Chapter Seven

 

 

The slow descent from the mountain pass gave Kerry a lot of time to think. She found herself wondering if the bodies of the six men were still there in her time. Somehow her mind distanced itself from the awful human tragedy by telling her it had all happened eight hundred years ago.

Would they still be there, buried underneath that enormous boulder?

If she were to travel to that spot and dig down over the intervening centuries worth of rockfalls, would she find their skeletons still gripping rusted swords?

Her mind moved to the fall of the boulder itself. Callum had been one hundred percent certain that the spirits of the mountains had assisted him in his time of need but was it just a coincidence? There was evidence of many rockfalls up there. Perhaps the ambushers had just been unlucky. But then what a coincidence that of all the places that boulder could have landed, of all the times it could have fallen, it just happened to crush the six men trying to kill Callum?

She shook her head. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that this was no fairytale Disney medieval adventure. This was real life and there were six dead bodies back there. That was bad but what was worse was knowing if they had survived, they would have done their best to murder Callum and drag her away with them. The thought of it was enough to make her shudder. Edward would have fitted in perfectly in this era. Who was Edward?

“Are you cold,” Callum asked behind her.

“I’m fine,” she replied. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

“Not a scratch on me.”

The land finally began to level out and as it did so, Callum turned the horse left, following a weak rabbit trail that headed into a wood in the distance.

“Through that and out the other side and we reach The Lantern.”

“What’s the lantern?”

“The inn where we will spend the night.”

“And I thought you’d be a sleeping under the stars kind of guy.”

“I am but you’re not.”

“I could sleep outside just as easily as you.”

“And wake up frozen, stuck to the frost under your body?”

“Maybe an inn’s not such a bad idea after all.”

They rode in silence for a spell, Kerry once again becoming lost in thought. As they entered the wood, she expected to become scared of another ambush but there was no feeling of danger in there. It was strange but without all the modern buildings around she felt almost as if the landscape were talking to her.

She would never have been able to describe it to anyone from her own time but it was as if the world around her responded to things far more strongly. Callum clearly respected the land he moved through and the land respected him in return. She felt that he would never chop one of the trees down in this wood even if he were freezing to death. In return safe passage was being granted to the two of them and a sense of protection encompassed her, making her shoulders relax for the first time that day.

She didn’t want to relax. If she did she might have to handle the thoughts that had whispered to her ever since the attack in the mountain pass.

Her attraction to Callum should not have grown. She had been trying to clamp down on it since they met but it was still there bubbling away and after seeing him fend off the MacDonalds in the ravine, it had wrapped around her like ivy choking a tree trunk, gripping tightly and invading her every thought.

He was a handsome man. There was no doubt about that. The confidence with which he wielded a sword stood in stark contrast to the nervousness of the attackers. The way he had moved, with no fear at all, had scared her beyond measure. She had cried not because she was scared of dying, though that fear was very real during the fight. She had cried because she feared falling into the same trap that had led to her falling for Edward.

The memory had come back all at once. Before she had woken up in the past she had been in a relationship, one that had just ended. In the time it took her to ask herself why it had ended, she knew. He had attacked her. Not just once either. It had been a drip feed of violence that had become as much a part of her life as fetching him toast each morning, making sure it was neither burned nor underdone but just right, not easy with such a temperamental toaster as theirs was.

She felt her ribs. That pain. Was that from the fall or was that from something he had done to her? It was impossible to tell.

The tears came with the memories. She had found Edward attractive. He had been charming, witty, confident to the point of arrogance. That had all been a lie and it was one she must not fall for again.

She found one man attractive and he had become violent. It was entirely possible that she was finding this man attractive because he was violent. She knew she could not trust her own feelings, not after they had so spectacularly let her down.

The best thing she could do was get back to her own time before she fell for Callum any further. She had a proven track record of picking the wrong man and she was determined not to do it again. What she would do was get home and then put all of this behind her.

She would have a unique secret to take with her for the rest of her life. She would have been to the past. No one else had ever done it.

