by L. L. Muir
Of course he was grateful. Had Monty disappeared a year past, the Gordons would have poured in from the North and taken over with no thought for the blood spilt. But with Quinn on hand, The Gordon was held in check whilst Ewan earned his title. Now, instead of holding off for fear of Isobelle’s ghost defending her brother and her clan, they held off for fear that Ewan Ross had an impressive hatred for all things Gordon and would lay to waste any who strayed south. There would be no more alliances between them.
It was also rumored that the Gordons had offered protection to Clan Muir, no doubt to counter the Ross Ghost with a witch or two. Ewan hoped the rumor proved false, though. The Muirs lived but on the far side of the hill to the east. And although he and Monty had searched since they were wee laddies, they’d never been able to find the existence of the tunnel that must run beneath that hill.
The Muir sisters were forever popping up out of the cellar, as if there were a leak in the floor and they a bit of sea water determined to get into the boat.
Nay, if the Gordons won over the Muirs, I would wake one night with Gordon’s boot on me throat.
Since Quinn knew so few names and faces, the clansmen had believed their laird had gone addlepated. They paid him every respect, but their glances were full of pity. Poor man. It was not the easiest way to live, with people speaking to him simply and slowly all the time.
But this day, he pitied Quinn Ross for another reason entirely. This day, the Ross Pretender was in the hands of Clan Gordon. The lad Orie hadn’t been taken, praise be, and had been able to ride home to tell Ewan where the wayward man could be found. And considering the many grudges The Gordon held in the name of Montgomery Ross, Quinn might find it a fine time indeed to deny that name, to tell The Gordon that he was not truly Montgomery Ross at all.
And if The Gordon was able to ferret out one secret, he might be able to ferret out the rest, that although Montgomery had buried his sister Isobelle in the tomb that stood inside the great Ross hall, Ewan and Ossian had tunneled beneath and freed her from it while Monty kept the bastards at bay with his rantings.
The kirk’s henchmen believed she’d died inside, as the clergy had decreed. The priest had ordered the tomb be placed upon stone so such a rescue would be impossible. And it nearly had been. If they’d gotten to her only a few hours later, it would have been her grave in truth.
If the kirk discovered the deception, the entire clan would be punished, cut off.
If The Gordon discovered their secret, Clan Ross was doomed. And a clan cut off from the kirk might be unhappy to have lost their souls in order to save the life of one lass. No matter that it had been their laird’s own sister.
If the Gordon were to squeeze the truth from Quinn...
Although Ewan blanched at the thought, even as he thought it, the notion came upon him that Quinn’s life might not be worth a clanful of resentful Scots, let alone souls—especially if Quinn had taken on his current role of Pretender in order to keep that secret.
Ewan took a long drink of aqua vitae before he allowed his thoughts to go farther, for strong drink might prove a fine scapegoat for the argument he saw coming.
Quinn Ross was no’ so keen on livin’ in any case. Hadn’t he said so many a time when he first arrived?
Before Ewan thought better of it, or had the chance to sober, he hollered for Daniel. “Send Enos to me.”
Daniel swallowed, but his feet didna move. “Enos?”
“Have we more than one Enos among us?”
“Nay, praise be.” Daniel took the bag from around his neck and kissed it. A superstitious man was his second in command.
For the first time, Ewan wished he had such a talisman around his own neck. “Then send Enos to me,” he said again.
“Can we not call everyone to arms and go after our lost laird?”
Ewan shook his head. “Nay. Monty Ross would tack me bloody hide to the curtain wall if I allowed one man to be harmed in his stead. He’s told me so a dozen times.”
The young man’s shoulders dropped as he left the hall, and inside, Ewan’s soul sagged as well. It was an unholy thing he must do. And as he waited, and drank, the weight of the great Ross Chair seemed to be upon him instead of beneath him.
He’d send Enos to the Gordons. Enos would dispatch Quinn Ross to Heaven, where selfless men like him were sure to go. And the secrets of Montgomery Ross would be safe, as Ewan had vowed to keep them…
…if indeed they hadn’t already been told.
