Page 30 of Her Scot of Bygones
“That’s despicable,” Hazel said, her gaze as wounded as Evan’s words. “The years since then must have been difficult for you both, seeing each other yet knowing you could never be together.”
“It has not been easy.” Evan ground his jaw, and his dragon eyes flared. “Made harder when Dugal bred with her undoubtedly against her will and with no love betwixt them.” His gaze softened once more. “But then, I suppose we would not have her wee precious bairn, Marjorie, otherwise.”
“I can’t believe I have another sister, let alone a niece,” Hazel marveled, seeming to understand what Evan needed right now because she chanted wooden mugs all around, then a cauldron over the fire, a basket of herbs, and various other things here and there. “Tell me all about her, Evan. Spare no details.” She chanted on an all-too-familiar frilly apron and started tossingthings into the pot, encouraging him with a warm smile. “Tell me all about my beautiful, precious niece.”
“Sheisverra bonnie,” Evan conceded, clearly finding comfort in the line of conversation and, like me, the sight of Hazel bustling around. “Come to think of it, she looks a lot like ye, Hazel, with the same striking red locks and big green eyes.”
“Tell us more.” She kept smiling as she tossed various things in the pot, and icy rain mixed with random snowflakes outside. “What is she like?”
“Curious to be sure, much like her Aunt Hazel,” he began, grunting with approval at the whisky she provided before his smile widened. “She’s a wee bit o’ a daredevil with a fierce love of adventure, longing to fly with the dragons.”
“It sounds like she is a wee bit like all her aunts.” Hazel cocked her head and frowned. “So she’s not half dragon?”
“Nay.” Evan shook his head. “Like Lilias, she didnae inherit the gene.” He eyed her curiously. “Why do ye sound so surprised?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged and shook her head. “I guess it sounded wrong somehow, but it obviously happens, so I’m not sure why it struck me as strange.” Having added everything she wanted, Hazel stirred her concoction and encouraged him to go on. “Tell us more about Majorie, and about your life now.” She smiled from me to Evan. “Let’s catch up while we eat like we used to and see if we can’t cobble together how we ended up forgetting each other.”
So we did, and as the afternoon turned into night, we enjoyed Hazel’s delicious cooking, some good whisky, and got caught up. Sometimes the conversation was serious, and sometimes full of laughter, as we took a walk down memory lane, as Hazel put it.
Mysteries remained, however.
None of us could recall when Hazel had first arrived, only our initial contact with her on a snowy night when we had been out hunting. And none of us could remember how it ended, and we were left believing something untrue, if not downright forgetting things altogether. That is, until heavy snowflakes replaced rain and we finally witnessed where it all began.
Better still, who it all began with.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
–Hazel–
ICAN HONESTLY say today was one of the best days of my life. Cooking, eating, and walking down memory lane with Lucas and Evan around a fire we had enjoyed many times together in our youth, and rehashing old times. It felt amazing. It was perfect being with them like this again, talking, laughing, and consoling each other as we had too many times to count.
They were truly my very best friends, and it saddened me we had lost so much time together. That Evan and Lucas hated one another for no reason because their memories about Lilias were false. Evan had gone on to believe he’d won the girl, only to lose her to Laird Dugal Sutherland, and Lucas had lost not just a good friend in Evan, but me, the love of his life.
Yet despite all of our conversations, we couldn’t figure out when I arrived or when I left, nor who erased our memories and left us with false impressions. That is, until rain turned to heavy snow, caking the ground in a soft layer of white, and something caught our attention outside.
“What is that?” Lucas whispered, taking my hand as the three of us headed that way, trying to see what was near the base of my hazel tree.
“’Tis a man,” Evan whispered, unsheathing his sword at the same time as Lucas, as we crept closer, only for me and Evan to stop short in shock at what had to be a memory. As it were, none other than a younger version of my father was striding away from the tree before disappearing into the crevice that led through the tunnel back to Sutherland territory.
“’Tis the man in the painting hanging in Sutherland Castle,” Evan exclaimed. “Your father, Malcolm Sutherland.”
“It is,” I confirmed, trying to make sense of it.
“And ‘tis you again, Hazel,” Lucas exclaimed, pointing at me as a little girl, seeming to materialize out of the tree's base.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. Like it was for me and Lucas last night, a veil seemed to peel away, and I remembered that night like it was yesterday. “Dad was worried about my mom’s addiction and he’d come back to check on her...help her.” I blinked back tears and shook my head. “One night I woke and found him standing outside, gazing at the hazel tree in our backyard. He didn’t know I was there.” I widened my eyes, witnessing that moment all over again. “Then he just walked into the tree and vanished.”
“And what did ye do?” Evan asked. “Because ye rarely mentioned your father. Only that he still loved ye even though he left ye and yer mother.”
“Of course I followed him.” I smiled, missing that girl and glad she was returning. “I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how he had disappeared into the tree until an uneven Y shape in the trunk caught my attention because it almost seemed like a map.” I offered Lucas a soft smile, knowing we were way past keeping such things from Evan. “Just like the one on the door leading to our secret lair.”
“No doubt ‘twas a map to a few things,” Lucas said softly, figuring something out before us because he gestured at the shape of the cliff walls around the woodland area in which we stood, the tree being at the forked section of the Y. “A map that was leading ye back where ye belonged.” He threaded his fingers with mine. “Back to us.”
“And it did,” I murmured, more emotions welling up in me as I recalled the tree blurring, then stepping through it, and ending up here with large, heavy snowflakes falling all aroundme. Meanwhile, we watched me, as a little girl, do the same thing as the memory unfolded, then watched as I gazed around in wide-eyed wonder. “I felt like I’d walked into an enchanted snowglobe. It was the most magical place I’d ever seen.”
“Yet yer father had no knowledge of ye following him?” Evan wondered. “I find that hard to believe given how powerful he's said to be.”
A tear rolled down my cheek when I spied the little pair of black boots that sat waiting, remembering my relief when I spied them because I’d been so curious, I had followed him wearing nothing but socks. “My father had to have known I was following him because he left those.” I pressed my lips together, fighting my emotions. “My mother meant no harm. She was an addict. But that meant any money he tried to give her didn’t go where it should have. Those boots...he had tried...”
