She wandered through the sitting room, wondering if there might be something closer to home she could use for the same purpose, then stopped when she noticed a little bookcase tucked into a corner of the room. She walked over to it and scanned the titles there.
A Pictorial History of Medieval Scotland.
She pulled the book free of the bookcase without the world falling to pieces around her. She perched on the edge of the coffee table because sitting on the couch felt like too much of a commitment and she wasn’t sure when she would need to get up and run.
She opened the cover of the book, paused for a reaction from any stray Highland magic hiding in her house, then cautiously flipped through the pages. She had no idea who had come up with that title or acquired the photographs as evidence, but she soon realized that the author had obviously spent years collecting pictures of paintings and sketches. She looked to see if things were organized by date or region, then realized they were mostly organized by clan. She took a leap of faith and looked up the MacLeods of Assynt.
And there, in all its glory, was the castle she’d seen in the flesh. She looked at the illustration credits.
The MacLeod Keep, ca. 1387—
That was as far as she got before she realized she wasn’t holding that book while sitting on a low table, she was sprawled on the floor, and it hadn’t been a comfortable trip there. She crawled to her feet, took the book over to the kitchen table, then set it down.
1387. What the hell was it with that date?
She stood at the table, looking down at that illustration for what felt like hours, until she couldn’t ignore the inexorable pull of something that was far, far bigger than what her simple life was able to contain.
Wasthatwhat Nathaniel felt whenever he heard that date?
There was only one way to know for certain. She ruthlessly squelched the first squeaks of alarm from her common sense, ripped out the page in question, then folded it up and stuck it in her bra. She would ask James MacLeod later to forgive her for what she’d done to his book.
She left the house, locked it, then started for the forest. She would only go as far as she was comfortable with, which she suspected wouldn’t be all that far. Perhaps she would see something Nathaniel hadn’t. Perhaps she would actually see some sort of doorway through time and have the presence of mind to make a note of its location so Nathaniel could avoid it in the future.
She took a deep breath, reminded herself of all the survival skills Bertie had taught her, then continued on into the forest.
Things were different. Perhaps not so much in the forest by her house, but definitely as she continued on. Something had shifted in a way that was absolutely unmistakable—
She realized too late that she wasn’t going to be able to control the gate she was now firmly convinced had to exist between centuries. She was on the other side of it before she realized she’d entered it and it had shut behind her with an almost audible click.
Damn it anyway.
She had as little control over subsequent events as she’d had over her arrival into the midst of them. The one thing she could say with certainty was that informing the lads who arrived as if they’d been following a director’s cue that she wasn’t a demon didn’t improve things in the slightest.
What was surprising, though, was the overwhelming sense of déjà vu she had. It was as if her dream were replaying itself, but with an exactness that was less reassuring than it was extremely unsettling. She found herself escorted through the forest at exactly the same pace, waited with the boys at the edge of the meadow for exactly the same amount of time, watched Nathaniel race across the meadow at exactly the same speed he’d used the time before.
She wasn’t surprised when he ignored her. She was actually even less surprised to find herself yet again up to herankles in the muck of the dungeon, but surely Nathaniel would rescue her.
Unless he didn’t.
She thought she had the presence of mind to have things handled, but she realized, as she stood there and fought very unsuccessfully another bout of shock, that she didn’t have anything handled at all.
She had only intended to investigate the entrance to, well, wherever she was. She hadn’t intended to become embroiled in the nightmare all over again. For all she knew, she had just plunged herself into a situation from which she would never escape. She would die in a medieval dungeon and no one would be the wiser. Sheldon would find some way to completely drain her bank accounts, her father would be happy to be rid of any possibility of her showing up for family gatherings, and her siblings would gleefully rub their hands together over the thought of splitting four ways the inheritance her mother had set aside for her out of her pocket money.
She, on the other hand, would die cold, terrified, and likely as a result of the things she could feel crawling up her shins. Thank heavens she was wearing leggings tucked into boots instead of just regular old pants that might have let things crawl directly on her skin.
She heard the hall settle down for the night and realized after what had to have been an hour that she was holding her breath. She forced herself to breathe evenly and fight off panic. What if he didn’t come? What if he was furious that she’d put him in a similar situation two nights in a row?
What if he’d clunked his head on something upstairs and forgotten all about her?
The grate moved. She closed her eyes briefly in thanks, then waited for the hand to be extended. She was better prepared that time and of more help to her rescuer. She held on to Nathaniel’s arm once she was free, then nodded.
“Ready,” she whispered.
“I am going to yell at you later,” he muttered. “Loudly.”
She would have smiled, but she didn’t dare. She was too busy hoping nothing would stop them from getting out of the hall itself.
They made it to the front door when they were stopped.Emma honestly couldn’t remember if it was the same guy as before or not. The truth was, she’d been so flipped out the night before, she hadn’t noticed anything past how badly she smelled and how desperately she wanted not to be where she was.