Chapter Twelve
Jules walked along the road trying to enjoy the lovely day for a minute or two and ignore the hitman who held her upper arm in his grip. She needed to enjoy the fresh air—the breath she shouldn’t still be breathing. Why hadn’t he killed her already?
The smell of pines and birch trees warming in the sunlight reminded her of Star Valley, Wyoming, where she’d grown up. She imagined the smell of woodsmoke was from the campfires of hunters, and she could almost hear the sound of gun shots ringing out, echoing through the Grand Tetons that had been her backyard. She would have killed to have a shotgun in her hand at that moment. But all she had was her lucky stick.
Why hadn’t he taken it away?
If the hitter wasn’t all dressed up for a Scottish festival, it would be easy to believe they were just walking through the woods in the twenty-first century. But there was a different kind of quiet there. Was it just because it was Scotland, with everything lush and heavy with moisture? Or because it was Ancient Scotland?
The road was uneven and had been cut deeply by flooding rain. The wild growth was so brilliantly green, it looked Photoshopped. It was like God was overcompensating.
Sorry about all the rain. Here, I’ll tweak the landscape a little. It’s on Me.
The last minutes of her life could have been spent somewhere much worse, but the anticipation was killing her. She didn’t want to remind him to kill her, but she wanted to know who she should thank for her Stay of Execution.
“Why am I still alive?” She turned and watched his face, hoping she’d be able to tell if he lied. She didn’t trust her own judgment much anymore—since Gabby had gone from father-figure to cold-hearted killer in a split second.
The man hovering over her was handsome in a rugged kind of way. Since he was so tall, most of what she saw of his face was a big square chin sporting a fresh batch of red whiskers. When he glanced down at her, with those laughing eyes, she wondered if they were weapons he regularly used to charm his targets.
His hair was gorgeous and wild even though he’d tied it together at the back of his head. The loose copper ringlets looked like metal reflecting the sunlight.
She tripped on the edge of a deep-seated stone, but he caught her and helped her regain her balance. She expected his hands to be cold for some reason, but they were nice and warm.
Nice? Gah! What is wrong with me?
“Why are ye still alive? That’s a fine question,” he said, implying that she was a klutz and was lucky to have survived as long as she had.
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?” He cocked a brow.
“Oh. I see. You’re going to pretend like you’re not a brutal son of a bitch who could snap my neck at the drop of a hat?”
He laughed. “Aye. I suppose I could at that. Though I’m only brutal when it’s called for.”
What was he trying to do? Get her to let her guard down? Get her to cooperate? Not a friggin’ chance.
“I know your kind. I know what you’re like,” she said.
“Oh, do ye now?” He snorted.
“I do.”
After the feds had taken her into custody, she’d begun to suspect the line between law and crime was as fine as that between love and hate, and some of the good guys weren’t on the side they pretended to be on. In fact, Agent Dixon, on whose watch she’d escaped, had gotten pretty comfortable on that other side.
He was willing to ignore all kinds of rules that were meant to keep her safe, especially if t
here was anything in it for him. He’d even teased her—told her Gabby would probably pay a literal fortune to some agent willing to forget to lock a door, then leave her long enough to get some take-out, like he’d done a dozen times already.
She thought she’d been safe when she’d slept? She hadn’t been.
And the next time she and Dixon had been alone and the taunting resumed, she’d egged him on, told him just what she thought of him, gotten him all worked up. And when he’d lost control—grabbed her hair and even reached for his gun to prove how he held her life in his hands—she’d had all the excuse she needed to put a nice heavy pan to the side of his head. Then she’d used Dixon’s phone to send an email to the DA, promising she’d be back in time to testify. Then she’d slipped away.
She looked over at the hitter. Yeah, it hadn’t been just Gabby who’d taught her what a cold-blooded man was like.
“I can only imagine yer experience in the states,” the guy said, pulling Jules out of her thoughts. “But perhaps the Scottish version is no’ so bad as the American.”
She snorted. “Bullshit. A killer is a killer, even if he wears a badge.”
