11
The next few days all began and ended the same way. Heather laid in bed wondering if she’d made the right decision, Gavin sat with his back against the door, protecting her from whatever lurked outside.
There had been no more murders. That at least was something. The culprit had yet to be caught but no one else had suffered, apart from Susanne’s family.
They were hardly able to grieve knowing the killer of their sister, their friend, was still out there. Gavin seemed under no doubt that soon enough they would find out who did it but Heather was not so sure.
Each day she told herself she would go home to her own time. She hadn’t been able to do it. She told herself it was to help with finding Susanne’s killer and that was part of it. Another part of it whispered to her each night when she swore once again she would leave.
Going would mean never seeing Gavin again. She hadn’t talked to him about the kiss. He had spent little time with her during the day. He had been busy with the siege and handling their slowly dwindling supplies.
She only left the bedchamber when he was free to accompany her. The only time she was on her own in the castle was when she was making her way to or from the bedchamber.
Having the key meant she could lock herself in whenever she felt unsafe which was often. Having that security helped keep her in the past, calming her enough to help her overcome her fears of the time.
The initial suspicion surrounding her seemed to have died away, no doubt helped by the need for the men of the clan to focus on repelling attacks.
There had only been one attack so far and although Heather found it terrifying, the rest of the castle seemed to have shaken it off like a mild cold. She marvelled at their ability to cope with things that would send her sobbing and screaming into therapy.
The attack had come five days into the siege. Heather woke to the sound of bells ringing just before dawn.
“Stay here,” Gavin said, on his feet at once as she sat up in bed.
He left and she waited, listening at her window to the sound of angry voices in the distance. From her room she could just see the battlements and the mountains beyond but not what was happening below the exterior castle walls.
On the battlements men were firing their bows in quick succession, barely visible in the half light of dawn. Gavin was marching behind them, giving orders, ducking as something flew over the walls. She flinched as a lump of rock slammed into the side of the keep, making the floor shudder.
She felt terrified, her hand going to the silver key at once. Was she going to have to run back to her own time? Was the castle about to be overrun? Could she simply abandon them to their fate?
Almost as soon as she began to wonder if she could cope with the stress, it was over. The men on the battlements were cheering, waving and taunting outlaws who were out of sight from her viewpoint.
Gavin told her what had happened when he returned to her room, collapsing into a chair and wiping sweat from his eyes.
“They tried to storm the walls but dared not send their full force as a good commander would. They sent a first wave to get the ladders up while a trebuchet fired behind them.”
“Was that the rock that hit the keep?”
“A good trebuchet takes a month to build,” Gavin said. “Theirs collapsed on the first use. The men with the ladders were taken out by my archers before they made it a hundred yards from their lines. The rest retreated in defeat, leaving the ladders behind. I sent a couple of flaming arrows to help them turn to ashes.”
“What happens now?”
“They lick their wounds and wonder what went wrong.”
“Will they attack again?”
“If they do, let us pray they are as disorganized as this time.”
It had been more than a week since that initial skirmish and there hadn’t been a peep from the outlaws. According to Gavin, they just sat out there, laughing and drinking and doing little else.
Meanwhile supplies inside the castle continued to dwindle. How long could they last? She had asked Gavin but he just shrugged his shoulders and told her not to worry. She might have thought him uncaring for the way he spoke to her but each night her mind was calmed.
She slept with Gavin guarding her. Every single night he slept in her chamber, each time telling her it would be the last. One night she woke up and saw him with his eyes closed. She sat looking at him for a long time until she fell asleep again. Could she leave him? Could she steal the knife and betray him?
She had never thought she might stay here this long. She anticipated being home by now, his knife in her hand, her past and her family’s past all having changed for the better.
Instead, she had found herself enjoying Gavin’s company more and more. They talked about everything and nothing in the evenings before she settled to sleep.
“Tell me about your childhood,” she said one night.
