The Bloodstone Brooch Chapters 1 & 2
Chapter 1: Shetland Islands—Aislinn Kennedy age 10
Ten-year-old Aislinn Kennedy let her imagination wander while she spotted images in the cloud formations floating across the darkening sky. A storm was coming, which was fitting because one of the clouds resembled a Viking battle-ax.
Yep, she had a vivid imagination.
She was camped out on a blanket behind one of a dozen tents, waiting for her parents—archaeologists Dr. Maxwell Kennedy and Dr. Deidre MacOwen—to finish their lecture.
Her parents had accepted two invitations to the Shetland Islands to lecture on “The Art of the Picts in Early Medieval Scotland. The first lecture series at the Shetland Museum in Lerwick—which housed the famous Mail Stone—ended last night, and they drove the short distance to Cunningsburgh this morning for the second lecture.
The morning session on Pictish art had just finished, and her parents had scheduled free time between sessions to tour Jarlshof. But instead of taking her to see the best-known prehistoric archaeological site in Shetland, Max went off with one of the organizers to look at the livestock at the annual agricultural show, and Deidre, by a flip of a coin, stayed behind to answer questions from attendees.
And that could go on forever.
Aislinn started calling her parents by their first names when she was three. Her parents were both professors at Princeton, and they often had dinner parties with other professors, and everybody called them by their first names, so she did, too. Sometimes she was sad because she didn’t have a mom and dad, only a Maxwell and a Deidre.
Aislinn usually didn’t mind waiting, but now she was getting antsy. If they didn’t leave in the next few minutes, they wouldn’t have enough time to see all of Jarlshof before the afternoon session, and after that, they had a plane to catch.
If only Tavis and Mark Stuart were here.
Every summer, her parents traveled to a remote archaeological site with other archaeologists, usually Drs. Marcus and Samantha Stuart. Their sons were Aislinn’s best friends, and they always found something fun to do while their parents worked.
But this year, the boys wanted to stay home with their grandparents and play sports. Aislinn missed them like crazy. If they’d been here, she could have gone adventuring with them to Jarlshof.
The boys didn’t want to be archaeologists when they grew up. Tavis wanted to go to the Naval Academy and see the world as a Navy SEAL, and Mark planned to go to West Point and make a career in the army. But she wanted to be like Maxwell and Deidre.
Aislinn planned to get a BA in art history from Columbia University like Deidre. Then an MA in Applied Critical Archaeology from the Sapienza University of Rome like Maxwell. And then finally, a PhD in Classical Archaeology from Princeton, like both of them. Aislinn figured it would take a long time to get her degrees. Then she’d get a job as a curator in a museum or search the world for prehistoric petroglyphs to study like her parents or maybe do both.
But thinking about the future exhausted her. She closed her eyes and let the soft buzz of voices and baaing sheep and goats lull her to sleep.
It seemed she’d just dozed off when Deidre’s sharp tone startled Aislinn awake. “Erik, you have to leave her alone!”
Aislinn blinked. Leave who alone? Was someone looking for her? How did they know where she was? She’d deliberately put her blanket in an out-of-the-way spot so no one would bother her.
“I must talk to her. She is not answering her telephone.” A man’s clipped tone almost crackled in the air. His perfectly unaccented deep voice sounded weird and too formal, partly because he didn’t use contractions or slang. “Samantha told me she was coming here,” he continued.
Aislinn blinked again, really curious now but also relieved he wasn’t talking about her.
“Samantha and Marcus went to Greece,” Deidre said.
Aislinn rolled over, lifted the bottom of the tent, and peeked under it to see if she recognized—what was his name? Erik? But dang, his back was to Aislinn, and all she could see was his shoulder-length black hair. Whoever he was, he was huge and towered over Deidre. His arms were big as tree trunks. Not some skinny ginkgo, either, but more like a giant sequoia.
Aislinn watched Deidre closely, in case her face turned white like people did when they were scared. Not that Aislinn could do much to help her. But she could scream, and people would come running to help out a kid.
Stop worrying. Deidre isn’t scared of anything.
Even a few years ago, when Deidre had a close encounter with an alligator/crocodile-like predator called a caiman while trekking through the Amazon, she didn’t scream or try to run. She just whacked it over the head with her walking stick and prodded it back into the water. It was a good thing Aislinn was walking behind Deidre. If she’d seen it, she would have climbed up on their guide’s back.
So if this guy Erik thought he could intimidate Dr. Deidre MacOwen, he needed a Plan B.
“Where are the boys? Did they go, too?” he asked.
“They’re in Maryland with their grandparents.”
The man fisted his hands, and the claws of a blue-bear-paw tattoo on his left hand curved over his knuckles. The slight pulsing of his hand made the freaky claws twitch. Aislinn couldn’t take her eyes off that bear tattoo, half-convinced it was going to attack Deidre. But he wouldn’t hurt her, would he? If he did, Deidre would whip out the gun holstered at her waist and shoot him. Not to kill, but to hurt him—badly enough so he wouldn’t try to hurt her again.
Both of her parents had guns, and by the time Aislinn was six, she knew the rules and fundamentals of shooting, and now, after four years of training and practice, practice, practice, had been dubbed a pint-sized sharpshooter by the guy who owned the indoor shooting range near their house. It would do much good right now, though, since she didn’t have a gun. But she could shoot, and she would shoot.
Aislinn’s mind jumped here and there while she watched Deidre and Erik stalk each other like caged lions. But at least sparks weren’t flying, so everyone was safe for now.
Deidre liked to tell people that Aislinn had an old soul’s clarity about life. Aislinn thought it was funny to think of a ten-year-old having an old soul. She’d been traveling around the world with her parents since she was born a few weeks early while they were on a dig in Egypt. Deidre had labor pains, squatted, birthed a baby, and then went back to work. Yep, that was Deidre. More Wonder Woman than a college professor, or, even better, the female version of Dr. Henry Walton “Indiana” Jones, Jr.
Aislinn might grow up to be fearless, but she wasn’t right now. And while she wasn’t worried about Deidre, she was concerned about Samantha.
Yeah, she called the boys’ mom by her first name, too, but never their dad. Aislinn didn’t like him because he was mean to the boys. Dr. Stuart didn’t hit them or anything like that, but he criticized them a lot. The boys never said anything negative about him, but you could tell from the look in their eyes that they were wary of him. Or maybe she read something into their relationship that wasn’t there at all. It was just different from her relationship with her parents.
Erik tunneled his fingers through his hair, turning away from Deidre and toward Aislinn, finally showing his face to her, and she gasped.
She knew him. Well, she didn’t exactly know him, but she’d seen him before. She was good at remembering names and faces, and she recognized him from last summer. How could anyone forget the neatly trimmed black beard and striking blue eyes? They were glacier-ice-blue like Tavis’s and Mark’s. Not robin’s egg blue like Dr. Stuart’s.
And Erik was handsome and rugged and built like a warrior, not skinny like Dr. Stuart, who was okay-looking but never stood out in a crowd. Maxwell stood out wherever he went, and women noticed him, but Deidre didn’t mind the glances or sly smiles. She told Aislinn once that women could look, but they’d darn well better keep their hands off her man.
Aislinn giggled at that. She’d heard other archaeologists talk about her parents and how much in love they were. Aislinn liked that they kissed and hugged, and when she grew up, she wanted her husband to love her the way Maxwell loved Deidre. And she wouldn’t settle for anything less.
Tavis and Mark, even at twelve and fifteen, stood out in a crowd with their height and broad shoulders. They’d tease each other about how the girls at their school flirted and wouldn’t leave them alone and which one of them had the longest string of giggling followers. But Aislinn wasn’t one of them. They were her besties, and you don’t flirt with your best friends.
And then she remembered what had happened the previous summer.
Her parents, along with the Stuarts, were working at a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Spain. After a particularly intense quarrel, Dr. Stuart took the boys and returned to the States ahead of schedule. Did Erik have something to do with what happened? Aislinn’s gut screamed “Yes,” and right then, she got pissed at Erik for messing things up for everybody last summer.
Erik turned back toward Deidre, stepping into her personal space. Deidre crossed her arms and glared up at him. Man, that took guts. Deidre was almost daring him to cause trouble, which wouldn’t be a stretch for a guy like him—a guy who was big and imposing.
But he wouldn’t get his way with Deidre, and Aislinn could have told him that ten minutes ago. You would think Deidre’s resistance would make him mad or violent, but it didn’t. And that made the situation even more exciting to Aislinn, now that she knew he wasn’t going to hurt Deidre, and Deidre wouldn’t have to shoot him.
