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“You appear to think you still must choose which you want more, maintaining your marriage and having babies, or remaining drùidhs so you can keep your promise to Kenzie,” Tom said to both of them, but directing his words to Matt.
“No!” Winter cried, stepping between her husband and Tom. “That’s not fair to make him choose between me and his brother. It’s too cruel.”
“Then you choose for him,” Tom suggested.
“No!” Matt growled, pulling Winter back beside him.
“Then maybe I’ll choose,” Tom offered with a chuckle, “since I seem to have a vested interest here.”
“We each get to choose our own destiny!” Winter cried. She narrowed her eyes and pointed at Tom. “If you’re here, then that means we obviously chose marriage over being drùidhs.”
“Not necessarily, as that is but one of the risks we take when we indulge in time travel.” Tom waved his hand to encompass the cave. “This could all be nothing more than a dream. You could wake up and I would simply not exist. It is only the acts of the present that determine the future.” Tom smiled warmly at her. “So which would you choose, Winter?” he asked softly. “Your future with your husband and children or your calling to help Matt keep his promise to Kenzie?”
“I choose both!” she snapped, balling her hands into fists.
Tom nodded, then looked at Matt and gri
Matt said nothing.
Winter couldn’t decide if she should smack Tom or her silent husband. “That is not the way this is going to work,” she hissed at Tom as she turned to face Matt. “Think, Matt. As long as there is life, there is always hope. So dig deep and remember how you felt when you ran away from home and went after your dream of becoming a warrior. You thought you had found what you’d been searching for, but when it wasn’t all you hoped it would be, you picked up and went back home. And when that didn’t turn out very well, you picked up again and went looking for Kenzie.”
“And what happened then?” Tom asked. “When you found your brother, only he was dying?”
“I got angry,” Matt said.
“Yes,” Winter agreed, clutching his hand. “And lost hope.”
Matt looked at her, his eyes dark with pain. “I didn’t lose it then, lass. I lost it when Kenzie asked me to end his life.”
“Then how did you get this far?” Tom asked. “If you had no hope for the future, how come you came after Winter?”
Matt looked at Tom, seemingly startled. “I took a gamble she could help me. MacKeage’s daughter was my best chance to keep my promise to Kenzie.”
Tom smiled and looked at Winter. “There really is no such thing as hopelessness, you know.
Hope is an integral part of our collective energy, and it can never be lost because it’s not…it isn’t of this material world. It’s only human perception that becomes blind to hope’s existence.” He smiled at Matt.
“Winter can’t keep a promise you made, and you can’t keep it yourself as long as you remain blind to any part of the energy that makes us all who we are. If you want to hold onto your powers so you can help Kenzie, and if you want to hold onto Winter, then just open yourself to the full spectrum and realize that you can have both.”
“He can?” Winter asked in surprise. She snorted and shook her head. “I was just being sarcastic.”
“You were being your spoiled rotten self,” Tom said with a laugh, looking back at Matt.
“Anything is possible as long as you remain open to all the energy. Winter figured she’d choose being a drùidh, and then she pla
Winter squeezed her husband’s hand again, but Matt continued staring at Tom.
Tom smiled. “The choice is still yours to make, Matt. But it’s not really between Winter and your calling, is it? It’s between you and yourself.” He looked over at the statue, then back at Matt. “We have entered a new mille
Matt stood stiff and silent for what seemed like forever to Winter, and she was just about to really smack him when he suddenly took her hand and led her over to the statue. Together they reached out and placed their hands on the bear’s paw covering the woman’s heart; time stopped, the cave filled with a full spectrum of swirling colors, and the sound of a single beating heart echoed throughout the chamber and strongly resonated through every cell in Winter’s body.
She squinted past the blinding light and saw the bear and woman’s shared heart gently pulsing in time with hers and Matt’s. And then Winter would swear she saw the smiling pinewood woman wiggle deeper into the bear’s embrace with a sigh of contentment.
“So,” Tom said, rubbing his hands together. “Are we having a wedding or not? Everyone must be freezing out there.”
“What about Kenzie?” Winter asked, turning away from the statue but still holding Matt’s hand.
“He’s likely standing at the back of the crowd,” Tom said, smiling at her surprise. “It’s twenty minutes past the solstice. You don’t think he’d miss his brother’s wedding, do you?”
“But we have to make him stay a man,” Winter said.
“He will,” Tom assured her, walking over to where the cave entrance should be.
“How?” Matt asked.
“United, you both possess the power to grant Kenzie’s wish,” Tom assured them, turning and inclining his head. “But please, allow me the honor as my wedding present to you both.” His bright blue eyes twinkled. “And maybe also as a little something for my great-aunt Megan, I’m thinking.”
Winter still couldn’t comprehend that she was talking to her seventy-something grandson on her twenty-fifth birthday.
“Ah, if I might make a suggestion?” Tom said, waving his hand at the cave. “Have you ever considered making this cliff part of your new home? You could incorporate a lovely log and stone structure into this cliff, so that the cave becomes…oh, I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Your bedroom, maybe?”
“Why don’t you tell us?” Winter asked, smiling smugly. “Surely you ran through the halls of our as-yet-to-be-built house as a kid.”
“And I explored every inch of Bear Mountain,” Tom said with a laugh. “And sailed Pine Lake and slept in the lakeshore cottage you’re staying in now.” His eyes twinkled again. “Do me a favor and don’t fix up the old camp on the point, okay? I kind of like it just the way it is.”
Winter clutched Matt’s hand. “Y-you’re leaving us tonight, aren’t you? You’re going back. I—
I mean ahead to your time.”
Tom nodded and smiled sadly. “I must. I’ve served my purpose here. You two need to realize your own future now.”
“But when will we see you again?” Winter asked.
Tom canted his head. “Oh, in about thirty-one years, give or take a few months. We’ll have lots of fun together, Grams,” he told her, then looked at Matt. “And you, Gramps, will have to persuade my mama to let you teach me to fly.”
Matt smiled back, and Winter’s heart warmed at how he suddenly looked so relaxed. “Being forewarned, I could just avoid that problem by teaching her to fly first,” Matt drawled.
“What in hell is going on in there!” they heard Daar shout through the granite. “We’re freezing our whiskers off out here!”
Tom stepped up to the wall but turned toward them. “If you will, please?” he asked. He waved his hand when Matt reached for his pen. “You don’t need anything but your strength of conviction to summon your powers from now on,” he told them, looking over to include Winter and giving her a wink.