by Bess McBride
Ann threw me a puzzled glance as we entered the tower.
“Yes, of course you can, Cyn.” She looked from me to Torq.
He carried me into the keep room and settled me down on the bed. Ann helped me out of my cloak. John waited at the door, and Torq left the room without a word.
“What happened?” she asked as she sat on the edge of the bed.
“Which what happened?” I said, fighting back tears. “You mean the kidnapping, or...” I nodded in the direction of the empty doorway.
“Well, the kidnapping, but something’s gone wrong between you and Torq. He was so distraught when you were taken. He blamed himself for failing you. It broke my heart to see him like that again.”
I told her about the kidnapping, Iskair, Ardmore Castle, Mrs. Mackay, Murdo Macaulay.
“That sounds just like the room I was in. I’m sure it was. Mrs. Mackay is a dear. I know John is so grateful she keeps an eye on stuff there, on the castle, its contents.”
“She is a sweetie.”
“So you told the Macaulay chieftain that you were the daughter of an English viscount?” she repeated with a broad grin. “He didn’t notice the accent?”
“No, apparently not. Mrs. Mackay thought it was suspicious though. Iskair believed that I was a viscount’s daughter as well.”
“What a hoot! Macaulay is going to be so mad to lose that awesome ransom!”
“I hope nothing happens to Iskair!”
“You really liked him, didn’t you? I’ve never met him.”
“Yes, he was great, handsome as heck, kind, nice smile. I felt very safe with him, even though he was holding me captive.”
Ann gave me a curious look.
“Do you like him better than Torq?”
“What?”
“Well, you sound kind of attached to him.”
“Attached to him! I’ve been depending on the man for the past few days to keep me alive. I guess I have been attached to him.”
“Does Torq know how you feel?”
“About what?”
“About Iskair! I don’t know what could come of that, to tell you the truth, Cyn. You really don’t want to go live with the Macaulays.”
“What? No! Not like that!”
“Well, it sounds like you fell for him.”
“No, not Iskair. I mean, I could if I hadn’t already...”
“Hadn’t already what?”
“Well, you know, Torq.”
“Fallen in love?”
“He kissed me,” I murmured, my cheeks turning rosy.
“Who did? Iskair?”
“No, Torq! He kissed me when he rescued me.”
“He did?” Ann’s eyes widened. “Just like that?”
“Just like that!”
“It’s not like him to let go like that. He’s in love with you, you know.”
The heavy weight on my chest that had lifted for a moment pressed down again.
“No, he isn’t. He wants me to leave. Remember? You wanted me to go, and he thought I should stay? Now, he wants me to go, says I’m too frail or delicate or wimpy to stay here.”
“Oh, I can’t believe he said that. Wimpy?”
“Not those words exactly, but he said I’m too soft to live here, and maybe he’s right. I’ve been nothing but a burden since I’ve been here. Even in the twenty-first century, I couldn’t keep myself out of trouble. I wasn’t on the site half an hour before I fell into the keep. And now I can’t get around, and Torq has been bashed, cut and beaten twice because of me. He’ll live a lot longer if I’m gone.”
“Oh, Cyn, that’s not true.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure. He’s in love with you. He loved Mary, but he’d always loved Mary. It’s different with you. He’s very protective of you.”
“Like a porcelain doll?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s going to get him killed. I need to be tougher, like you.”
“I’m not tough, Cyn. I’m just in love. And the man I love is a sixteenth-century Scottish laird, so this is where I’m at! It isn’t easy. Don’t think that I don’t want to go back sometimes—to have a hot bath, go to a decent restaurant, a movie, a doctor, centralized heating. But not at the expense of giving up John.”
“So you wouldn’t even try going back through time?”
Ann shook her head. “No, the risk is too great. While it worked out fine the first time, and I see that the dagger brought you back in time, the risk is still too great. I can’t leave my husband. I can’t leave my kids.”