No, wait. Someone else might have done it. She thought of what Callum had said, the rumors of a doorway, of someone coming from the future. What if she were to meet them? That at least would be someone she could talk to about all this.

She could not talk to Callum. If she told him about Edward, no doubt his response would be to suggest running him through with a sword.

She found herself crying again and this time there didn’t seem to be any reason.

“Something ails you,” Callum said. “What is it?”

“I’m fine,” she replied.

“Och, you’re not fine.” He brought the horse to a halt and jumped down, holding out a hand to her. “We will rest here a wee while and you’ll tell me what is troubling you.”

She climbed down and fell into his arms, her tears turning into uncontrollable wretched sobs.

He held her against him and that just made it worse. He hadn’t looked angry. He wasn’t shouting at her for getting upset. He was just holding her and saying nothing at all.

“Why aren’t you getting angry with me?” she managed to ask, the words sounding ragged and interrupted by hitching breaths.

“Angry? For what?”

“For getting upset.”

“Why would I get angry for that?”

She couldn’t answer. She was crying again. It felt as if her tears would never stop.

When she was finally able to talk again she found herself telling him everything. Whether it was because the wood felt so safe, or because they were alone, or perhaps because she knew he could tell no one in her time about it, she shared everything. She told him about Edward, about how they met, about how he changed, how his irritation became anger and how his anger became violence.

More memories came back as she talked. He had followed her to the castle. She had been there at MacCleod castle and he had talked to her there. Had he attacked her? That was still a blank but she knew one thing for sure. When she got back home, she needed to deal with him.

Finally she was done. She sat feeling drained on a soft floor of pine needles, her legs crossed as she leaned back against a tree trunk, utterly exhausted.

Callum sat opposite her in silence. “Say something,” she said at last. “Say anything. Tell me I’m an idiot for falling for him. Tell me I’m even more of an idiot for liking you. Go on, I know. I deserve to hear it.”

“You’re no fool,” he replied quietly, his brow furrowed. “The fool was the man that saw a beauty such as a rose on a spring day and decided to stamp it into the dirt beneath. The fool was the man who ever hurt you for if I see him myself I shall have a few words to say to him and they will not be pleasant ones.”

“I’m sorry, you didn’t need to hear all that. You don’t even know me and here I am blurting it all out. I feel like such an idiot.”

“We should get moving if we are to reach the inn before nightfall.”

“Yes,” she said, getting to her feet. “Of course. The inn. Let’s get moving.”

He helped her onto the horse and she winced at his touch. She shouldn’t have shared all that. He thought the worse of her and she couldn’t blame him. He’d no doubt be glad to get rid of her. She couldn’t exactly have made herself seem less appealing, sobbing into his chest and telling him all her woes.

Way to go, she told herself. Way to make yourself seem utterly irresistible. He’ll definitely want you now.

She sat perfectly still as they rode toward the far end of the wood, following the winding path as the light began to fade. Callum said nothing. He didn’t need to. Kerry knew exactly what he was thinking. He was thinking how glad he would be to finally get rid of her. She didn’t blame him.

If only she could stop wanting him, everything else would be so much easier. But even with her toes curling in cringing embarrassment due to her ridiculous oversharing, she still wanted him and the thought of leaving him was still gnawing away at her.

It was not an easy ride to the inn and by the time they got there, her head was pounding. She looked at the flickering light in the distance and felt an overwhelming sense of relief. The darkness falling on the land around her had made her fear of another ambush overtake all other thoughts.

“The light,” Callum said, pointing past her. “There we rest.”

She did not reply. She was too busy staring at the bushes either side of them, every single one looking perfect for an outlaw to hide behind and leap out, sword drawn.

She felt as if she held her breath the rest of the way until at last the inn loomed up at them out of the darkness, a single light in an immensity of night that had swallowed the entire landscape.

“Let’s go inside,” Callum said, riding through an archway into a courtyard. “Find a stable boy and get something to eat.”

“I’d rather have chicken,” Kerry replied, pleased to see him smile in response.

He held open the door to the inn and from inside a pleasant heat drifted out. She took a final look at the dark sky before stepping inside into an entirely new world.