A Time for Everything

by Gimpel, Ann

  “Think I’ll be fine now.” She spoke brightly and gestured toward the lights. “If you have somewhere you need to go, or something you need to do, that’s okay by me.”

  He spun so rapidly she ran into him.

  “Ooph! Uh, sorry.” She took a couple of steps backward, trying not to think about how tempting he’d felt up against her body. For the briefest of moments, a wild light flared in his eyes. It blended with untamed man into something so sexual it was all she could do not to sink her fingers into that dark mane of hair and pull his mouth down to hers.

  “What? And leave you alone without protection? That is far from a good idea, lass. I am thinkin’ you are but a simple thing. I’ll release you to your kin, the Macquires, as soon as I can locate them. It may take a few days, but dinna fear, I’ll see you safe to home.”

  “I told you,” she said through gritted teeth, “I have lodging in Inverness. Once we’re there I won’t need you anymore. What part of that didn’t sink in?”

  He placed his hands on her shoulders. Heat sank into her, making shivers run up her spine. Next he tipped her chin upward so he could look at her in what was left of the day’s light. “What might the name of these lodgings be?”

  Close like this, he smelled enticing. A mixture of rain-wet male and something spicy and exotic she couldn’t name. Was it sandalwood? Or maybe myrrh? She shook her head. What had he asked her again? Oh yes, her hotel. “I’m staying at the Regis Arms.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “There is no such establishment in Inverness.”

  “Oh, please.” She stepped away and moved as fast as she could toward the lights she saw flickering through the misty night air. Footsteps sounded behind her, making sucking noises as he pulled each foot out of the slimy mud. Sam figured it would be impossible to outrun him, but she quickened her pace just the same.

  Her heart beat wildly in her chest as fear shot through her. Angus was truly insane. Why had she agreed to let him lead her anywhere? Because I didn’t know where I was. And I wouldn’t have been able to find the way by myself. That last was true. Angus had taken at least two turns off the main track she would have missed if left to her own devices.

  The lights were getting brighter. Sam rushed forward, excited to be so close to safety. She started planning what she would do as soon as she got to her rooms. The very first thing was stripping out of her wet-to-the-skin clothing and running a hot bath. The track widened into a street. But there was something wrong. Where was the pavement? The street was cobblestones and mud with water running down the middle and both sides. When she looked up and down it, she saw the light came from lanterns hanging from hooks in front of rough wooden shop fronts.

  “That bastard,” she spat, chest tightening in fury. When she turned to look for Angus, he was right behind her. Too tired to worry about inciting someone who was mentally ill to violence, she grabbed his arms and shook him. “Where the fuck have you brought me?” she shrieked. Letting go, she swung one hand in an arc. “What is this? Some sort of reenactment camp? If this is your idea of a joke, Angus—if that’s really even your name—I don’t think it’s very funny. Now which way is Inverness?”

  Chapter 2

  His eyes widened. His nostrils flared. He spread his hands before him, fingers splayed wide in a placating gesture. “Lass, calm yourself. This is Inverness. Come inside one of the inns with me. Ye’re wet to the skin and pale as ice. I’ll buy you some warm spiced ale. Soon ye’ll be feeling more like yourself.”

  “Like hell I will,” she snarled. “This is about the lamest seduction scheme I’ve ever come across.” Spinning on her heel, she headed for the nearest tavern door. Surely someone inside would help her. Christ. Did it ever stop raining in this godforsaken country?

  Sam pushed the door open and strode inside. She had to duck so her head wouldn’t hit the lintel. The bar was dark and smoky. When she’d entered it had been noisy, but conversation ceased in juts and jerks as people pointed at her. An apron-clad man who stank of sweat and rancid grease sidled over. “There be no work here. I run an honest house. Take yer … uh, wares elsewhere, miss.”

  “Ye’re bein’ hasty, Mac,” a raucous voice yelled from over near the fire pit. “She can come sit on my lap—breeks and all.” Laughter spread through the tavern. Whistles split the air.