“Samantha was supposed to be here,” he said. “Now I know why she isn’t. Marcus made her go to Greece, didn’t he?”
Deidre chuckled, but Aislinn didn’t understand why. She didn’t see anything funny about the question.
“You know better than that, Erik. No one can make Samantha do anything she doesn’t want to do. The job in Greece was too good to pass up. And she knew Maxwell and I could come up here. If Sam had known you’d be here, she would have given me a message for you.”
“Why would I not be here? Jarlshof is my home.”
“Come on, Erik. This place might be your home, but the likelihood of finding you here in the twenty-first century is pretty remote.”
Now Aislinn was even more confused. What did her mom mean by that? Except for the scar on his cheek that made him look kinda like a pirate, he could be thirty, forty, or sixty.
Deidre uncrossed her arms and pushed Erik out of the way. “You’re crowding me.”
“And you are lying to me.”
Now it was Deidre’s turn to look pissed. “Why would I lie?”
“To protect Samantha, but she does not need protection from me.”
Deidre returned to the table that held her lecture exhibits and organized them for the next presentation. It was busywork, and she usually asked Aislinn to do it. It wasn’t hard to do since all the exhibits had numbers, which meant Deidre was stalling. But why?
When Deidre didn’t have any more papers to fiddle with, she looked around for something else to do. “All you have to do is snap your fingers, Erik, and you could be in Greece talking to Sam right now instead of harassing me.” She removed a couple of chairs from the front row and added them to the second row because no one ever sat in the first row anyway.
“I cannot snap my fingers, Deidre, and magically show up in Greece. My brooch doesn’t work that way. I thought Samantha explained it to you.”
“She’s told me very little, and I don’t believe half of it. Not that she’s intentionally lying, but you haven’t been honest with her.”
“I have never lied to her.”
“There are two kinds of lies. Lies of commission and lies of omission. It’s the intentional exclusion of important information that I’m talking about.”
“I have told her everything she needs to know.”
“I doubt that.”
“Deidre, you are being difficult. Why?”
Deidre sat down in the last chair she placed on the second row and crossed her legs, swinging the top one like she was pissed off. “Because remaining in contact with you is unsettling her life.
“I know, but after Mark was born, everything changed for us.”
“It might have changed for you, but not for her. Sam’s life is here with her husband, her children, and her work. She’s not going to give it all up for you, and I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings.”
He belted out a laugh. “Feelings? I am a Viking warrior. Do you think I care about my feelings? I only care about my family, and it is time for them to join me.”
Aislinn sat bolt upright.
His family? Tavis and Mark are his children? That’s crazy.
Aislinn had heard about situations like this before. But for it to happen to her friends…well, that was just nuts. Why hadn’t there been any gossip about them? News like that didn’t stay quiet for long, but it had with the Stuarts.
“How many different ways do you have to be told that she won’t leave her marriage for you? Plus, the boys need a normal life, and living with you would never be normal. For you, time stands still. I’ve known you for fifteen years, and you look the same except for that scar on your cheek. But for the rest of us, time moves on. You haven’t seen Tavis and Mark in over a year. You’d be surprised at how much they’ve grown.”
“That is why they must leave with me now. Call Samantha and tell her I will come for her and my sons.”
Aislinn dropped the bottom of the tent and rolled back onto the blanket. She shouldn’t be eavesdropping. If Deidre caught her, she’d ground Aislinn for weeks. But she had to hear the rest of the story, and when she weighed the risks, she decided it was worth it.
Really? Maybe. Probably. Okay, yes!
But in her heart, she was glad Tavis and Mark had a warrior for a father instead of wimpy Dr. Stuart. That must be why he was so mean to them. He knew he wasn’t their father.
Did Tavis and Mark know the truth? It wasn’t like she could call them and ask, and she couldn’t ask Deidre either. Then she’d know Aislinn had been eavesdropping on this conversation.
She rolled over again and lifted the tent so she could watch Erik and make sure he didn’t hurt her mother. He wouldn’t, but that’s the excuse she’d use if Maxwell came up behind her.
“Erik, you have to stay away from her, but I might be willing to set up a call.”
“I hear if in that statement. What do you want?”
“Everything you know about your Celtic brooch.”
“There is too much to lose if the story of the Celtic brooches appears on the History Channel. It is dangerous, not only for you and your family but for the entire world.”
“Then bring me inside. I have a wealth of knowledge about the tribes that made up the pre-Celtic world, including the Caledonians. I know the history of the Celts, their jewelry, their art, their language. Maybe I can provide information you don’t have.”
Erik’s shoulders tensed, which made Aislinn even antsier, and then he did something unexpected. He looked in her direction, and she gulped, knowing she was busted.
He knows I’m here.
But he didn’t give her away. Instead, he stood with his back to her, and he placed his ankles only a few feet from her nose.
Jesus, where’d he get those scars around his ankles?
Someone must have tried to cut off his feet. She cringed, thinking how painful that must have been.
“What has Samantha told you?” he asked.
“That you have a Celtic brooch more than a thousand years old that opens a door and allows you to travel through time.”
“That is true.”
“Sam also said that if she weren’t an archaeologist, she wouldn’t believe you. Neither would I, but we’ve found dozens of objects and pictographs that we can’t explain. A brooch that opens a portal in time fits in that category.”
Time travel? No waaayyy. Where’s Maxwell? He’d want to hear this, too.
How many times had Aislinn and Maxwell discussed time travel and debated whether it was possible? And whether the ancient Egyptians had visitors from another time. Not like ancient astronauts, but time travelers. Maxwell believed it was possible, and now she suspected why. He must know about Erik.
Erik pulled up a chair, and they were close enough to Aislinn that she could see the scars on his ankles again. He could have moved farther away, but he stayed close to where she was hiding as if he wanted her to hear his story. At least, that’s how it seemed to her.
He put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “A Viking named Thorfinn Sigurdsson, or Thorfinn the Mighty, lived from 1009 to 1064. He became the Earl of Orkney and controlled Orkney, Shetland, and the Hebrides, plus Caithness and Sutherland.”
“I’ve heard of Thorfinn,” Deidre said. “Some believe he was Shakespeare’s Macbeth, but I’ve never agreed with them, even though many of the people and events in the play are rooted in history.”
“They were two different men,” Erik said with enough authority in his voice that anyone listening wouldn’t doubt the truth of it. “The relationship between Macbeth and Thorfinn is more than accidental. Thorfinn was the grandson of King Malcolm II and possibly raised in Malcolm’s household. But he eventually became an enemy of Malcolm’s heir, Duncan I, who tried to claim the earldom of Caithness on his accession to the throne. Thorfinn bitterly contested Duncan’s claims and met him in battle at least twice, defeating the King’s forces both times.
“Macbeth had a claim to the throne through his wife Gruoch, and it’s believed that Thorfinn and Macbeth became allies against Duncan. Shortly after the king’s second defeat at Torfness, Duncan met Macbeth in battle at Pitgaveny on August 14, 1040, and Duncan died on the battlefield.
“After Duncan’s death, Thorfinn and Macbeth managed Scotland jointly, and at the height of his power, Thorfinn ruled nine northern earldoms. During that time, Macbeth and Thorfinn went to Rome on a pilgrimage, and while they were there, Thorfinn purchased twenty-five gemstones for his wife, one for each year of her life.”
“Do you know which gemstones?”
“Jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, amethyst—”
“Those are the twelve stones in Aaron’s breastplate in the fourteenth century BCE. Do you believe that’s significant?”
“Everything is significant, Deidre.”
“You said there are twenty-five. What are the other thirteen?”
“Ruby, diamond, amber, pearl, garnet, sunstone, bluestone, bloodstone, moonstone, opal, jade, onyx, and turquoise.”
“That’s an impressive list of gemstones. Which one do you have?”
“The garnet.”
“Who made them into brooches?”
“When Thorfinn died, his wife, Ingibiorg, asked her late husband’s grandmother—a sorceress—to write a love spell to heal her broken heart and bring love again. Ingibiorg had her jeweler engrave each gemstone with the spell.”
“Do you know the spell?”
“‘Chan ann le tìm no àite a bhios sinn a’ tomhais an’ gaol ach ’s ann le neart anama.’ The translation is, ‘Love is not limited by time or space, but the capacity of the soul.’”
“So only the soul knows the limits of love. Nothing else can define it or identify it. Interesting,” Deidre said. “What do you know about the jeweler? He must have been highly skilled to write that spell on the gemstones.”
