Love Beyond Compare (Book 5 of Morna’s Legacy Series) (22 page)

“Yes, Coop. We’re going to try, although I don’t know what Morna will be able to do about it. I don’t have very much faith in the lunatic.” My blood pressure rose just thinking about her.
 

“What’s a lunatic?”

“A crazy person. I know you like her, but I’m really not excited about seeing her.”

Cooper scooted off my lap and stood, holding a hand to help pull me up. “She’s not crazy, Aunt Jane. You just haven’t gotten the chance to know her. She’s a really swell gal.”

A laugh loud enough to echo escaped me, and I had to quickly stifle it, remembering the strangers that were inside the castle. “A really swell gal? Before we got here, did you visit the nineteen-fifties, Coop?”
 

“Nah, I heard Bebop say that about some lady he met in the village back home. I thought it sounded pretty neat.”

“I see.” We started to make our way back toward Adwen and Orick. “Well, you can think she’s ‘swell’ all you want to. I do not share that opinion.”

“She will change your mind before you go back.”

I scoffed. “Would you like to place money on that?”

Cooper laughed, pulling on my hand so that I would look down at him.
 

“Of course not, Aunt Jane. I’m only six years old. I don’t have any money.”

CHAPTER 29

“Just what is it that ye’d like us to steal, lass? Is thievery no punishable in this time?”

I walked past Adwen to look around the corner once more. The car that had pulled up in front of the castle nearly five minutes ago still sat empty and running. Whoever it belonged to would come back for it soon and, frankly, I didn’t see that we had many other options other than to make our getaway in it before that happened.

“Okay, first of all, it is a car. It will get us to Morna’s by morning. If we walk, it will take us days. Second of all, we aren’t stealing anything. We are borrowing it. We will return it along with some apology money that Cooper will convince Morna to give us. On top of that, she can probably make them forget it was ever taken. How else do you plan for us to get there? I don’t see any horses around, do you? The stables are shambles.”

Adwen shook his head as he paced. “It doesna seem right, lass. Canna ye ask them if we might borrow it?”

I laughed. “Adwen, I appreciate you being so noble, I really do, but we look like a band of crazies dressed as we are. They don’t know us. They have no reason to trust us, and it’s clear we aren’t in any real distress. I don’t even have any money or personal belongings to leave behind as collateral.”

Nothing I said relieved the look of concern on Adwen’s face. Orick, on the other hand, looked as pleased as the night I’d kissed him.
 

“Hush, Adwen, doona be such a wee babe. Jane knows the way of this time when we doona. ’Tis her decision to make. Why make a three-day journey when we can borrow this strange man-made animal and be there by morning?”

“Exactly.” I threw Orick a smile in thanks for his support and, seeing a light switch off inside the castle, decided we couldn’t wait a moment longer. “You guys start running toward the road. I’ll pick you up as soon as I make it out of the driveway.”

I could hear Adwen start to protest, but I didn’t stop as I ran to the car. Throwing a quick glance over my shoulder, I could see them take off toward the road just ahead of the car to wait for me.

Inside, I found a purse sitting in the passenger seat and took a moment to make sure there weren’t any other personal items inside. Setting the bag on the gravel next to the car, I whispered a quick apology and took off toward the men.
 

*
 
*
 
*

It was a joy to watch Adwen and Orick discover the miracle of car-travel. I’d been wrong to expect shock and fear from them. Instead, they both exuded a childlike sense of wonderment with everything new they came in contact with. It made me wonder how different my first experience with time travel would have been if only I’d had any idea it was coming. Too bad, I’d never know.

We were packed like sardines inside the small compact, but neither man seemed to mind—each of them just pulled their knees in tight and smiled wide the whole way. Cooper and I spent the entire ride to Morna’s giggling so hard our sides hurt.
 

I’d driven the car slowly down the driveway to pick them up, but once everyone was inside I accelerated to a normal cruising speed as quickly as I could—Adwen and Orick both let out deep, guttural screams of joy. To these two seventeenth-century Highlanders, a car ride equated to the most extreme of high-paced rollercoaster rides.
 

Once they got over the initial surprise of traveling at such a high speed, they both rolled down the windows and stuck their heads out like dogs, only crawling inside once the tips of their noses were red from the cold. Cooper and I waited them out patiently, shivering in our seats. As soon as the windows were rolled up, I turned the heater up full blast. As expected, this resulted in a series of ‘oohs’ and ‘awws’ so grand, I wondered if I’d ever be able to get either of them back to the past—they seemed to be enjoying everything so very much.
 

“How does it work, lass?” Orick sat in the back seat with Cooper and reached his hand up in between the two front seats to feel the flow of the air with his fingers.
 

“I don’t have the slightest idea.”

Cooper laughed and reached up to tap him on the shoulder. “Hey, Orick, you’re blocking all the warm air.”

“Sorry, lad.”

“That’s okay. Hey, Aunt Jane, turn on the radio and let them hear that!” Cooper bobbed up and down excitedly in his seat as he spoke.
 

As angry as I was a few hours earlier, I never imagined this journey forward would be so much fun.
 

“Oh gosh, Coop. I don’t know if they can handle that.”

Adwen leaned over from his seat beside me and playfully pinched my arm. “Ach, Jane, I’m certain we can.”

 
“Fine, but this is going to be loud, guys. Please, don’t jump and make me swerve off the roadway. I’d prefer we all get there in one piece.”

Hesitantly, I flipped the switch on. The grandiose voice of an opera singer swept through the car.

Cooper and I said nothing. Not wanting to miss the expression on either man’s face, I reached up to turn on the interior light in the car. Their jaws literally hung halfway open.
 

