Love was the last thing Bree was looking for. She’d been on her own for so long, she couldn’t even contemplate what it would be like sharing her life, her things, her home with someone else and especially, a man. She was too busypreparing for her journey into the past to take the dating scene seriously. Oh, she’d gone out with some men, but she always thought of them as friends, so they weren’t really dates as such. While she always thought she’d have time for real dates and boyfriends later in her life, now the thought of having a man think he had a say in how she lived, made her balk. Even her old neighbor, who was a great help at times, tried to talk her into expanding her cabin and installing modern appliances. She shivered. No thank you. “It’s not love I want to find, it’s my father.”
Laura grinned. “Daughterly love is still love.”
Bree clicked her tongue. “True.”
Laura crossed the space between them and hugged Bree. “You look beautiful. That emerald green suits your coloring perfectly.”
“Yeah, Aunt Di knew her stuff.” Bree turned her gaze to Garrett. “I’m sorry.”
He smiled but it only touched his eyes for a second. “It’s all good, cuz. I do understand, but I want you to come back and let us know how you get along. I don’t want to be worried about you all my life.”
“You don’t have to worry about me. Your parents taught me everything I need to know about the time period, and what do you think I’ve been doing all these years? I’ve been learning to live a subsistence life, that’s what.”
“And you’ve done well at it.”
She bopped him on the shoulder. “I sure have, buster.”
Garrett picked her up in a bear hug. “I’ll miss you.”
Once he’d set her back down, Bree turned the top of the orb and Garrett and Laura blanked out of existence.
Chapter 2
Sir Horland kept his gaze on the hills ahead of him. The grassy plains surrounding him would soon disappear when he neared the hills. He began passing tall green-topped trees, few at first as he neared the town of Frother, but then the trees multiplied and nettle bushes appeared, sometimes filling the space with so much foliage, even his horse couldn’t get through. But that was no matter because Horland stayed on the rutty road.
The sun was shining high in the sky, but the road was wet with puddles from recent rain.
Passing through a clearing, he spotted a farmhouse in the distance to his right. The farmer tilled the land behind a large draught horse. He waved, but when the farmer made no returning gesture, he realized he was too far away to be seen properly.
He spied the towers of Pradwick Castle rising above the sparsely treed hills, and he sat straighter in the saddle and smiled at the sight he’d been looking forward to since he set out at dawn that morning. Home.
The boggy, dirt road took him up a rise and further into the sparsely treed woods.
He chuckled as he imagined stretching out on his great bed in his rooms at the castle. How he loved that bed. Especially after two years of small rooms in inns or sleeping on the hard ground, practically wrapped around a fire to keep warm.
He nudged his horse into a canter as he forged his way around and up the low hills. Coming out from a wide bend, the smell of sea water filled his nose. He breathed in the clean fresh air and slowed his horse to a walk. The outer walls of the town sprang up before him and he smiled. Home.
Patting his steed, he sighed. “It’s been a long journey, Phareo.”
Phareo threw his head up and down as if to agree.
Horland approached. The outer stone wall surrounding Frother was high with guard towers every fifty paces.
He pushed his horse forward across the raised stone encased bridge. The open gates made him feel as if they were welcoming his return. Would anything have changed within? He hoped not. He loved the town, the people, his friends, and the king and his family.
“Hail, Sir Horland,” a town guard called from above.
Horland lifted his hand in greeting. “Hail, Roget.”
He rode along the main road through town smiling and waving at everyone he passed. As he neared the center, aromas of bread, fresh meat, burning steel, and leather assailed his senses. The store owners were busy showing their wares as he made his way to the castle. Men, women, and children filled the grounds around the well in the town heart. Some collecting buckets of water, some conversing in groups of twos and threes or more, some hurrying to somewhere or other.
It was good to see that nothing had changed in the two years he was gone.
Hailing all as he rode past, Horland approached the stone inner walls of the baily. The large round towers to both sides of the wooden gate and at each corner of the baily housed the king’s guards. The castle’s spires rose to the clouds.
Horland stopped in front of the heavy grilled portcullis and gazed up at the drum tower.
“Who goes there?” a guard shouted from the drum tower gatehouse.
