“Mother, father…a family of any kind?”
“No,” Ali snapped. She didn’t need this woman to remind her how little she had left behind. “But I have a friend and my career.” Now that just sounded pathetic.
“You can make friends here, lass, and we’re in need of a healer.” The older woman gave her a sympathetic smile.
“No…no, I can’t stay here. I won’t.” Ali’s chest tightened, panic inching toward hysteria. “Don’t you understand? I’m not like you. For God’s sake, I’m from the twenty-first century!” She closed her eyes to keep from crying. Memories of her childhood crowded in on her. The images tormented her. The fear and rejection she’d felt, being shipped from one foster home to another after her mother’s death, mirrored the emotions that now threatened to overwhelm her. “I can’t,” she whispered. “Please, please, just send me home.”
Iain grabbed her by the arm. “Are you sayin’ the fairies stole you from the future?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “Fergus, can you believe it? She’s from the future! Oh, Ali, there’s so much I want to—”
“Quit yer blatherin’, lad. Can you no’ see the lass is havin’ a hard time of it?” Fergus said, watching her with concern.
“Drink this, lass. Come on, there’s a good girl.” Mrs. Mac pressed a cup to her mouth.
Ali took a deep swallow. The liquid burned a path to her stomach, and her eyes watered. She swiped a hand across her mouth. “What the hell is that?”
“Uisge na beatha.” Fergus grinned. “Not many a lass can stomach it.”
“Why doona’ you take a wee nap?” Mrs. Mac suggested, patting her shoulder.
Ali shook her head. “No, I’ll go and sit with Rory.” She’d see to her patient, and after she reassured herself he would be all right, she’d work on a plan to get out of this nightmare.
“Lass, you canna’ tell my brother about the fairy flag.”
“Why not? Maybe he’ll agree to use the flag to send me home.”
“Nay, I swear to you, he wouldna’ do it. My brother puts the well-being of the clan above all else. ’Tis why he canna’ find out. He’d kill me if he kent what I did.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t, Iain.” But the look on the faces of Mrs. Mac and Fergus reminded her she didn’t know Rory MacLeod. The man was a warrior, very different from the men she knew. She’d been thrust into a time where brutality was an everyday occurrence. One more reason she had to find a way home. The fairy flag was the key, and if they weren’t going to help her, she’d find it on her own.
“Aye, lass, if he didna’ kill me, for truth he’d never forgive me, and I canna’ live with that.”
Ali sighed. How could she fault him when his only crime was that he loved his brother? She knew she wouldn’t be able to make him suffer because of it. “I won’t tell him, Iain, I promise. I know you were only trying to save him. It’s not your fault those damn fairies picked me to do the honors.”
A look of relief lightened Iain’s handsome features. “You’ll forgive me then?” he asked, taking ahold of her hand.
Ali nodded. “You, but not your fairies.”
He pressed her hand to his lips. “Thank you,” he murmured.
Mrs. Mac cuffed the back of his head. “There’ll be none of that, Iain MacLeod.”
“Can I no’ kiss the lass’s hand?”
The older woman folded her arms across her ample chest. “Nay, she’d no’ be fer you, lad.”
Iain frowned. “And who would you be thinkin’ she’s fer?”
Ali opened her mouth to protest, but before she could get a word out, the woman said, “The fairies sent her fer yer brother.”
“Now just a—” Ali began.
Iain shook his head. “Mrs. Mac, you ken as well as anyone my brother will never take another. He loved only Brianna.”
Mrs. Macpherson shrugged.
“Hello, I’m right here.” Ali waved her hands at the two of them, annoyed to be treated like a prize up for grabs. “Just so we’re all straight on this, I have no interest in Rory MacLeod, or any other man for that matter.”
Fergus raised a bushy auburn brow. “You doona’ like men, lass?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she grumbled in frustration. “Yes, I like men, but I’ll choose one on my own, thank you very much.” Because you did such a good job the last time, the little voice in her head said. “Now, if we’re finished here, I’d like to look in on Rory.” She walked toward the door.
“A moment, lass,” Fergus called out to her.
Ali groaned. “I have a name, if any of you are interested. It’s Ali.”
A frown furrowed Mrs. Mac’s brow. “’Tis an odd name, lass.”
Ali rolled her eyes. “You can call me Aileanna if you’d prefer.”
“Aileanna. ’Tis better.”
She pressed her face into her hands, shaking her head before looking at Fergus. “What were you going to say?”
“We need a story, la…Ali, to explain where you’ve come from.”
“Right. We wouldn’t want to tell people the fairies sent me, now would we?”
“Aileanna, ’tis no’ somethin’ to make light of. Folks might think yer a witch, and that would be a verra dangerous thing,” Mrs. Mac said, her expression serious.
“A witch?”
“Aye, and there’s a priest in these parts who has stirred up some trouble of late. ’Tis why our healer left,” the woman explained.
Ali rubbed her temples. This just gets better and better. “So, where am I supposed to have come from?”
“You said yer last name is Graham and I’m thinkin’ the laird will have some memory of that. Do you ken any Graham that could slip us up, lad?” Fergus asked Iain.
“Nay, but I canna’ say for certain Rory doesna’.”
“We’ll hope as no’.” Fergus gave Ali an odd look. “I hate to say it, but I’m thinkin’ we’ll have to say she’s English. It may goes a way to explainin’ her strange way of speakin’.”
“’Tis a shame, Fergus, but you have the way of it,” Mrs. Mac agreed.
Ali frowned. “There’s nothing strange about the way I speak, but what’s the problem with saying I’m English?”
“We canna’ abide the English, lass.”
“We could say she’s from the borders. Not so bad, aye?” Iain piped up.
Fergus nodded, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his chin. “Aye, and because of her healin’ abilities, those bloody Fife adventurers kidnapped her to take her on to Lewis. But she escaped and we gave her shelter.”
Mrs. Mac’s eyes widened. “’Tis quite a tall tale to swallow.”
“Can you think of somethin’ better?” Fergus grumbled.
“Nay.”
“’Tis settled, and now I’ll be off to get somethin’ to eat,” Iain said, heading for the door.
“I’ll join you, lad. Doona’ fret, Ali, we’ll take good care of you,”