“Not on them, but inside of them. The jeweler cut the stones in half, engraved the spell, then hinged them back together. All the gemstones are at least a hundred and fifty carats.”
Deidre’s eyes nearly bugged out. “That’s huge. Each brooch has to be worth a small fortune.”
“If anyone comes across one at an antique sale, they will believe the gemstone is a fake.”
“But sooner or later, they’ll find out it’s not, and won’t they be surprised? But let’s hope all the brooches are where they should be and not in the hands of someone with nefarious intentions. Do you know anything about the jeweler?”
“He was the direct descendant of an Egyptian slave who was a talented silversmith and carver. He won his freedom and was allowed to stay in Britain when the Roman soldiers left in the fifth century AD.”
“And it’s written in Gaelic?”
“Which was introduced to Scotland from Ireland in the fifth century.”
“So what happened to Ingibiorg? Did the spell work?”
“Shortly after the sorceress cast the spell, Ingibiorg married Malcolm III of Scotland. Malcolm commissioned his wife’s jeweler to make identical silver brooches for each of the gemstones. The jeweler extracted silver from a rock once owned by his ancestor, the Egyptian slave, who brought the rock to Scotland or found it there. The rock had remained in the family for almost seven hundred years. Family lore said the black rock fell from the sky. And since Celts were notoriously afraid of something falling on their heads, they treated the rock as a talisman.”
“Let me get this straight,” Deidre said. “A black rock rumored to have fallen from the sky was brought to Scotland by an Egyptian slave. His descendant extracted silver from it and used it to make twenty-five brooches that he then set with gemstones he had previously inscribed with a love spell.”
“That is correct.”
“Have you ever heard of any other silver-laced rock falling from the sky?”
“Never.”
“Neither have I.” She leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms, and twitched her nose as if she was sniffing out the truth. “So, where’d the magic come from?”
“My theory is the rock spent eons in interstellar travel, where it picked up particles that changed its molecular structure. Under the right circumstances, the brooch sends a signal into space, and a portal opens.”
“That’s as good as any other explanation, but if it’s not what happens, there should be a key to understanding the purpose of the brooches. I don’t believe it’s random.”
“There is a Pictish stone with the explanation.”
Deidre shot straight up, eyes bright as if she’d just won the lottery. “We’ve been talking all this time, and you just got around to telling me there’s a Pictish stone. Where is it?”
“Near the Corrimony Chambered Cairn Rocks.”
“The standing stones there date back four thousand years,” Deidre said. “But how do you know there’s a Pictish petroglyph?”
“When I was a child, younger than Tavis, I had a vision of a falling black rock, a brooch, a long piece of spiraling silver, and a person tumbling through the darkness.”
Deidre grabbed a pencil and piece of paper, sat down again, and drew pictures of the items in Erik’s vision. “Creating petroglyphs is one of the more difficult art forms. It’s more like creating a stone statue than painting. For prehistoric people, the process was long and laborious. Aside from the technical difficulties, they knew their artistic depiction of animals, experiences, and ideas had to be unambiguous, so strangers speaking different languages would understand their meaning—like the spiral in your vision. It represents life beyond life, perhaps eternity. Was the stone in your vision all in one piece?”
“I did not see the entire stone. Most of it was buried in the chambered cairn with only a portion visible.”
“So the specific location was in your vision, too?”
“Not in a recognizable form. But when I was in Corrimony, I went to the chambered cairn rocks, and I recognized the spot. I have searched all around the glen and the birch woods but did not find the stone. Someone may have dug it up and carried it off.”
“Some believe the passages in the cairns are aligned with a celestial event. Maybe that’s where the black rock was found, or nearby, in the Caledonian Forest.” She picked up the pad and pencil again and made more drawings. Then she said, “Do you know the identity of the first traveler?”
“The first one I am aware of was an infant named Kitherina McCabe. In 1826, she and her mother sailed from Glasgow to America to join her husband at her father’s farm in Kentucky. The ship was caught in a storm and broke apart, but before it sank, the babe’s mother pinned her ruby brooch to the infant’s gown, hoping that if anyone found her body, the brooch might identify her.”
“Did it?”
“Eventually. But the child didn’t drown. She went through the time portal and arrived at the farm in Kentucky almost two hundred years in the future.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I was there, but I couldn’t save Kitherina’s mother. After she spoke the love spell, the child disappeared into the fog, but before I could reach the mother, a beam fell and crushed her. I followed the child into the vortex and was with her when she arrived in the future. I carried her to the porch and left her there, knowing the MacKlennas would care for her. When she grew up, she traveled again and met her soul mate, just like Ingibiorg, and since then, others have found a brooch and their soul mates as well.”
“Wait a minute. Ingibiorg had all the brooches when she married Malcolm III after her husband died in 1064. How did Kitherina’s mother end up with a brooch in 1826?”
“Upon Ingibiorg’s death, they were given to her eldest daughter and passed down from mother to daughter through the ages. In the early 1700s, Thomas Sean MacKlenna’s wife inherited them, but they were stolen, recovered, and stolen again. When he finally found all of them, MacKlenna disbursed them to six trustworthy clan members who were sworn to protect them. Each member received a box with four brooches. MacKlenna told the men they were to keep them safe at all costs, and if anyone ever threatened them, they could give one, two, or all of them away for safekeeping. MacKlenna kept one brooch, and that one was passed down through his daughter to her daughter and so on until it reached his four-times-great-granddaughter Jamilyn McCabe.”
“So Thomas Sean MacKlenna’s family never got all the brooches back.”
“No single person has had them all in their possession since Sean MacKlenna dispersed them among the clan members.”
“How do you know all this?”
“My father had one of the brooches, and I discovered the rest.”
“It must have taken years.”
“It was easier because I could travel back in time and follow Thorfinn’s trip to Rome, and then his wife’s second marriage and her daughter’s family, until Bryn MacKlenna, the wife of Thomas Sean MacKlenna, inherited them.”
“Samantha told me your father was from the twentieth century, but not your mother.”
“She was from the eleventh century. My father knew the brooches were valuable, but he didn’t understand the magic until he was swept back in time to 1050 AD and met my mother in Jarlshof. The settlement leaders accepted him, and my parents were allowed to wed. He made several trips into the future, searching for other brooches, but never found any.
“When we were old enough, my brother and I traveled with him. But after my father died, the Council took control of the brooch. My brother threatened them, and the Council expelled him and banned him from ever returning to Jarlshof. I have not seen him for many years, but I know he has one brooch now. If he finds more, the entire world will be in danger. I have to stop him.”
“How? What can you do?”
“I will kill him.”
Deidre leaned forward and punched Erik in the arm. “What? Are you crazy? You can’t kill your brother. It’s against the law. I’m sure you can get enough evidence against him to send him to jail. Turn everything over to the police, and you stay out of it.”
Erik sat back in his chair and rested his palms on his giant thighs. “Sten would find a way to escape. Killing him is the only option. If he discovers I have children in the twenty-first century, he will come for them, their children, and their children’s children. You see now why I must kill him.”
She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Now, you really must leave Samantha alone. You can’t bring her or the boys into your evil world. It’s too dangerous.”
“I did not tell you this so that you can use it against me.”
“Then why’d you tell me?”
“I need your help to find the Pictish petroglyph.”
“It was a vision. You don’t know if any of it was true.”
“It was corroborated by the man who sold his brooch to my father.”
“Why’d he sell it? He was supposed to protect it.”
“If you knew my father, you would not ask that question. He tortured a man for information, then stole his brooch.”
Deidre gasped, and so did Aislinn. Her hand shook so much that she dropped the tent and curled up into a ball.
He tortured and killed a man to find those stupid brooches.
“What was the man’s name?” Deidre asked.
“It is not important,” Erik said.
“It is to me. What’s his name?”
“Robert Stuart. Marcus Stuart’s grandfather.”
Aislinn gasped again and lifted the tent to see what Deidre was doing.
“Oh, my God. You’ve given Sam another reason to stay the hell away from you.” Deidre picked up her water bottle and took a long drink. And from her hiding place, Aislinn licked her lips. She needed a drink too, but she wasn’t going to die of thirst, so she could wait a while longer and hear the rest of the story.
“And Stuart told your father about the petroglyph? Maybe he was lying to save himself.”
“No one ever lied to my father or refused to tell him what they knew and lived to talk about it. My brother Sten is exactly like him. That’s why I have to stop him.”
Aislinn was good at reading people, and she knew in her gut that Erik was just as deadly as his brother and father. But for some reason, she wasn’t afraid of him, probably because Deidre wasn’t.
