My Heart's in the Highlands by Angeline Fortin (best english novels for beginners .TXT) 📗

much the same. Hero’s life hadbeen hers. She just wished she could be as confident in aserendipitous future as Jace. “How can you be so sure?”

Jace took her hand and led her to the sofa,hoping to ease the pain in his leg and concentrate on her. She satheavily and took the wine glass he handed her without hesitation.While she drank, Jace went to close the window, thinking carefullyover the words he would say, knowing his future was hanging in thebalance.

“I live near Cuilean,” he paused andchuckled. “I almost said, ‘did you know that?’ in an almostrhetorical manner.” Jace took the other glass of wine, lifting itfor a healthy swallow. “That was actually the worst of it for me. Igrew up near Cuilean, not an hour away. We used to visit there whenI was a child, my family and I. It fascinated me always.”

“I guess I can relate to that,” she said, andJace understood that she must have had similar incidents, growingup.

“Each time I was there, I was assailed by asense of déjà vu.” Again she nodded, and, encouraged, Jacecontinued. “When I first … went back, shall we say? I thought I wasmerely back in Scotland and close to home. Then it was but a dreamof a place I loved, but entrapped as I was within this otherperson, I was sure that I had gone mad. I fought it, refusing toaccept any of it. For a month I thought I’d been delivered straightinto a fiendish hell, a delusional metamorphosis of ahalf-forgotten history lesson. Until Hero came to Cuilean.”

“You were there a month before that?”

Distracted from his tale, Jace looked at herin surprise. “Weren’t you?”

Mikah shook her head. “No, I was in Glasgowworking with my job and was hit by a car. I woke up and was told Ihad been hit by that carriage.”

“Only just then?” he asked, but rememberingHero’s confusion at the time, some of her words, he came to astartling conclusion. As brief as it was, for a time Mikah had hadcontrol. A control he wished he would have had many times.

“Yes,” Mikah answered, “and after that night… that last night at Cuilean, I woke up again in Glasgow, still onthe street where I had been hit.”

Taking a seat next to Mikah on the sofa, Jacewaited a heartbeat to see if she would shy away from him again.When she didn’t, he reached out and took her hand in his. Her fleshwas cold and he warmed her hand between his. “You weren’t badlyinjured?”

Mikah stiffened but didn’t pull away. Justlike Hero when they had first met, skittish, denying theirattraction. And she maintained that they were so verydifferent!

“No, just my head but …”

Jace stilled. “What?”

“Nothing, my dad told me afterward that theparamedics said …”

“That you had died?” he finished for her,latching on to the commonality. “For how long? How long were yougone?”

“Sixty-eight seconds.”

Chapter Forty-Six

Sixty-eight seconds that changed mylife.

“I was gone for more than three minutes, theytold me,” Jace said thoughtfully, then answered her unspokenquestion. “I was in a crash. My helicopter was shot down inAfghanistan. They said it took more than three minutes to reviveme.”

“So we died and stepped into our past lives,”she concluded though her heart had almost halted once again at hiswords, and Jace nodded to confirm that that was his deduction aswell. “The cane?” she asked with evident concern. “Are you allright?”

“Some metal fragments were embedded in mythigh,” he said. “They were afraid that I might lose my leg.”

“You were a soldier?”

“We didn’t change much, did we?” Then hesmiled that blasted lopsided smile that never failed to melt herheart. Begrudging him such a powerful weapon to use against her,Mikah stood and walked back toward the windows. In the reflection,she could see him follow, though this time he kept hisdistance.

Past lives. Souls lost. Sometimes she didn’tcare what dozens of world religions believed, to her it all stillheld a hint of madness. That was part of the reason Mikah had beenso determined to set Ian in the past, to move on. To deny JasonMacAuliffe’s very existence.

“If you grew up near Cuilean and werefamiliar with the history, did you know that Ian and Hero weregoing to die? The whole time?” she asked.

Jace frowned. “On some level perhaps. I … wefelt a sense of unease but I could not pinpoint it at the time. Iwas quite apart from myself, you understand, after I stoppedfighting my fate. His life was my own.”

Mikah nodded. She did understand that. Onceshe had completely given herself over to a life as Hero, Mikah’slife and voice had faded completely away leaving only Hero. “Whydid it even happen then? All the experts say, that if you go to apast life you can change a wrong and make it right again. Why werewe there to begin with if we weren’t there to change what hadhappened? What was the point of it all?”

Jace could hear the pain in her voice, feltit as his own. For a long while, he had wondered the very samething. The guilt and sense of failure at not being able to stop thetragedy had followed him for months afterward until he finally feltan understanding for it all. “I think we experienced what we did sothat we might remember and recognize each other now, in this timewhen fate brought us together once more. Were it not for thatjourney, we would never have met in this life. It prompted you togo back to Cuilean, as I did. You said long ago that you alwaysknew you would find what you were waiting for at Cuilean.Remember?”

Mikah nodded.

“It brought us together again. Smith helpedme to realize who you were. I was torn between talking to you andleaving you alone. Given that madness isn’t generally rewarded, Ifelt compelled to opt for the latter,” Jace said, flashing thatlopsided grin again, and her pulse raced involuntarily. “I wasdetermined to let the entire incident ‘go,’ as you said. I wasn’tabout to chase the insanity.”

“So why did you?”

“Smith told me that you went to their