“Do you have more whisky?”
She nodded, then helped him drink the rest. He gulped itdown, half surprised it didn’t immediately come back up, then took a deep breath. He accepted help to his feet, then waited until his head stopped spinning. “Ready.”
“I couldn’t find your dagger,” Emma said quietly.
“Best to leave it behind,” he said.
“I have my own,” Emma said. She pointed to the blade shoved down the side of her boot. “If that’ll do.”
He looked at her, that ragged-looking urchin with her shorn hair and filthy face, and thought he had never in his life seen anything more beautiful.
“Marry me,” he said.
“You’re under duress.”
“All the more reason to have what I want whilst I can,” he said. He looked at Ceana. “I want her to wed with me. Should she?”
Ceana smiled. “Aye, definitely.”
“Well, there you go,” Nathaniel said. He looked at Emma in surprise. “Gaelic?”
“Boot camp,” she said in English. She smiled. “Thank Ian MacLeod later.”
“I will,” he said faintly. He took a deep breath and looked at his mother. “We’ll get you to Laird Malcolm. You’ll be safe there.”
“And where will you go?”
“Ah, back to our home,” Nathaniel said, half afraid that anything he said would result in his never being born. Why his mother had married his father, and in the future no less...
And he’d thought his life was strange.
“We need to go,” Ceana said. “They won’t sleep forever.”
Nathaniel nodded and concentrated on moving as quickly as he could. The whisky helped. The thought of possibly standing in a shower at some point in the future helped even more. He would never again turn his nose up at anything left on his counter, especially moldy bread. At the moment, he would have been thrilled with just the green bits.
He had no idea how quickly time was passing. It was the middle of the night, he was out of his head with exhaustion, and it was all he could do to keep moving. That was no doubt why they ran bodily into a small group of clansmen before he realized how little heed he’d been paying to his surroundings.
He patted himself for a dagger, wanted to argue when Emma moved to stand in front of him with her blade in her hand, then realized there was no need for any of it. He could hardly believe his eyes, but the clansmen were MacLeods and they were led by none other than his uncle John MacLeod himself.
“Ah,” he managed.
John looked at Lachlan, a man Nathaniel had fought alongside for the past five years. “I need a moment with this one here. Keep us safe, if you will.”
“Anything for a priest,” Lachlan said. He walked up to Nathaniel and put his hand on his shoulder. “We heard you were in the Fergussons’ dungeon. They’ll pay.”
Nathaniel shook his head. “Not worth the trouble, my friend.”
Lachlan looked at him. “If it soothes you any, we were on our way to rescue you, but looks as if there was no need.”
“Nay, I had angels on my side this time.”
Lachlan nodded wisely. “Off on another adventure, are ye?”
Nathaniel nodded to Emma. “My woman has come for me. I’ll make my home with her clan from now on.”
“More room there?”
Nathaniel smiled. “Enough,” he said. “I’ll never have these hills far from my heart, though.”
