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

A climb.

It might make all the difference for him.

Chapter 41

Iolanthe stuck her pitchfork under a pile of straw and swung it into the wheelbarrow. She repeated the motion half a dozen times until she'd finished filling the stall, then sat down on a bale of hay to catch her breath. Jamie had a stableboy for this kind of thing, but she hadn't cared. It was good, mind-numbing work. She'd certainly done it often enough in her past. Most of her half-brothers had been willing to go to great lengths to avoid any kind of useful labor, so mucking out the stables had always been a good way for her to avoid having to see them.

She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. She was tired, aye, so tired she suspected she could sleep for a se'nnight and wake only to seek out the bathroom. The trouble with sleeping, though, was that then she would dream.

And she was powerfully unsettled by her dreams.

One thing she could say for a se'nnight at Jamie's hall was that she was certainly more used to the ways of the Future. She'd grown accustomed to jeans, boots, and sweaters—so much so that she wondered how she'd managed without them.

She'd also made a friend of Elizabeth. She had come to realize that having another woman to talk to was a pleasure. It felt very familiar and easy, which made her wonder if she hadn't done something like unto it in another lifetime.

A ghostly lifetime, perhaps.

She turned away from that thought. True or not, she had no stomach for thinking on it. What she thought she might be able to stomach was more of that double-fudge ripple from the freezer. Along with all of Elizabeth's other fine qualities was the uncanny ability to choose a very fine ice cream.

"Iolanthe?"

She opened her eyes in surprise, then smiled at the sight of Jamie standing there. "Aye, my laird?"

Jamie looked at her gravely. "I have something that perhaps you should see."

It was a moment that she was sure she would look back on fifty years in the future and remember with perfect clarity. She would remember the smell of hay, dung, and horse. She would hear the whickers of beasts, the shifting of hooves, and the patter of rain against the roof. She would see Jamie with the light of a modern lamp falling over him just so, and she would feel her hands suddenly flex of their own accord.

Thomas would have called it déjà vu.

She had no name for it but destiny.

"Of course, my laird."

She rose and followed him into the house and all the way up to his thinking chamber. He gestured for her to sit down in the chair next to his desk. She started to, then froze. For an instant, she felt as if she'd done the like before. Of course, she had done the like before, as she had spent a goodly amount of time talking to Jamie over the past se'nnight. She'd sat in that chair numerous times.

But not with this eerie sense of memory hovering over her.

But she was no coward, so she sat and clasped her hands in her lap—so fiercely that her knuckles turned white.

Jamie reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled out a book.

She closed her eyes before she truly had a good look at it, but that didn't matter. She knew it, knew it intimately, knew what the pages contained, knew that it had been an empty book that Jamie had pulled out of his case of books at some point in the past.

Past. Future. She couldn't tell the difference anymore.

But there was a difference with the book.

This time she could hold it.

She opened her eyes and held out her hands. Jamie handed her the book. She felt the smooth, cool leather beneath her fingers. She smelled the tanned calfskin. She ran her fingers over the black ribbon that kept the book closed.

She put the book down on her lap and folded her hands over it. And then she spoke.

"I, Iolanthe MacLeod, do make this record, not by my own hand, but by the hand of my laird, James MacLeod," she whispered. She looked at Jamie. "In the year of Our Lord's Grace 2001. In the autumn of that year."

His mouth had slipped open. "Do you remember it?"

She shivered. "Nay. 'Tis but a dream in my head. When I think on it too long, it fades from me."

"Well," Jamie said, then fell silent. "These are tidings indeed."

"I know not what they mean."

"Open your book, granddaughter, and see if your tale aids you."

"I cannot read, my laird."

"You could, Iolanthe. You could before."

"You mean after."

"Aye, that as well, I suppose."

"'Tis a perplexing snarl, isn't it?"

"I'm still sorting it out," he agreed. "I will someday, then perhaps I'll find a few more destinations for my traveling."

She had to smile. "Your lady will have aught to say about that."

"Aye, my girl, she always does."

Iolanthe looked down and untied the book before the unease caught her up again. She opened to the first page and looked down at the writing there. It looked as mysterious as all writing looked to her. She shook her head.

"I cannot read this."

"Lessons, then," Jamie said, rubbing his hands together. "As quick as may be."

"Will you not read it to me?" she asked.

He smiled briefly. "Lass, 'tis far better that you read it yourself."

"But you wrote it."

"I wrote down your words, aye. As did everyone else in my household."

She blinked. "They did? In truth?"

"In truth? Aye. Six hundred years of tale takes a bit of doing to set down. We wrote at all hours till your tale was done."

"I can't believe 'tis mine."

"That's your hand there," he said, pointing to the first bit of scribbling. "It cost you, I'm afraid, for apparently 'tis very difficult for a... um..."

"Spirit," she supplied.

"Aye," he agreed quickly, "for a spirit to handle things from our mortal world. But you did it, signed your name and all. Then