My Heart Stood Still by Lynn Kurland (best book club books of all time .TXT) 📕

And hope she hadn't waited too long to give him the answer he wanted.

Chapter 40

Thomas stood in Ian MacLeod's kitchen and looked at what was supposed to serve as dinner. What had he been thinking to pit his pitiful cooking skills against an AGA stove? Who cooked on that thing anyway with any success? Since when did a wood fire replace a good, old-fashioned gas oven? He wanted to turn a dial and have the right temperature. He didn't want to coax a fire, feed a fire, and subsequently have that fire incinerate his supper.

It was shaping up to be a helluva Thanksgiving.

"I've seen worse," Ian MacLeod said, folding his arms across his chest and regarding the well-done bird. "Much worse."

Thomas didn't doubt it. After all, it was Ian's stove. Thomas just couldn't believe that Ian hadn't burned his share of things initially as well.

"You know," Thomas said, "you could have warned me about this thing."

Ian grinned in a way that left Thomas with no doubts that he'd raised more hell than was good for him in a former lifetime.

"You needed aught to occupy your mind," Ian said pleasantly. "What better to do than to try and best my cooker?"

"I can think of lots of things," Thomas said with a scowl.

"Don't worry. There's a bit to be saved here," Ian said, poking the chicken with a knife. "And we've other things as well. See here, my fine, golden browned rolls." He sniffed appreciatively. "Truly, I have missed my calling in life."

Thomas had a great deal of experience with both Ian's cooking and his swordplay, and, nice as the food was, Ian's swordplay was what was stellar.

"Nah," Thomas said, taking a roll and testing it, "you'd be bored with just food."

"Perhaps," Ian agreed. "Though I must say the convenience of a modern kitchen has definitely improved the contents of my suppers." He looked at Thomas. "I daresay you've had experience with that, having spent your own amount of time in medieval Scotland."

"I ate pretty well once we got to Artane," Thomas said. "But before then, yes, it was pretty much touch and go." He finished his roll, then stretched. "I still say you're a better swordmaster than a cook. Besides, where's the joy in life if you can't do something every day to keep up the blisters on your hands?"

Ian clapped him on the back. "I don't have blisters on my hands," he said with a grin.

"Thanks for reminding me," Thomas grumbled.

Ian laughed. "You've done very well for yourself, and should you continue on this path you've chosen, your blisters will disappear as well. The MacLeod blood runs true in you, Tommy lad."

"For all the good it does me."

"It provides me with sport enough," Ian said, filching a roll. "What say you we finish this fine feast, then indulge ourselves in a bit of the same?"

"It's snowing outside, Ian."

Ian looked puzzled. "Aye."

Thomas wondered, and it hadn't been for the first time in the past week, just what he'd been thinking to want to come stay with this maniac.

"Maybe tomorrow," Thomas said. "There's probably football on your satellite dish. We should watch it. It's tradition."

"Ah, well," Ian said, patting his disgustingly steel-like belly, "I suppose a day of leisure now and then wouldn't harm me."

"It'll give the rest of us a chance to catch up," Thomas assured him. "Let's get this served."

"I'll fetch my lady."

Thomas put everything on the table and waited for Ian and his family to return. Just the sight of the three of them so happily settled was enough to make him think perhaps a little swordplay wasn't such a bad idea. It would certainly take his mind off his own problems.

Such as a week with no sign of Iolanthe.

If he hadn't known better, he would have suspected he had dreamed her.

"Lovely dinner, Thomas," Jane said, settling her son in his chair and sitting down next to her husband. "Crunchy chicken. I like it."

"That's a good thing," Thomas said dryly, "since that's all that's available."

"Trust me," she said with feeling, "we've had worse."

Ian put his hand over his heart. "You wound me. I thought you had forgotten those days when I strove to master the beast."

Jane leaned over and kissed his cheek. "You're a great cook. Now," she added with a smile.

Thomas smiled into his potatoes as he listened to them banter affectionately. It reminded him sharply of his own parents.

Dinner was alternately scary and delicious, depending on who had cooked what. The chicken, its crunchy outside aside, was a good substitute for turkey, and everything else was certainly something Thomas would have found on his own table.

But it was the company that left him filled. Ian and Jane were a wonderful couple, and they seemed to have no trouble drawing him into their circle.

Ah, that such a family could be his.

When there were little more than scraps left on the table, Ian leaned back and pushed his plate away. He stretched, then settled himself more comfortably in his chair.

"I heard your tale at Jamie's, Thomas," he said, "but your lady was sitting there next to you, and I wondered how freely you spoke. I would have an entire retelling now, if you've a mind for it"

Thomas almost said he didn't think he could get through it again, then it occurred to him whom he was talking to. Just like Jamie, Ian had also come from medieval Scotland. Who better to tell his story to than a medieval Scot and his very twentieth-century wife? If anyone could help him understand where Iolanthe was coming from, it would be these two. Of course, neither of them had been a ghost for six hundred years, but maybe that was muddying the waters where they didn't need to be.

So he launched into a retelling of his story, and he left nothing out. That wasn't to say that he laid bare his heart. He suspected, though, that enough of it came out just the same, because