Love Beyond Dreams (A Scottish Time Travel Romance): Book 6 (Morna's Legacy Series) (5 page)

I expected to find Cooper’s mother inside, perhaps rocking a baby or just seeking a few minutes of solitude. When I walked in and saw Cooper himself sitting on the counter right next to the coffee pot, it surprised me to realize that for some reason, I wasn’t surprised at all.
 

“Please tell me you’re not drinking that yourself. You’re far too young to be hooked on that already.”

The young boy smiled and motioned for me to approach him as he extended a mug in my direction.
 

“This stuff? No way. It tastes like dirt. Aunt Jane really likes it though, so I thought I’d make her some since I was up so early.”

“You know how to work the coffee maker?” He couldn’t be more than six. I didn’t learn how to brew a decent cup until I was in college. I sipped the liquid cautiously. To my surprise, it was delicious.

“Yeah, when I was real little, maybe four, I would stay at my Aunt Jane’s a lot, and I always wake up early, you see. It’s sort of my thing or something.” He smiled and threw his hands up. “I don’t know what that means really, but she told me it was my thing. Anyhow, we made a deal because she got tired of me waking her up, and she said that she wouldn’t get mad as long as every time I did it, I had a nice big cup of coffee for her to drink. So she showed me. I catch on to things pretty fast.”

I smiled and took another gulp. “Oh, I can see that.”

Satisfied at his success, Cooper placed the coffee pot back on the warmer and slid off the counter to come and join me at the table. He watched me as I drank. Finally, once he saw that I was nearly done, he spoke.

“Do you have something that you need to do right after this?”

“Not at all.” Painting could wait. Even if he did tell tales every now and then, I found the young boy intriguing. “Do you need something?”

“Well, I was just wondering if you might take me on a tour around the castle and show me what you’ve been doing to everything? I was going to just go on my own, but Mom was pretty mad after I ran ahead of them yesterday. She told me not to go poking around anywhere because this wasn’t our house, and it wasn’t my place. Since she was already mad, I thought it best to listen.”

I laughed and drained the last of my coffee. “Smart man. Sure, I’d love to show you around. Are you ready?”

“Absolutely. Let me just run and get my house shoes. My feet are a little cold.”

While he ran off to get something warmer for his feet, I moved over to the cabinet to get a pair of flashlights. All of the electricity was installed, but I didn’t want to go turning on all of the lights with everybody still sleeping. By the time I turned around with flashlights in hand, the boy was already at my side. I found it more than a little eerie, how well he seemed to know his way around the castle.
 

“Okay, do you want to lead the way, or should I?”

He looked at me like I’d asked him a trick question and, in a way, I had. I wanted to see if he would take charge. If he did, I planned to press him further about their history with the place. He was whip smart though, and instead held out a hand in front of him as he turned on his flashlight and illuminated a path for me.
 

“Me? This isn’t my castle. Why don’t you go ahead? I’ll follow you.”

*
 
*
 
*

With so many people staying in the castle at the present moment, we found that there were a good many rooms that we couldn’t wander into during this time of morning. Still, Cooper seemed to enjoy the parts of the castle that we did see and, even when I went into explaining the exact work that we’d done—conversation that should’ve been way over his head—he paid attention.
 

Our last stop was the tower. Since it was separated from most of the other rooms, I didn’t hesitate to light up the stairwell leading to it with the modern lighting. As soon as I flipped the switch, Cooper spoke.
 

“Oh man, that sure helps a lot. I wonder if that had been here the last time I was here, if Isobel would’ve fallen.”

“Who’s Isobel?”

Cooper smiled and surprised me by reaching for my hand as we started to walk up the stairs. I didn’t know if he offered it for my own benefit or his, but I took it without question.
 

“Oh, she’s a good friend, and she’s sort of my boss.”

“Your boss? You have a job?”

“Not a real job. I don’t get paid money. It’s sort of a work for sweets situation. I go each day, even when my Aunt Jane is away with Adwen. Ever since I turned six, my parents started letting me ride alone as long as they watch me until I get there. Anyway, I go every day for just a few hours and help her with some chores and, before I leave, she always gives me something sweet.”

I laughed and let loose of his hand when we reached the top landing, speaking to him as I walked to turn on the light in the tower. “Well that sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Do you ever…”

I stopped mid-sentence when I turned to see the way he looked at the painting sitting in the middle of the room—still on its easel, freshly painted and perfect. The child turned white as a ghost, and his lower lip trembled as he looked at it and backed himself up against the wall.
 

He didn’t look frightened, only shocked and confused. When he finally managed the strength to speak, his voice was shaky and breathless as he lifted one little finger to point at my stranger.
 

“Who is that?”

I watched him carefully. He looked so shaken. I didn’t want to upset him by anything I said. Before answering, I approached him slowly. When I stood next to him, I bent to lower myself to his level.
 

“The man in the painting? I don’t know who he is.”

Cooper waited and finally he pulled his gaze away from the painting as he turned to face me. His eyes were brimming with tears that were about to fall, and I found myself reaching for him as I pulled him in close.
 

“Cooper, what’s the matter? Do you want me to take it down? I can cover it with something if it will make you feel better. Is it frightening to you?”

“No.”
 

There was a panic in his voice as he answered, a certainty that told me the last thing he wanted me to do was cover it.
 

“No, don’t take it away. I love it. It just…it just surprised me real bad is all.”