  “Eh, try my lap, not his,” someone else shouted. “It’s bigger.” Laughter raced through the crowd. When she looked closely, Sam saw, aside from a few serving maids, everyone in the bar was male.

  She drew herself up. “You’ve made a mistake,” she said, addressing the man in the apron. “I’m lost. I need to find Inverness. Could you tell me which way it is from here? If you had a map, that would be even better.”

  The silence that fell was complete. She felt many sets of eyes just staring at her. Had the whole world gone mad? The door banged against its stops. Angus stooped so he could come inside. “The lass is a wee bit addled,” he announced in a voice that carried. “I will be seein’ she gets back to her Irish family.” He held out a hand. His next words were very soft and clearly enunciated as if she were brain damaged. “Now come on with me, Siobhan. There’s a good lass.”

  Sam considered contradicting him, then thought better of it. Something very odd was going on here. It was as if she’d stumbled into a bad episode of The Twilight Zone. She’d met reenactors before. None of them had acted like this, even at their black powder rallies where they dressed up like Civil War soldiers.

  “Likely story, MacTavish,” someone called from the back of the room. “Ye’re just wantin’ the Irish for yersel’.”

  “Aye, ’tis been better than a year since ye lost that wife o’ yourn,” someone else said. “’Tis a long time to have a cold bed.”

  Angus’ lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl. “I’ll not be takin’ that from the likes of ye, MacDuff. Ye’ll not be mentionin’ Moira’s name. Not ever again, by all the blessed saints.” He reached out suddenly and grabbed Sam’s arm. “We are leavin’, lass. Now.”

  Because she didn’t see any percentage in staying in the weird bar where the proprietor thought she was a whore looking for johns, Sam bit down on her lower lip and followed Angus out into the storm. The second the door slammed behind them, she jerked away.

  Jaw clenched against a sudden cold that made her blood feel as if it were made of sludge, she said, “I still want to go to Inverness.”

  He nodded and said slowly and evenly. “Lass. I have no call to lie to you. This is Inverness. Now, let me find us lodging for the night. ’Tis much too far to take you to my holdings on such a night as this.”

  “I am not sharing a room with you.”

  A shocked look blossomed on his face, illuminated by a nearby lantern. “Of course not, lass. What do ye take me for?”

  Because she was fresh out of ideas, Sam let Angus lead her down the street and into a rickety three-story building. At his direction, she settled next to a smoky fire pit in The King’s Arms. Her mind kept tripping over itself, and she kept silent as she tried to figure out what she should do. Warm ale arrived in a filthy glass along with a grease-laden stew. When she asked Angus what was in it, he smiled and said, “Mutton.”

  “That’s like sheep?” She could have kicked herself. With all those fucking sheep roaming the Highlands, what else would be on the menu? “Uh, never mind,” she muttered. While she picked at her food, her eyes took in the room. Whoever owned the place was doing a good job of hiding any modern conveniences—like electricity or heat from anything other than the fire. Then she looked at the people. Either they’d done an exceptional job of finding a costumer to make matching period clothing or something was very wrong. There wasn’t a pair of jeans in the room. Or boots that didn’t look homemade. Reenactors didn’t usually pay that level of attention to their clothing. Where am I? Sam’s breathing quickened.

  “Are ye not hungry then?” Angus looked at her barely-touched bowl.

  She shook her head. He whistled sharply.
One of the serving maids raced over. “Yes, my laird?”

  “Show the lady to her room, please.”

  Fighting panic as the oddness from downstairs nagged at her, Sam trudged up two narrow, winding flights of stairs. She blinked in dismay as the girl with stringy blonde hair, badly in need of washing, pushed open a stout door on the third floor and handed her a heavy metal key and a lit candle stub. The girl looked frightened half to death, and Sam realized she couldn’t be much more than about fourteen.

  “But where’s the bathroom?” she blurted before the maid could scurry back down the stairs. The girl’s blue eyes widened. Clearly word of Sam’s madness had spread through the little town like wildfire.

  “Do ye wish fresh water now, miss?”

