Page 61 of Highlander Unraveled
I felt woozy, and as though my limbs were being pulled in forty different directions.
“Stay with me,” I heard Logan say, his voice echoing remotely, though his arms were still locked tight around me.
“Always,” I shouted, wanting to hear my voice louder than the pounding of the earth as it shifted this way and that.
But shouting didn’t help. I still sounded far away. I wanted to close my eyes, to hide from view the way the world pulsed in and out around me, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to lose sight of Logan’s hand twined with mine.
A moment later, the atmosphere sucked in on itself, turning black. I blinked, screamed. I couldn’t see anything. Like we’d been forced into a void. Logan’s breath pounded against my ear, and then, just as suddenly, the world was light again.
We sat in what looked to be the very same clearing.
“It didn’t work,” I said.
“Or it did.” Logan stood on shaky legs and held out his hands to me. “We won’t know for certain until we go back toward the road.”
“You’re right.”
“Nature is nature. The same as it’s always been for hundreds of years.” He pulled me up and I tucked the black box back into my purse. “For one thing,” he said. “It is a hell of a lot warmer here.”
“Then it must have worked.” Heat touched my face. “It was summer when we left Gealach.” I held out my hands. “This feels like summer.”
I pulled off hisleine,handing it back and watched him pull it on, pinning his plaid in place. A twinge of disappointment passed through me at his having to cover himself. I certainly had enjoyed the view, and the touch of his bare skin. Soon enough, we’d be back at our castle, and once I’d gotten to snuggle with Saor, I was going to lock Logan up in our chamber for a month or more.
We walked in silence, each of us listening to the sounds of summer. We’d definitely traveled away from November in Scotland, though it would have helped to know exactly where I’d pulled off the side of the road. I wasn’t sure if I’d gone north, south, east or west. I didn’t even know how long I’d driven. We were either near Gealach, as I’d punched into the computer, or we were wherever it was that I’d pulled off at the rest stop. We could have been near the border of England or the Highlands. And frustratingly, there was no way to know just yet.
“I’m sorry for not paying better attention to where we were,” I muttered. An idea occurred to me, and I pulled Mrs. MacDonald’s cell phone from the purse. But it was dead. Not even a flicker of battery life. I could have sworn it was at least fifty percent charged when I’d taken it from the old bat. That was a good sign. “No cell towers.”
Logan gave me an odd look. I shoved the cell phone back into the purse.
“No need to worry on that account, lass. Wherever we are, we’ll figure it out. Soon we’ll be back at Gealach with our son and our friends.”
I nodded, though I had doubts that were doing a good job of trying to creep into my thoughts. A sudden shiver took hold as my nerves threatened to undo me. Now was not the time to panic. I could panic later.
But still my thoughts came through loud and clear.
Would Mrs. MacDonald follow us? After she got her wound taken care of? As a time jumper, she probably had access to more black boxes. And where was McAlister? And Steven?
So many questions and no way to get the answers.
“What was that?” Logan hissed.
He put his arms out to protect me, standing stock still, his eyes wide, head cocked to the side as he listened to something I couldn’t hear.
I didn’t make a noise, didn’t even breathe for fear of making a sound that would interfere with him deciphering whatever it was that he’d heard.
“We’re being followed,” he said under his breath. “Pretend as though ye did not hear anything.”
I didn’t hear anything, so that was easy. What wasn’t easy, wasknowingwe were being followed, and all the other questionable variables that came with it, and pretending as though I had no idea. Man or animal? Friend or foe? One or many? Did they want to rob us or murder us? Was it Steven? MacDonald? McAlister?
Logan sped up a little bit at a time, so the increased pace was not as noticeable.
“Halt, you bloody Scot!”
“Sassenachs,” Logan hissed, whipping around, and keeping me at his back.
Oh, dear god! We’d definitely traveled back in time, and landed into the very hands of the English!
“Run,” he ground out to me when they weren’t just behind him.
