A Laird to Hold, Angeline Fortin [top 10 non fiction books of all time .txt] 📗

back a wee bit farther than the last time. He’ll ne’er be bothering anyone again.”

“What is a wee bit farther?” Hugh wanted to know.

His inquiry was drowned out by Rhys asking, “What do ye mean the last time?”

“I removed Phillip from interfering wi’ my plans once before,” Donell confessed. “I brought him to a time where I thought he could do nae harm. Aboot twenty years ago.”

“That’s all?” Emmy gaped at him.

Donell shrugged. “Seemed far enough to me at the time. I thought time would heal his rage, soften his heart. I ne’er expected it to fester so.”

Scarlett absorbed that information. “So, where is he?”

“At his motel.” He held up a hand to stall their gasps of outrage. “Or where his motel will be in aboot a couple thousand years. Long before any of ye are e’en an itch in an ancient ancestor’s pants. ‘Twas a violent time. I dinnae expect he’ll last long. And mayhap he’ll die more painfully than wi’ a dagger to the throat. But then, ye ne’er ken.”

He looked so sad for a moment, Scarlett felt sorry for him. “What was he to you?”

Donell sighed. “Once upon a time, he was a collaborator on my project. A friend. Also, my son-in-law. He wisnae always as ye know him.”

Everyone in the room gawked at him, but Emmy spoke up. “Do you expect us to feel sorry for him? He hurt a lot of people today. He killed…”

She reached for Connor’s hand. The bewilderment they’d experienced earlier still beyond their understanding.

 “I remember Laird dying,” Scarlett told him quietly, the grief clawing at her heart once more. “You were nearly dead, too. What was that?”

“’Tis an echo ye remember, lass.”

“An echo?”

“Aye, of another time, ye ken? A life lived once but no’ again.”

A glance around the room told her none of the others understood what he was saying any better than she.

Then Rhys frowned, scratching his jaw thoughtfully. “Are ye saying ye changed the timeline?”

“Yer book did come in handy, lad.” Donell looked impressed. “Aye, I reset time to the moment before it all went to hell. Before any harm was done to ye…or to myself, no’ to put too fine a point on it. I took Jameson away before ye came. What ye’re remembering, ne’er happened.”

“But we do remember it,” Scarlett pointed out. “How is that possible if it never happened?”

He rocked his head from side to side. “Usually the memory isnae powerful enough to carry across the change. Yer grief and pain was strong enough to linger.”

Scarlett frowned. “You’ve done that before?”

“Many times.”

“To us?” Connor clarified.

“Aye, many times,” Donell confirmed with a nod. The room fell as silent as a lecture hall, the audience engrossed with the oration. “No’ everything works oot as planned the first time around. Adjustments need to be made to get them right. Timing is everything. One wee second can send a ripple down the timeline, mucking everything up. Like a domino effect. Time is nothing to be toyed wi’.”

An ironic statement coming from a man who’d spent a lot of time trifling with it. Nevertheless, the implications of his explanation made Scarlett’s heart skip with hope. “Can you reset it again? Change it so Tyrone doesn’t die?”

Donell hung his head and her heart sank. “Nay, lass.”

“Why not?”

“I did reset the clock on this day,” he explained. “A dozen times o’er. Each time wi’ different consequences. Some far more disastrous. With many more casualties. The outcome of this one was the least grievous, I assure ye.”

Claire’s arm slipped around Scarlett’s waist with a comforting squeeze. Scarlett hugged her back. If Hugh being shot twice was the best the day had to offer, they should both be grateful with the aftermath.

Perhaps one day she would be.

Just not yet.

“Why not just go back and take Jameson out of the picture long ago?” Emmy interjected. “Then none of this would have happened at all.”

“Ye’re all alive, are ye no’, lass? ‘Tis the best I could manage. I’m nae god.”

“So we’ve heard.”

“In truth I would hae liked to remove him, lass,” Donell admitted. “If I’d been able to pinpoint him, I would hae. I told ye Jameson wisnae the only one working against me. Others made it impossible for me to track him. Until today when I was able to follow him to his motel. With the same information ye had. The address.”

Hugh tapped his forefinger against his lips. “How is that possible when ye can see everything else?”

“As Emmy has forced me to admit many a time, I’m nae god,” Donell answered. “Or a magician.”

“Then I think we’d all appreciate finally knowing what you are,” Emmy told him. “I think we deserve to know.”

They all turned to him expectantly, waiting for a response. When it came, it was not the answer Scarlett anticipated.

“I’m a mere man, lass,” he said. “Human, same as ye.”

“But?” Scarlett prompted him for more.

“But from a future time. Far from now.”

The revelation elicited gasps around the room.

“I spent my life wi’ one hand up to my elbow in science and wi’ love of history in my heart,” he went on. “Together wi’ other inventors, we developed the technology to travel through time. Rudimentary, at first, like the elementary device Hugh and Claire are familiar wi’ from Dr. Fielding’s experiments. Refined o’er time to be able to move a man through a manifested quantum singularity nae larger than a speck of dust. ‘Twould look like magic to any who witnessed it. I’ve spent many a year traveling through time. Living in the past, meeting all of ye…and others.”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew the object Scarlett had retrieved for him earlier. They all moved closer to see it. It lit up again at his touch.

“A push