  “Uh, I mean, the, uh, lavatory, the water closet, the privy?” Oh my God, what’s the matter with everyone here?

  The girl’s brows wrinkled in what looked like genuine confusion. She scuttled past Sam, reached under the bed, and pulled out a covered porcelain bowl that stank of urine even from ten paces away.

  The girl fled before Sam could ask anything else, the sound of her footsteps pelting down the stairs faded gradually. Sam stepped into the room, turned the skeleton key and locked herself in. She stuffed the candle into a holder, walked to the bed, and sat on it, shoving the smelly chamber pot back underneath with her foot. Shadows from the small taper danced on the walls. A leaden bleakness settled over Sam, leaving a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’d never felt quite so alone. Something was desperately wrong. And she didn’t like any of the answers that kept cropping up.

  Something crinkled beneath her. When she examined the mattress, she discovered it was made of straw and smelled moldy. A thick, tightly woven blanket was all that covered the sacking around the straw.

  “Okay.” Sam heard the tremor in her voice and knew how rattled she was. She kept on talking out loud in an attempt to calm herself. “I need to get out of these wet clothes. There’s only one blanket…” She shook it out and determined it wasn’t wide enough to roll herself up in. “I am not going to lay my naked body on that mattress. God only knows what sort of vermin live in it—”

  A light knock on the door interrupted her monologue. “Siobhan?”

  “The door’s locked,” she snapped, so tightly wound she could barely get the words out.

  “That is as it should be, lass. I wished to ask if ye’d be needin’ aught else afore I went to bed myself.”

  Sam thought fast. “Yes. Can you get me another blanket?”

  “If I canna find one, I shall give you mine own.”

  Before she could protest, his footsteps receded down the hall. In just a few minutes, he knocked again. “You can leave it on the floor,” she said.

  “If I do that, it’ll get dirty. Lass,” there was a weary note in his voice, “ye can trust me. I’ll not see you come to any harm.”

  Sam shivered. The rooms above the inn were far from warm. She really did want that extra blanket. Snaking the key off a wooden table, she twisted it in the lock. The minute the door was open, he handed her a neatly folded blanket, and said, “Now lock up behind me. I’ll collect you come the morn.”

  She didn’t lose any time once the door was secured. She shucked her jacket and then the layers beneath. Once she was done hanging things on hooks and nails, her small room under the rafters looked like an outdoor store. Arranging the two blankets, she slid between them. Then she remembered her phone. Cursing herself for not thinking about it sooner, she padded over to where she’d left her small backpack and dug for the iPhone. When she found it, she groaned. It had escaped from the plastic bag she’d put it in. Water beaded on its screen. Her finger hovered over the On button, and then she drew back. She wasn’t certain, but she thought you weren’t supposed to power on cell phones when they were wet. The driest place in the room was her bed so she slid the phone between the blankets. Upending her pack, she spread its meager contents on the rough, wooden floor and blew out the guttering candle before getting back into bed.

  The analytical part of her mind wanted to make sense of what had happened. If she didn’t know better, it looked as if she’d suddenly emerged into seventeenth or eighteenth century Scotland. “Impossible,” she muttered. “There’s got to be a better explanation.”

  Yes, but what?

  “I have no fucking idea,” she answered herself. “And if I try to figure it out tonight, I may as well kiss sleep good-bye.”

  It took a long time to shut her mind off, though, and to get warm enough to finally fall asleep.

  Her bladder roused her from a deeply disturbing dream. A woman with long red hair had been chasing her. Afraid it was some sort of alter ego who wouldn’t give up no matter what, Sam had finally turned to confront whatever was after her. The unearthly visitor—definitely not her, thank Christ—had held out spectral fingers and spoken in an Irish brogue so thick it had taken Sam a few tries to interpret what she was trying to say.

  “Take care o’ my braw laddie. I canna so ye must. And bairns. Ye must gi’ th’ clan bairns.”

  Remembering a class on dreams she’d taken as an undergraduate, Sam tried to ask the woman who she was, but the creature clutched at herself and wailed in a language Sam couldn’t decipher.

