“Sleep now,” he said. “We have a ways to go.”
“What about you?”
“I will rest on the morrow. Tonight, I want to go some distance.”
Abigail scrunched the roll of blankets under her head and gazed at him. The deep blue of the ocean reflected in her eyes pulling him under. He admired her luscious lips. As if Abigail could read his mind, she opened her mouth in a small smile.
The smooth motion of his rowing faltered but with a huge effort, he regained his rhythm. Did she not know how besotted he was?
Trying to moisten his dry mouth, he swallowed. “If ye don’t stop looking at me like that, we willnae be going anywhere.”
She lifted her chin and shot him a mischievous grin. “Sorry.”
“Liar.”
She laughed and turned her head away.
How he loved that sound. Music floating on water. He frowned. He had to protect her, and he would, with his very life if he had to.
They both must have been high on adrenaline, because their happiness at their safe escape wiped out any of the tension that had grown between them since she told him her secret.
Iain still didn’t believe her, but a question had grown in his mind sending his thoughts into a whirl. His father’s friends were fun people to a six-year-old. He had to getAbigail to agree to go to Dorpol with him. He wanted to show her the game they had made for him. Mark had called it a board game and it was nothing like any of the games he or his friends had seen before.
Iain peered into the dark and concentrated on keeping a constant rhythm to his rowing.
He glanced down. The moonlight lit the white of something in her hands. When she’d said her treasure was a time-traveling device, he’d never sensed a lie. She had insisted she never hit her head, but she wouldn’t know that though if she’d lost her memory and imagined her arrival in Scotland via time instead of sailing over the sea from America.
“Abigail?”
She peered at him. “Yes?”
“Why haven’t ye used that?”
She held up her keepsake and grimaced. “To tell you the truth, I think I know what I did to make me come back in time; it’s just I’m not sure if the same thing will take me back home, to my time. I’m a bit scared I might end up some place else.” She smiled, the moonlight catching on her teeth. “I know I have to try, but I’m a little scared.”
He nodded and kept rowing. Eyeing her treasure, he frowned. If it was indeed a time device, surely, she could vanish now that she had it in her hands.
But what if she was telling the truth? He pushed down the pain of the thought. He couldn’t lose her now. Now that he had met her, how would he live without her?
As he rowed, his mind kept alternating between believing time travel was possible and thinking himself mad for even considering such a thing.
Some hours later, Iain didn’t know how many, his arms refused to move the oars. Using the last of his strength, he turned the boat into shore and as it bumped against the bank, he jumped out. He tied the rope to a tree a small way from the water and returned to the boat, nestling behind her, framing his form along hers.
She leaned back into him and moaned.
His body, now alert, had him nibbling her neck. He couldn’t help it; he couldn’t stay away from her.
She rolled over and her eyes fluttered open. She smiled. “Hi.”
He grinned, but as he raised his arm over her shoulder, he grimaced. Every muscle in his arms cried out in agony with each movement. “Shh, go back to sleep.”
She snuggled into his chest and sighed.
The next morning, Iain awoke with a start. It took him a moment to get his bearings, and when he remembered their predicament, he went through the actions to set them back away from shore.
Stretching and groaning, Abigail awakened. “Ooh, my muscles are so sore.”
“Aye. It will be good to sleep in a bed once more.”
