Eighteen

M airead sat on a stone bench pushed up against the wall of her ancestral keep and marveled at the changes in her life.

Well, the changes to her post-mortal existence, if she were to be exact. It had always been full of things she had never expected: generations of family passing by her, the doings of men and monarchs parading before her eyes, the turning of the world from dawn to dusk with a constancy that had been particularly soothing.

It had also been full of a sense of waiting, perhaps more than she would have suspected it might be. In that, at least, she almost envied Oliver his not having to wait so long to see her.

Assuming, of course, that such a thing was important to him.

"He's looking pretty ferocious today."

She looked to her left to find Sunshine Cameron watching Oliver thoughtfully. "Do you think so?" she asked.

Sunshine smiled at her. "It's almost as if he's working extra hard to be prepared to have something he wants very much."

Madelyn leaned in from Sunshine's other side. "And that wouldn't be more time with my husband over swords," she said with a smile that was the echo of Sunshine's. "In case you were wondering."

Mairead couldn't help but admit that she was, so she nodded. She looked at the woman sitting on her right and only had a smile in return.

"He's not swearing," Elizabeth offered. "In my experience with Oliver Phillips, that means he's very serious about whatever he's doing. Jamie isn't showing him any mercy, in case you were wondering about that as well."

Mairead nodded over that as well, though she imagined that if she'd had a mortal form, her mouth would have been dry as dust from fear. It was a well-known fact that MacLeod men were terrifying in battle and Jamie was no exception to that. He was showing Oliver no mercy, though Oliver didn't seem to expect any. Perhaps the rub of Oliver's having gone back to try to save her irritated them both equally.

Oliver called peace shortly thereafter, which she suspected he did unwillingly and only because he looked as wrung out as she'd ever seen him. Both Jamie and Patrick spoke with him quietly for a moment or two, no doubt giving him areas for improvement, then all three shook hands like gentlemen and left the field.

Mairead watched Patrick gather up his lady and her sister and escort them back to the hall. Jamie made her a slight bow, then smiled at his wife.

"Where are the bairns?"

"Hopefully not tearing the hall to shreds with the little ones," Elizabeth said cheerfully.

"Young Ian will keep them in check, as he should."

Elizabeth stood up and kissed him briefly. "He has you as his example, my laird, of course."

Mairead watched Jamie harrumph a bit in pleasure and suspected he did it merely for his wife's benefit. He smiled at her briefly before he clapped a hand on Oliver's shoulder, exchanged a look with him she didn't try to decipher, and walked off with his lady around the side of the keep to no doubt use the front door. Mairead rose and smiled a little at the low bow Oliver made her.

"My lady," he said, straightening.

"My—"

"Please," he said with feeling, then he smiled. "You know there's nothing left at the tail-end of my father's stylings for me that requires genuflecting."

"Shall I settle for something sentimental, then?" she asked, trying to match his light tone.

He stroked his chin in a manner that reminded her so much of Jamie, she almost laughed. He considered, then looked at her.

"Beloved?" he suggested.

"Aren't you cheeky," she said with a smile.

He simply waited, smiling faintly.

"Very well, beloved ," she said pleasantly, "let us away and see if there might be something in your book we could accomplish together this afternoon and win you your freedom."

He nodded, though she could see that he was thinking thoughts that would have been termed subversive if looked at in the right light. Then again, she knew what to look for and had years of experience with how Oliver Phillips took on things that either vexed him or intrigued him.

There was a part of her that couldn't help but wonder how it would be to forget all the things she knew about him and meet him again. She suspected that even with her brief relationship with him in the past as a beginning, she would have continued to fall in love with him just as easily.

"You're thinking."

She pulled herself back to the present moment. "A bad habit that you share."

"So I do," he agreed. He rested his sheathed sword against his shoulder and nodded up the meadow. "Moraig's, then?"

She nodded and forced herself to walk with him as if she'd actually been able to feel the earth beneath her feet and the wind in her hair and hear the measured breathing of the man next to her. If she'd dared, she might have even imagined his hand around hers, keeping her close to him as if she'd been something precious that required protecting.

He was quiet, though, and she suspected that his silence spoke of deep thoughts indeed, thoughts that wouldn't be limited to what he might find lurking in the refrigerator behind the green things Patrick's lad Bobby had brought him that morning.

So she clasped her hands behind her back, put her face forward, and decided she would do best to simply wait him out.

She began to wonder, as she sat an hour later in Moraig MacLeod's house—a place she had sat with Moraig MacLeod on several occasions to chat about the lovely things to be found in gardens and meadows—if the idea that she might be able to have an existence where she was a ghost and the man she loved was a beautiful, stubborn, magnificent man might just not be possible.

