There was nothing else to do.
•••
Hewas still trying to convince himself of that the next morning over a cup of ridiculously terrible coffee he had brewed to compensate for the sleepless night he had just spent. It only took three sips before he realized the truth.
He couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t watch her go and say nothing. At the very least, he had to tell her what was going on in his life and ask her if she could wait for him to sort it. That wasn’t unreasonable, was it?
He decided it wasn’t. He left his car parked behind his house in the garage, pulled on a jacket and trainers, then decided a bit of a run to her house might give him a few minutes to gather his thoughts. That sort of thing came in handy when one had a case to plead.
It took him half an hour only because he didn’t hurry and he stopped to think a time or two. He wasn’t sure he’d done himself any favors by any of it, so he continued on and was happy to stop on her porch and take a few restorative breaths.
He knocked.
There was no answer.
He frowned and knocked again. When he still had no answer, he made sure Patrick’s little Ford was still on the side of her house, then made a nuisance of himself by peeking in her windows.
The house was empty.
He wasn’t one to enter where he wasn’t wanted, but he didn’t hesitate before he picked the lock on her front door with tools he kept in a discreet pouch in one of his jacket pockets. He knocked one more time just to be polite, then opened the door.
“Emma?”
There was no answer. He walked over to her stove, but it was only lukewarm. It was as if she’d built a fire the night before, then let it burn out over...
Overnight.
Panic slammed into him. She had touched his dagger in Campbell’s back room, hadn’t she? For all he knew, she had been drawn back—
He forced himself to stop before he finished that thought. The past didn’t want her, it wanted him. He was the one whohad reasons to be there, not her. She was safe. She had perhaps become lost in the forest. Hopefully she’d had the good sense to put on a coat before she’d gone for a stroll. Her gear was still on the table, but he couldn’t find her phone or her keys. Those were good signs.
He left the cottage, locking it behind him with the spare key he found hanging by the door, shoved the key through the crack under the door, then turned toward the woods and made use of skills he didn’t usually need in the present day.
Her tracks were fortunately not washed away by rain and he followed them without delay. He would definitely be having a word with her about wandering off in the dark. He felt fairly safe in the forest at night, but he had five years of practice avoiding things he didn’t want to encounter—
He came to a halt, then looked down. Her phone lay there, along with her keys.
Her footprints simply stopped.
He wasn’t sure he hadn’t made some sort of sound of distress. He supposed if he’d been a different sort of lad, he might have investigated further, but he was who he was. And because he was who he was, he was acutely familiar with the capricious nature of the MacLeod forest.
Aye, he could guess well enough where she’d gone. What he didn’t want to think about was what she’d found on the other side of those trees.
He picked up her phone and her keys, then turned and sprinted for home.
Chapter 15
Emmadecided that it was past time she started getting organized. The first thing she was going to do was make a list of things to accomplish, perhaps in a series of cheery notes made to herself. It would feel like she was some sort of 1920s movie star with an assistant whose sole purpose was to remind her to take care of daily tasks. She considered for a moment or two, then decided what would be the first item on her list:
Don’t visit any medieval movie sets.
That certainly would have taken care of her current problem. If only she’d made that note before she found herself trapped on one of those sets.
She examined what had led her to her current and quite unfortunate locale and decided that perhaps her first mistake had been thinking a little after-dinner walk in the forest would be a good idea. Obviously nothing good happened in the woods near her temporary house after dark.
Her second mistake had been neglecting to dress for unexpected adventures. She hadn’t really paid all that much attention to what she was wearing, but it was obviously not the kind of thing that fit in with half a dozen very burly guys in ratty plaid blankets. She would have complimented them on that truly authentic look they’d had going, but she realized very quickly what her third and potentially fatal mistake had been.
