A steady pounding got louder by the moment. It could only be one thing.
“Horses.” She grabbed his arm and struggled to climb the rise on the right side of the road. “We must hide.” She clawed the backpack off her shoulders and shoved it into a deep, stony fissure for retrieval later. “Give me yer pack. We canna be found with them.” He handed it over. She crammed it inside and scraped some loose rocks and sticks over the opening. “Now, run!”
“But what if they’re friendly?” He scrambled beside her, sliding in the mud and patches of wet grass.
“We canna take that chance. Not yet.” She floundered and fell, slipping a short way back and losing precious ground. The other side of the road would be no better. Not with the sheer drop-off on that edge. They had to get higher and find cover.
Robbie slid back to her, grabbed her by the shirt, and pulled.
“Ho there! Halt yerselves!”
“Bloody hell. We are found.” Mila pushed him away. “Run and dinna look back. No matter what.” The lad’s compact size would serve him well on the rain-soaked mountainside. She turned, ready to fight bare-handed to keep her Robbie safe and give him time to get away.
“I willna leave ye, Mi.” He grabbed her arm and yanked. “Come on.”
She clawed at the loose ground, fighting to keep up. “It is so feckin’ steep!”
“Dinna kill them,” one man said in a booming voice so deep and rumbling she would hear it in her nightmares. “Hie yerselves, though. Those bloody Campbells will gnaw through their ropes and give us chase soon enough.”
Something snagged her belt and yanked her backward. She screamed, making what could be her last words to Robbie ricochet across the glen. “Run! Dinna look back!”
“Ye best come back here, boy, or I’ll be cutting yer mam’s throat for her.”
Her captor yanked her back against his hard chest. She couldn’t see the devil, but the coolness of his metal pressed to her gullet gave her the will to fight harder rather than cower. She had to protect Robbie.
Ignoring the blade against her flesh, she flailed and kicked, but the man’s hold on her only tightened. “Dinna listen to him!” she yelled. “Keep climbing!”
Much to her anguish, the lad half slid, half stumbled back down to her. “Not a chance, Mi. Wherever ye go, I go.”
“Good lad to stick with yer mam like that,” the captor said. “Get on down by the wagons now, and be quick about it. The chieftain wants to give ye both a good look over and have a word.” He took the blade away from her throat and, with surprising gentleness, helped her maneuver over the slope back down to the road.
A striking man with long black hair rode over to them and halted. “And who might the two of ye be?” He was the hulking brute with a voice like thunder.
She hugged Robbie close and squeezed his shoulder to keep him quiet. “We are nobody. Let us go.”
With a charming grin that hitched one side of his dark mustache higher, he tipped his hat and walked his horse another step closer. “A pleasure to meet ye, Mistress Nobody.” He scratched his chin through his short, neatly trimmed beard. A dark tattoo of what appeared to be crossed daggers covered the back of his left hand. He studied her, tilting his head first one way, then the other. “Ye dinna have the look of a Campbell about ye. Yer clan’s name, if ye please?”
She remained silent. Clan Campbell had many enemies. Who this man was depended on the year.
“We should be getting along,” called one of the blokes perched on the wagon’s seat. “We’re still over a day from the keep. Maybe two.”
The darkly handsome leader agreed with a thoughtful nod. “Aye. Put them in the wagon. We must leave no one to show the Campbells the turns.”
“The ruts will show’m the turns,” Robbie called out.
“Robbie!”
The leader’s grin stretched into a wide smile. “Robbie, is it? Well then, Master Robbie, how do ye suggest we throw our enemies off our trail?”
The lad lifted his chin and stepped out from the protection of her hug. She tried to snatch him back, but he skittered aside and dodged her. “Make so many ruts they canna tell what’s what.”
“That we shall,” the deep-voiced brute agreed with a regal nod. “Chieftain Teague MacDonald at yer service, sir. What be yer last name, lad?”
“Abernathy.”
Mila closed her eyes, wishing they had eaten with those snippy Americans rather than climb to that ledge for their fatal, time-traveling lunch. She clenched her teeth, forcing her words through them. “Robbie. Come. Here.”
“I willna harm yer son, Mistress Abernathy.” Teague’s deep voice sobered. “Into the wagon now, if ye please. We must be on our way.” He turned his horse northward, then cast a glance back at her. “And ye best be thanking God Almighty that Clan MacDonald found ye rather than those murderous Campbells.”
