Page 32 of A Hellion for the Highland Hawk
She began to lead Nancy away, her hand trembling on Nancy’s arm, but Hunter followed. Apparently, that man was determined to ruin all of her soaring moments today.
“No offense to you, Laird Lochlann,” Adeline said, her tone firm, “but this will be a private examination. As you have no affiliation to Nancy that I’m aware of, beyond her being your daughter’s nursemaid, you’ll stay out of the room. I don’t allow employers to be present when women are being examined.”
Hunter’s eyes flashed with obvious irritation, but if there was one person who leveled every playing field and had to be heeded by everyone, from a royal to a goatherd, it was a doctor. Particularly a good one, which Adeline seemed to be in this world, just as much as she had been in the future.
He growled and stalked off to tend to his daughter, leaving Adeline and Nancy to slip into the private room and close the door behind them.
CHAPTER 13
There wasn’tmuch in the side room, aside from a few chairs and some lopsided bookcases that were laden with tomes.
Adeline ushered Nancy into the nearest chair before sitting down and scooting closer.
“Did you use an Epi-Pen on the baby?” Adeline whispered as she slowly removed her mask, her accent now more noticeably American. Perhaps it was the familiarity of having a fellow citizen to speak to, or perhaps her other, mixed accent was put on for her Scottish patients, so they wouldn’t be too suspicious of her.
Nancy nodded and took another sip of water, already feeling calmer. “I did. About a third of a dose. I’m allergic to bees, so I always have one on me.” She paused. “And you’re… here. You’re really here. I can’t believe it. I’d cuss at the top of my lungs if I didn’t think it would wake the poor baby.”
Adeline Clark looked just like in the pictures that Nancy had studied for hours and hours. She had plucked whatever she could from the internet: a few social media posts, a staff picture from the hospital she’d worked at, an older photograph from the news article about her former mentor being put on trial, photos from her college alumni page, and a few more from Jane’s various digital footprints.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” Nancy murmured, mostly to herself.
Unease moved across Adeline’s face like a shadow. “Who are you? How do you know about me?”
“I’m a reporter. I’m working on a missing persons case,” Nancy replied, perhaps too eagerly. “You. You and your sister. See, I’m from New Jersey, and about a year ago, I was reporting at the hospital you used to work at. Some nurse there told me about you, that you’d just upped and vanished on Christmas two years before. Didn’t come in for your shift, which wasn’t like you. She thought your former mentor had done something to you, but she couldn’t get anyone to take her seriously, and he was already on trial for sexual misconduct. That was why I was there, reporting.
“Anyway, it got me curious, so I started investigating, and then I realized that your sister was also missing. It’s the… kind of case that’s close to my heart, so I kept on digging. And I guess it paid off, though… I never expected to have to time travel to find you. Honestly, it’s way better than what I was dreading. Most of those cases don’t end well, if you know what I mean.”
Adeline seemed to need a moment to process what she’d just heard, as she sat back in her chair and pulled her headscarf off her head, letting the rest of her dark locks tumble down.
It was the only difference, Nancy noticed, to the pictures she’d seen of this woman. In every photo, the ends of Adeline’s hair had been a different shade: purple, blue, green, pink, white. Now, it was all one shade of beautiful, glossy brunette.
“But I’m not missing,” Adeline said, at last. “Jane and I told my friend, Emma, to tell everyone we were just traveling. Indefinitely.”
“Jane is here, too?” Nancy could feel her eyes about to bulge out of her head.
A faint smile graced Adeline’s lips, her head tipping in a shy nod. “We both fell in love. Fell so hard, in fact, that we barely miss hot water and electricity and modern music and, God, modern medicine… and the snacks. Not having faster travel kind of sucks, too, especially when I want to go and see her. Then again, boats are boats.”
“Jane lives on an island?”
Adeline shook her head. “Ido, usually, but I was asked to come here a few months ago to help with the wounded from the war. I’m slowly making my way through the villages, but it’s not so easy when you haven’t got a world of technology and medicine at your fingertips. Sometimes, I think I’d risk darting back to the future just to clear out a whole pharmacy.”
“Canyou go back?” Nancy asked, her heart hardly daring to beat.
Adeline nodded. “It’s not a simple thing to do, and you can’t just… zip back and forth. I went back once when my life was in danger. That’s when I told Emma everything. But I wouldn’t dare go back again, in case I got stuck. Jane knows of a way to do it, but she hasn’t tried it. She just sends messages to Emma through Hellen.”
Jane knows of a way to do it…
It was the breakthrough that Nancy had been waiting for, a concrete sign that she wasn’t stuck here forever. There were a million things she wanted to ask about this ‘method,’ but she figured it could wait, now that they were getting acquainted. Besides, she still had about five days of the week that Hunter had permitted her.
“Hellen?” she said instead.
“A fellow archaeologist,” Adeline explained. “There’s a sea cave where my sister lives. Jane puts things in a box in a hole there, and Hellen picks them up and sends any messages on to Emma. It’s surprisingly efficient… or I assume it is.”
Nancy thought of the notes in Adeline’s apartment. Was Emma the one who’d put them in the copy ofGray’s Anatomy? For safekeeping? But then, how had that note about the Hawk got into the mix?
Unless…
Her head began to pound afresh at the physics of it all. Perhaps the note was in the copy ofGray’s Anatomybecause Nancy herself had asked for it to be placed there, now that she knew there was a very slow, very ancient message delivery service.