Deidre stood and gripped the back of her chair, and even from Aislinn’s position on the ground, she could see her mother’s white knuckles. “I’ll call Samantha and tell her we talked and that you want to see her. If she asks me what she should do, I’ll tell her to stay away. Until you find your brother, it’s too dangerous to be around you.”
“All I need is for Samantha to agree to see me. I can handle it from there.”
“When she says no, don’t pressure her. She’ll walk away, and you won’t be able to talk to her again.”
“I will not make any promises.”
Deidre shrugged. “Well, that’s it, then. As soon as Maxwell and I finish this job, I’ll start working on finding your stone. But I have to warn you that I’ll only have a couple of weeks before it’s time to start prepping for fall classes.”
“I do not expect you to find it right away. It might take years.” Erik stood and returned the chairs to the row of seating in front of the table. “I will return within a year.”
“Why don’t you travel forward a few years to see what I found and then come back and tell me?”
“If I change your history, I change others’ as well. I try not to do that unless it is an emergency.”
“I think that’s wise.” She picked up her laptop and slipped it into her backpack. “It was good to see you again, Erik. Be careful out there.”
“You too, Deidre.” He watched Deidre walk out, and then he lifted the bottom of the tent, crawled underneath it, and stood over Aislinn. “You heard the entire story?”
She nodded. “I promise not to tell.” The tattoos from his neck to his fingertips were mesmerizing. He was as fascinating as rock art. If only she’d paid more attention during her parents’ workshops, she’d know what all the designs meant.
“Do not forget what you heard,” he said.
“What? You don’t care that I was eavesdropping?” she asked.
“You should not have heard any of it, but now it is good that you did.” Then Erik nicked his finger with the tip of his knife. When a drop of blood pooled on his fingertip, he drew a design on Aislinn’s forehead. “Tell no one what has happened here today. When you walk in your mother’s shoes, you will understand everything.”
Then he gave her a silver ring with a deep green gemstone emboldened with bright red swirls. It was the most beautiful ring she’d ever seen. It was too big for her ring finger, but it fit her index finger perfectly. “This looks like a ring worn by a Greek goddess and should be in a museum. Not on my finger.”
“No one has ever worn it. It was made for you by a master silversmith. It is called a bloodstone. It is a stone of courage. It has the power to make vague thoughts clear and to enhance decision-making. During the next twenty years, you will wonder if you misremembered the conversation you overheard. This ring will vouch for your memory. Trust it.”
Aislinn placed the ring in his hand. “I can’t take this. It’s too expensive for me.”
She got to her feet, and he gently held her shoulder to keep her from leaving. “You cannot reject this gift. If you do, it will be a bad omen.”
“I’m not superstitious, but I’m not stupid, either.”
“I do not believe you are.” He placed the ring on her palm. “We will meet again. Until then, remember this… Even in your darkest hour, you will never be alone.”
Erik walked away, leaving Aislinn more confused than she was during his conversation with Deidre. She opened her book bag, grabbed her phone, and took a selfie to find out what Erik had just drawn on her forehead.
The symbol was an Yggdrasil—an ash tree in Norse mythology that spreads around the world and binds earth, hell, and heaven together. She learned that in one of Deidre’s lectures. But why did Erik put it on her forehead? She might never know, but she hurriedly wiped it off before anyone saw it. She had a picture, and that was all she needed. When she returned home, she’d print it and put the photograph in her keepsake box.
She finished cleaning her face and was waiting by the tent when Maxwell and Deidre arrived to take her sightseeing. For the next two hours, they wandered around Jarlshof, climbed among the ruins, and talked about a study opportunity that had just fallen into Maxwell and Deidre’s laps.
Egypt’s Antiquities Minister invited them to join a team of experts to explore a newly-discovered well at a sacred site in Saqqara, south of Cairo. The site contained twenty-seven sarcophagi dating back more than 2,500 years.
“You can go to Egypt with us,” Deidre said. “Or you can fly home and spend the rest of the summer with your aunt and uncle in Virginia.”
“There are only six weeks left,” Aislinn said. “I’d rather stay with you guys.”
“Jena said she’d take you shopping for school clothes.” Deidre bobbed her head. “And you know my sister’s sense of style is a hundred times better than mine.”
Aislinn giggled. “You don’t have any style at all.”
“That’s what Jena says, but you’ve seen me dress up for dinner parties. Don’t I look stylish?”
“You look beautiful, Deidre, but your style is somewhere between vintage and grunge. You’ll never be on a fashion magazine cover. And because I like to dress like you, neither will I.”
Deidre and Aunt Jena had hatched a plan without input from Aislinn, and she hated it when they ganged up on her like this. Deidre tried to sweeten the deal by mentioning school clothes, even though Aislinn could care less.
“We’re supposed to spend the whole summer together,” Aislinn said.
“In this business, you have to stay flexible. So don’t stick around on our account,” Maxwell said. “You’ve worked hard. Now it’s time for a vacation before school starts. You’ve got a challenging academic year ahead of you.”
If she went to Virginia, she’d be close enough to visit Tavis and Mark, sail on her aunt and uncle’s boat, eat fresh seafood, and go clothes shopping. Was this one of the decisions she’d make that would take her where she was intended to go, or would she only know that in hindsight?
“Okay, I’ll go to Aunt Jena’s. When do I leave?”
“Jena is working on your flight arrangements now. We’ll fly down to Glasgow, put you on a flight, then we’ll leave for Cairo.”
And that’s exactly what they did.
Aislinn said goodbye to her parents and jumped on a British Airways flight to America. Three days later, Jena came out to the pool house where Aislinn was reading. The look on Jena’s face screamed bad news, and even though Aislinn was only ten years old, she knew the truth before Jena could tell her.
“They’re d-dead, aren’t they?” Aislinn asked, with tears streaming down her face.
“When Maxwell, Deidre, and the antiquities minister descended into a thirty-six-foot well, the rigging system collapsed, and all three died in the fall.”
Jena put her arms around Aislinn, and Aislinn held onto Jena while she cried for the two people she loved most in the world. “What happens to me now?” she asked.
“Your parents had their estate plan prepared years ago, naming Michael and I co-executors of their estates and designating us as your legal guardians.”
“So I’ll live here with you?”
“Yes, and Michael and I are so lucky to have you with us.”
And soon, everything that had happened in the past few days was forgotten in the changing landscape of Aislinn’s life.
2. MacKlenna Ranch, Colorado—Tavis Stuart
A vivid nightmare jolted Tavis Stuart awake, bringing a rapid, rhythmic noise into focus. He shoved his hand under his pillow for his Glock but came up empty. Now hypervigilant, he listened for a disturbance in the air, a swallow, or even a blink, but there was only the rhythmic noise growing louder.
He moved silently off the bed and took cover behind the nightstand, listening, scanning the room lit only by the pale moonlight streaming in through two double-hung windows. If someone was hiding in the shadows, his fine-tuned and battle-ready senses would know it. Otherwise, he’d be dead by now.
Then he realized the rhythmic noise was his racing heart, intensifying in his temples.
What a fucking dumbass.
He slumped against the wall and tried to slow his breathing while he wiped the sweat off his face with the sheet. He wasn’t going to die tonight. He was in Colorado, not twelfth-century Jarlshof. And he was safe from members of the Viking Council, which was now powerless because the MacKlenna Clan took control of its garnet brooch—a brooch the Council and its predecessors had kept and controlled since the beginning of time.
But did the Council have another brooch?
Nothing was as it seemed when bad actors could time travel, and being dead didn’t always mean dead-as-a-doornail dead.
A chill sent goose bumps up and down his arms, and the silver medallion necklace he never took off was like ice against his skin. He reached for the sweatpants and T-shirt he’d flung on the floor before climbing into bed, and he rammed his legs into the pants and his arms into the shirt. Then he dropped to the edge of the king-size bed shaking while the adrenaline effects wore off.
It was a damn good thing he didn’t have a gun. His shot would land so far off its target that it might just circle around and hit him in the ass. When he was an active SEAL, he’d been able to handle the adrenaline rush much better than he could now.
He checked the time. It was four am, which meant he’d only been asleep since midnight. The MacKlenna Clan kids would be up by six to find out what Santa brought them, and since it was Joseph’s first Christmas in the twenty-first century, Tavis wanted it to be perfect. But the truth was, as long as almost four-year-old Jean O’Grady was with Joseph, his son’s life was already perfect.