I fell silent, ignoring the needs of nature that pained my nether regions.
“Well, we’d better get you some food,” she said. “You probably haven’t eaten, have you?”
“Not for a while.”
Ann rose.
“If I go back, Ann, there’s no guarantee I can return.”
She lingered. “No, there isn’t. If you want to leave, why would you want to return?”
“I’m in love with Torq.”
She sank back down and took one of my hands. “Then what’s this all about? Just stay here. Stay with him.”
“I was going to, but he wants me to go.”
“Do you want me to talk to him? I mean, after all, I stayed. He’s never asked me about that. We’ve never really had an intimate conversation. He’s always been a bit closed off, really. Even when he was married to Mary, he wasn’t particularly friendly. Frankly, if I think about it, I’m not sure he thought I belonged here.”
“Well then, I guess you see my point. No, don’t talk to him. If the man was really in love with me, he would ask me to stay, right?”
“Not necessarily. If I know one thing about Torq, about John, about any of these guys, it’s that they want to protect their women and children above all things. If Torq feels you are in danger or that you—”
“Are too soft to survive here?”
“I didn’t say that,” she protested.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“If Torq feels you are in danger or that you would be safer in the twenty-first century, then yes, he would want you to go back, no matter how much it cost him, how much he would miss you.”
My heart thudded against my ribs. “I can’t imagine Torq missing anyone.”
“You would have if you’d seen him after Mary died. He almost lightened up when he was married to her. Mary wasn’t a particularly happy-go-lucky woman either. She was born and raised a Morrison, a sixteenth-century Scot, with all the trials and tribulations these people go through in their incessant clan feuds. Lots of death, lots of loss. So, it’s not like they ran around the tabletop laughing, holding hands and singing. But they weren’t alone anymore, and Torq finally had a love of his own.
“He was devastated when she died, but his idea of grieving was to revert to his formerly sullen self, except worse than before. He shut himself off from everyone for the longest time, moving in here to the keep and working all day and keeping to himself at night...if he wasn’t manning one of the checkpoints.
“He didn’t treat Mary like a ‘porcelain doll,’ to use your expression. She was pretty hale and hardy, but as it happens, not strong enough to withstand disease. It’s possible he doesn’t want to go through that again, that he doesn’t want to lose someone else, but life is pain, right? We live, we love, sometimes we lose, and then we live again to love.”
I heard the frustration in Ann’s voice, a faint echo of my own inner dilemma.
I told her then about my father, my fabulously fascinating father who traveled and dug up mysterious artifacts and had a beard and looked exactly like what one thought an archaeologist should. And I told her that although he had probably loved me in the abstract, he had actually been too distracted with his mysteries to care that he had a daughter who worshiped him.
She took my hand in hers.
“I’m so sorry, Cyn. I do know archaeologists. They’re lost in the clouds sometimes...well, the earth. They’re gone..
.a lot, and when they’re home, they’re buried under the results of their finds. You and I both know that. Gotta love those adventurers, the seekers of the dead, but sometimes they fail to see the living before them.”
She let go my hand.
“You look exhausted. You need to eat and drink something. I’ll be back in a jiff.”
I let her go and looked up at the small window of the keep. When I could no longer ignore the pain in my lower abdomen, I lifted up onto my elbows and rolled off the bed, hitting the straw-carpeted floor with a painful thud and a groan. I pulled myself up to my knees, reached for the pot, hitched up my skirts and did my duty.
The door opened just as I finished, and Torq entered.
I shrieked. “Wait!”
“Auch!” he muttered, turning his back. “I should have knocked. Forgive me.”
He didn’t leave but kept his back to me.
I pushed the pot under the bed and pulled myself up to stand, bracing myself on the nearby stone wall. My skirts fell appropriately.
“Okay, I’m done!”
He turned and looked at me with surprise.
“Ye’re on yer feet.”
“I’ve had to be,” I said. “I have to get better.”
