The Wellspring (Kaitlyn and the Highlander #12) - Diana Knightley Page 0,109

we have to do. You jumped okay, right? When you got here, were you okay?”

“Aye, twas after the fight that I was weakened.”

“Well, first of all, it was too soon, you weren’t fully recovered. We knew that. It’s easy to relapse if you aren’t fully well. But also, it was the jump, the fighting, and the stress — all in a row, it’s all of it together too much, you have to recover. You can’t do everything.”

“I hae tae protect ye.”

“Yeah, and you have to be alive to do that…”

“And I need tae be with ye.”

“Yes, exactly, you can’t protect me from a totally different century.” She rolled onto her back and looked up at the canvas that stretched over us. “We’ve been here so many times, haven’t we, inside a tent?”

“Aye.” I chuckled. “I actually missed bein’ here with ye.”

She folded back against me. “You know what? I missed it too.”

I kissed the top of her head. “I hae all the vessels. Almost all of them, and we are still here, mo reul-iuil. We are still taegether. It dinna change the world.”

“We always believed it wouldn’t change the big things. I’ve just never admitted that we are big things.”

“Aye, did ye bring the book?”

“Oh yeah, I did.” She scrambled up and dug through her bag. She came and lay beside me holding the book up over our heads. She flipped through. “There, look.” She pointed at a page. “This drawing is different. Whoa.” She flipped further and came tae the list.

In the handwritin’ of Johnne Campbell there were now nine vessels.

She dug through her bag again, pulling from her wallet a folded up piece of paper. It listed in her own hand all the vessels with their corresponding person. Most of the vessels had written beside them — “inside the vault.” There were twenty-three vessels on her list.

She held the paper beside the list in the book, the nine vessels that had been used by Donnan and his ancestors, my own ancestors, were the same on the list and in the book.

Kaitlyn said, “We left them nine and they did everything. We’re still here.”

“Big things dinna change.”

She sat quietly. Then asked, “Does that mean the things with Padraig still happen? Has he taken your kingdom?”

“Och, I would assume so. If big things still happen, that seems a certainty, tis verra big.”

“Great, how will we know?”

“Someone will go see the future and tell us if it has happened. Until them we hae tae hide and be safe, and guard the vessels.”

“Where are they now?”

I pointed tae the sack. She dragged it over and dug through it, counting. When she finished, she asked, “How many do we have personally?”

“The same nine, and these…”

“That makes twenty-four.”

“Och, there are more.”

“Yep,” she sighed. “So that means we might have them all but we might not. There might be more that we don’t know about. And we haven’t even accounted for Fraoch’s, the one in Glen Coe.”

“True, we might nae hae them all, but we hae most. I still believe we should celebrate.”

“I agree.” She added, “Smell that?”

“Aye, Chef Zach is cooking. There is naething better. Thank ye for bringing him.”

“It wasn’t my doing. I packed my bags and asked Quentin to gather the camping equipment for me, and before I knew it the pile was twice as big as I planned, and everyone was coming along. I didn’t have to ask.”

“Tis good tae be surrounded by a big family.” The scent of food wafted intae the tent, causin’ my stomach tae growl.

She asked, “Where are we going to live now?”

“I daena ken… We need a new place. Daena be scared. Tis nae safe in Florida—”

“I know, I get it. We can’t go home. I get it so much. We can’t see the future, going there is dangerous, but they can come to us, to harass us, or worse, whenever they want. It’s not fair and it’s not safe. We need another plan. And don’t worry about scaring me — I was scared, I’m not now that we’re together.” She looked around. “That being said, is there a chance we’ve been followed?”

“Nae, we are hidden enough, and snow is coming. Twill keep them from following us.”

“Perfect, camping in the snow. Emma is going to love it.”

“So if ye ken we arna safe in our home, with our swimming pool, and our boardwalk, and our refrigerator, where dost ye think we are we safe?”

She turned so her chin was on my chest, close and earnest, lookin’