One o’clock or four o’clock, it didn’t matter. After the nightmare he just had, there was no going back to sleep. If he got up, he could at least answer a few emails he’d been avoiding. He needed to make some more progress on the security system he and Connor O’Grady were in the middle of designing for Rick and Penny’s new home at Montgomery Winery. Tavis had a list of changes Penny wanted him to make, but some contradicted Rick’s requirements.
Connor refused to get in the middle of his brother and sister-in-law, so he left it with Tavis to handle. Tavis didn’t mind. He’d much rather Rick get pissed at him than his wife or brother. It would be better for everybody concerned, though, if Rick and Penny just worked it out between themselves.
The bottom line was that Rick wanted a fortress and Penny wanted a home. It was Tavis’s job to give them both what they wanted.
He grabbed his laptop and headed to the kitchen for a cup of hot tea he intended to top off with a shot of whisky. He stopped at the door where Joseph was sleeping with a dozen kids in blow-up beds and sleeping bags. All was quiet, and he didn’t dare open the door and risk waking anyone. If one kid woke up, they’d probably all wake up, and it’d be like herding cats to get them back to sleep.
Tavis jogged down the stairs, avoiding the two creaking steps in Austin and Ensley O’Grady’s sprawling, recently remodeled, two-story ranch house. It now had ten bedrooms, twelve bathrooms, and a fifty-seat theater. Plus three luxury cabins tucked into the woods, each with a pine needle path that hugged the shoreline of a pond. The water was frozen solid now and had already hosted several hockey games that got more competitive and bloodier with every age group.
Tavis was nursing a cut shin after Rick batted a puck out of the air and it slammed into Tavis’s leg. Remy switched from player to medic, hastily examined the wound, and pronounced Tavis well enough to keep playing. After Rick’s two minutes in the penalty box, he was allowed back in the game. It didn’t take long to figure out the O’Gradys were intentionally violating the rules so they could spend time with the whisky bottle they’d hidden in the penalty box.
Austin and Ensley hoped the ranch would become a regular hangout for the clan. It was a great vacation spot, with more outdoor activities available than any of the other clan properties, dangerous though they might be.
But Colorado would never usurp Mallory Plantation’s hold on the number one favorite family location, at least not in Tavis’s mind. There was something special about Charlotte and Braham’s southern home that none of the other houses in Napa, Lexington, Florence, or even the castle in the Highlands, could replicate. For Tavis, it was Charlotte’s cook’s fried chicken, beaten biscuits with country ham, and deviled eggs topped off with a sprinkling of paprika. His mouth watered just thinking about those biscuits.
Tavis’s bare feet patted into the gourmet kitchen just as the nightmare ping-ponged back into his brain, trying to terrify him again. His breath hitched as he became fully aware of the players in his terror dream.
Aislinn Kennedy, a childhood friend…
And the evilest man he’d ever wanted to kill with his bare hands—Sten, a Viking from the twelfth century who perfectly embodied the traits of the Dark Triad—a narcissist, a Machiavellian, and a psychopath, with “sadist” thrown in, rounding out his personality type.
Although Tavis had never met the monster, his name struck fear and hatred in the hearts of the entire clan, including him. Sten had tortured and almost killed James Cullen Fraser, who was now recovering at a monastery in Bhutan. But why was Sten torturing Aislinn, skinning her arms and chest, demanding information about a bloodstone brooch? All Tavis could figure was that several unrelated thoughts and fears had collided in one grotesque nightmare.
Tavis hadn’t seen Aislinn in years, but he kept up with her through his mother, Samantha, who called every Sunday night and on holidays. She never waited to see if he’d call her. Good thing, too, because he probably wouldn’t.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love his mother. He did, but he didn’t particularly trust her.
Although he did fantasize about kissing Aislinn when they were younger. He even gave himself a private tug or two while imagining how her lips tasted. Man, he was such a dumbass kid. He should have just kissed her.
After Joseph’s mother died, Tavis told him about his best friend losing her parents when she was ten years old, and Joseph had said, “When Grandpa Elliott comes for me, I want to meet her.”
It was one of only a handful of promises Tavis hadn’t kept.
He’d made a few promises to Aislinn, too, when her aunt and uncle, who had adopted her, moved to San Francisco. They’d promised each other to always stay close, but he got busy, so did she, and the distance worked against them. He’d heard she took up boxing, and she even took a swing at him once, and he laughed and told her she should learn how to box so the next time she got pissed, she could deck him.
Funny, the things he remembered.
As he filled the teapot, he remembered one more thing. She gave awesome hugs. They were bone-deep squeezes, the kind that sent a flush of warm memories up and down his spine. A hug like that…man, he sure could use one right now.
When was the last time he saw her?
It had to have been when she was an undergraduate at Columbia University. He’d gone to New York City to meet his brother, Mark, almost a decade ago, and had arranged to meet Aislinn at a coffee shop on Broadway and West 120th Street.
She’d been all elbows and knees when she was a kid, but when he met her that day, his eyes must have bugged out. She’d filled out in all the right places, and with long, golden-brown hair and green eyes, she’d grown up to be a knockout. But she was crazy in love with an archaeologist she met in Spain. She could be married with a few kids by now.
Tavis carried his cup out into the great room, even though it was too dark right now to see its panoramic views of the mountains. His footsteps made muted thumps as he strode across the hardwood floor. The lamp on a small end table cast a circle of warmth over the deep leather chairs facing the massive stone fireplace, where, to Tavis’s surprise, he found Elliott dozing in one of them. A folder lay open on his lap, and papers had slipped out and lay scattered across the floor.
If the papers were confidential, it could get awkward if Elliott woke up and tried to gather them. So it was best if Tavis just topped off his tea and quietly slipped back to the kitchen.
He stopped at the built-in bar and reached for the Macallan on the top shelf.
“Is that the last drink on Christmas Eve or the first one on Christmas morning?”
Tavis groaned. He needed an old friend’s hug, not harassment from Elliott. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Elliott glanced at his watch, yawning. ‘’If ye fall asleep in the family room, ye can’t complain when someone wakes ye up at some goddamn wee hour of the morning. So what is it? The last or the first?”
“The first one on Christmas morning, and if the past fifteen minutes are any indication of how the day’s likely to go, definitely not the last.”
“That bad? Well, ye’re not usually one to wake up and hit the whisky bottle in the middle of the night. What’s going on?”
“You’re not one to fall asleep in a chair. What’s going on with you?”
Elliott leaned over and picked the papers up off the floor. “I’m the boss. We’ll deal with ye first.”
They all hated it when Elliott threw the word “boss” or “Keeper” at them because no one could argue back. You just had to suck it up and take it. Elliott had invited each of them to be part of the clan, and he could just as quickly uninvite them. Although it would be a mess to untangle all the relationships, he had the power, money, and control to do it. Fortunately, Elliott loved them all fiercely and would sacrifice everything to protect the smallest and weakest among them.
Elliott made a point of looking at his watch again. “Let me know before breakfast, will ye?”
“Fine,” Tavis snapped. “I had a nightmare and knew I wouldn’t go back to sleep without some inducement. Now, what’s your excuse?”
Elliott placed the folder he was holding on the end table next to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, and eased out of his chair. “Meredith gave me a report before we made our Santa and Mrs. Claus appearance last night. I didn’t have time to read it, so she gave me the summary. Now I’m reading the report. I don’t like it any better than the summary.” He strode over to the fireplace, tossed on a couple of logs, and prodded and stirred them until they caught fire.
“Knowing Meredith, she wouldn’t just give you an upsetting report, especially on Christmas, unless it was important. What’s it about?”
“The Stuarts and the Frasers,” Elliott returned to his chair, where he put his feet up on an ottoman and held out his glass. “Bring that bottle over here and sit down.”
The hunted feeling the nightmare created in Tavis’s gut came rushing back with a wham. He focused on stilling his hand so he wouldn’t slosh whisky while he poured a shot for Elliott and topped off his tea.
“I take it you’re talking about my Stuart ancestors, not me and Joseph.”
“Our common ancestors—yers and mine.” Elliott’s grumbly tone didn’t bode well for this conversation.
“I didn’t know we had any.” Tavis sat next to Elliott in an identical chair and tucked his sockless feet underneath the folds of a blanket thrown over the ottoman. Three years of living in twelfth-century Jarlshof had toughened up his feet, and they rarely got cold, but right now they were freezing.
Elliott handed him the folder. “Read the two-page summary. Ye can read the rest later.”
Tavis set his teacup down next to the Roosevelt book and read the first page. Before he finished the second, his pulse was throbbing at his temples again. His hand dropped to his lap, crinkling the page.
