Page 17 of Winter Longing
How the hell could she possibly help?
He laughed again. “Here’s the kicker—yeah, I’d love to run this by someone, but...Christ, there’s no way in hel—er, sorry, no way on earth you would ever believe me.”
Ailsa responded without hesitation. “But if ye say something true, why should I nae believe ye?”
He stared at her, dumbfounded.
And then laughed some more. “It’s that easy? Okay. Fine. Here it goes. And this is the truth—I’m from another time. Imean, I was born in the year 1995, and somehow, impossibly, I’ve been brought back in time to...now.”
She stared at him, for a moment looking like he no doubt had a moment ago, utterly confounded.
And then she flashed a nervous but still gorgeous smile and rose from her haunches. “I understand now,” she said mildly. “Ye’ve said that to show me how naïve I am to imagine that people tell the truth at all times. I only meant that ye dinna personally strike me as one who told fibs. I am nae entirely gullible, though.”
Wilted by defeat for a moment, Cole allowed his shoulders to slump. He did, however, announce that he’d proven his point. “There, I have told the truth, and you have found it impossible to believe so how am I...?” He stopped and blew out a frustrated breath. “I don’t even know what questions to ask, what discussion to have, who to talk to about this.”
Ailsa returned his stare and bit her lip again. “I find Father Gilbert’s counsel to be most effective. Aye, he’s critical and does nae spare one’s emotions, but he counsels wisely, listening with a benevolent ear and advising most cleverly.”
“You think I should speak to a priest about this very strange...” he paused, waving his hand, searching for the right word, “unholything that I’ve somehow done.”
Cole had never been overly religious, but whatever had happened to him didn’t feel like something God would have had a hand in. In fact, it felt like the exact opposite—unnatural, maybe indeed unholy. Time wasn’t meant to bend or break, wasn’t meant to send people spinning backward through the centuries. There was something off about the whole thing, something that made him feel like he was messing with forces beyond what any human should touch. If there was a divine plan, surely it didn’t involve throwing a man into the past like a rag doll.
Cole considered the impossibly beautiful Ailsa and the very evident doubt of her expression.
“You don’t believe me,” he guessed.
Tilting her head to one side, she asked, “Believe ye? About yer...predicament?”
“Yes, my time-traveling predicament.”
“I...” she began with great hesitation. Evidently, she would attempt to spare his feelings, and refused to outright say she thought he was nuts, or that he lied.
“You said I only needed to speak the truth, and you would believe me and here you are, in the same conversation, expressing an offensive disbelief.” He hadn’t intended to speak so sharply, but the weight of his bewilderment and the edge of rising panic bled into his tone. While he was captivated by her, his own predicament did override any interest in Ailsa. He didn’t want to alienate her—he needed her help.
“Ailsa, is there any way I can get my clothes back? The big guy—he said his name was Tavis—”
“My brother,” she supplied.
“Yeah, well, he said he would return them but he hasn’t”—huge BS, by the way, taking his clothes away from him, over which Cole was really pissed about, but he wasn’t going to argue that with Ailsa—“and I need...well, I can’t stay here in my underwear. I need to leave. I need to find Tank.”
“But ye are nae well enough—”
“I am,” Cole insisted. “I’m fine. I was definitely rundown by cold, hunger, and exhaustion, but I’m fine now. I thank you for what you’ve done for me, but I need to find my friend.”
“Ye...ye will need my help with that as well, I believe.”
“Yeah,” Cole conceded, never having felt so helpless as he did at this moment. “Yeah, I do.”
Chapter Six
There was no denying the thrill of freedom Ailsa knew whenever Tavis left Torr Cinnteag. With her brother gone, there was a precious quiet in the air, the weight of his watchful gaze lifted, allowing her to feel unencumbered, almost light. She relished it—the chance to wander as she wished, to linger over the small tasks and visit with those in and around the keep without him worrying over her every move.
And yet, invariably, as the hours ticked by, certainly if he were gone for any length of time, days or weeks, a pervasive disquiet would inevitably set in. Without Tavis’s constant presence, Torr Cinnteag somehow felt...exposed, as if something vital was missing from its stone walls. His absence cast a shadow, not because she depended on him to feel safe but because his presence was such an integral part of whatmadethe keep feel safe. And though his vigilance sometimes bordered on stifling, she understood the strength behind it, the command he brought to their home.
Today, however, she was nearly giddy with her brother’s absence. If Tavis were here, she would never be allowed to assist Cole with any search for his friend. But, in order to help Cole, she would have to abide by certain rules. Tavis would fuss when he found out—little ever escaped him at Torr Cinnteag, thanks to his ever-watchful soldiers, whose clacking tongues and keener ears might rival a flock of sharp-eyed ravens, and Anwen, her maid, who never failed to report to Tavis things she deemed worthy of his consideration. Nothing stayed hidden for long, and no tidbit of news or rumor went unreported. Ailsa knew her best chance to escape her brother’s censure was to arrange the particulars of the rescue to Tavis’s liking. She would need her maid present and a suitable number of guards to accompanythem. Tavis would lock her in her chamber if she ever dared to venture outside of Torr Cinnteag by herself—and with a man who was a stranger to them and who was so much a mystery.
It took her twenty minutes to track down Cole Carter’s clothes. Curiously, she found them in the rectory’s larder. Supposing that Margaret or Mary might have considered his clothing strange, and possibly soiled from his journey, either of the cautious maids might have been the one to hang them about the larder to air out. Ailsa suspected this might have had something to do with a vague belief that the garments might have been imbued with foreign energy or bad luck—both Margaret and Mary subscribed to such foolishness—and had hoped the coolness of the larder might have cleansed them properly. His shoes were there as well, sitting innocuously on the packed-earth floor just inside the door.
Ailsa wrapped up everything tidily and returned to the chamber he occupied. Meaning to allow the undressed Cole Carter to maintain his pride, she rapped at the door and announced she would leave the bundled clothes and his boots just outside the door.
