“Grace? Ye care verra much about the lass, aye?”
Eoghanan nodded. “Aye, far too much and too soon as well.”
“There is no such thing as too soon if ’tis a match that is destined. While Grace doesna know it yet, ye do, I can tell. ’Tis destined, lad, so though she might need some help, when ye decide to tell her, she’ll believe ye in time.
*
Cooper couldn’t see them, but he listened attentively, his back flat against the side of the kitchen wall. Please don’t let Mom catch me. Please don’t let Mom catch me. He repeated the words over and over again in his mind, not wishing to be caught eavesdropping once again.
Waiting until E-o’s heavy footsteps walked up the stairs, and Morna’s voice hollered after Jerry as she exited the front door, he silently made his way into the living room.
He knew Mom liked E-o. He’d never seen her get dressed up so nice just for dinner. Cooper liked E-o, too. He even thought that maybe Dad liked him all right.
If Mom needed help believing in the magic, then he’d be the perfect helper.
He’d noticed the black, shiny rock E-o had held this morning. Now the rock lay on the small table in the center of the room. Sticking his head out in the hallway and looking both directions for good measure, he scurried quietly over to the table.
Picking up the rock, he slipped it securely away in the pocket of his jeans.
Chapter 17
McMillan Castle
Present Day
Eoghanan imagined ghosts felt much the same way when they traveled the halls of their homes, silently watching over loved ones. As he roamed through the empty dining hall now lit with the same electrical hanging lamps that hung from the ceilings of Morna’s home, a strange realization hit him—although he couldn’t see them, he imagined that his family ate in this very room at much the same time of day—only hundreds of years in the past. They wouldn’t know that he stood among them, oblivious of his unseen presence so many years in the future.
Shaking his head to push the nostalgia away, Eoghanan wandered up the stairs to his old bedchamber continuing his search for Cooper as he’d promised the boy he would. Trying to remember what the lad had told him to call in warning, he spoke out to the empty room. “Ready or no, here I come.”
The room truly did look much the same, thanks to many rounds of restorations. Red ropes meant to keep visitors away from certain items lined the furnishings, ropes that he and Cooper ignored entirely during their game of hide-and-seek. They were the only visitors at the castle this day, thanks to Morna, so it became their playground.
Eoghanan stepped over the rope to open a chest, not his chest but one much like it, near the end of the bed. Cooper sat crouched down inside.
“Found ye.”
“Oh man, I thought this was such a good one. How do you keep finding me?”
Eoghanan looked around to ensure that Grace hadn’t wandered in on them. “Have ye kept our secret, Cooper?”
“About the magic and you being like really, really old and stuff? Yeah, of course I have.”
Eoghanan laughed loudly, the sound of it echoing off the walls. “I am no verra old, Cooper. Why do ye think that?”
The young boy held his hands palms up, shrugging a bit as he spoke. “Well, if you can travel in time and you were born close to the dinosaurs, then you’re really old.”
“No verra close to the dinosaurs, but ’tis no me point. If ye have kept the secret this long, perhaps I can tell ye another, aye?”
“Yeah, I can keep it.”
“This castle is where I was born. In me own time, ’tis where I live. This is me own bedchamber.”
“Awwwesome. So, when are you gonna tell Mom?”
It was the very question he’d asked himself all day. It seemed the best place, at his home, the place he loved most in the world. “I doona know.”
“Don’t you like her?”
Eoghanan smiled, taking Cooper by the hand and walking toward the staircase where they sat down next to one another.
“Aye, I like her verra much. ’Tis why I doona know if I should tell her, even though I want to.”
Cooper regarded him skeptically. “That doesn’t make any sense, E-o.”
“Aye, ye may be right. Ye see, we are still verra new to each other, yer mother and I, but I care about her verra much. That doesna mean that she feels the same way. If I did tell her about the magic, ’twould be so that she might consider returning home with me—along with ye and yer father, if ye wish it. She’s only known me a week.”
“A week is a real long time.”
Cooper sat with his elbows on his knees, his palms cupping his small face. He was an intelligent child; fun, curious, kind, and in that moment, Eoghanan knew that he loved him. The boy’s presence awakened a desire within him to be a father; a desire he’d not known he’d ever had. If he could love the boy so quickly, after only a week, why couldn’t he love the boy’s mother as well?