“It’s time for you to go home now, Uncle,” Robbie said in English, turning to him.

He pulled Ian into a fierce embrace, holding him in his arms for several heartbeats before he kissed his cheek and used his thumb to wipe a tear from the old man’s cheek.

He whispered something to him, clapped his shoulders rather soundly, smiled, and whispered something else.

“Give Ian a hug good-bye, Cat,” Robbie said, pulling her over to them. “You won’t be seeing him again.”

His words hit Catherine like a sharp blow to her heart. She hadn’t thought about never seeing Ian again. She’d never again hear his beautiful lilt, get one of his bear hugs, or gaze into his eyes that wrinkled at the corners.

“Ah, Catherine,” Ian said with a sigh, pulling her into a bear hug. “Ya remember what I told ya about husbands needing time to adjust,” he whispered in her ear. “Just love my nephew and try to laugh more than ya scold, lass. And thank ya for sharing my journey home.”

She was crying so hard she couldn’t see anything when Robbie dragged her away from Ian and tucked her back against his side. The kitten finally settled down again, now that it wasn’t getting squished by Ian’s hug, and Catherine had to use the edge of Robbie’s plaid to dry her own face.

Niall walked up to Ian, stopped long enough to glare at Angus MacBain, and then put his arm around his father and started walking him back across the dam. He stopped, stared at Robbie for several seconds, then nodded and turned to help Ian onto his horse.

Robbie led Catherine off the end of the dam and lifted her up onto a huge, flat boulder.

“Stay put,” he said, his smile softening his command. “I’m just going to free the Snow River, and then I’ll be right back to get you.”

He spoke briefly to Angus, then spun around and scrambled down through the woods, toward the base of the dam. Angus jumped up on the boulder beside her, standing not too close, giving her a grin that was more feral than friendly.

That is, until her chest started wiggling. The old MacBain warrior stepped back, looking as if he thought she might explode. Her passenger popped its head out of her shawl and hissed at Angus. Angus took another step back and pulled the dagger Robbie had given him out of his belt. He held it down by his side in a guarded but unthreatening position.

Catherine caught sight of Robbie just then, scrambling over the large boulders at the base of the dam, examining each one he came to and then scanning the mud and trees above it.

Darn it, what was he doing? If the dam was broke, he would be washed away.

He stopped suddenly, turned to face the dam, and set his hands on two large tree trunks sticking out of the wall of dirt. A collective murmur rose from across the lake, and Catherine looked up to see the MacKeage warriors, Niall with Ian mounted behind him, back their horse up a safe distance away. Angus also backed up with a gasp, taking hold of Catherine’s arm and pulling her with him.

Catherine looked at Robbie and couldn’t stifle her own gasp. The trees were starting to glow like burning embers, whiffs of smoke puffing into the air around them. Robbie suddenly straightened, brushed his hands together, looked up at her, and smiled.

“Get out of there!” she shouted. “You’re going to drown!”

He jumped from boulder to boulder and disappeared into the forest, only to emerge suddenly on the rock beside her. Angus scrambled away, his wide hazel eyes filled with awe and a healthy dose of horror. Robbie spoke to him in Gaelic, and the old man gaped, then slowly nodded and ran into the forest.

“What did you say to him?”

Robbie turned and took her in his arms, locking his hands around her back and leaning his chest away so he wouldn’t squish her passenger. “I told Angus that if he doesn’t quit warring against the MacKeages, I’m going to come back and melt every MacBain sword into a rake or shovel.”

He leaned over the kitten and kissed Catherine’s nose, then straightened and grinned.

“Are you ready to wake up from your dream now?”

She blinked at him, then looked across the lake at the army of MacKeages. She let her gaze travel to the MacBain warriors sitting on their horses on a distant ledge overlooking the dry Snow River, then down at the flaming logs in the dam, and then up at the scarred side of Snow Mountain.

She stiffened and pointed toward the summit. “Wh-Who is that?” she whispered.

Robbie looked where she was pointing, and Catherine felt him stiffen as well as they stared up at the silhouette of a tall man standing on a point of ledge high above them, a sword in one hand and his long, dark hair blowing in the breeze.

“Cùram.”

“The wizard? What’s he going to do?”

“Nothing,” Robbie said softly, looking down at her. “There’s nothing he can do. His tree of spells is destroyed.”

“He’s lost his power, then?”

“Nay, only his ability to plague us,” he said, taking one last look at Cùram before bringing his gaze back to her and smiling. “Are you ready to go home?”

The boulder they stood on suddenly started to vibrate, and the earth began to rumble with gentle vibrations. A tiny trickle of water started near the logs, sputtering the flames into steam, until geysers suddenly spewed in a dozen different directions, shooting the logs free, breaching the dam with an ever widening wall of water.

Catherine nodded. “Yes. I’m ready to go home.”

Robbie gathered her in his fierce embrace, leaving only enough room between them for the kitten and tree root. “Then hold on tight, wife!” he shouted above the wind howling down the mountain, covering her head as the air sizzled around them. “And finally decide that you love me!”

Chapter Twenty-two

The only thingRobbie had to decide during their violent journey home was how he was going to explain to his wife that it didn’t matter if they had stood in front of a priest in modern or medieval times, they were still married in the eyes of God.

The ever tightening vortex exploded with a deafening boom, the winds quieted to a gentle breeze, and the storm disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. Robbie sat up and loosened his grip on Catherine enough to brush the hair from her face so she could look around.

Her eyes swimming with confusion, she stared at his plaid-covered chest, dropped her gaze down to her own clothes, and then lifted her trembling left hand and stared at the ring on her finger. “We’re back on TarStone, but I didn’t wake up,” she whispered.

“But you are awake, Catherine,” he assured her. “See, the sun’s just risen, and that’s the trail of a jetliner making that streak in the sky. And there’s Pine Creek. See the lights in the homes? You’re back in modern time, but you didn’t dream all that’s happened, because you lived it.”

“But… it’s not… I can’t… ”

He covered her lips with his finger. “It’s okay, Catherine. You don’t need to understand how the magic works, only accept it. Embrace the journey we shared, and know that you helped reunite an old man with his family and saved my father and uncles from a great tragedy.”

She couldn’t quit staring at her hand.

“It won’t come off, wife,” he told her. “Not while there’s still breath in my lungs.”

She snapped her troubled eyes to his, her face as pale as the snow-covered summit of TarStone Mountain. “But I don’t want to be married.”

“You’ve decided you no longer think you love me?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” She took a shuddering breath and looked down. “I just don’t… I can’t… can we discuss this later?”

“Aye,” he agreed, lifting her chin. “Until you’re ready to accept our marriage, we will continue as we were before.” He reached out and tugged on the knot of her shawl. “I wonder if our stowaway is ready to give up his security blanket?”

She gasped and looked down at her chest, undoing the knot and pulling out the shivering kitten. “Oh, it’s scared to death.”