A Laird for All Time by Angeline Fortin (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📗

were brownish red and small.  He had no idea what they were.  He looked up at her questioningly.   “Put them in your mouth, don’t chew them.  Just swallow them down with this.  Chug it all.”

With complete faith, he tossed them into his mouth and followed them with a mouthful of the liquid.  Appalled by the taste, he tried to pull back but she tipped up the end and forced him to finish it or pour it down his shirt.  “What the hell was that?” he sputtered when it was gone.

“Hair of the dog that bit you,” she told him matter-of-factly.  “It’s called a ‘red eye’ or as close as I could get with what was available here.  Tomato juice, beer, and an Indian spice I found in your cupboard since you didn’t have any Tabasco and a raw egg.”

“Ye’re jesting,” he rasped but while he saw humor in her eyes knew that it was truth she spoke.  “Ye’re not jesting.”

“Good for what ails you,” she teased.  “I was going to have you drink the juice from a jar of pickles, but your cook wouldn’t let me have it.”  Noting the disbelief written clearly on his face, she laughed.  “It’s an old Dutch cure.  I’m surprised you didn’t know that one.”

“Normally I just have strong coffee.”

“Oh, no!” she shook her head.  “Coffee is one of the worst things for a hangover.  The caffeine is a vasoconstrictor.  It shrinks the blood vessels and only makes your head hurt more.”

“Really?”

She nodded.  “Before you can ask, the pills were Advil. A pain-killer. Should help.  Now for this.  Drink up.”

Connor guzzled the water which felt cool and refreshing as it went down.  His head spun suddenly and he sank back down weakly.  Emmy took the glass into the bathroom and returned with it refilled setting on the table beside his bed.  “I recommend as much water as possible.  It will help with the dehydration.”  She bent over and placed a kiss on his forehead and withdrew wrinkling her nose.  “Get some more rest; you should be fine when you wake up.  Then take a shower and eat something.  Juice, like orange juice would be best.”

“Aye, doctor.”

A smile tilted the corner of her lips as she looked back over her shoulder at him.  “You really are a complete idiot, you know?” she told him though her voice was strangely affectionate.

“I know,” he returned as she shut the door behind her.  He lay for a moment in the silence thinking how nice it was to have a person care for you and take care of you.  The last time he could remember another coming to his aid so tenderly…his mother long before she had gotten ill and taken to her own bed.  She would sit as his bedside when he was ill and comfort him with words and a cool hand.  He must have been only seven or eight years old the last time.  Emmy’s beside manner was more chiding, less tolerant, but comforting and loving nonetheless.  God, he loved that woman.

Perhaps he should tell her.

Was it worth taking a chance?

Chapter 32

The little battery symbol on her iPhone had lost a notch, Emmy thought miserably.  Just two graphic notches remained before her one viable link to her time would be gone…or at least nonfunctional.  Not true, she admitted, there was still her camera but this loss of connection...she was feeling the possibility deeply.  No more music.  It was a tragedy.

Emmy MacKenzie was a fan of music without bias to genre or era.  Old or new from classical to country, she loved it all.  The playlists on her iPod reflected her eclectic tastes.  All the greats were there, maybe some not so great but all loved for what they offered to the history of music.  It was the reason she had pursued the piano and guitar aside from her mother’s grounds.  When it came to her favorite pastimes, the only thing better to Emmy’s mind than hearing music was making it.

She was perched on what was quickly becoming her favorite rock on the pebbled beach northwest of the castle.  Knees drawn to her chest, hair down and loose and rippling in the breeze.  Soon it might be too cold to stay out long like this, she thought, hugging her arms tightly around her calves.  Her ear buds piped in a musical montage to the crashing of the waves against the beach and the cry of the gulls.  The Bee Gees blended into the Black-Eyed Peas and away to the Doors.  It was the soundtrack of life.  Every song brought a feeling, a memory.  What would she do when it was gone?

In the distance, a small fishing boat was making its way down the coastline.  She shivered thinking how chilly it must be out there today.  It was the first of November.  Ironically, the Styx song “Boat on the River” came on and Emmy had so smile.

“Emmy!” a voice broke through the music and Emmy started turning and pulling the white cords from her ears as she did so.

“I called yer name several times,” Connor mentioned casually as he took a seat beside her tempted to comment on the reappearance of the object that had prompted their argument a week ago but deciding against it.  How could he think of fighting her when she looked so lovely?  Her hair unbound and rippling in the breeze, she looked like a young lass this day. “Ye must have been lost in thought.  Or have ye changed your name again and willna answer to the one ye say ye wanted?”

His voice was teasing so Emmy decided to assume he meant the comment in that light.  “I was just thinking,” she answered.  “You look much better.”

“I feel much better, thanks to ye.  I’ve never recovered so quickly from my excesses before.”  There were dozens of questions tearing through his mind, all begging for answers.  “Ye must be a successful good doctor.”

Her low husky laughter flowed through him as she threw