Page 105

Olivia had spent the better part of the day watching Jamie climb around the castle with rope in his hands and a ridiculous grin on his face, making suggestions to the women below while Ewan complained that the newest ghost required more equipment than a fishing boat.

Now that the last of the villagers had gone home, the bells were silent, the linen had been folded and put away, and Jamie stood beside the hearth waiting for her to tell him what was on her mind. He’d offered her tea, which she’d refused then accepted, and promptly forgotten to drink.

“Whatever it is, lass, ye needna look as though I’m about to hang ye from the battlements.”

“You might feel differently in a minute.”

Jamie pulled out the chair across from her, his easy smile still in place. “I’ve had a long acquaintance with trouble, say what’s on yer mind.”

She wanted to laugh, which made what she had to tell him even worse. The harbor had been terrifying, Finlay was lying injured in a fisherman’s house, and she’d spent the day happily helping a village perfect its fraudulent ghost. Jamie trusted her. Ewan trusted her. Every person who’d helped conceal those casks had made room for her in a life that was dangerous enough without harboring a stranger who’d invented almost everything about herself.

“I’m not a widow,” she said.

Jamie’s smile disappeared. He looked at her for a moment, as though he’d heard the words clearly enough but hadn’t yet worked out what they meant.

“There was never a Mr. Bennett. I wasn’t robbed on a journey, and I didn’t come to Glenbrae looking for passage home. At least, I didn’t come here by any ordinary journey.”

He crossed his arms and frowned. “Then who are ye?”

“Olivia Bennett. That much is true. I grew up above my grandmother’s pub in South Boston, and I work with whisky. I was hired to recreate Glenbrae’s legendary spirit, the one people believed was made here in 1786.”

Jamie waited, his hands now resting flat on the table, shirtsleeves rolled up on his forearms. She could hear a loose shutter knocking somewhere above them and knew that if she stopped now, she might never find the courage to begin again.

“The reason I can’t sail to Boston is because I somehow fell through time. On the day everything changed, it was 2026,” she said.

The peat shifted in the hearth. Jamie didn’t move, though she watched his hand curl into a fist, a muscle ticking in his jaw.

“Two hundred and forty years,” he said at last.

“Yes.”

“And ye expect me to believe it?”

“I don’t know what I expect. If somebody walked into the pub and told me that story, I’d probably ask how many drinks they’d had and whether they needed a ride home.”

He didn’t smile. Instead he studied her face, then glanced toward her boots, the black leather with the thick ridged soles he’d admired before he knew her name.

“The things ye were wearing that morning,” he said as he went to the chest and pulled out her clothes. “I’ve never seen cloth like it, nor boots made that way. But there are places in the world I’ve never visited, Olivia. Strange clothes alone willna persuade me that ye stepped out of a century no one here has lived to see.”

He brought the clothes back, examining the fabric and the zipper, jumping when he unzipped it.

“They shouldn’t. All I can do is tell you what happened, and I wish I had something better than my word.”

“A word ye’ve already admitted hasna always been the truth.”

She flinched, although she knew she’d earned that answer. Jamie saw it and looked away toward the hearth, which somehow hurt more than if he’d raised his voice.

“Start with the tunnel,” he said. “Tell me who was with ye and what happened to him.”

Olivia described Calum, one of the men working on the restoration, and the old passage beneath that they’d gone to inspect. She explained the storm, the failing lights, the crash of stone, and the old woman in midnight blue who had appeared where no one ought to have been standing. She told Jamie about the ancient quaich the woman had placed in her hands, the sudden impossible light in the tunnel, and the moment she’d stumbled out onto a hillside that should have been occupied by a modern distillery, its access road, and several rather ugly warehouses.

“Calum was right behind me when everything started to fall,” she said. “I heard him shouting, and then I couldn’t hear anything except the storm. When I came out, you were there and he wasn’t. I think he stayed in my time, but there’s no way to know for certain.”

He rested his forearms on his knees. “And the old woman. Ye’ve seen her since?”

“No. I’ve watched for her every time we’ve gone near the tunnel, when it’s rained, and I’d have searched the whole hillside myself if I’d known what I was looking for.”

“Did she tell ye why she’d sent ye here?”