Page 56 of Edge of Yesterday

Chapter Eleven

Cailean strode alongside his companions on the narrow, unpaved main road inside Heatheredge’s gates. Julianna and Lennox walked along as if the squalor that surrounded them was normal. Someone seemed to have opened the gates of a petting zoo. Pecking, clucking chickens, and bleating goats abounded. They skirted a sheep, one of many. Scruffy dogs nosed at bones and scraps that littered the ground about the foodstalls. Scrawny cats foraged among refuse piles. Anger tightened his gut. How could Val allow such neglect?

A clump of refuse plopped onto the road in front of them. “What the bloody hell?” Cailean halted, but Julianna whisked aside the hem of her skirt and walked around the stinking, steaming mess. He looked up at the two-storied house and glimpsed a woman pulling closed the shutters on a second floor window.

“Cailean,” Julianna called.

He started to follow, his attention on the upper story windows for another instant before he looked back at the street. Though he felt sure the road followed the same path as the High Street he had driven along, he recognized nothing from his world in this chaos they called Heatheredge. The woods that separated the town from the castle were taller and thicker than he recalled, which hid more of the tower.

The Heatheredge around him didn’t deserve the moniker of ‘town.’ This was a crude hodgepodge of turf-walled, thatched-roofed hovels, a single track that functioned as a road, stone-walled structures that would’ve been condemned in the Scotland he knew. Just as bad were dim-looking shops and flimsy market stalls run by characters who looked and smelled as if they hadn’t seen a shower in weeks, maybe years.

“I’ve had enough, Lennox.” He halted. “Where’s Val?”

Everyone turned toward him.

Lennox’s mouth thinned. “You have spoken of this Val several times. You said he was Crowe’s father. Who is he? A friend, family?”

Cailean forced back anger. “Get real, Lennox. You know more than I do.”

“Nae, I do no’.” The bastard stayed in character. “In fact, we know too little of Crowe for my liking.”

“This was interesting in the beginning, but it’s over.” Cailean folded his arms across his chest. “I’m no’ going along with the game any longer.”

“Cailean, are you ill?” Julianna placed a hand to his forehead.

He took a step back. “I am not ill.” Losing my damned mind, is what I am.

“You dinnae have a fever.”

“By God, sometimes it genuinely seems he is touched in the head,” Lennox said.

“Only sometimes,” Gregory murmured.

Cailean retreated another pace. “I’m staying here in Heatheredge.”

Lennox stepped up close to him. “Nae. You are returning with me to Raghnall where ye will explain who Val Ross is and what his connection is to Crowe.”

“I don’t have any idea,” Cailean shot back. “You’re the one who knows them.” He started to turn, then halted when Gregory stepped in front of him.

“Lennox said ye are to return to Raghnall.”

“I don’t give a damn what Lennox said.” Cailean pushed past Gregory.

“Cailean,” Julianna cried, but Gregory seized his arm and swung him around.

Cailean glimpsed the knife Gregory yanked from the pouch on his belt an instant before the blade pressed Cailean’s neck.

“Ye are returning with us.”

Cailean shifted his gaze onto Lennox, whose hard expression mirrored Gregory’s.

“Lennox,” Julianna said, “folk are staring.”

“Let them fucking stare,” Cailean snarled.

Julianna gripped Lennox’s arm. “This isnae necessary. Cailean will return peaceably with us.” She looked at him, her face softening. “You will come, Cailean? It is for your own good. If we are suspicious, then others will be, as well.”

“You’re suspicious?” He barked a laugh. “What am I then? A hostage?”