  Heart pounding and fighting a sense of disorientation, Sam felt around for the light switch in her headboard. The crinkle of straw beneath her brought her crashing back into her new reality. “Ah shit,” she muttered. “This is way more than just a bad dream.” Stumbling around in the still-dark room, she managed to find the chamber pot and squatted over it, feeling grateful she didn’t need to take a crap. Insofar as she could tell, toilet paper wasn’t amongst her room’s modest amenities. She dropped the lid over the pot and shoved it back under her bed. Its contents sloshed, wetting her bare feet.

  “Oh my God! How did people live like this?” She crawled back into her finally warm blankets, urine-damp feet and all. She thought she ought to turn her wet clothing, but it was such a luxury to finally be warm she didn’t want to stay out of bed for very long. The phone. I should try my phone. Her fingers closed around the warm, plastic case. At the last moment, she decided to give the electronics a few more hours to dry. If she turned it on too soon she might cut off her only lifeline.

  The next thing that woke her was a sharp knocking on her door. “Siobhan. ’Tis long past time to be up. Ye’ll sleep the day away.”

  Prying gritty eyes open, she saw the room was flooded with light from a window made of wavy glass. Though it let light in, she couldn’t see out. He called her name again. “I’m up already,” she said peevishly. “Just give me a few minutes to dress.”

  As she’d feared, her things were far from dry. Oh, they weren’t dripping anymore, but it took all her self-discipline to put the clammy garments next to her skin again. Please, she prayed to no one in particular, let it have stopped raining. Taking a measured breath, she powered her phone. When the small screen lit up, she was so delighted she kissed it.

  Yesss…

  All too soon, the words in the upper left hand corner of the display switched from Searching to No Service. Sam bit her lower lip in frustration. This was absolute proof she wasn’t in Inverness. And maybe proof she wasn’t even in the twenty-first century anymore. She shivered from far more than wet clothing.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. Before Angus could knock again, she turned the phone off, put it in a pocket, and picked up her backpack. She was just turning the lock as his fist fell on the door. “Ready,” she said. “I’m ready,” and stepped into the dark hallway.

  “I’ve bread from the kitchen,” he informed her. “And a jug o’ mead so we can depart directly.” His hair was braided this morning. Shiny and dark, it still looked wet. He was wrapped in the same plaid as the night before. Her fingers twitched. She wanted to reach out and touch the fabric to see if it was still just as wet as her clothing. Yeah, right, her inner voice goaded. Fabric be damned. You want to touch him. Adm
it it.

  “Mmph.” She answered both him and her inner self, deciding to not even try to talk until she got herself under better control. She balled both hands into fists to make sure the fingers in question didn’t develop a mind of their own.

  He led her outside into weak sunlight. The sky was still thick with clouds, but at least it wasn’t raining. Sam inhaled deeply. It really was a lovely morning. If only she could get back to where she belonged, all would be well with the world. She’d even forgive Angus for dragging her to this bizarre reenactor encampment.

  A boy wearing leather breeches and a torn wool sweater held on to two horses. Angus flipped him a coin and looked at her. “Take the mare.” He pointed to the smaller of the horses, a bay with lovely markings.

  She looked at the blanket covering the horse’s back. “Uh, I’ve never ridden bareback before. Not sure I can do that.”

  He rolled his eyes and stepped closer. “I’ll help you up. Dinna fash yourself, Lilly is gentle. She willna throw you.”

  “Are these your horses?” Sam asked, surprised. Why did Angus keep horses in Inverness if he didn’t live here?

  He flashed her a smile. “Aye, lass. I sent word to my holdings last evening. Jamie here brought them down during the night.” He glanced at the boy. “There’s a good lad. Are ye certain ye wouldna care to ride back? Soulna,” he slapped the large black stallion’s rump, “can carry the two of us.”

  The boy, who looked to be about ten, shook blond curls framing a dirty face. “Nay, laird. Mum askit me tae stop wi’ Griselda. There be things she needs.”

  “Can ye be home by nightfall?”