could have come back for him later.
Her sister led the way to the workroom where they would begin their journey back to the world of caffeine.
"I'm sorry, Ewan,” she said. “We'd stay longer but we need to get these two to a doctor, just to be safe."
Ewan squeezed Jillian. "Never ye mind, lass. I'm sure we couldna stand to feed ye, and that was before you starting carrying Monty's child about.
"Children," interjected one of the Muir sisters.
Montgomery blanched. Jillian bit her lip. The Muirs just laughed.
Jules could never remember the sisters’ names. It spooked the hell out of her that there were Muir twins everywhere. And standing there in the cellar, with Jillian, Quinn and Monty, and the Muirs, it looked like a reunion that excluded anyone who wasn’t genetically duplicated. James and Ewan stood off to the side, looking nothing alike.
The last time she’d been in that room, she’d been filled with bitterness, disagreeing with Ewan over the sainthood of Jillian Ross. But the second Jules had let go of that bitterness, something else had flooded in and filled the gaps. If she liked sappy, she’d say it was love. But she wasn’t sappy. Okay, not too sappy. If she had to put it into a single word, she’d call it...home.
Into the arms of yer family.
Montgomery’s words were still stuck in her head and she had no wish to unstick them.
Now, they were safely ensconced in Castle Ross. The tomb’s entrance was waiting patiently. The prying eyes of Clan Ross had been swept from the building and a state of mourning had commenced in honor of Laird Montgomery Ross who had died of battle wounds at the hands of the Gordons.
Quinn had once again assumed the role of the dead body and had been led through the streets of East Burnshire. The real Montgomery had ridden with his plaid over his hair and blue paint re-applied to his face. A few people noticed Jules and her sister and murmured “Muirs!” Jules figured it was as good a disguise as any.
All of them standing in the workroom had been moved by the respect shown for Montgomery Ross by hundreds of clanspeople who’d had to stand in the pouring rain to do so. Although, if Ewan shed a tear, it wouldn’t have been distinguishable from the rain pouring down his upturned face as he led the procession.
The emotions wrung from Jules that day had been emotions she didn’t believe herself capable of feeling. And no one had even died.
What a wuss.
She looked at Jillian and couldn’t help but see her now as the little girl on the other side of the table, soaking crayons, thinking the same things she thought. She remembered a lot of laughing.
The importance of that day, long ago, when the laughing had stopped, was fading.
In the morning, Clan Ross would bury a box that Ewan and Quinn had built and filled with stones. The Muirs had suggested it might be bad luck for Montgomery to have a hand in it.
No one had argued.
During the course of the past week, she’d even forgiven Ewan. She’d had no choice.
For some strange reason, Quinn had insisted that Daniel try his hand at sculpting Jules’ face. Apparently, the young man had a talent for it. Quinn had even found a stone for the guy to use, insisting that he’d do as fine a job as the Italian had done on the likeness of Monty. Ewan had moped around in front of her the entire time she was forced to hold her pose. Finally, she’d forgiven him just to get him to leave her alone.
Jillian and Quinn had acted freaky every time they’d checked on Daniel’s progress. Jules had started getting jealous of them excluding her from some inside joke, but Quinn promised he’d share their little secret as soon as they got back home.
While they’d waited for Daniel to finish, their wounds had healed nicely. She was going to have to get a tattoo to cover up the scars made by Ewan’s cauterizing job, but they would be a permanent reminder of the way she and Quinn had met. It had been a pretty hellish vacation from reality, but she didn’t want to forget it.
Also, while she’d posed for Daniel, she and Jillian had talked about their lives. Now she knew the old wives tale about twins was true, that Jillian’s pain caused her pain and vice versa. And even if there wasn’t that supernatural connection, she couldn’t bring herself to