Love Across Time by B. J. McMinn Page A

your wife. But, I also know what I remember.” Her voice trembled as she glanced around the room then back at him. “And this is not it. I remember doctors, nurses, hospitals.” Her palm cupped his face.
    “I also remember the desperation I felt when I awoke with no memory of who I was, where I came from. In my dreams, a man called my name over and over, yet when I opened my eyes, no one was there. Do you know what it is like to be alone with no family, to share your joys, your disappointments?”
    “Aye, me gaol , I ken.”
    Didn’t she realize that he’d been the one who called her name repeatedly during his prayers? That while she slept he’d talked insistently to her. Told her of the mischief he and Conner had gotten into as young lads. How at the end of the day, Conner would retire to the wing he shared with his parent’s while he went to another that held the laird’s empty suite of rooms.
    “Then you understand why I must return to find my past? I cannot do that without the brooch.”
    “Ye truly believe this?” He removed her hand from his face, kissed the palm, and laid it in her lap.
    “Yes. The last thing I remember before I awoke here was wearing all three items. Then a swirling mist enveloped me and whirled me into a black darkness so thick I could see nothing. The next thing I saw was you beside my bed, claiming me as your wife. Can you imagine the confusion I felt?”
    “Aye, I ken ye be confused, but the only way I ken how to bring back yer memory is to live our lives the way it was afore yer accident.”
    By her heavy sigh, he knew it wasn’t the answer she wanted. She expected him to admit she wasn’t his wife. That she’d traveled through time and had lived in a place very different from her life here. Perhaps if she had the brooch, ring, and gown, and remained here, not transported to some distant future it would convince her she was his wife, Margaret Campbell-Menzies.
    “I will ask everyone in the castle about the brooch. We will find it,” he promised, confident that she would see how wrong she was.
    She set up straighter, hands clasped to her breast. “Truly?” Tears glistened in her blue eyes. “I can give you a description.”
    “E’ryone here kens what the brooch looks like. I presented it to ye the night we were to consummate our marriage.”
    Color blazed across her cheeks. As if she just realized she still sat on his lap, she jumped to her feet, brushed the hem of her gown down, and perched her sweet little bottomthat had warmed his loins only moments agoon the edge of the chair opposite his.
    “I am not Margaret. When I go home you will see.”
    His bride gazed at him. Happiness radiated from her as if she thought his offer of help was an admission that she wasn’t Margaret.
    “Aye. We will see.”
    Sadness crept over him. His aspirations of spending the night in her bed vanished. What else could he say, do? He rose and left the room without a backward glance.

CHAPTER 8

    Maggie stretched her arms over her head and yawned. Her first thought upon awakening was that she was going home. Liam had agreed to help find the brooch, the last piece of the puzzle to her existence in this time and era.
    She glanced at her new surroundings. The bed, larger and more comfortable than the one she’d awakened in, felt soft as down. Flipping the covers aside, she sat up and bounced on the edge of the fluffy mattress. The pale-blue paisley spread matched the canopy overhead and the draperies. Wide glass windows, not narrow slits, filled the room with bright sunlight. Two heavy doors, one that led to the hallway and another on the far wall, were made of the same dark wood as the four-poster bed, wardrobe, and dresser.
    A faint tap sounded on hard wood a moment before Ursula peeked around the edge of the door. “Ye be awake.”
    “Yes. Come in.” The knowledge that she’d be home soon gave her voice a light and airy tone.
    “Ye seem chipper this morn. Would ye like to have a bath?