“Your…great-uncle Malcolm…murdered….” Tavis grabbed the teacup and gulped the whisky-laced tea as three words—uncle, Malcolm, murdered—ricocheted around his mind. If he thought the nightmare had jolted him, his family history delivered an uppercut set up by a jab and a cross—a knockout punch.
“He murdered my great-grandfather by skinning him alive?” Tavis poured more whisky into his teacup and gulped it down. “He stole his brooch? What the fuck? How come I never heard about this?”
“It’s a helluva surprise to me, too. I never knew about Great-Uncle Malcolm.”
“Where’d Great-Grandfather Stuart get a brooch? My grandfather was the guardian of the ruby, amber, amethyst, and topaz. You’ve got those four locked up in a vault at Mallory Plantation. So what brooch did he have?”
“The answer is in the report. But as to why we never knew about the murder and brooch”—Elliott shrugged—“it has a lot to do with the brutality of yer great-grandfather’s death and the timing. It was 1914, before the start of World War I. The police were understaffed and couldn’t give the case the attention it deserved. That also made it easier for the Frasers to erase Malcolm from the family tree.”
“So the families pretended it didn’t happen.”
“And I’d say they did a good job since neither of us ever heard about it.”
Tavis couldn’t wrap his head around a family—his family—who didn’t want to find a violent killer. He perused the two-page summary again and noticed something was missing. “This report says a witness reported seeing Malcolm on the ferry from Scotland to the Shetland Islands, but when the police investigated, they couldn’t find him, so they dropped the search. If the police couldn’t put this together, how’d Meredith do it?”
“She found the newspaper articles at the archives while she was looking for something else. When she saw the picture of Malcolm, she recognized a family resemblance—”
“To Erik?”
“To Erik,” Elliott confirmed.
“But she’s never seen him.”
“She’s seen Sophia’s sketches of him, and, unbeknownst to me, she had our DNA tested. The results proved that Ensley, Mark, Joseph, ye, and I have an identical DNA segment, indicating we are genetic relatives.”
“We need a roster to keep all the players straight.”
Elliott tapped his finger on top of the folder. “There’s a family tree in the multi-page report that diagrams all the relationships.”
“So Erik’s father was from the twentieth century, and Meredith assumes his mother was from the eleventh century. And I assume Sten had the same parents.”
“There’s no way to know for sure since we can’t test his DNA.”
“How’d Meredith get Erik’s DNA?”
“We have Remy to thank for that. For some reason, before he cleaned Erik’s battle-axe for Ensley, he took samples from the blade and the handle. He thought Charlotte might need samples later. And he was right.”
“So there’s no mistake?”
Elliott removed his reading glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. “None.”
“If your great-uncle Malcolm had two children—Erik and Sten—that makes them first cousins to your father, Blane Fraser, and second cousins to you.”
“Something like that. But then Erik had an affair with Samantha Stuart and had two sons, ye and Mark.”
“So if I’m Erik’s son and Malcolm’s grandson, what does that make us?”
“Too close to get married in Kentucky.”
Tavis rolled his eyes. Elliott’s sense of humor wasn’t his strong suit, so it was always an eye-roller when he told a joke. Tavis set the paper aside, picked up his teacup, and took a couple of swigs.
“It makes me wonder how many more children Erik fathered. There could be hundreds of descendants scattered worldwide, and not just in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He spent a month in 310 BCE with Aristotle and another month with Plato in 338 BCE. Plus time with Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Henry VIII, Martin Luther, Charles Dickens, Thomas Edison, Voltaire, Gandhi, and those are just a few he mentioned. He could have gotten a woman pregnant during all of those visits.”
“That’s not a behavior ye should try to emulate.”
“You don’t have to worry. I’m the complete opposite. But you know, I’ve seen Erik in action too often to think less of any single woman who fell under his spell. Erik treated them like queens. His raw magnetism drew women to him, and his tenderness and devotion kept them there until he had to return to Jarlshof. He broke more than one heart.”
Tavis poured a shot of whisky into the teacup, wondering if Erik broke his mother’s heart. He only found out about Erik being his father a few months ago, and he had several questions to ask his mother, but he wasn’t ready to confront her.
Tavis returned the folder to the table and sipped his drink. Without tea diluting the whisky, fire rolled down his throat. If he kept this up, his gut would make him pay, but right now he didn’t care.
“Erik gave me a lifetime’s worth of experiences. I just wished he’d told me the truth.”
Elliott folded his glasses and put them on top of the folder. “Would yer relationship have been any different?”
“Probably not, but he should have told me.”
“And what would ye have done? Confront yer mother sooner?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been back for six months and haven’t said anything to her yet. But I’d like to know why she couldn’t stay faithful to her vows, to her husband.”
Elliott gazed into his glass of whisky as if it held all the answers to questions Tavis hadn’t even thought to ask. After a minute, Elliott said, “I asked Erik if he’d raped Ensley’s mother, and he said she couldn’t have children with her husband. I assume it was the same with yer mother.”
“Arne told me my grandfather made all the arrangements because Marcus couldn’t have children due to a childhood illness. I’m not sure I believe anything that came out of that Council member’s mouth.”
“Are ye going to ask yer grandfather?”
Tavis shook his head. “I want to hear it from Samantha, and I also want to know about Dad. Did he know in advance? Did he stand outside the door and listen?” The thought made Tavis cringe. He could never stand aside while another man had sex with the woman he loved. The idea was unthinkable.
“Don’t beat yerself up, lad. Whatever happened was between the adults involved.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Tavis distracted himself by rereading the second page of the summary. He didn’t have the brainpower right now to dig into the full report. It would take a clear mind and a couple of uninterrupted hours to absorb it all.
“If all this is true—and there’s no reason to believe it isn’t—” Tavis said, “then the Council acquired the garnet brooch from the future and made up that bullshit mystery about what would happen on the other side of the door beneath Fraser Castle.”
“I believe ye’re right. It was all about control, lad. With all the brooches I have, it would have been very easy to take a team back to Jarlshof a few years ago and take their brooch. But we believed they had some kind of secret power and knowledge, and they didn’t. I am curious about one thing, though. When did ye discover I was the Keeper? Did Erik tell ye?”
“When Grandfather Stuart made me the guardian of the topaz, he told me you were the Keeper and that you had the other three brooches our ancestors were originally responsible for protecting—the ruby, amber, and amethyst.
“After Penny’s adventure, you locked the topaz up with the others. Then Northbridge Worldwide assigned me to your security detail in Gothenburg. I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I approached it cautiously until I knew all the players.”
“I suspected ye might be a guardian, and if ye were, I wanted ye close by, and if ye weren’t…well, I had a good feeling about ye. I’m rarely wrong, and Meredith is never wrong, and she suggested it after the first day. Ye impressed her. And that’s rare.”
Tavis chuckled. “She kept that a big secret. I’ve never been able to figure out where I stand with her.”
“Most people react that way, but when she brings someone into her orbit, they have her loyalty for life…unless they fuck it up.”
“Has that ever happened?”
Elliott burst out laughing. “Aye, to me.”
Tavis poured another round of drinks. “One more for the road to our beds.”
Elliott knocked his back. “Wait a minute. Didn’t ye come down here because of a nightmare?”
“Thanks,” Tavis said. “I’d almost forgotten it.”
“So, what was it?”
“Sten was torturing an old friend of mine—Aislinn Kennedy.”
“She’s the daughter of the archaeologists who died in Egypt several years ago. Ye’ve mentioned her before. Why’d yer mind connect her to Sten?”
“I don’t know…unless it has something to do with me getting killed and Joseph not having any parents, just like Aislinn.”
“If anything happens to ye, Joseph will have us and a healthy trust fund, so don’t worry. But why was Sten in yer nightmare?”
“Everybody was together or called in last night except JC, who was absent because of Sten.”
“Makes sense. But I am curious about Aislinn in yer dream, too. How old was she? An adult or child?”
“An adult, but here’s what doesn’t make sense. Sten was torturing her to get information about a brooch, but as far as we know she doesn’t have one.”
“Sten is dead. And dreaming about a childhood friend all grown up is telling ye something about yer current situation.”
“Which is?”
“Yer wife’s been gone for over eight months. Ye need a date. If ye can’t get one on yer own, Remy can hook ye up. But ye need to be out there looking for Joseph’s new mother.”
“Not interested.”
“Bullshit. Ye’re not a monk. Stop acting like one.”
“I didn’t say I was. It’s just that Joseph is still adjusting to living here. I don’t want to complicate his life.”