If she could have mustered up some saliva, she’d have spit at him. She really needed some water.
His eyes narrowed. He hadn’t liked being called a killer.
Well, too bad.
“I’d been warned ye’d be a difficult handful. I believe they might have underestimated ye, lassie. Ye’ve a hard heart, to be sure.”
“Hah! What do you know about hearts?”
She was on a roll. At least she’d be going out in a blaze of pithy glory.
“Auch, now, yer teeth are showin’. Why don’t ye tuck in your claws and we’ll have a nice wee stroll back to Castle Ross. Were ye aware how ye’d gone in circles? Or did ye mean to do it? Did ye think ye could heigh home to your witch’s tomb and leave me back here, in the past? Ye forget, I’m a local lad. It’s a bit easier for me to swallow what’s happened to us than it has been for ye. And I speak Scots too, only without the American accent, o’ course. Ye never had a chance. Those lads reported yer every footstep.
“I must admit, I’m a mite impressed by you scarin’ off the wolf as ye did, before I could reach ye. But now that we’ve had a chance to get to know each other a bit, I’m no’ surprised in the least. No doubt you could scare the whole pack away with but the venom in your sweet voice.”
She was tempted to let him have it with her stick.
“If I didna have a job to do,” he added, “I’d leave ye be, here in the woods. But I wouldna be so cruel to the animals, aye?” Then he laughed.
She ignored his joke, too busy wondering why she didn’t let him have it with her stick…
He obviously didn’t consider it any kind of a threat, maybe because she used it as a walking stick. Or maybe it looked a little too brittle to cause any harm. If he hadn’t actually seen her chase the wolf away, maybe he didn’t know she’d done so with her glorified toothpick.
She started thinking like a physicist again. Okay, so she’d only had a couple of classes, but still. It had worked with the wolf.
Weak stick. Big man. Weak spots.
They’d left the other men behind. Either McKiller was too cocky to think he needed help with her, or he couldn’t find anything in his pockets to compensate them with. So she only had to get away from one little man.
Okay, one big man.
The morning sun was up, lighting their wide, well-worn road. In the distance, a ridge had been stripped of trees. Stumps left behind looked like stubble on McKiller’s giant jaw. It had to be the ridge that ran up behind Castle Ross. She was almost there! But then again, so was Gabby’s man.
A footrace to the hole would only continue what they’d started. Once they were back outside, she’d be racing up the hill to her car. He’d beat her to it since his car was probably still parked at the castle, or behind it. And there was no telling how many people she’d be putting at risk in the daytime.
As much as she wanted to go back, it would be futile. She’d be handed over to Gabby for the ultimate betrayal. And that wasn’t going to happen.
She intentionally dragged her foot over a rock and tripped, then stopped to adjust her boot. McKiller let go of her arm, but stood with his hands ready to grab her. She rolled her eyes and walked on, but as she did, she began to limp.
“Ye’re hurt?” He looked at her sideways, suspicious.
“Rock in my boot,” she said. Then she stopped in the middle of the road and pretended to remove said rock. While she pulled the boot back on, he looked behind them for the hundredth time. “Better be careful,” she teased. “Some FBI agent might have followed us through time. Might be hiding in the bushes.”
He snorted. “And that would frighten me, why?”
Her skinny piece of wood might not have had much mass, so thumping him on the head would have done nothing but break the stick. But if she added a bit of momentum and velocity to it...
She spun in a circle, holding her innocent stick away from her body, then pulling it in a little just before it smacked the cocky Scot across the nose. He’d ducked right into it. The stick broke, of course, but before it did, it gave the big man’s nose one hell of a whack. She was pretty sure it wasn’t just the stick that broke.
He cried out and stumbled back, his eyes pinched tight. His hand reached for his gun at his back. It was too late to try to push him to the ground and wrestle him for it. She just had to run and hope there were some trees between them by the time he could see straight.
“Get back here, Bell! Ye’re a lot safer with me than ye are out there!”
Safe? With a killer? Hah!
