A love across Time

Narrarator In 2025, in the heart of Manhattan, Vicki Romano owned more than most people twice her age ever would. At twenty-five, she was a self-made millionaire. Her restaurant—Romano's Tavola—sat tucked between polished glass skyscrapers and brownstone charm in New York City. It was warm where the city was cold. Candlelit where Manhattan was sharp. The scent of garlic, basil, and slow-simmered marinara drifted out onto the sidewalk every evening like a promise. It was her promise. Vicki had built it from nothing. No investers. No safety net. Just eighteen-hour days, burned fingertips, unpaid rent notices in the beginning, and a stubborn refusal to quit. Now, reservations were booked three months in advance. Food critics called her 'the new queen of Little Italy.' But queens don't get to rest. She moved through her kitchen like a conductor before a symphony—issuing instructions, tasting sauces, adjusting plating with precise flicks of her wrist. Her dark hair was always tied back, her sleeves rolled, flour on her cheek more often than makeup. The only creature who ever saw her without armor was Scotty. Her beloved Scottish terror trotted faithfully behind her every night when she finally locked up past midnight. He slept in a plush bed behind the office desk, occasionally barking at delivery drivers as if protecting an empire. Which, in a way, he was. "Vicki, you need a life," her best friend Gia announced one Sunday afternoon, slamming a mimosa down onto Vicki's untouched brunch plate. "I have a life," Vickie replied without looking up from her phone. "Table twelve wants to adjust their anniversary cake inscription. Apparently, 'Forever Yours' is too presumptuous." Her mother signed dramatically from across the table. "You haven't dated anyone in two years." "I date invoices and seafood suppliers," Vicki said dryly. Her brother Marco leaned back in his chair. "You don't even take vacations." "Vacations are for people who don't own businesses. Now stop leaning in my chairs before you break the legs." "Vacations," Gia corrected, "are for humans." Vicki finally looked up at them—the people who loved her most—and saw something unsettling in their expressions. Concern. That night, after closing the restaurant and carrying Scotty into her apartment above the dining floor, she found them waiting. Lights were off. "Gia?" She called carefully. The lights flipped on. "Surprise!" She nearly dropped Scotty. Her family stood in her living room holding a cream-colored envelope with a dark green wax seal. "You're going to Scotland," her mother declared proudly. Vicki blinked. "I'm what?" "Two weeks," Marco said. "Non-refundable." Gia stepped forward, grinning wickedly. "Highlands. Castles, Mystery. Adventure. Maybe even a brooding Scottish man." "I can't leave," Vicki protested immediately. "The restaurant--" "Is staffed," her mother cut in. "You trained them. You trust them. Or you should." "And Scotty?" Vicki demanded. Scotty barked, as if personally offended by the suggestion he'd be left behind. "He's coming, or he can stay with us," Gia said. "Pet-friendly cottage rental, that choice is yours." Vicki stared at the envelope like it might explode. Scotland. It felt distant. Wild. Untamed. Nothing like Manhattan's steel certainty. "I don't do adventure," she muttered. Her mother stepped closer, softening. "You built an empire at twenty-five. You crossed oceans in spirit for your dreams. You can cross one in real life." Vicki hesitated. Something fluttered low in her chest—not fear exactly. Something else. What if she left and something fell apart? What if she left and nothing did? Later that night, alone in her apartment, she opened the envelope. Inside was a ticket to Edinburgh, departing in four days. Tucked beneath it was a small, handwritten note from her mother. Find something you didn't know you were missing. Xoxo, Mom. Outside, the city roared as it always did. But for the first time in years, Vicki felt the faintest crack in her carefully structured world. Scotty hopped onto the couch beside her and rested his chin on her knee. "Scotland," she whispered. She had no way of knowing that thousands of miles away—and decades removed from her time, fate had already begun moving. Scottland 1947 The wind never stopped in the Highlands. It howled across the hills like something restless—something that refused to settle. Alastair James McKenzie, known as Alec to close friends, stood at the edge of his land, collar turned up against the chill, watching the sheep drift across the moor like scattered clouds. The