“Where does it come from? Do ye have a fairy trapped in the…the heat holes?”
 

Orick pointed toward the air vents. Cooper bent over in his seat, collapsing with laughter.
 

“We need to bring people here more often, Aunt Jane. This is the funnest time I’ve had in my whole life.”

It was the most comedic thing I’d ever seen, but I had no intention of making the trip back and forth very often, so I ignored his statement, instead moving on to try and explain the concept of the radio as best I could.
 

It felt like trying to teach a dolphin how to dance. Every other word or thing I mentioned was so foreign, it only confused them further. Eventually, they decided they didn’t really need to know how it worked, and we passed the remaining hours moving from one point of fascination to the next.
 

It was after midnight when we arrived at Morna’s inn. Cooper was the first to get out of the car, running to the front door as fast as he could.
 

I followed after him, leaving Adwen and Orick to untangle their cramped legs and take a moment to stretch. When I approached Cooper, I found him holding an envelope and wearing a weary expression that told me he didn’t want to tell me what was inside.

“You’re not going to be very happy about this, Aunt Jane, but before I give it to you, will you promise to remind me to tell Morna thank you when we see her? She didn’t write in cursive this time, so I could read it.”

My teeth ground together in anticipation of whatever bad news was headed my way. “What do you mean, when we see her? Surely, you can remember to tell her thank you until we step inside.”

“Umm…why don’t you just look for yourself?”

He handed me the envelope, and I read the words as quickly as I could.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Jane. I’m sure glad I didn’t let you bet me money.”

I shook my head, reaching for the key underneath her mat.
 

“You have got to be freaking kidding me.”

CHAPTER 30

I didn’t wait for Adwen and Orick to let myself in. With Morna away, there was no reason to make introductions. Besides, I couldn’t stand to wait another minute to see what sort of perfectly manipulated plan Morna had laid out for us.
 

“Are you very angry, Aunt Jane?”
 

Cooper followed closely at my side, gauging my reaction to Morna’s letter closely.
 

“Well, I’m not pleased, Coop.” A pain—a nagging sort of headache that made me want to close one eye and squint the other sprung up as I looked down at the accent table inside the entryway.

“But...did you see where we have to meet her? That’s good, isn’t it? Maybe we can even stop in and see Grandfather and Grandmother. I don’t really want to, but it might be good to show them I’m alive.”

I looked down at him and he stopped talking, probably realizing that my parents were the last thing I needed to think about when I was already about to have a stroke.
 

He was right about one thing—if we had to go anywhere else, I was glad it was New York. But even that, I didn’t trust. What was the chance that of all the places in the world, Morna had chosen the one place I so desperately missed? My guess was she knew that, but why she cared, I didn’t know. That made me incredibly nervous.
 

I shuffled through the documents on the accent table just inside the doorway. Four passports, four airline tickets, and one credit card with my name on it and a little sticky note that said, No credit limit and it all charges to my account. Enjoy.

“And they think I’m the thief.” I turned and leaned against the table so I could face Cooper.
 

“Huh?”

I handed him the credit card and note. “I said that they thought I was the thief for taking the car. How much do you want to bet this card doesn’t charge to anybody’s account—that the businesses will never get the money for the things we charge to this card?”

He stared at me like I spoke Japanese. Sometimes, it was so easy to forget he was only six years old.
 

“Never mind. Let’s go check on the big boys.”

*
 
*
 
*

Adwen and Orick’s excitement over the car carried over into Morna’s home with just as much exuberance. They enjoyed the brightness of electrically-lit rooms and relished in the updated “chamber pot” known as a toilet.
 

Adwen particularly took a liking to everything there was to explore in the kitchen and couldn’t contain his astonishment at how a microwave could heat something through in a matter of seconds. More than once, I found myself thankful that the microwave wouldn’t turn on without the door being closed, for both grown men had tried to stick their hand inside to see if it would get warm as well.
 

I allowed them to explore with Cooper’s help while I made haste to the bathroom to brush my teeth with one of the four new brushes left out for our use in the bathroom. Electricity and a flushable toilet came as a completely understandable thrill to the Highlanders, but the feel of a fresh toothbrush against my teeth delighted me to no end. Sure, there were ways to clean one’s teeth in the seventeenth century, but none of them measured up. Gosh how I had missed that tingly fresh minty feeling.

Once my gums were deliciously raw and Adwen and Orick were high on sensory overload, I called them into the living room to let them in on the next day’s plans.
 

“It seems the witch and her husband decided to take a vacation at the same time she knew we were coming. She left instructions for us to meet her in New York City. Unless we all wish to return to Cagair Castle and go back home, I suppose we will have to. We’re already here—we should try to do whatever we can for Isobel.

We will spend the night here and then tomorrow, we will drive into Edinburgh where we will catch a mid-morning flight.”

Adwen sat next to me on one of the couches, his thumb lightly tracing the side of my leg. We were all dead on our feet, but the touch of his fingers awakened something within me that didn’t care about it being the middle of the night. I had to brush his hand away to keep my attention focused as Orick spoke.
 

“What is an airplane?”

“Oh gracious, let’s not even get into that today. That can be a whole new fascination for you to experience tomorrow. It’s too late tonight, I think.”

“Aye fine, though I doona understand. The witch knew we were coming for she left the things we would need. Why dinna she just have us arrive where she intends to meet us? If they are capable of bending time, surely they can do such a thing.”

“Yes, well, you would think, wouldn’t you? If I’ve learned one thing about witches—this one in particular—it’s that they like to make things as complicated as possible. I have no idea why she didn’t do just that. Rest assured, I’ll be discussing a great many things with her when we finally get to New York.”