She looked up as the man himself came out of the luxurious garderobe. After all her years of hobnobbing with mortals, she was accustomed to their manner of garbing themselves. She had to admit, however, that whilst she might not have had a mortal frame any longer, her poor spirit's heart beat just a bit faster at the sight of Oliver Phillips in jeans and a black t-shirt.

He was fussing with his fancy silver watch, which gave her time to get her rampaging emotions under control.

Or, perhaps not.

He looked at her and lifted an eyebrow. "Are you, my lady Mairead, lusting after me?"

"If I had the strength, I would throw something heavy at you," she said, trying to manufacture a scowl for his benefit.

‘Twas impossible. The man was charming and quiet and stubborn and had a very lovely pair of pale blue eyes. She watched him make her a small bow, then excuse himself to make something to eat. She supposed she should have gotten up to at least keep him company whilst he was at his labors, but she couldn't bring herself to move. It was enough to pretend that, had she been a mortal woman, perhaps he would have been her man and they might have been doing nothing more noteworthy than enjoying a holiday together in Moraig's croft.

She couldn't bring herself to entertain the knowledge that there would come a point in his life when he would want a corporeal woman to warm his bed and give him bairns.

She looked up to find him leaning back against the range, studying her thoughtfully.

"What?" she asked crossly.

"I'm thinking about second dates."

She would have blushed if she'd had a proper physical form for it. Then she realized what he was saying.

"Your second dates with other women?" she asked in surprise.

He pushed away from the range and walked across the great room to hunker down in front of her. "Actually, I was thinking about second dates with you."

"Were you?" she managed.

He nodded. "Will you date me now?"

She could scarce believe she could blush in her current state, but apparently ‘twas possible. She looked at him, then nodded.

"Or something maybe a bit more permanent?" he asked quietly.

"Your eggs are burning."

He swore, then jumped up and strode over to rescue them. She watched him quickly prepare the rest of his meal, then come to sit next to her. He ate, but he was a man and likely rarely found himself put off his food.

He finished, put his dishes in the sink, then returned to sit next to her. He looked at her and simply waited.

"What?" she asked finally.

"I asked you about something more permanent than dating," he said gravely.

"Is that a proposal?" she asked.

"You knew me when I was ten," he said dryly. "I would likely be taking a very great chance even asking you out, never mind anything more serious."

"I've lov—erm, I mean been very fond of you for your entire life," she said seriously. "Ask me again another time."

"I'll remind you of this conversation."

"I won't believe you."

"I'll find a way to convince you."

"That won't be difficult."

He smiled briefly, then rose and went to wash up his supper things. She watched him as he did so and suspected he was dragging out the entire business because he was entertaining thoughts he knew she wouldn't care for. She had no trouble divining what those thoughts might be.

He walked over to her, then dropped to his knees in front of her.

"Let me change this," he said quietly.

"Oliver—"

"I beg you."

"How do I agree?" she asked frankly. "How do I leave you alone all those years in your youth?"

"I'll survive."

"I'll forget all the English I've learned," she said, trying to dredge up something that sounded reasonable.

"You can relearn it." He sat back on his heels. "And if you forget all the things you've learned about me over the course of my life, then after I've safely rescued you, you decide that you fancy someone else, I'll survive that too."

"Will you?" she asked in surprise.

He scowled at her. "Of course not," he grumbled. "I'll slink off to a corner and howl off-key pub ditties until you beg me to stop, then I'll begin again with asking you on a first date."

"Well," she said slowly, "I do know you from my mortal past and I'm fairly certain you almost kissed me on our rocky perch on Cameron soil."

"I was afraid you'd clout me in the nose if I tried."

She smiled. "You weren't."

"It's all about timing, love," he said pleasantly, then his smile faded a bit. "I'd like to kiss you for the first time on the edge of the sea, if you want the truth. To make it memorable."

"You'd best not admit that to your mates," she said, feeling a little breathless. "They'll never stop teasing you for being such a romantic."

"I'll bear it," he said, "especially if you won't bloody my nose for attempting it."

She shook her head, but found herself suddenly unequal to any more words. He was in earnest, she knew, and she wasn't sure she could stop him even if she wanted to. Accepting that she wanted him to try one last time was more terrible than she'd suspected it might be.

He shot her a look full of what she suspected might have been a suggestion that she not think so much, then he smiled and pushed himself to his feet. He fed the fire again, then sat down on the soft chair that lay at an angle to hers.

"Time is an odd thing," he said.

"How so, my love?"

He smiled briefly at her, then he shrugged. "I was thinking about Jamie and his endless lectures on the perils of changing the past. I didn't listen and look where it's left us."