sky hung low and gray, threatening rain that would likely never fall. He preferred the wind. It drowned things out. Standing at six foot two, he had broad-shouldered from farm work. Dark brown hair, usually wind-tossed. Faint scar along his jawline. Storm-grey eyes that look almost silver in certain light. Hands roughened by rope and earth. He smells faintly of peat smoke and fresh air. He has turned down two marriage suggestions from well-meaning village elders. He does not believe it would be fair to give someone half of a heart. He tells himself he is content. He is not. The cottage behind him was small, stone walls darkened by age, smoke curling from the chimney. It had belonged to his father, and his father before him. The McKenzies had stood on this patch of earth longer than anyone in the village could remember. It should have felt like home. It didn't. Alec bent to repair a stretch of fallen fencing, his large hands working methodically with wire and post. The rhythm was familiar. Safe. Tangible. Unlike memory. Alec served in World War II as part of the Seaforth Highlanders, a regiment deeply tied to the Scottish Highlands. He enlisted in 1939 at twenty-four, just after his father passed away, leaving him responsible for the family croft. A cart rattled down the distant road, and the sharp crack of wood against stone made his shoulders lock instantly. For a split second- Sand. Heat. Gunfire ripping the air apart. He was no longer in Scotland. He was back in 1944, somewhere beyond the beaches of Normandy after D-Day, the sky black with smoke and screaming metal. "McKenzie! Move!" He still heard it sometimes. Still saw Jamies face when he closed his eyes. Jamie Flether had been nineteen. Laughed too loud. Carried a photograph of a girl with braids in his breast pocket. Jamie had not made it past the hedgerows. Alec had. The memory struck without warning-the sound, the weight of a body in his arms, the way the world did not stop when a heart did. His hand tightened on the fencing wire until it bit into his palm. He welcomed the sting. Pain meant now. Not then. The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of peat smoke from the village. Somewhere, a church bell rang noon. He forced his breathing to steady. He had survived North Africa. Scicily. France. He had worn the tartan of the Seaforth Highlanders with pride. He had led men younger than his baby sister into gunfire and brought most of them home. Most. That word haunted him more than any battlefield. He straigtened slowly, gaze sweeping across the hills. The war had ended two years ago. But it had not ended inside him. At night, sleep came in fragments. When thunder rolled across the Highlands, he woke already on his feet. When sheep knocked against the stone walls, his heart slammed as if mortars were falling again. The village called him lucky. "Fortunate to have come back whole," Mrs Donnelly had said just last week. Whole. He walked toward the cottage, boots crunching against the gravel. Inside, the air was warmer but heavy with quiet. Too quiet. He romoved his cap out of habit and placed it on the small wooden table. Beside it lay a leather-bound journal. He stared at it for a long moment before opening it. The pages were filled with tight, careful script. Names. Dates. Fragments of memory he refused to let disappear. He turned to a blank page. April 17, 1947 He paused. The words did not come easily. They say we won. His jaw tightened. I am trying to understand what that means. He stopped writing. The truth pressed harder against his ribs than any scar. He had come home to land and sky and the steady rhythm of sheep bells. But the men who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him beneath foreign suns did not. He sometimes wondered why. Why Jamie, who had a girl waiting. Why Thomas, who had just become a father. Why not him? He closed the journal abruptly and pushed it away. Outside, the wind rose again, rattling the shutters. Alec stepped to the doorway and looked out the vast, empty moor. There were days he felt like the only living soul left in the world. He told himself this was enough. But somewhere beneath the grief, beneath the discipline and duty and Highland pride, there was a hollow space he did not know how to fill. A place where something-or someone, should be. He just did not know it yet. the wind carried across the hills as if whispering of change. And for the first time since returning home, Alec lifted his head as though he sensed it. Something was coming. He did not know it would not belong to his time at all.