13
Lindsey couldn’t believe her misfortune. She was cold, wet, hungry, and alone. What was worse she was still no closer to going home. The mist that had been spreading from the moment she woke up had long engulfed the entire island.
She was trapped in the past at the moment she most needed to go home. All she could do was relive the dream over and over again while staring at the well.
She’d been staring at it for so long her eyes were stinging. Around her, the mist swirled like a living thing. If only she could work out what to do. The answer was there somewhere in the stones, but she could not fathom it.
The dream came again unbidden into her head. She had been outside Tavish’s house in the present day, not the past, walking by several cars.
Her mother was being dragged outside, tossed into the dirt by anonymous men in suits who ignored her pleas for mercy, for just a little more time.
“Mom,” she cried but Rhona didn’t hear her, sobbing on the ground as more men vanished inside.
She reached out toward her mother. “I’m coming. Just hold on.”
She woke up with sweat pouring down her. It hadn’t been a dream. It was real. She was certain of it. At once, she was outside the hut, running for the spot where Tavish had hidden the rowing boat.
It took her far too long to find it in the dark but when she finally did, she made up for lost time, rowing faster than she thought possible, racing to the island as the sun rose. She had to get home.
Last night had been one of the hardest nights of her life. She had been desperate to tell Tavish the one thing she’d kept from him. She loved him.
She had realized during the journey south but that had only made things harder for her. She couldn’t stay with him. She needed her mom to know where the locket was and there was no way of doing that other than going home and telling her.
Each day that passed only made it harder. She had been stupid, falling for someone she couldn’t possibly have.
Then sitting together on the shore of the loch, him trying to get her to talk. What would have been the point of telling him?
Telling Tavish she loved him would only make a difficult situation far worse for both of them. She still had to go home. Leaving him with the knowledge that she loved him would tear a hole in an already broken man. He needed healing, like her mom, not more damage from someone broken like her.
She was damage personified. She only had to look at herself as she stared down into the well. She had a man who cared about her, who’d looked after her, who’d kissed her so perfectly she’d gone weak at the knees.
And what had she done? Pushed away the only person who could give her the emotional support she needed. Not only that but she’d hurt him in the process, shoving him away, demanding he go.
It wasn’t his fault she was stuck in the past. The longer she spent alone the more the truth began to break through her defenses. None of it was his fault. He’d done nothing except be kind to her.
She was upset because she was unable to help her mom and she’d taken it out on him. Well done, Lindsey. How mature.
Where had that effort got her? Had it got her home?
Nope. She was freezing cold, the mist soaking through her clothes and seeping into her bones. She was starving hungry with no food anywhere. She was no closer to cracking the secret of the well.
Best of all, she’d told him to take the rowing boat so she had no way of getting off the island. She was stuck there alone, and unless she worked out what to do to get home, she might just starve to death, the locket hidden forever and her mom homeless.
Well done again, Lindsey. First rate job.
Why did this have to happen? Why did she have to develop feelings toward him?
She looked down into the blackness inside the well. Should she jump in? Would that take her back to the present day?
Was it deep enough for a fall to be fatal if it didn’t work? It would be far worse if she broke her legs in the fall but survived. Leaning down she picked up a stone and threw it down, listening hard. Nothing. Not even a distant plink of it hitting the water. Just how deep was the thing?
Behind her, she heard the splashing of water. Turning, she could see nothing but the mist. Then out of it, a shadow fell across the water. She realized a moment later that it was a rowing boat.
At first, she thought it was Tavish coming back but before she had time to shout an apology to him for how she’d spoken to him she saw it wasn’t him at all.
It was an elderly man with a shock of white hair. He was wrapped up in a cloak like Tavish’s and her own.
The boat reached the shore a second later. The man slid the oars inside, then stood up. He climbed out into the water before wading up toward her. His cloak dripped on the heather as he made his way to the well.