“Joseph is very well-adjusted, and if ye go out on a date, it won’t complicate his life. Ye don’t have to bring the lass home. Just take her to dinner or take her to bed. I don’t care. Just get back out there.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t take too long. Connor and Olivia have a neighbor who’s getting over a divorce and wants to meet a single dad.”
“Not interested, and I’m especially not interested in a recently divorced woman. She’s got issues, and I don’t want to mess with her.”
“Olivia says she’s sweet, intelligent, and beautiful. She caught her husband cheating, dropped him flat, and kicked him out of the house. Interested now?”
“I might be. But no pressure, right?”
“No pressure. I’ll tell Olivia to bring her to the party tonight. None of the kids will be there, so ye can’t use Joseph as an excuse.”
“All hell could break loose by nine o’clock tonight.”
“God, I hope not. Since we’re all here except James Cullen and Paul in Bhutan, Gabe in Florence, and Shane in New South Wales, I believe we’re safe.”
“Something could happen in Bhutan.”
“Paul is at the monastery with James Cullen. Plus, I hired a team to keep eyes on the monastery and ears on the ground. If anyone comes looking for James Cullen, I’ll hear about it and the team will take care of the problem.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have put a team together.”
“I didn’t want to involve ye right now. Yer priority is Joseph and yer own recovery. Give it six more months. Then ye’ll have more on yer plate than ye can handle.”
“I don’t need six months, and Rick and Penny said Joseph is welcome at their house if I have to go out of town. So if a problem comes up, I’m good to go.”
“Penny has newborn twins. Let’s not do that to her unless it’s an emergency.” Elliott stood and carried his empty glass to the bar.
Tavis followed him and put the bottle of whisky back on the shelf. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about, but I haven’t mentioned it to anyone yet. Have you considered that dead doesn’t always mean dead?”
Elliott headed toward the steps but returned to the chair to pick up the folder and his glasses and handed the report to Tavis. “What’s the context of yer riddle?”
“Erik and Sten both died in 1885, but Erik time-traveled dozens, maybe hundreds of times, to the past and the future. I’m sure Sten did, too.”
“So what are ye thinking? That we could see them again?”
“Yes, and JC could have another run-in with Sten.”
Elliott sighed, and his entire body seemed to fold in on itself. “I’ll keep James Cullen out of the brooch business.”
“You can’t put him in a bubble. He was trying to protect the family and almost got killed. It will backfire if you try, and you won’t like the results.”
“I’ll take the risk. I don’t want those two in the same room ever again.”
“I’m not saying it will happen. I’m just saying it could. With every team we send back in time from now on, we have to assume someone might run into either Erik or Sten.”
“The brooches have been showing up every three years, so we have some time. But what I want ye to do is write down all the dates ye traveled with Erik and where ye went. Put the information in a database that Matt Kelly can access. I want him to search those dates for historical events. And if anyone ever sees Erik again, I want dates from him, too.”
Tavis picked up the laptop he’d left in the kitchen. “What we need is Erik’s journal. He always carried a four-by-six leatherbound journal with him, but he didn’t have it when he died.”
“I saw him shortly before he fought the bear, and he didn’t have it with him then, either,” Elliott said. “It could be in the cave on MacKlenna Farm. We’ve only inventoried about a fourth of the treasure we found there. And we know Erik was in the cave right before I saw him and again after he left me. He could have hidden it there before he went to the Badlands to rescue Ensley. What language was it in?”
“I don’t know, but he could read and speak French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Italian, German, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Latin, Gaelic, English, and those are only the ones I know about. If we could find the journal, we would know where he took JC. He could have taken him to the twenty-second century for new skin?”
“Hell, that’s easier to believe than the story Erik told me about a magic cloak. But why wouldn’t he just tell me what he did?”
“Do you want to know what life will be like a hundred years from now? I don’t. And I don’t want to go there, either. If that’s what Erik did, he was keeping medical advances to himself. Doctors in the future could be using an advanced form of spray-on skin technology like they’re developing at the Temple Burn Center. Who knows? But for me, I’ll stick to the magic cloak scenario.”
“Why the hell not?” Elliott clapped Tavis on the shoulder. “Ye still believe a hot dog, hamburger, and a stiff drink can solve all the world’s problems.”
Tavis laughed. “That sounds like a quote on a Dr. Bronner’s label.”
Elliott laughed, t0o. “Dr. Bronner was pushing his Moral ABCs in a simpler time when dead really did mean dead.”
They climbed the stairs and parted at the landing. “If ye talk to yer mother later today, see what ye can find out about Erik.”
“That’s not going to happen, Elliott. If Erik’s name comes up, it’ll be when we are face-to-face. And as far as I know, she’s in the south of France right now.”
The door where all the kids were sleeping opened and Joseph came out, rubbing his eyes. He was so young and moved with such easy grace, just like his mother, that it made Tavis’s heart hurt like it did every time he thought of Astrid.
“Dad, I had a scary dream.”
Tavis scooped up his son and hugged him. “That makes two of us. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Did you tell Grandpa Elliott about your dream?”
“Yep, and he told me that to fix a problem, all I needed was a hot dog, a hamburger, and a beer.”
“I don’t like beer. Can milk fix a problem?”
Tavis kissed the top of his son’s head. “You bet, son—anything and everything that matters. We’ll get a little carton of milk from the mini-fridge. Okay?
“We drank ‘em all. Aunt Ensley said she’d put more in there in the morning. Is it morning yet?”
“Early morning. But we can look.”
“That’s okay, Dad.” Joseph yawned. “I can wait for breakfast. Good night, Grandpa Elliott.”
Elliott kissed Joseph’s cheek. “Good night, lad. Santa will be here soon.”
“He was here already. I sat on his lap.”
“Hmmm,” Elliott said. “Well, he’s coming back…but not until everybody is sound asleep.”
Joseph yawned. “Can I sleep with you, Dad?”
“Sure, buddy.” Tavis looked over Joseph’s head and winked at Elliott. “Good night, boss.”
Tavis carried Joseph back to his room and cuddled with him. “Sleep, now. Christmas is going to be very busy.”
“Grandma Sammy said she’d call after I opened her presents. But how will she know? Maybe you”—yawn—“should call her.”
“Grandma knows you’ll get up early and open all your gifts, and by the time she calls, you’ll be playing with whatever she sent you.”
Tavis always wanted to have this kind of Christmas with Astrid, but she refused to come to the future with him. And then it was too late. He pulled the covers up over both of them as tears leaked down his cheeks. The crushing grief that hammered him for months had finally stopped beating him up. But he still grieved for her and always would. He lifted the medallion to his lips and kissed it.
“Jean has a nice mommy,” Joseph said, pulling Tavis back to the present. “Aunt Penny’s got babies, but she has time to play soccer with Jean and me. That’s not like living at Jarlshof. Everybody had to work. Grandma Mere told us to come to her if we need anything. That’s okay, right?”
“Grandma Mere and Grandpa Elliott will always be there for you guys.”
Joseph sighed as he settled into the protective cocoon Tavis created with his body. “I’m happy here.”
Tavis tousled Joseph’s hair. “In Colorado or the winery?”
Joseph giggled. “I’m happy in Grandpa Elliott’s time. You are, too. I can tell because you laugh a lot. You didn’t laugh in Jarlshof. Not like you do here.”
“Life isn’t as hard here, Joseph. We don’t have to hunt for food or even fuel to heat our lodge. We have medicine to make us feel better and doctors to patch us up when we get hurt.”
“And moms and babies don’t die.”
“They still die, Joseph, but your mother and baby sister might have survived if they’d been here.”
Joseph didn’t say anything more, and soon his breathing slowed and evened out. Tavis kissed the top of his head again. “Sleep well, buddy.”
It occurred to Tavis that Erik never had sweet moments like this with his sons. It was one thing to travel through time and impregnate women, but being a father was much more than planting his seed. Even if he saw Erik a hundred more times, he would never be a father to Tavis. It was too late now.
Marcus Stuart was the man who helped with homework and attended all Tavis and Mark’s baseball and basketball games. Even though they didn’t always get along, Marcus was dependable. He and Mark might not have come from Marcus’s seed, but Marcus was very much their father. His parents were divorced now, but they were still his parents.
Tavis closed his eyes and breathed in Joseph’s lavender-scented shampoo, letting his mind drift back to simpler times when all that mattered was whether he and Mark and Aislinn could find an adventure to keep them entertained while they waited for their parents. She was always more daring than he and Mark, and nothing scared her. Not snakes or caves. Not the dead of night or eating snails and insects. Not bullies or police who didn’t speak English. Not hot summers or cold winters. Nothing. Zip. Zero. She was fearless.
