Page 1 of Her Scot of Bygones
CHAPTER ONE
North Salem, New Hampshire
PresentDay
–Hazel–
“PLEASE TELL ME I’m seeing things,” I whispered, standing in the kitchen of the old colonial my sisters and I had recently purchased. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten, praying it was just my imagination, before I leaned against the sink again and looked out the window, only to discover I wasn’t seeing things.
The oak tree out front had turned into a hazel tree.
The very tree I was named after.
“Hey, there,” Willow said, appearing out of nowhere, scaring me half to death. “Are you okay, sis?” She stood in the doorway, sniffed and scrunched her nose, then narrowed her thickly lashed, dark amber eyes. “Are youburningsomething?”
Before I could make sense of how she got here without me hearing her come through the front door, let alone see her pull into the dirt driveway, she dropped her duffel bag and opened the oven, only to discover Ihadbeen burning something.
“Oh, wow,” Willow exclaimed, grabbing an oven mitt and yanking out yet another round of burned corn muffins. She shut the door, turned on the exhaust fan, and flung open the window I had just been staring out of.
“Are you okay?” She eyed me with concern and waved the mitt around, trying to get the smoke out. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you burn anything.” Her gaze swept over the kitchen and the dozens upon dozens of burned muffins. “Yet I see you’re on a roll…and with my favorite muffins, no less.”
Trying to understand why this kept happening batch after batch, I shook my head, blew an escaped lock of red hair out of my eye, and frowned. “Sorry, I’m just really off my game today. I’ll get it right one of these times.”
“One of thesetimes?” Her brow furrowed, and she looked at me like I had lost my mind. “You’ve been cooking and baking since you could walk, hence the successful bakery and coffee shop you just sold, and never once have you burned a thing.”
What she wasn’t saying, because Willow lived in a state of denial when it came to our magic, was that I was gifted. I had an uncanny way of preparing food. I knew what people liked before they did, from every last ingredient to the temperature of their beverage, whether served hot or cold.
So, burning one batch of muffins, let alone dozens, was alarming.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said softly, staring at the batter I had been mindlessly stirring, hoping to have Willow’s favorite muffins ready when she got home. “I’m not myself.” Swallowing hard, I eyed the oak-turned-hazel tree out front. “Any chance you still see an oak tree out front?”
“Of course I do.” Frowning, Willow pried the bowl and spoon from my hands. “Don’t tell me you’re seeing a different tree like Aspen did.”
Aspen, one of our two half-sisters, supposedly traveled back in time to medieval Scotland, according to Adlin MacLomain, our realtor-turned-wizard. Or should I say wizard all along? Adlin, who was apparently from medieval Scotland as well, assured all four of us that the letters from Storm were genuine.
Even the most recent ones.
We also learned Storm, supposedly a wolf shifter, had traveled back in time from this very house to ancient Ireland, and began writing to me and my sisters long before we ever met, as we were born of one father but four different mothers, eventually bringing us all together without us ever laying eyes on her. Rather, she remained anonymous, befriending us when we were young, there for us when we'd needed her, fueling our imaginations with a heroic figure who got us through our difficult childhoods.
Aspen had called her hero one of yesteryear and had since learned a medieval Scottish chieftain existed, and the name reunited them in a way they never expected, making themfatedmates. A term used by dragon shifters, as it seemed our father had been before his passing. Our mothers were all witches.
So we were, in effect, half witch, half dragon.
I was okay with being a witch, but wanted nothing to do with the other because then I’d have to admit my father hadn’t been lying to us all these years. Perhaps, even, hadn’t been lying to my mother when he told her he had no choice but to leave us.
No choice but to abandon us.
Something I refused to dwell on because it served no purpose. Bygones, I assured my mother when she needed me to be strong, promising her I would forgive him because that’s what she needed to hear. A word I often used when things got especially rough. It had been a grown-up word that she liked hearing, and I rather liked saying, so it wasn’t such a stretch that my hero became one of bygones and forgiveness.
A hero who reminded me forgiveness felt better than bitterness and anger, and not to dwell on the past. Let things go. A hero who was everything my father wasn’t. Present, even if only in my imagination. Dependable and steadfast rather than unpredictable and unreliable.
However fictional he might have been, he helped me embrace the same steadiness which, in turn, ensured I was always there for others. Without fail. As time passed, it also made me prefer routine, which meant my sisters always knew where to find me. I wasn’t spontaneous like some of my sisters, and I was definitely not a fan of surprises. To that end, I chose to avoid men like my father and date steady, dependable ones.
“Hello?” Willow snapped her fingers in front of my face, bringing me back to the here and now. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Why did you ask me if the tree out front is still an oak? Because it is.”