"I don't regret the time I had to watch over you."

"I don't either, actually," he said, looking at her seriously, "though those memories are rather newly arrived."

"'Tis odd, that," she mused. "That your memories now hold me, but before you came to Scotland surely you didn't know who I was."

"Yet I knew you somehow. The first night I was at Jamie's, I almost tripped over you at the top of his stairs."

She looked at him in shock. "'Twas the same for me. And I saw you in the forest."

"And I you," he agreed. "Who's to say we wouldn't have echoes of these memories just the same? Then again, you might not want to give up memories of the past four hundred years."

"I've written them down."

"You have?" He sat forward and looked at her in surprise. "How?"

"I can write," she said archly. She smoothed her hair back from her face. "Do you think Mistress Constance Buchanan is the only woman with volumes to her name?"

He laughed a little. "Did you write romances ?"

"Historical fiction," she corrected. "And they were to be, if I may say so, very light on the historical part."

"Where is your book?" he asked, sounding a little breathless. "Or do you have more than one?"

"I haven't gotten to them yet," she admitted, "though I have plans for several. I had even chosen a lad to write them down for me."

He sat back and looked at her with bright eyes. "I have to know the details. Tell me who, where, and what he did the first time you arrived in his study for a wee get-to-know-you chat."

She pursed her lips at him. "He was a Victorian Englishman who'd come to Scotland to document its glories for a yet-to-be-secured audience in London. He had come to stay with the McKinnons, which I suppose was his right given that he hailed from that line. And the first time I approached him in William McKinnon's study as he was sipping on whisky he'd brought with him, he leapt to his feet and dropped his finely cut glass against the stone of the floor." She paused. "I did feel terrible about that."

Oliver was resting his chin on his fist and watching her with an affectionate smile. "I can only imagine. And then?"

"I told him I was his maiden aunt to try to encourage him to stop screaming." She shrugged. "I thought if he considered me a friendly spirit, he might stop taking refuge in senselessness every time I attempted to speak to him."

"Very sensible."

"I thought so," she agreed. "He eventually accustomed himself to me long enough to take down a few tales that he thought were fiction, though they were actually my memories. ‘Twas more palatable for him that way."

"No doubt," he said, nodding. "What happened then?"

"He rushed off to make an appointment with a printer in Inverness, then fell into a bog and drowned."

Oliver put his hand over his eyes, then shook his head and laughed a little. "Oh, Mair," he said with a miserable smile. "I'm sorry."

She couldn't help but return the smile. "It was a bit of a tragedy, especially given that he'd already penned several in his series of essays about traveling through our beautiful land. He put his work in a strongbox that was buried alongside him, though who knows if it survived. He decamped for the south of France two hundred years ago, but I could find him." She paused. "Perhaps."

"I'll help you find him," he promised, then he hesitated. "Would that be enough? Those memories you have written down?"

She looked at him seriously. "I thought we were going to try to make a life as we are," she said quietly.

Though in truth, sitting with the women in Oliver's circle of family and friends that morning whilst pleasant had been difficult. Especially when she'd watched those same women be collected by their men or go off themselves to collect their children and all she'd been able to do was stand and watch.

But what Oliver would give up…

"Jamie lifted his eyebrows this morning," Oliver said. "I think that was meant to give me complete autonomy where the gate in the meadow is concerned."

She pursed her lips at him, but he only smiled in return.

"He stroked his chin twice."

"Thrice," she corrected. "I counted."

"See? I'm sure that signals approval." He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his expression sobering. "Please let me try one more time."

"But your memories," she protested.

"I wrote them down last night."

"I thought you were working on your book from your lads."

He shook his head. "I thought it might be a handy thing to have. And I didn't tell you what I discussed with Zachary yesterday, did I?"

"You did not."

"It was an interesting conversation," he said began carefully. "Do you know anything about your aunt Iolanthe?"

Mairead shook her head. "Who was her father?"

"I didn't get that far," Oliver admitted. "We were too busy discussing the fact that when Thomas met her, she'd been a ghost for almost six hundred years."

Mairead felt the world around her suddenly go very still. That happened occasionally, when something of great import had been on the other side of a few hours or days from where she'd been lingering. She'd felt it several times in the past before happenings in the world or in her clan or, if she were to be precise, in Oliver's life.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt it in relation to her own poor self.

"A ghost," she managed. "How interesting."

"It is," he said carefully. "From what I understand Thomas went back before she was slain and saved her—which is interesting but not the most interesting part. Apparently she wrote down her memories whilst she was a ghost. Or, rather, others wrote them for her as she dictated them."

"As I tried to do with Sinclair McKinnon."

