in the early-nineteenth century, far away from all of ye and yer constant nattering. Are ye ready then?”
To Scarlett’s surprise, Emmy and Connor both hesitated. Reluctant to leave. As was she. They’d become a family over the past few weeks. Close as brothers and sisters. It would be heartbreaking to leave them all behind.
“I can’t believe I’ll never see all of you again,” Emmy said.
Unexpected tears filled Emmy’s eyes. Scarlett had never thought to see the usually bold woman so emotional. But then, she was too. Sorrow tugged at Scarlett’s heartstrings.
Emmy brushed her tears away then glanced up at Connor with a tender smile. “Yes, I’m ready to go back where I belong.”
Donell nodded and they all braced themselves. Nothing happened. To the last, they looked at him for direction.
“Och, ye’ll have to be taking the car back to Dunskirk first, aye?” He waved a hand petulantly. “Time, no’ space, aye? Besides ye dinnae want to go back dressed like that!”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Emmy complained.
Why would he, Scarlett thought, when he so enjoyed having another hoop for them to jump through?
Scarlett
It was dark by the time they made it to Dunskirk.
They’d waited for the baby to be officially released from the hospital and Hugh as well so he could join in their goodbyes. And they’d retrieved a few belongings from the hotel, including their original clothing and car seats for the baby and Hermione.
They’d stopped at a secluded spot along the way to change their clothing. Donell was right, it wouldn’t do to shock everyone at home with her showing up in pants.
Their two cars pulled up side by side in the empty parking lot. At least there wouldn’t be an audience to witness their coming and going this time.
A moment after their arrival, Donell joined them, having preferred his peculiar method of travel to their more primitive one.
“Ready then?” The question wasn’t really much of a question. More a move for action.
Emmy embraced Claire, kissed her cheek and smiled at her affectionately. “I’m so proud to know I’ll have such a kind and wonderful great-great granddaughter.” She turned to Hugh and kissed him, too. “Take good care of her.”
“I will,” Hugh vowed and returned her kiss. He shook hands with Connor.
More farewells, tearful yet joyous, as they all hugged and kissed one another. No impossible promises to write. To call.
Scarlett held on to Hugh the longest, thanking him again for all he’d done for her girls. She knew she’d leave a piece of her heart here when she returned home. That was okay. She’d learned there were more rewards than risks in caring deeply.
Emmy even hugged Donell.
The cantankerous old man backed away, glassy-eyed. “None of that. Are ye ready?”
“Yes—no, wait!” Scarlett ignored Donell’s impatient eye roll and turned to Rhys. What was in her mind would be difficult for her heart to accept. “Rhys, I think you should stay here.”
Shock hardened his handsome features. “What? Why would ye suggest such a thing?”
Why? Fate had been unkind to Rhys. First putting him an intolerant time when it came to homosexuality. Then taking the life of the young man he’d anticipated sharing the rest of his life with. In the twenty-first century, he’d thrive free of societal confines and have a chance to truly be himself for the first time in his life. He deserved it.
Besides, he loved it here. More than any of them, he’d fit perfectly into the time. Maybe better than she ever had in her whole life. A little old-fashioned, perhaps, but adaptable.
She tried to explain it to him but he shook his head, jaw clenched. “I want nae part of a world wi’ a jackanapes like Jack Prescott in
