“Ye will both thank me someday!” Her tears ran faster, and her face reddened even more. Aveline had never been one to see more than one perspective at a time—and her perspective always took priority. “She was miserable in her time. MacCallen confirmed it when he traveled there to trap her in the locket andbring her here. She had nothing. I brought her back here to be with you, so the two of ye could be together!”
“Why, Aveline?” he asked through clenched teeth. “Ye never do anything for another. How did ye benefit from this madness?”
She scooped a candle up off the floor and threw it at him. “Because I wanted ye to stay home! I’m tired of ye always being gone to sea. Ye were the only one who ever listened to me and didna tell me to go somewhere else and play!”She crumpled into a heap on the floor and covered her face with her hands. “I thought if I found ye a wife, ye would stay here and make babies. Then I wouldna be so alone.
He wearily dropped into a nearby chair and leaned his head into his hands. How could she do such a thing? Snatched an innocent woman out of her life and dropped her right into the middle of theirs. His mother had always said Aveline’s powers would be the greatest, and that she would be the most difficult to guide and control. There was only one thing to be done. He hated the thought of it. But it could not be helped. He lifted his head and glared at her. “Ye must send her back. I dinna ken how or what ye worked out to bring her here, but now ye must make things right and send her back.”
Aveline hugged her knees and shifted in place with an anxious back and forth rocking. “I canna do that. I already sealed the pact with Clíodhna. Once done, nothing can be undone. ’Twas one of her terms on which she wouldna negotiate—even MacCallen couldna sway her on that point.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve and shrugged. “And he swears he’ll not tell Harley what we did. We can just tell her she’s mistaken about having seen him before. His glamour in the future was of a much older man. I’m sure we can convince her she’s never met him.”
Ronan jumped up from the chair and glowered at her. “No. Ye will tell Harley the truth. I will not give MacCallen anything he can use against our clan. Ye have done enough damage by being deceitful. Telling more lies will only make it worse.”
He yanked her up from the floor and stared deeply into her eyes. “As soon as she awakens from her swoon, ye will tell her everything, ye ken?”
“She’ll hate me.” Aveline clutched at his sleeves, nervously plucking at the material. “She doesna ken a thing about magic. She’ll never understand.”
“Ye will be lucky if that is the only punishment the Fates and Goddess Brid place upon ye.” Ronan shoved her away and stormed out the door.
CHAPTER 12
Harley sidled her way down the staircase, her back pressed against the wall, moving with a silence born of sheer desperation.She didn’t have a clue as to where she was headed, all she knew was she had to go. For the last unbelievable hour, she had listened to Aveline, and she’d be damned if she stayed around to be manipulated by the MacKays anymore.
Ronan, Rachel, and Laird Caelan had stood on either side of the sniveling young woman, their heads bowed and faces dark with anger and shame.
Awestruck into silence, Harley had sat there, staring at Aveline, unable to believe anyone could be so selfish as to hatch such an outlandish plan.If not for the fact that she sat in Scotland in the 1400s, she would have thought Ronan’s sister was insane.
As soon as Aveline had tearfully hiccupped out her story—for that was how it had come across—like some twisted fairy tale, not a confession or apology.Harley had stared at her for a long, heart-stopping moment, then bolted for her room.She’d locked herself inside and pressed her back against the door, ignoring Ronan’s incessant hammering and pleas to open it and let him in. She’d shut her eyes and gritted her teeth until he’d given up and left her alone.
A raw, somehow wrong sense of pride in staying strong against him had filled her—still did. He was the one thing in all this chaos that she didn’t want to leave. Her pirate Highlander had an inexplicable pull to him. He drew her in like a moth to a flame. Well, her wings had been singed before, and thanks to Aveline, they now smelled a little burnt again.
And now it was time to go. She had to get out.At this point, the where of her plan would be figured out as she went along.If she survived this century, great.If she didn’t, well, she’d decided if that was her fate, then so be it.She’d never been a coward before and wasn’t about to start now. All she knew for certain was she could not spend another minute under the same roof with the person who had ripped her away from everything she had ever known.