“Dinna reinjure yerself!”
“Despite what you think, Torq, I’m a lot tougher than I look. If you had fallen eight feet...or fourteen feet depending on what century I fell from, your back would hurt too!”
“There is no need for yer anger. I didna say ye were weak.”
“Oh really?”
I looked at him with longing, but I narrowed my eyes so he couldn’t see how I felt.
“I’m going to leave in the morning,” I said. “So someone go find that dagger.”
“Aye, I ken that is wise. Ye should go, and I told ye so.”
“I’m not leaving because you told me to, Torq! I’m leaving because I’m too much trouble—and I need an x-ray and I’m too much trouble.”
“X-ray?”
“A way they can see if I cracked my spine or something.”
He shook his head as if he didn’t understand, and I didn’t elaborate.
“Andrew hid the dagger. I will have him fetch it.”
“Now?”
“Ye can use it when ye think necessary, but ye must tell Ann before ye go.”
“Tell me what?” Ann said, carrying a tray of food in. She laid the tray down on the table.
I hadn’t wanted to blurt out my half-baked plans to Ann so soon. In fact, I didn’t really want to go. I had only said so to hurt Torq and because I truly believed I was a hindrance more than anything. If he had begged me to stay, I would have.
“The lass plans to leave in the morning. I will send Andrew to fetch the dagger. I wished her to say goodbye to ye afore she left.”
“You decided?” Ann asked me.
I tried to communicate with her telepathically, through the unhappiness in my eyes, but she only stared at me.
“Yes, I guess it’s time to go.”
Chapter Sixteen
Following my dejected response, Ann looked at Torq, then back to me.
“Well, not without eating. Come on. Let’s see if you can sit at the table. Otherwise, I don’t see how you can manage to travel forward in time.”
She approached me and slipped a hand around my waist. Torq moved forward as if to assist, but needing to put space between him and my heart, I refused.
“We’re okay!”
His hands fell to his side, and he swung around and left the keep.
Ann settled me onto a chair and placed a bowl of stew, oatcakes and a pitcher of water in front of me, setting the tray on the floor. She took the chair opposite and poured water into the cup.
“My own special brew of water,” she said with a smile.
I returned her smile and stared at the food.
“So you decided that quick?”
“Not really. To be honest, I was trying to hurt Torq...or something.”
Ann nodded. “Or get him to beg you to stay?”
“Yes, that.”
“I understand. I really do. Have you told him how you feel about him? He might just ask you to stay if he thought you loved him.”
“No, I haven’t. Seems kind of goofy anyway. Who falls in love in the space of a few days?”
“I did.”
“Well...” What could I say to that?
“I don’t know,” Ann said. “The air is thin? The island remote? The time for courtship finite and limited? Probably the latter, right?”
“That’s probably it,” I agreed. “You and I fell through time by accident, and everything seems accelerated—romance, falling in love, making life-altering decisions. There doesn’t seem to be any time to think things through.”
“You don’t have to rush back to the twenty-first century, Cyn, despite what I said before. You can take your time and make sure that you love Torq enough to spend the rest of your life in the sixteenth century.”
“I’m not sure that’s solely my decision, Ann. Torq has something to say about it, and he has said he thinks I should go.”
“Well, Torq doesn’t really have a say in this, Cyn. He can offer his opinion, he can refuse to continue looking after you or helping protect you, but the decision is yours...and John’s, I guess, if you want to stay here with us. You’re really no trouble, and I like having you here.”
Ann’s eyes filled with moisture, and I clutched her hand.
“You’re homesick,” I murmured.
“A little bit. Not enough to leave my family or my husband, but yeah.”
I blew out a breath of pent-up air.
“Why don’t you eat now?” Ann said in a thick voice. “It is up to you if you want to go. It looks like Torq is sending Andrew for the dagger, wherever he put the darn thing. Just don’t touch it until you’re ready, and don’t go without telling me or Torq. Please.”
