“I looked up and saw a man standing on the bluff. He was holding a staff as thick as my arm and longer than I am tall. It glowed like a shaft of lightning in his hand.”
He looked at Grace, his eyes large but his pupils narrowed to pinpricks. Sweat had broken out on his brow again.
“The man suddenly threw the stick, and it bounced off a rock and then began floating over the gleann we were in. A great rain broke from the heavens, and lightning flashed—not from the clouds but from that stick.”
Facing her but with his vision turned inward again, Michael slowly shook his head. “As God is my witness, I can’t describe what happened next. Light so bright it was blinding consumed us. I could hear the shouts of my men over the howl of the wind. My horse reared in terror, and I was thrown, but my body never reached the ground. It was as if the wind carried me, lifting me further into the sky.”
“A tornado, Michael?” Grace whispered, drawing his full attention. “You were caught in a tornado?”
He slowly shook his head. “Nay, lass. This was an unnatural storm. Tornados are dark, littered with debris. This was blinding white light. And once I was lifted, there was no wind. No sound. It was as if…I felt…”
He stopped speaking, staring at the ground, slowly shaking his head back and forth.
“As if what, Michael? What did you feel?”
He looked back at her. “As if I ceased to exist. For one suspended moment, I was not me.” He held his hands up, looking at them. “I had no body. I remember thinking I am here, but I had nothing to show of myself. There was just me…my mind…and the accursed light.”
Grace fought to keep her frown to herself as her own mind frantically worked to understand what had happened. Had Michael been struck by lightning? Had he lived through a near-death experience?
“What happened then?” she asked. “You’re obviously here right now. How did you get here?”
“I simply existed again. The light disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, and I was lying on the ground, along with nine other men and our horses.”
“Nine men? But Mary said only five men were with you.”
Michael averted his gaze. “Others were caught in the storm with us.”
“Others? The men you were fighting when the storm came? Where are they now?”
His glare returned as he stared directly at her. “I have a wish they’re rotting in hell,” he growled, suddenly pivoting on his heel and heading back to his own truck.
Grace started after him, only to have to grab the tailgate of her truck to keep from falling. The rain had started again and was making the ice as slippery as buttered Teflon. Michael returned carrying a tow strap, which he looped over the trailer ball on the rear bumper of her truck.
“Drive my truck up here and point the back toward yours,” he instructed.
Grace took the tow strap off her bumper and tossed it on the ground. “Just as soon as we’re done with our discussion,” she told him. “I promised not to speak of this again, so, by God, we’re going to speak of it now. Where did you wake up after the storm?”
Eyes narrowed against the rain, he stared at her in fuming silence. Grace didn’t care if they both drowned, she wasn’t leaving until he gave her the whole story.
“Did these other men experience the same thing you did?” she asked. “Did they all see this bright light?”
“Yes.”
“And everybody lived? Including the horses?”
“Yes.”
“If you were in Scotland—what was it—eight hundred years ago when the storm came, where did you wake up?”
“In Scotland. In the same gleann. But everything was different.”
“Different how?”
“There were buildings there that hadn’t been there before,” he said. “And roads, covered with hardened black tar. And automobiles and large trucks. We were nearly killed by the speeding demons.”
It was Grace’s turn to shake her head, and she couldn’t seem to stop. Michael’s story seemed outlandish and would make sense to her only if she believed in time travel.
“Michael? Do you remember how you were dressed when you woke up from this storm? What you looked like?”
“I was wearing the same clothing I’d had on the day of the battle: my hunting plaid, which is a darker, more muted version of the MacBain tartan.”
“Anything else? Were you wearing pants that had a zipper, boots with a buckle, a knit jersey? Or a watch, maybe?”
He frowned at her question. “I wore leggings, a shirt, and my sporran. And we knew nothing of watches back then.”
“Did the shirt have buttons?”
His frown turned into a scowl. “Nay. It pulled over my head and tied at the neck.”
Grace sighed. “Everyone was dressed the same, I take it.”
“Nay,” Michael said again, one corner of his mouth suddenly lifting into a half grin. “Two of my men were naked.”
“Naked?”
“It wasn’t uncommon for warriors to fight naked,” he elaborated. “So there was nothing for an enemy to grab onto.”
Grace snapped her mouth shut. Warriors? Having a battle in the middle of a storm, then waking up in modern time?
It didn’t make sense. None of it did.
But the sad part was, it was obvious Michael believed—he sincerely believed—it had really happened to him.
“What year were you born?” she asked.
“It was the year 1171, if you go by the calendar ya use today.”
Good Lord. His delusion was based in fact. Michael even knew that today’s calendar was not the one in use eight hundred years ago.
But what he believed was impossible.
Which meant that Michael really wasn’t of sound mind.
There was no way she could turn Baby over to him. Not her precious, innocent nephew. Who knew where Michael’s delusions might lead him—looking for another thunderstorm to take him back home?
With Baby?
“Were ya telling me the truth, Grace?” Michael asked, taking her by the shoulders, making her face him squarely as he peered down into her eyes. “Was Mary really coming back to me, to get married?”
Tears suddenly mingled with the rain washing down her face. “Yes, Michael. She was coming home to marry you,” Grace said hoarsely, barely getting the words past the lump in her throat.
She was suddenly pulled forward into a fierce embrace. Grace buried her face in the opening of Michael’
s jacket, feeling his pounding heart beneath her cheek, and she burst into uncontrollable sobs.
The arms holding her tightened. “I’m sorry ya lost your sister,” Michael whispered into her hair, the warmth of his breath sending confusing emotions through her saddened heart.
Grace wrapped her arms around his waist and clung to him. “I’m sorry for both of us, Michael. You have no idea how sorry I am,” she whispered. “So very, very sorry.”
God might consider the two miracles he’d given her today insignificant, but Grace thought they were wonderful. The first miracle was that the socks Baby had worn to Ellen Bigelow’s were the same socks on his feet now. Ellen hadn’t changed them, and she hadn’t discovered Baby’s twelve toes.
The second miracle was the smile Baby had given Grace when she returned to pick him up. He had not only recognized her but had been happy to see her.
Grace took her attention away from her slow, careful drive down the icy road long enough to peek at Baby. He was awake, very busy waving his arms wildly in front of his face, blowing bubbles out of his mouth. And he was smiling again.
Her spirits had lifted the moment she had taken him into her arms after returning to the Bigelows’ with her rescued truck. She had kissed Baby all over his face, only to be stunned speechless when he had looked up at her with wide gray-blue eyes and smiled.
“We’re going home to stay,” she told him, reaching over and pulling the left side of his cap back over his ear. “No more running around in this weather to any of our neighbors. I’m finishing that book I started reading you this morning, and we’ll find another good one to follow it with.”