Page 47 of Beloved Enemy
"It’s true and I realize it now," she said, laughing softly. "My life—where I come from—is... small. Simple. Kindergarten, my little apartment, the same coffee shop every morning. I treat myself every Thursday to a movie—there’s a theatre just a few blocks away. But, well, that’s it. I mean, I love my job and my students, but I also know I live a boring life, very hum-drum.”
She turned to him, her eyes catching his, and he felt a strange pull. Her cheeks pinkened again and she took her gaze away. Thomas watched Reid warily, nearly unmoving, his tiny head laid on Charlotte’s shoulder.
Reid had no understanding of anything she was talking about—kindergarten, apartment, coffee, and movie were words he did not know—but he sensed the melancholy in her voice, which he judged uncharacteristic for her.
“Let’s just say I know, even as I live it, my real life, that there’s got to be something...more.”
"And now that you’re here? Does it feel likemore?"
She sighed, her profile showing a wistful countenance. "In a way, yes. It’s terrifying and hard, but it’s also... exciting. Admittedly, I do feel alive in a way I haven’t before. Maybe learning new things helps with that. ”
“But ye still want to go home,” he surmised.
“I do,” she said, but not with as much conviction as he’d heard previously from her. “That life might be boring, but it is mine. There are things I can’t leave behind."
Reid nodded, though the thought of her leaving Kingswood didn’t sit well with him. There was something about Charlotte that made him feel... alive as well. In a way he hadn’t allowed himself to be in years.
“This,” Charlotte continued, “whatever this is, why or how it happened, is fascinating—even though there’s a part of me that still believes I must be dreaming or I’ve simply lost my mind—but I don’t want to be stuck here all the rest of my life,” she continued, her voice becoming small, “with things as they are.”
Reid glanced sharply at her, wondering ifthings as they arewas in reference to him.
Would she want to stay, ifthingswere different?
But they’d come close to Una’s house, and Charlotte set down Thomas, who ran ahead. Charlotte chased after him, laughing. “Wait! You’re naked!” She turned where the lane met the path to Una’s front door, still wearing a smile. “Thanks for walking us back,” she called and waved before she followed the bare lad into the cottage.
Chapter Thirteen
Eoin worked tirelessly along the inside of the fence surrounding Una’s garden, his lean muscles straining as he turned over the soil. He had kindly taken the spade from Charlotte’s hands twenty minutes earlier when he’d spotted her working in the garden as he’d wandered by, insisting on handling the heavier work. Pausing to swipe the sweat from his brow, he resumed tilling the earth beside Una’s house, which would become her vegetable garden again this year.
Charlotte knelt in one corner of the garden, struggling with a particularly stubborn weed that refused to budge. “Shouldn’t these seeds have been planted weeks ago, Eoin?” she asked.
“Nae, lass,” Eoin replied, striking the dirt with purpose before turning it over. “We might have planted earlier if the weather had been kinder. But the frost only just left us, so the seeds’ll be safe now.”
He called herlass—a term many of the soldiers used—though it seemed more fitting for younger girls. Charlotte guessed Eoin wasn’t much older than twenty himself, but she found she liked being called lass. It made her feel like she belonged, as if she were one of them—the Nicholsons—rather than an outsider.
“All the seeds look the same to me,” she remarked, finally having dug out enough dirt around the monstrous weed that she was able to take hold of the thick stalk. She yanked hard and laughed, nearly slapping herself in the face with the weed when it was wrenched free.
“Una’ll ken what they are,” Eoin replied, wiping his brow. “She’ll tell ye where to plant them. Ye dinna want the broadleaf plants crowding out the carrots or peas.”
Charlotte watched him work, reminded of Matt Carpenter, the third-grade teacher back at her school, who had a slightresemblance to a young Cary Elwes fromThe Princess Bride—but without the mustache. Eoin had a similar look about him and the same easygoing confidence.
She had assured him that she was capable of turning over the hard earth, but Eoin had firmly insisted he could do it twice as fast. After she politely refused his help twice, he'd simply taken the shovel from her hands and dug right in. Unwilling to stand by idly while he worked, Charlotte had moved to the corner of the garden to tackle the weeds.
She was happy to help Una with this chore, but she hoped she wouldn’t still be around to see the vegetables grow. It would take weeks, maybe months before anything was ready to harvest, and by then, she wanted to be back home—safely, happily, in the twenty-first century.
“Eoin,” she asked, tugging at another unmovable weed, “do you know where I might find the laird at this time of day?”
It had been eight days since she arrived at Kingswood, and she was eager to return to Ben Nevis, hoping to find a way back to her own time. She hadn’t bothered Reid yesterday, even though he had said he’d take her back after a week. Eager to make up for the day she’d been lost, Charlotte had spent all of yesterday helping Una wherever she could. Keeping busy had been a welcome distraction after Fiona’s visit had left her feeling unsettled.
“He was up in the fields, last I saw,” Eoin said. “Ploughing takes all hands.”
Briefly he leaned on the handle of the spade, watching Charlotte wrestle with the unwanted plant, and with success, yanking the weed from the ground.
“Sure and ye’re stronger than ye look,” he remarked. “Maybe ye’ve a bit o’ Highland bluid in ye after all.”
She laughed, wiping dirt from her hands. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or if you’re just saying I’m good at grunt work.”
“Aye, and Highland bluid would be a compliment,” he replied, turning over another patch of soil. “But then ye’re nae afraid of hard work and that shows character. Though frankly, lass, we’re nae used to seeing someone like ye doing it.”