I squeezed her hand again.
“Of course I won’t, Ann. I’m going to miss you. No one will ever understand what you and I have been through. No one.”
A tear slipped down Ann’s cheek, mirroring my own. She wiped at it and jumped up.
“Okay, I’ve got to run back and check on the kids. I’ll see you later. It looks like we’ve got some weather coming in. Are you okay here on your own? Torq is usually with you. I don’t want to leave you here to eat alone.”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Go!”
Ann left the tower room, and I dug into the food. A whistling sound caught my ear, and I looked up at the window. Wind forced its way through the narrow slit. The sky had grown dark, and black clouds rolled in.
Ann dashed back into the room.
“Whew! That’s some kind of storm rolling in,” she said, her hair blown askew. “You should be safe in the keep here. If I can find Torq or Andrew, I’ll send one of them here to keep you company! They have some pretty fierce storms here in the Western Isles.”
“Are you guys okay in the crofts?”
“Oh yes, the turf roofs hold really well. Okay, gotta run. I’ll send someone.”
She hurried out again, and I looked up at the roiling sky visible through the window. Thunder cracked in the distance.
I studied the stacked stone walls and remembered that most of them still stood in the twenty-first century, those that hadn’t been carried away by local farmers over the years. The walls would hold in a storm. I ate my soup and bread and contemplated what traveling through time again would feel like. For the most part, all I remembered was falling, flailing, grabbing the dagger, a sense of weightlessness and then landing hard. I hoped that my return trip would be less painful, especially the landing.
The storm moved in fast, and water flew in the window. Somewhere, outside of the room, I heard shouts. I pushed myself up, suddenly terrified. Were we being raided yet again...in the middle of a storm?
I tottered over to the door and pulled it open. Rain and wind howled through the ground floor of the keep. I s
houted up the stairs to the guards.
“Hello? Are you guys okay? What’s going on?”
I clapped my hand over my mouth. What was I doing? If we were being raided, I didn’t need to draw attention to myself.
I heard the shouts again, then a scream. I couldn’t just hide in my room. I had to know what was happening! I stepped outside of the room, but the ferocity of the wind swirling in the tower pushed me back in. I thrust my head forward and forced my way back out again. Huddling against the security of the stone walls, I clung to rock and worked my way toward the open doorway.
A sheet of white rain and wind blew sideways just outside the door. More shouts and screams sailed by. I thought I heard Ann, but I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t see the crofts through the storm.
Desperate to get to the crofts to help Ann if I could, I pushed my way out into the wind.
“Ann!” I screamed into the wind. “Torq!”
A body appeared out of the storm, clinging to the tower and edging its way around toward me.
“Torq?” I shouted.
“Nay, mistress. Andrew!” the boy shouted. “Torq sent me to see to ye. Go back inside. It isna safe here!”
“Are we under attack again?” I shouted. “I heard shouts, screaming.”
“Nay, it is the storm. It is the worst I have ever seen,” he shouted back at me.
Rain pelted his poor face. I reached out to grab hold of the slight boy, fearing he would be pulled away in the wind.
He grasped my hand and reached the doorway. I wrapped my arm around his waist and felt hard metal protruding from the back of his kilt. As I pulled at Andrew, he slipped from my grasp, but the dagger came with me.
“Mistress!” I heard his voice growing faint. The wind carried me away, twisting me painfully. I shrieked, but saw only Andrew’s hand reaching for me, for the dagger in my hand.
The wind died down around me, and I looked up into Debra’s face.
“Where did you come from?” she asked on her knees, bending over me as I lay in the ground. “Dylan said you’d gone home.”
I looked down at my hand, expecting to see the dagger still in it. It was gone. I bolted upright and looked up at the sky. Thick with fog, there was no sign of a hurricane. Pain seared through my back at the sudden movement, and I gasped in pain, in grief.