“I must,” he replied, his voice rough. “I promised to see ye safely home.”
“I don’t care! If you’re not going to Dun Calas, then I’m not either! I won’t leave you!”
“Ye have to! Ye have a life waiting for ye back in the twenty-first century. A good life. A life full of wonders than I canna hope to match. I have nothing to offer ye, lass, do ye hear? Nothing!”
“You have everything to offer me!” she countered. “You have yourself, damn it! And that’s all I want—you! Do you think I care about comfort and money and holidays and all the other superficial rubbish we think is important? Maybe I did once. But you changed that, Reid! Wherever you go, I go. I cannot,willnot lose you. Not for anything.”
There was such an expression of longing on his face that it almost broke her heart. “I’m sorry, love,” he breathed. “Forgive me.”
There was a crashing behind her as the Muir guards came up the hill. Abi turned to look. Two large figures were getting closer but she could not make out their features.
“We can work this out,” she said, turning back to Reid. “We can find a way—”
She froze. Reid and the dogs were gone.
Panic ripped through her. No. No!
She ran into the woods, heedless of the branches that whipped her face and tried to snag her clothes. It was dark beneath the trees, the dawn light not having reached this far yet.
“Reid!” she shouted. “Reid!”
There was no answer, no sound other than the wild thumping of her heart. Footsteps thudded behind her and a male voice said, “Who’s there?”
Two men approached, carrying lanterns. They were both big men and heavily armed.
“It’s a lass!” one of them said as they spotted Abi. “Why did ye light the signal beacon, lass?”
Signal beacon? What were they talking about? “Did you see a man as you were coming up the hill?” she asked. “And two dogs?”
The men glanced at each other. Abi turned and began scanning the woods again. “Reid!” she called desperately. “Reid!”
“Who are ye looking for?” one of the men asked quizzically.
“Reid Campbell,” Abi cried. “Do you know him? Did you see where he went?”
It was the wrong thing to say. At the mention of Reid’s name, the men’s expressions went stony.
“Reid Campbell ye say? He’s with ye?”
“Yes!” she cried. “And I have to find him! Please, have you seen him?”
“I dinna know what kind of game ye are playing, woman,” one of the men growled. “But ye are coming with us. Now.”
Before she could react, they grabbed her arms, one on either side, and frog-marched her out of the woods and to the edge of the hill where it sloped down to the plains below.
“Let me go!” she cried, struggling in their grip. She turned her head, looking back the way they’d come, expecting to see Reid emerge from the trees, expecting him to come for her.
But he didn’t.
The Muir guards marched her unceremoniously down the hill to where they’d left a wagon and two horses. They bundled her into the back of the wagon, one of them keeping a tight hold on her while the other climbed onto the seat and clucked the horses into motion. Abi was too dazed to put up much of a fight.
Reid had gone. He’d left her. The realization made her hollow inside. She felt as though somebody had opened her up and scooped out her heart.
As the wagon rattled and bumped along the road Abi stared back at the hilltop retreating in the distance. She had a strange sense of unreality, as though this was all a dream—or a nightmare—and she would wake up any minute and find Reid looking down at her, a smile crinkling the skin at the corners of his eyes in that way she loved so much.
The wagon ride passed in a blur. They reached Dun Calas and were admitted without comment and Abi was bundled out of the cart, up a set of steps, and through a door into a vast, cavernous hall with huge beams crossing the ceiling. A few serving staff were wandering around cleaning tables and piling logs in the large fireplace.
“Ye wait with her,” she heard one of the men say. A hand on her shoulder pushed her down onto a bench.
