as she’d married Ben in the seventeenth century. But the priest at the family’s church could surely tweak the registry to show they’d been married a week or so. She would talk to Richard about it when the doctor wasn’t around.
“Then we’ll put the paperwork through under your name and insurance and hope for the best. If you would give your details at the desk in A&E, they’ll take care of the rest.”
Kenzie took the doctor’s hands, clasping them tight. “I can’t ever thank you enough. Truly, Ben is everything to me. I would be lost without him.”
The doctor seemed humble. “You’re welcome, and ’tis my job to keep people alive if I can. I’m glad I was able to accomplish that today. Ye husband is in an induced coma, not for long, mind ye. We’ll start pulling him out of it in a day or so. Putting him in this state enables the body to relax and heal. Less stress on his system. But ye may sit and visit with him later today, once he’s moved up to ICU.”
Kenzie nodded, understanding but wanting to go to Ben now. “Thank you, doctor.” She watched him go back through the doors he’d come through, and she turned toward the administration counter, silently making another little prayer that her insurance company would approve Ben’s treatment.
The bed in which Ben lay in was beyond the softest thing he’d ever experienced, and he’d had his fair share of feathers, straw, and abundant fur skins to make his sleep most comfortable. But this bed, he shifted a little, and it seemed to hug him, and he sighed. How odd…
A cool hand touched his brow, and he fought to open his eyes, his lids resembling little, heavy stones that refused to open much more than a slit. “Kenzie,” he croaked, his voice hoarse. Hell, he was glad to see the lass, which meant only one thing. They’d survived the attack from Clan Grant.
He frowned, not remembering much of what happened, but one thing he did remember was Evan and his father thundering toward him and his family, determined to slice him in two and finish him for good.
“Where am I, lass?” The room was white as a cloud, with perfect walls, and an odd, little box on the wall that had hundreds of moving people on it. The window was a massive, perfectly clear pane of glass, and he’d never seen one so big in his life.
He tried to sit up a little, but Kenzie pushed on his shoulder and bade him lay back.
“You’re in a hospital, Ben. People are treated here when they’re sick or hurt. You’ve had an operation on your abdomen, which will be a little sore and tender, but you’re going to be okay. You were fixed up, in short. Nothing more to worry about.”
“And Clan Grant? Where is Alasdair? Did Castle Ross survive?”
Kenzie shook her head and the room spun at the thought of his son having been killed. No. Not his boy.
“The castle is gone, Ben, and so, too, is Clan Grant, but Alasdair is perfectly fine and safe. He’s with my cousin back at Castle Druiminn.
“Aedan has him?” Ben sighed in relief. “Good, the boy will be safe with Aedan and Abigail.”
The pain and fear etched on Kenzie’s face gave Ben pause. “What is it, lass? What are ye not telling me?”
“Alasdair isn’t with Aedan and Abagail. He’s with Richard, the current MacLeod laird in the twenty-first century, not seventeenth. I…I…”
“Ye what?” he asked, looking about the room again. It dawned on him like a blow to the skull. “What have you done, lass?”
Tears blurred Kenzie’s gaze, and she bit her lip. Never a good sign. “The day of the attack at Castle Ross, the Grants were coming toward you on their horses, and you were injured yet struggling to get back up. I couldn’t run away with Alasdair and leave you to die. I couldn’t allow that to happen. I wouldn’t.”
Ben swallowed and fought for calm as a terrible realization started to take shape in his mind. “Kenzie, tell me.”
“I held the two most important people in the world in my arms—you and Alasdair—and brought you back…back to my time.”
If being stabbed wasn’t bad enough, Ben didn’t think the severing pain slicing through his body could get any worse. But it could. The thought of never seeing Castle Ross, his clansman, not to mention Aedan, Abigail, Gwen, and Braxton… He shook his head to clear it. “Ye sent