He nodded. "Exactly that. But even though she'd written those things down, she apparently began to remember things all on her own."

"Things from her time as a spirit?"

He nodded slowly.

"But those were her memories," Mairead said quietly, "not her man's. If you rescue me, you'll lose your memories of me."

"I wrote most everything I could remember down," he reminded her. "And I'm going to trust that I'll remember the rest on my own."

"But what will become of you in your youth?" She paused. "I know you survived it without me the first time and I'm not the reason you're a good man—"

"You put beauty where there had been none," he said seriously. "And for that I'm grateful." He smiled. "Perhaps you'll need to pick me a few flowers in the future to make up for it."

She couldn't make light of it. "Oliver…"

"I know what it will mean." He paused and his expression was so serious that it almost brought tears to her eyes. "I'll trade that willingly for a future with you."

She reached out to put her hand on his arm, then stopped when she realized it was pointless. She clasped her hands together instead. "But after your aunt passes, you will be alone."

"It will make having you in my arms again that much sweeter."

She pursed her lips. "You haven't yet had me in your arms."

"That's absolutely not true, but it is something I would like to remedy as quickly as possible."

She smiled uneasily. "Is that so?"

"Are you blushing?"

Her smile faded. "Oliver, I am not—"

His phone rang suddenly. She would have been startled, but she was too old for that sort of thing and it wasn't the first time she'd heard it. He smiled.

"Excuse me a moment. I'm sure it's just the lads telling me where to go find more pages to add to the book of horrors you're helping me finish."

She watched him walk over to Moraig's tiny kitchen and wondered if it might be possible to fix into her soul somehow the memory of things that had been, over the past four centuries, lovely and good. Conversations with others who had taken their turn in her clan, standing on the periphery of happenings of historical significance, watching the seasons continue to turn and marveling at the beauty that was her homeland. She had particularly lovely memories of Moraig and her connection to that procession of the world's turnings.

Perhaps there was some possibility that, as Ambrose said, when she walked the same paths again, the echoes of her memories from each day of those same years in her past would be there waiting for her.

"Let me text you," Oliver said, putting his phone down in the kitchen.

She watched him as he walked over to her, that braw, determined man who had paid such a price in self-discipline to become so fully what he'd become. He knelt down in front of her and looked at her.

"The lads are waiting for us at Cameron Hall."

She attempted a smile. "More pages for your book?"

He shook his head slowly. "Strategy session."

She took a deep breath—well, she went through the motions of the same in hopes that it would calm what should have been her racing heart.

"I don't want to lose my memories," she admitted.

"I know."

"But we might make new ones."

"On every blessed day of all the days that lie before us," he agreed. "And I will remember at least this conversation for the both of us. We can work on the rest as the days go on."

She closed her eyes briefly. "I wish you could hold me."

"Remember that thought."

She smiled at him. "I don't think I'll need to."

He pushed himself to his feet, groaning a little as he did so. "I think that may be all the kneeling I can do for a bit. If I propose on my feet, that's why."

"I won't remember it."

He laughed softly and moved to bank the fire. "I'll remind you."

She watched him finish his work and put the rest of Moraig's house to bed. It was scarce noon, but she felt as if she'd been awake for years.

Which, she supposed, she had.

Oliver picked up his phone when it chirped at him, then looked at her. "Cameron's sending a helicopter."

"I think I'll just wish myself to his front door and save myself the trip with you, thank you just the same."

He shook his head, but he was smiling. "I don't think I want to know how. Will you at least walk with me to the meadow?"

"And keep you far from the gate? Aye, of course."

He smiled. "Everything will be all right, Mairead."

The saints pity her for a lovesick fool, she actually believed him.

She walked with him through the woods and found that there was indeed a helicopter swooping down from the sky like a terrifying bird of prey. She imagined such a thing wouldn't have been able to fit through that gate in the faery ring, but she couldn't help but wish it could have and she could have watched Kenneth faint from his terror over the sight.

She suspected she might have a bit of work still to do on forgiving a few souls in her past.

Oliver stopped and looked at her. "You'll meet me there," he said, pinning her to the spot with the force of his gaze alone.

How could she not? She nodded. "I will."

"If you get there before me, please wait for me."

She could only nod.

She watched him climb into the little glass ball, then continued to watch as the blades attached to its top spun madly and lifted the beast off the ground. She watched Oliver hold up his hand to her and she returned the gesture.

She closed her eyes and pretended to take a very deep breath, then let it out slowly. She had been waiting four hundred years for time to bring events back to a place where she might have what she so desperately wanted in the person of a courageous, honorable, beautiful man.

She imagined she could wait a few more whilst he did what he needed to do to have her in his arms.