“Well … mostly small tools,” she said. “Mostly things that exist now, but of a better quality, or that I couldn’t get here without a lot of trouble and expense.”

“What, nay books at all?” Jamie asked, smiling. “Ye’ll be the only illiterate of the family?”

Bree was already flushed with pleasure and excitement, but grew noticeably pinker at this question.

“Um. Well … just the one.” She glanced at me, cleared her throat, and reached into the almost-empty bag.

“Oh,” I said, and the tone of my voice made Jamie look at me, rather than at the hardbound book in its plastic-covered dust jacket. The Soul of a Rebel, it said. The Scottish Roots of the American Revolution. By Franklin W. Randall, PhD.

Bree was looking at Jamie, a small anxious frown between her brows, but at this, she turned to me.

“I haven’t read it yet,” she said. “But you—either of you,” she added, glancing between me and Jamie, “are welcome to read it anytime. If you want to.”

I met Jamie’s eyes. His brows lifted briefly and he looked away.

BRIANNA AND ROGER took the sticky cups, mixing bowl, spoon, and milk pitcher outside to rinse, and I sat down beside Jamie on a large sack of dried beans to gloat over my Merck Manual for a few minutes. He was turning Frank’s book over in his hands with a ginger air indicating that he thought it might explode, but put it aside and smiled when he saw me fondling the blue pebbled cover of my new baby.

“D’ye mean to read it through from beginning to end, like the Bible?” he asked. “Or will ye just wait ’til someone comes to ye with blue spots and look that up?”

“Oh, both,” I assured him, weighing the chunky little book in my hand. “It may have new treatments to suggest for things I recognize—but it undoubtedly describes things I’ve never seen or heard of, too.”

“May I see it again?” He held out a hand, and I carefully laid the book in it. He opened it at random, read … “Trypanosomiasis.” His eyebrows rose. “Can ye do anything about trypanosomiasis, Sassenach?”

“Well, no,” I admitted. “But—on the off chance that I should encounter trypanosomiasis, at least I’d know what it was, and that might save the patient from being subjected to an ineffective or dangerous treatment.”

“Aye, and give him time to write his will and summon a priest, too,” he said, closing the book and handing it back.

“Mm,” I said, not really wanting to dwell on the possibility—well, the dead certainty, in fact—of diagnosing fatal conditions I couldn’t treat. “What about your books? Do they look interesting?” I nodded toward the stack of thick paperbacks, and his face lit up. He picked up the first volume and riffled the pages, slowly, then turned back to the first page and read in a husky voice: