I could only hope Bri’s face would look half as surprised. I waved as I spoke to her. “Don’t worry. I won’t attack you this time.”
Baodan dismounted from the horse, and looked up at me in utter bewilderment. “Do ye know her, lass? That isna Bri, ye know.”
Blaire stepped out of the stall and made her way quickly over to Baodan, wrapping her arms around him as if he were her long lost brother. “Aye, she knows I’m no Bri. We’ve met before.”
“How?”
Baodan reached up to help me off the horse, but I wouldn’t take his hand. Instead flipping over so that my belly touched the horse’s back, I slid off onto the ground.
Once I grounded myself, Blaire pulled away from Baodan and moved to give me a hesitant hug before stepping away. She remained skittish around me. Not that I could blame her. The first time I saw her, I’d mistaken her for Bri. I thought Bri pretended to be someone else and it made me so angry, I’d attacked her in one of my most regrettable ginger moments.
Blaire reached out to touch Baodan’s arm. “Ach, I forgot that ye dinna know. Before we were engaged, I’d been living forward in time. In the same time that Bri and Mitsy here come from.”
That was news to me. It was my turn to look bewildered. “What? You two were engaged?”
Baodan shook his head and started to move Artair into an empty stall. “Long story, and one that doesna need to be told. Blaire, will ye take Mitsy to her?”
She reached out for my arm and together we left the stables. “Aye, o’course. I was only tending to the new colt here. I’ll send Eoin and Arran out for ye, and they’ll see ye inside once ye’ve seen to yer horse.”
As we left Baodan, Blaire pointed up to a high window near the top of the castle. “I expect we will find her nursing the baby. I hope the wee thing isna sleeping. If she is, it willna be for long with the way Bri will scream at the sight of ye.”
“Baby?”
She didn’t answer, only nodded and grinned as she led me inside the castle.
*
We only just turned down the hallway that held the room where Blaire seemed to think Bri would be when I heard an American accent whisper quite loudly behind me.
“Oh my God! Mitsy!”
I turned to see Bri’s mother, Adelle, walking toward me excitedly, a sleeping bundle wrapped in her arms. I smiled as I met her, shocked for the third time in a matter of minutes. “Adelle! What are you doing here? Is there anybody that Morna hasn’t got her witchy claws on?”
“Oh, I guess you didn’t come here on your own then did you, dear? Don’t be too hard on Morna though, she knows what she’s doing. She wouldn’t have sent you here unless you needed to be here.”
I reached over to embrace Adelle, making sure not to squish the sleeping babe. I lifted the blanket to get a better look at the beautiful dark-headed girl. I thought I might cry at the happiness I felt for Bri as I looked down at the small child. Bri always wanted nothing more than a family of her own. “She’s beautiful. What a happy grandma you must be.”
“Happy indeed, I’m even married myself now.”
I’d never seen Adelle look so happy. The seventeenth century seemed to agree with the Montgomery women. “Get it, Adelle!” I winked at her, knowing she was as crass as me and wouldn’t be offended. “Is he good to you?”
She chuckled once and then stopped so she wouldn’t wake the baby. “Too good. I’m not worthy of him, but I don’t plan on letting him go any time soon. Bri’s in there.” She pointed in the direction Blaire and I were headed. “I told her I’d get little Ellie asleep so that she could get a little nap in herself. Go in there and wake her up. She’ll be so excited to see you, she’ll think she’s dreaming.” She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek before starting off down the hallway. “Love you, sweetie. We’ll talk more later.”
With Adelle gone, Blaire waved me over to the doorway and opened it just a crack before whispering in my direction. “There ye go. I’m off to find the lads.”
I crept in to the room and walked over to the edge of the bed, grinning as I looked down at her. She slept as she always did, with her hands above her head and her mouth hanging wide open. It would’ve been kinder for me to allow her to sleep, but it also would have been totally out of character.
I gave her a light shake as I spoke. “Wake up, sleepy head. Turns out you’re not as bat shit crazy as I thought. I really worried about you for a while.”
Her eyelids flickered open slowly, and I laughed as I watched her eyes adjust. When they finally did, she all but tumbled out of the bed in her rush to stand so that she could look at me properly.
“Mitsy! Oh my gosh, I hoped you would come, but I wasn’t sure if you ever would. Did you get the letter?”
She wrapped her arms around me in a hug so tight I could scarcely breathe. I patted her back in an effort to get her to release me, but she would only do so when she was good and ready. “I did find your letter. Let’s sit down.”