Aislinn Kennedy, the first girl who stole his heart.
©Katherine Lowry Logan 2021
Release date Summer 2022
Fraser Family Tree through The Sunstone Brooch
So glad I checked out The Bloodstone Brooch synopsis with Eric’s explanation of what he knows of the brooch history. As a major part of my DNA is of Scottish/Irish Celtic descent and my British education found ancient history, plus geography, my most fascinating subjects, your research for this series must have to be extensive and a profoundly thought provoking creative rush. I have lived and travelled extensively on different continents and call the USA home for many years. Thank you for your fascinating and sometimes funny and sexy characters and their well plotted “adventures”
Joan, that chapter took 2 months to write. I had no idea where it was going. All I had were the details characters had revealed in prior books, but so much was missing. It finally started coming together. I decided to release it early so readers wouldn’t be hit with it when the book releases.
The major part of my DNA is also Scot/Irish!
Wow! Great 1st chapter. Caught my imagination and now I’m really looking forward to reading the book next year.
Awesome first chapter. I cannot wait to read the book-they are all so very good!
Amazing! Can’t wait to pre order. It is hard to wait for each new book. Love all your characters.
Oooh can’t wait!!!
I CAN’T WAIT!
Totally enjoyed all the new information. It will all come in handy as I read all your new books. I love this series. I have read all of them at least twice! Can’t wait for the next one.
Great 1st chapter so glad to hear the saga is continuing.
Do I scream or cry! First time I have read a preview of the next book. How do I survive till then!
I have read every single book and have a love/hate relationship with Elliott and just love for all the other guys. History was always my favorite subject in school and these books are just so FANTASTIC with all places and people. Now I have to wait so long for The Bloodstone.
At my age, not sure I will be around for 25. Please write faster.
You can do both. After the intense writing schedule I had for The Topaz and The Sunstone, I’m exhausted and writing very slowly while enjoying a long beach vacation. I think a love/hate relationship with Elliott is the right response to him. He’s an interesting character. I’m 71 now, so I hope I’m still around to write the end to the series!
I can’t write any faster. I wish I could. I also wish I could write shorter. Can’t do that, either!
I wish you could write faster!!! I’ve read the whole series in 3 weeks and am hooked. You are my new favorite author. I too am exhausted after reading and staying up all night to finish the last book . I couldn’t understand why it took me so long to read until I saw in author notes that each book is equivalent to 3 books. Am hoping you finish soon.
I wish I could write faster too. There are several chapters in The Bloodstone that will keep readers reading late at night. I had hoped to write a shorter book but I don’t think I can.
How much longer do we have to wait? It’s summer!
Two more weeks! It’s a long, complicated story and it took a while to figure it out.
I posted Chapter 2. It picks up a few hours after Elliott makes his Santa appearance on Christmas Eve.
Chapter 2 is amazing. I can’t wait for the book to come out. I love your work. Take care of you so that you can stay around to complete the story. Thank you for sharing your imagination and these characters with us.
Thank you for sharing chapter 2 waiting now for 2022
Thank you Katherine. Those 2 chapters have give so much clarity and raised just as many questions. Bring on 2022
Oh I am so ready for rest of the story to unfold. I enjoy the continuation of the family circle enlarging and sprouting new branches. You make the story line so believable. I am anxious to see what happens next. 👀❤
I enjoyed reading these two chapters. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book. Thanks for Sharing them Katherine.
I’m glad you enjoyed them!
Dear Katherine, I thank you for all the brooch books and the histories and characters woven around them. They are entwined like the ornate workings around the brooches themselves. In a way I wish I hadn’t read the two chapters of the next book as it makes waiting till next year seem like a slow torture. ( not as bad as being skinned alive though). As we are the same age I can understand about your need to balance your writing and your relaxing. More power to your pen for the future. May you never run out of ideas or… Read more »
As long as I’m writing in MacKlenna World I think I’ll always have stories to tell! I wanted to put the first two chapters of the Bloodstone out there so readers wouldn’t get bogged down in all the details when they start the book.
Thanks for the chapters, l need to read them over again a few times to get it all straight in my head, last time a new book came out l read all the previous ones again first, each time l do this l get more enjoyment from them because l have better knowledge of the clan and it’s makeup.
Lots of readers re-read the series before a new book comes out so all the family connections are fresh in their minds. It’s a huge cast and hard to remember who goes with whom! I decided to put those chapters out because there is so much information that readers can take it all in now and not have to slow down when the reading the book!
I don’t want to quit reading this new book. I only wish it were finished now!
I wish I was finished with it! But I’m just starting.
It’s going to be a long wait… I’m already so into this
Having half of DNA Scot/Irish and Norse… I find it even more fascinating Katherine you are an amazing writer.
I’m also Scot/Irish/Norse. And yes, I agree. It will be a long wait. This book is taking longer because I’m not moving as fast as I have with other books. But it will be out next year.
Noooooo! I’m so involved with this storyline I can’t wait until next year. I may have withdrawals. I have been through all 11 books in 6 weeks.
Thank you for sharing the beginning of the next adventure. I have read and reread all the books. Have to reread in case I missed something the first couple of times.
Look forward to the next books. I have fallen in love with all the characters. Thank you for sharing your talent with us.
Readers say they find something new every time they reread a book!
Thank you for this little peak into the next book. I loved it! hopefully we’ll get some more before it comes out this summer. I cannot wait!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the chapters. Writing this book is going slower than usual. There are so many plots to figure out. I hope to wrap up the Viking/Illuminati plotline in The Bloodstone. I don’t have a release date yet. There is still so much more to write.
KL:
My wife got me Interested, but the interwoven stories about brooches, history, and family left me wanting more. Thanks for chapters 1 and 2. .. much there to digest. ( And the long wait).
I’m trying to wrap up the Viking/Illuminati plotline in The Bloodstone and it’s getting complicated. The story gets more involved daily, and I hope to get it out by early summer.
I absolutely cannot wait to read The Bloodstone Brooch! These first two chapters have me at the edge of my chair!
There are so many plotlines in The Bloodstone to weave together but I love Erik. He brings an interesting twist to the book!
I released the first two chapter drafts because there is so much information. I thought it would be helpful to readers not to have to stop and reread it to get all the info. It should be out the end of June. Blessings, Kathy
I’m reading the series again and will be so ready for a late June release of the Bloodstone Brooch! What a wonderful series! Thanks for bringing the MacKlenna world to readers!
I’m so glad you are enjoying the series.
Did you ever watch Peabody’s Way Back Machine? Your books are the adult version with vivid descriptions that make your stories come off the page. They are the best time travel books in print or digital today. Great story line, characters that are awesome, locations to visit, engaging history lessons and plenty of action and drama with some comic relief here and there. These books are page turners and enough characters that hopefully the last book is ages away. Take care of yourself so you can share all the brooch stories and send us back in time for more time… Read more »
Thank you so much. I’m so glad you are enjoying the stories. Erik will be back for sure! A few more weeks and book 12 will be out!
Awesome. Anticipating a fantastic new read. Rereading all the previous books while waiting for your next one. Stay well and God bless you.
Just to confirm the book is coming end of June 2022? I can’t wait! Between you and Diana Gabaldon, you have helped me with the loss of my husband of 32 years who passed away 8 years ago. How about the Audible? I purchased both kindle and Audible, I have Dyslexia and need to hear to keep me in line reading it. I enjoy the visual too so I get both. Who will narrate it? I hope Teri Schnaubelt, she really has all the different voices down perfect. The other two narrators not so much.
The book will release in a few weeks. I’m excited that Patrick and Marnye will be narrating this book as well. But the audiobook will not be out until this fall.
Hello! I’m eagerly looking forward to the new Kindle release! Do you have a date yet? I’m also on pins and needles awaiting the audible version—I love being “read to” as I follow along with the Kindle version. It’s so relaxing. And Patrick and Marnye are such wonderful narrators! The Brooch books are one of my two favorite series and it’s so difficult to wait for each new book! Thanks so much for creating such an entertaining literary adventure!
Lisa, the Kindle and print editions will be out in 2-3 weeks but the audiobook won’t be out until late September due to scheduling conflicts.
I just reread the series and can’t wait for book 12. Can we still expect it this month? I can’t wait to read what happens next.
2-23 more weeks.
I am SO excited for this book to come out!! I travel alot for work and I love this series on audible!!