As Patrick had said, the past wasn’t a place for a modern woman.
The problem was, his woman wasn’t listening to any of that.
She hadn’t even bothered to wake him to tell him she was going anywhere, though he supposed he hadn’t needed her to. He’d known the moment he’d woken and realized he was on her couch and not in his bed and the only lamp lit was a very small one geared not to waken sleeping idiots. He’d cursed himself thoroughly as he’d rolled to his feet.
Damn her to hell, she was going to shatter his heart long before a lifetime of loving her managed to do the same thing.
He’d found Alex’s notes laid out very carefully. It hadn’t taken any special powers of observation to mark how thehandle of Emma’s spoon was pointing to some event in the MacLeod annals that had occurred in 1387.
He should have known, even in his sleep. He’d felt the gate between centuries open, but the truth was, he’d thought he was having a nightmare and he’d gone right back to sleep.
He’d thought he might be tempted to shout at her when he saw her, but once he’d been trailing her in the past—again—he found that all he could do was continually try to put himself between her and danger. In the end, she had pushed past him and tried to do the honors herself of taking out that Fergusson clansman who had come at them. Nathaniel had watched her sweep that man’s feet out from him, then leap toward him.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t counted on a clansman’s ability to never lose his dagger. It had been nothing but dumb luck that he’d managed to pull her aside and send her attacker speedily into the afterlife.
The only other notable difference had been that instead of losing her previous meal, she’d concentrated on looking around herself, as if she was looking for someone in particular.
He understood. He’d been looking for Gerald as well.
He hadn’t thought he could speak without shouting and she hadn’t seemed particularly interested in conversation either, so they’d made the journey back to their proper place in time in silence. It occurred to him as he’d seen her house there, hiding behind a bit of a mist, that they were damned fortunate they always came back to their proper place in time. He didn’t fancy a trip back to eighteenth-century Scotland, or any time other than his own, for that matter.
He was beginning to wonder if there might be a purpose to all the madness in truth.
He had then sat in her kitchen as she’d showered, then insisted that she come with him to his house so he could remove the medieval grime from himself. All of that had left him exhausted, with too much to think about. He suspected Emma was in the same condition.
He wasn’t sure what to do with her short of handcuffing her to him and keeping her with him at all times, but that would mean that if he were forced into the past, she would have to go as well, without it being her choice.
There was in truth no good solution.
He poured two mugs of coffee, then walked out onto his deck. He set the mugs down on the table in front of the chairs, then collapsed into his own place. He looked at the woman next to him, wrapped in blankets, staring out over the water. She sighed, then looked at him.
“Hi,” she croaked.
He supposed there was no reason not to be blunt. “I thought you weren’t going to do that again.”
“Did I say that?”
He wasn’t sure what tempted him more: bursting into tears or brandishing his sword and threatening to... well, he never would have been able to do damage to her and she knew it as well as he did. He sighed and opened his arms.
“Do you want me to stab you or come sit with you?” she asked hoarsely.
“The latter, assuredly, for then I won’t have to make so much of an effort to shout at you.”
She sighed, got up, then moved to sit with him. She unwrapped her blanket as she did, then pulled it over the two of them. He closed his eyes as she put her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arm over his ribs.
“You’re trembling,” she said quietly.
“I’m tired,” he said.
She only nodded. He suspected she knew it wasn’t just weariness and he imagined she felt the same way.
Something had to change. Soon.
“You can’t follow me into the past again,” he said finally.
“I didn’tfollowyou into the past,” she said. “I went first.”
“Emma—”