He lifted himself off my shoulder but kept hold of my hand with one of his own while he reached into one of his pockets with the other.
 

“I can see that. Why did it surprise you? Do you know who this is?”

He nodded and held out a small, smooth wooden chip. I took it and looked down in astonishment.
 

It was my stranger, the man I’d painted, carved with remarkable detail into the wood.

“Yes. I know who it is. It’s Orick.”
 

So many months of wondering who the man was that came to me in my dreams every single night and now, the child standing next to me knew exactly who he was.
 

I looked down at my arm. Every hair stood on its end. Chills coursed through my body.
 

“Who is Orick?”

“He was my buddy, my friend, and so many people loved him very much.”

I didn’t doubt it. The kindness in his eyes haunted me every moment I was asleep. Whatever woman belonged to him was remarkable lucky.
 

“If you love him so much, why does the painting upset you?”

Cooper looked me right in the eye as he pulled at my hand.
 

“It doesn’t, it just makes me sad. Why did you paint him? How did you know what he looked like?”

How could I explain what I’d seen night after night when I couldn’t explain it to myself? The child would think I was absolutely out of my mind, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him anything but the truth.
 

“I don’t know exactly. Since I’ve been here, I’ve seen this man a lot in my dreams, so I decided to paint him—to make him real. But now, hearing you, it seems that I didn’t have to do that because he is already real, isn’t he?”

“He was real and he was a good, good man, just like my dad and Bebop and E-o and Adwen. But, he’s gone now.”

I asked the question before his words clicked inside my brain. “What do you mean he’s gone?”

Cooper’s lip trembled and his tears fell freely as his voice trembled.

“He’s dead.”

CHAPTER 7

Marion’s Cave

1649

He should have known better than to tell Marion what he’d seen. She was a recluse who lived her life away from all people because of a mistrust of them so deep that he couldn’t imagine what happened to make her that way. Of course, she wouldn’t be filled with the same sense of wonder and curiosity that he was at what he’d witnessed.

“Doona go near it. ’Tis my advice for ye. No that I expect ye to listen to a word that I say. ’Twill only cause ye heartache if ye do. ’Tis the way of such unnatural things.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the side of the cave, hanging onto his patience as best he could.
 

“Yer guidance means much to me, Marion, whether I choose to listen to it or no. Tell me why. Why should I no follow after the others? Why is heartache the only end?”

Marion exhaled in the same frustrated manner she always did when he disagreed with her.
 

“Ye just told me that ye watched them walk down the stairs, and they did no come up through the other side, nor did they come out where they went in. Just where do ye think such a staircase could lead when ye saw for yerself that no room lay at the bottom? ’Tis a witch’s den. She’s already picked the meat from their bones and added them to her stew.”

He laughed so loudly that the sound echoed from the walls. Marion glared at him angrily.
 

“Marion, doona tell such tales, they’ll frighten ye when I’m no longer here with ye. They walked into the stairwell with purpose. They knew where it would take them. I know that ye think it no wise, but I…I canna describe it.”
 

He paused and paced around the cave, remembering how his feet had nearly moved toward them against his will.
 

 
“’Twas like they called me toward them. In that moment when I saw them, I wanted nothing more than to run and join them, to follow them wherever they might be headed. I canna describe it, but I feel pulled to them, like perhaps they have the answers I seek.”

For the first time that evening, Marion stopped twiddling away at the piece of wood she held in her hands and stopped to regard him seriously.
 

“Do ye mean it? Ye felt so strongly about the people ye saw there? Do ye think mayhap ye would have felt the same with whomever ye saw first after leaving here?”

He shrugged. He asked himself the same thing on his way back to the cave the night before, but the more he allowed the question to linger, the more his mind rebelled against it. The truth was making its way to the surface of his mind. He could feel it building within him. He just couldn’t grasp at it alone. All he needed was to find the keys to unlock it, the people to remind him of the memories he lost.

The strange-speaking women and the men that accompanied them pulled at something inside him that made him wonder if they were those very keys.
 

“I canna know, but I doona think so. I felt as if I knew them, but I couldna recall any real memory of them. I just know that I feel strongly that the stairwell is where I must start.”

He moved across the small expanse of the cave and sat down next to Marion. Her gaze softened as he did so.
 

They sat quietly next to one another for a long time until, finally, Marion spoke.
 

“Then start there, ye must, whether it be a witch’s den or no. ’Tis time, Craig. Time for the two of us to part ways.”

He stood with a sadness in his heart he couldn’t deny. All of his memories were of Marion—there was nothing else inside his mind. He wondered often if he meant as much to her as she did to him, if she would grieve for the end of their friendship as he would. She spoke little about her feelings, but he knew that didn’t mean she was void of them.
 

“I will miss ye, Marion. If I pass this way again, should I come to see ye?”

“No.”
 

The abruptness of her answer pained him.
 

“I willna be here. This cave was no my first home, nor will it be my last. I move often and ’tis time that I move on. I was on my way elsewhere when I saw ye fall.”

All of that was new to him. Foolishly, he imagined Marion spending a great many years in the cave, and now he learned that she may have only been here a fortnight when he arrived.
 

He would feel lost once he left her—without her, every person in the world would be a stranger to him.
 

“Marion, ye canna know how grateful I am to ye. I wish I could repay ye for all ye’ve done for me.”