Cora led the now-placid beast back up the road, reins looped securely around her hands — she'd be able to grab them tightly if she needed to, but they were loose enough to release safely in case the horse bolted again. A broken wrist was the last thing she needed. The man rose to his feet as she approached — still just a shadow in the dark, but she could sense the shock in his body language.

"What kind of witchcraft — ?" he murmured.

Cora stiffened, and the horse shied a little, tugging at the reins —

"It's not witchcraft, it's basic common sense, isn't it?" she crooned to the horse, putting as much menace into her voice as she could manage for the man's benefit. "Big nasty man, riding you so hard on such a cold night, he was begging you to throw him off, wasn't he? Wasn't he? That's right. No horse on Earth is going to put up with being treated like a thing."

"And what are those strange clothes you're wearing?" he demanded.

"Is that any way to speak to the woman who just saved you from being stranded in the middle of nowhere?" Daggers in her voice. She'd learned that from her mother — how to crack your voice like a whip, cut through the kind of bluster men were always indulging themselves with. This one was a little different to her usual fare — panicky new fathers, grumpy grandfathers-to-be, always reluctant to trust her, always frightened of something they didn't understand. But her faith in herself won out every time, and this strange Scottish man in the middle of nowhere was no exception.

He straightened. "Madam," he said, grudgingly. "Thank you for catching my horse. Now if you don't mind, speed is of the essence —"

"You're not having him back if you're going to ride him at that pace again," Cora said flatly. "You'll need to slow down, especially if you're carrying two."

"Two?"

"I'll need a lift, and to borrow a phone. I've been in an accident. Can't find my bag or my car anywhere and I need to get home. Is that alright?"

"Madam, it's not a good time." For the first time, she heard something like fear in his voice. "The Lady MacClaran — it's her time, she's in the delivery room and she's not in a good way. The castle hasn't had a midwife in months, I need to get someone from the village to help —"

Castle, Cora thought to herself, then put that one in the 'too hard' pile. "Well. Aren't you in luck? You've found your midwife."

The man hesitated — she could just make out the expression of confusion on his face. "You?"

"Trained, qualified professional. Over two hundred happy healthy little ones running around thanks to these hands." She tapped him gaily on the chest to prove her point. What on Earth was he wearing? Leather? Too hard. "Well? Come on. Taim's uv the ay-sunss," she intoned, in a truly awful imitation of his accent.

"Aright," he muttered. "Sure the Lord does work in mysterious ways." He swung aboard the horse and offered her his hand — she jumped up behind him with the ease of practice (like riding a bicycle, really) and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"I'm Ian of Clan MacClaran, by the way," he said gruffly.

"Cora Wilcox. Gentle with the horse," she warned.

He spun the horse around and coaxed it into a gentle canter, a swift, ground-eating stride, but not the hectic gallop of earlier. The horse settled down into the pace — a good horse, she observed, though she'd sensed that already.

"Where did you say we were going?" Cora called over the sound of the rain and the wind.

"Castle MacClaran!"

Must be one of the new suburbs on the outskirts of town. God, how far had she driven? "You couldn't have called for a midwife? Is a phone tower out, or something?"

"You sound like Maeve," Ian called back, and it didn't sound much like a compliment.

"Well, it just seems a bit archaic, with the horse and everything. Why didn't you drive, in a storm like this?"

"You ask too many questions," Ian said finally, in the tone men generally used when they didn't understand something.

Cora rolled her eyes, glad he couldn't see her, and took comfort in the steady rocking motion of the horse beneath her. At least they'd be wherever it was they were going soon, and she could at least get dry. She'd kill for a long hot shower. But first, she'd give the aid he'd ridden out in such desperation to find.

Why ride a horse, though? It just made no sense. Something about it was bothering her more and more the longer she thought about it. Were they an Amish community, or something? No phones, no cars... God, she hoped there'd be electricity, at least. Cora had assisted with a home birth early in her career — a New Age kind of family who wanted nothing "unnatural" at the birth. That meant no medicine, no devices, no electrical lights of any kind...she'd ground her teeth as she sterilized her equipment in water boiled over a wood fire and strained her eyes trying to see what was going on by candlelight. All the while, she'd quietly prayed for God to watch over this daft woman who wouldn't accept the help of modern medicine. Thankfully, the birth had gone off without a hitch — it helped, of course, that the mother was all of twenty-two years old and in the best shape of her life, though the father had proudly ascribed their success to the lack of technology in the delivery room. When she'd left, they'd been debating about whether or not breast milk was vegan.

Well, everyone had survived that experience just fine. So what if she was headed for another low-tech delivery room? She could do this. She was a trained professional with years of experience — and after all, women had been bearing babies for thousands of years without any kind of technological assistance whatsoever. Whoever this Lady MacClaran was, Cora would help her bring her little one into the world. Then, once mother and baby had rested a little, she'd get to the bottom of exactly where she was and what had happened to her car.

It was comforting to have a plan. Cora leaned against Ian's back and waited to see what strange new place he was taking her to. This was certainly not the boring weekend she'd been getting ready for.