Ellen had laundered and neatly folded her jeans, cotton pullover, and twenty-first centuryunderpinningsand placed them on the top shelf of the wardrobe. Her sneakers were there beside them too. Harley had carefully returned the borrowed dress to the peg on the screen and donned her clothes, thankful that the opinionated yet kindly maid hadn’t discarded them.
Now, the back staircase to the outer entranceRonan had shown her earlier in the day served her well.With any luck, that friendly little mare from the stable would allow herself to be saddled for an unscheduled ride into the night. Harley loved animals, always had, and they always loved her. Hopefully, that sweet fifteenth-century beastie wouldn’t be any different.
The outer bailey was silent, with only the occasional shadow flitting across the cobblestones as a clansman standing watch upon the battlements strolled beneath the light of the waning moon.She melted into the shadow of the wall until she was positive the guard had crossed to the other side of the tower.With a tight hold on the dark plaid around her shoulders and hugging her supplies to her chest, she stole across the yard to the stable door.She paused and strained to hear if anyone was inside. Satisfied at the quiet within, she slipped through the door and was greeted by the curious whickering of the mare she’d metearlier in the day.
“Hello, friend,” she crooned softly to the horse. “I’m happy to see you too. How about we go for a moonlight ride?”
The roan mare perked her ears, as if anxious for an adventure.
Harley ducked under the stall’s bar and hurried to saddle the amicable beast. She tied her cloth bag of supplies—bread, dried meat, and a skin of water—to the saddle, then mounted the patient mare.During her flight out of the keep, it had occurred to her that filching the food and stealing away appeared to be going entirely too easily, but she would take it. “I’m due some good luck. Hopefully, karma remembers I’m not such a bad person and helps me out.” Once seated in the saddle, she leaned over the animal’s neck and stayed low as they slipped across the yard and exited the gate.
That was another thing. The MacKays had a guard walking the wall but left the portcullis up and the wooden gates open? Was that standard Scottish defense? She glanced back over her shoulder, squinting at the window of the guardhouse. The guard was right there, watching her, but didn’t sound the alarm. She peered harder. There was a tall, shadowy figure behind him, watching too. But neither said a word. Maybe the MacKays wanted her gone as badly as she wanted to leave. Fine by her. That made her exit easier on all of them. Although, it did kind of hurt her feelings. She’d truly thought Ronan was as drawn to her as she was to him. She shook her head. “Stop it. It’s better this way, and you know it.”
She urged the horse to a faster pace in case whoever was in the guardhouse changed their mind. Once they galloped across the bridge spanning the narrow ravine, she released the breath she’d held since spotting the watchers in the guardhouse. “Come on, little mare. Let’s find a nice, quiet place to lie low for a while.”
A moonlit trail prompted her to veer to the right and head for the coast.If memory served and her history lessons were the least bit accurate, most settlements would be along the shore. She glanced down at her apparel and had second thoughts about not bringing along the fifteenth-century clothing to fit in better with any population she happened to find. Her jeans, pullover, and sneakers would be hard to explain. She rolled her shoulders andshook the worry away. “I’m not going back for clothes. I’ll figure it out.”
An eerie feeling of being watched made her twitch her shoulders again. She pulled the mare to a halt and twisted in the saddle, looking all around while listening for the sound of someone following. Nothing but the steady shushing of the nearby waves hitting the shore came to her. No movement caught her eye. The nearby woods concerned her a bit. Someone could easily hide in those shadows the trees provided.
“Move, if you are there,” she said under her breath, while staring at the darkest part of the forest. Nothing happened. The only movement was the trees shifting in the wind.
“I’m paranoid.” But after all that had happened, she had the right to be. She urged the horse onward, noticing the trail gently sloped downward, and the hard packed dirt was softening with the addition of a sandy loam.The steady music of the waves got louder, and when she rounded the last huge outcropping of boulders, she discovered she’d escaped to a deserted horseshoe bay that led to nowhere.
Harley eyed the tiny deserted bay and shook her head. “Well, dammit.”
She dismounted, tied off the reins to a scraggly bush, and walked farther down the beach to make sure she wasn’t mistaken about the bay.With another shake of her head, she returned to the mare.“You could’ve told me we were headed for a dead end. I thought we were friends?”