Deeper and deeper into birch trees she flew, her feet barely touching the ground. When the grasses gave way to rocks, she had no choice but to slow. She struck out east, hoping to avoid those men that had supposedly been tracking her every move before. McKiller kept hollering at her, but it didn’t sound like he’d even left the road yet. The first time she’d dared look back, he’d still been holding his nose and groping the air with his free hand.
“Juliet! I’ll not go back without ye. Do ye hear? And ye’re going to stick out like a sore thumb. I’ll know exactly where to find ye. And this time, I’m going to truss ye up like a pig and hang ye from a pole! Do ye hear?”
“Thanks for the pointers,” she said softly as she ran. First thing on the wish list would be a change of clothes.
Chapter Thirteen
After about an hour, Jules rested in a clearing full of tall grass and wildflowers. It was tempting to lie down and sleep, but sleep wasn’t even close to the top of her list. Clothing had slipped to number three, after water and food.
It was when she lifted her eyes from the tempting flower bed that she first saw the smoke—a nice, focused trail of it lifting into the sky.
“Civilization. Hallelujah.” She headed straight for it.
Sounds of industry reached her ears just as she noticed her feet were following a path through the trees. A lovely little stream came next, where she bent down and drank her fill. Soon, both water and path led her to a tall thatched house with a water wheel on its side. The wheel had little scoops on it like slanted little buckets, about the size of your average frying pan. It might not be used for harnessing any energy at the moment, but it was doing a fine job lifting water from the stream and dumping it into a trough at the roofline of the house.
Somebody was thinking.
Jules wondered if the woman who lived in the little house might be a laundress considering the long lines of clothes at the other end of the building. Either that, or a few dozen people lived there among the little cluster of buildings. The yard was still in deep morning shadows, thanks to the giant oak trees that surrounded the place, so Jules felt brave enough to scurry to the clothes on the line, hoping her dark coat and jeans wouldn’t draw any attention.
She was grasping the hem of a plaid wool skirt when she realized she was being watched.
<
br /> Shit!
A woman stood at the corner of the house, shaking her head. She wore a solid blue dress with a plaid pinafore over the top and an apron on the front. Catching someone about to steal from her clothesline didn’t seem to alarm her, but she was suggesting, rather strongly, that Jules not do it.
Jules put her hands behind her back. The woman motioned for the would-be thief to follow her.
Why on earth would Jules follow her? Was this one of those centuries where thieves had their hands cut off?
But then again, why on earth shouldn’t she? The woman looked harmless enough. And it wasn’t as if she or her hands might end up as the meat in someone’s giant pot of stew.
Jules shook off the Hansel and Gretel images and followed the woman around the corner of the house where she stood with a door open, pointing inside while she scanned the yard. The fairy-tale-gone-bad images came roaring back until the woman gave her a wink. Evil, child-eating witches didn’t wink, right?
The air inside was heavy with steam. Small fires burned around the room. Their spirals of smoke floated up into a funnel-like ceiling and out the chimney—the source of the smoke that had led Jules there. On top of the fires sat large copper cauldrons with clothing slopping around inside them. Long paddles sat propped on the edge. They looked like giant bowls of dark porridge with flat spoons at the ready.
A hand descended on her shoulder and Jules jumped. She still had that Hansel and Gretel scenario running through her head, and if ever caldrons were made to accommodate human beings, these fit the bill.
The woman was oblivious to the fact that Jules was freaking out. She just kept touching until she finally got her fingers on the lightweight sweater Jules wore under her leather jacket. A pale blue t-shirt made up for the loose and see-through weave of the sweater, but the woman tisked and shook her head. She spoke, but Jules didn’t understand and asked her to repeat herself.
The woman did. She even spoke slowly, but it didn’t help at all. Whatever her dialect, Jules couldn’t understand it. She grimaced and shrugged, hoping the other woman would understand her dilemma. The latter smiled and nodded, then made a gesture that clearly meant Jules was supposed to take off her coat. The same gesture got her to take off the sweater, but the third time, the woman was looking at her jeans.