Chapter Eleven

“Do we have to go?” Evie pouted as she regarded the outside of the little cottage wistfully.

Behind her, Alec sniffed in amusement. “No.”

She whirled around to meet his gaze. “Really?”

He shrugged. “Sure. If that’s what you want. We can hide out here forever for all I care.”

She twisted her mouth to one side and narrowed her eyes. “I feel a ‘but’ coming on.”

He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. “But I thought you wanted some answers.”

She groaned. He was right, damn him. She wasn’t going to learn anything about the strange woman from the forest, why she wanted Evie, or how Iain worked into the equation if she stayed there with Alec, no matter how tempting the idea was. She shot one final, hungry look at the cottage, the memories of her time there like warm honey pooling around her heart. “All right. Fine. Let’s go then,” she grumbled.

Alec held out his hand, and she slipped her palm against his, allowing him to lead her down the narrow, dirt path.

The morning air was crisp and damp. She shivered and hugged his arm to her, cradling it to her chest. Her breath puffed out in front of her and her nose burned from the cold.

The weather there made even less sense than the sun cycles. Summer had been ripe and heavy in Kansas, the temperatures similar when she awoke on the shore of a loch. But no matter how hard she tried to determine the passage of time, the arc of the sun, or when the moon might appear, everything just became muddled and her confusion multiplied exponentially. At times she was certain they had been in that cabin for only a matter of hours, but others she was sure they had savored each other for weeks. She recalled the ways they explored one another, how well he knew her body. Hell, how well she knew his. Could it have been a month? No, none of it made any sense.

Alec tugged on her hand. “We’re almost there.”

“There.” She didn’t say it as a question.

He’d rattled on about leaving since they woke up, but little of what he said truly sank in.

“Down there.” He pointed through the trees, down the slope of the gentle swell of mountain where the shimmering gray water of the loch lapped a rocky shore. In the center of the inlet, a small island rested, large standing stones set in a circle around it. “The gateway that will take us back.”

“Doesn’t going home kind of defeat the point? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the interlude, but how does going back accomplish anything? Won’t they still be there?”

“Probably.”

“So….?” She released his arm as they began the descent down the slope, but he caught her hand in his.

“We aren’t going to the same time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we’re going to backtrack.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I am ever going to understand any of this. I will just follow you, oh fearless leader.”

Alec snorted and led her around a large tree root. As they approached the island, Alec walked right into the water, tugging her along after him. The lapped at her ankles, cold, but not as frigid as she expected. It was far clearer than it had appeared from above, and small fish skittered between smooth, round pebbles.

They waded across the shallows to the island’s ruffling green grasses, the ring of large rocks circling its center. The stones lay on their sides, long, smooth rectangles with barely a foot between them and too high for her to step over.

Just outside the ring, Alec dropped his bag onto the grass. He knelt next to it and flipped the flap open to rummage through it. When he stood back up, he held a Christmas ornament, a bright red globe with the previous year plastered across it in bold, block script.

Evie quirked an eyebrow as he stood and slung the pack back over his shoulder in one movement. “What, no silver apples?”

He sniffed and held his hand out.

She eyed it and twisted her mouth around to the side. She kept her arms firmly folded against her chest. “Will this be the same as last time?”

“Essentially.”

“Will I… do you always black out?”

He ran his fingers lightly down her cheek before caressing her chin. He trailed them down the line of her scar, a slender white line barely visible after months of healing. She was acutely aware of it. A reminder of how her appearance was forever changed. And her coming out of the blackness only to find her entire world destroyed.

“The first few times, yes,” he told her gently. “But I learned to overcome it. Crossing the veil is a lot for the body—and the mind—to handle, I think. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” He dropped his hand from the caress.

“How-how do you stay conscious through it?”

“Truthfully?”

“No, I want you to lie to me.” She rolled her eyes.

“I hold my breath and focus on something else.”

“Like what?”

“Well, this time it will be your breasts, but really anything with do,” he said with a sly grin and a knowingly twinkle.

She dropped her head back and made a sound of disgust in the back of her throat. “Yeah, okay,” she muttered. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Alec stepped into the circle and she followed close on his heels. Once at its center, he turned to her and reached for her hand. He pressed her palm over the ornament until it was sandwiched between their palms. Around them, the world dipped and swayed, spun and turned.

Evie caught her breath and held it as her stomach rolled. What could she focus on? She frantically racked her memories, but all she could conjure up was her own breasts. Heat flooded her cheeks. He had done some marvelous things to them…

Her stomach pitched. What little food she ate before they left threatened to evacuate, but then the spinning stopped, leaving her with only a dull headache. Still unsteady, she glanced around to find herself back in Alec’s little Queen Anne, the hardwood floors dull and in need of refinishing, the wainscoting thick with many layers of paint.

The electric sconces remained off, but the room was warmly lit by the colored lights shining in through the antique glass of the windows and draped along the plastic boughs of an artificial Christmas tree.

Evie turned to her companion, the question about the tree on the tip of her tongue when the whole room tilted and her stomach clenched right along with it. Lightheadedness slammed into her, and with two stumbling steps, she reached the umbrella stand next to the door. Grasping the edges, she violently lost her meager breakfast.

As her body shuddered, Alec’s hand grasped her shoulder. His thumb caressed the back of her neck as she breathed heavily, willing her body to calm. When she was sure the retching had subsided, she fell to her knees and then sat heavily on the floor with her legs curled in front of her.

Alec still sat on his haunches, his elbows resting on his knees, looking down at her with sympathy. “Water?” he murmured as if knowing her skull was hell bent on crushing her brain.

Just the thought of anything passing between her lips had her stomach seizing up once more. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to suppress the unladylike belch threatening to erupt and shook her head.

He took her free hand in his and rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. “It’ll pass in a few minutes.”

“You mean you knew this would happen?”

“You get used to it, figure out how to get past it.”

She frowned. “I think this was a one-time deal, thank you very much.”

The look he gave her said he didn’t think that would be the case. “Let’s get you off the floor.” He slid his hands under her arms and hauled her to her feet.

“Do… do you think you could take me home?” Her voice rang small and wobbly even to her own ears.

“No.”

“No? What do you mean ‘No?’” She whirled to face him.

“I can’t take you there because you’re already there.”

“What do you mean I’m already there?” she demanded.

“Where were you last December—this December?” he amended.

She screwed up her face. “At my parents’ house. But why does that matter? I’m here, and—”

“Yes, you’re here. But you’re also there.” He held out his hands, moving them in front of him for emphasis. “If you were to walk into their house right now, there would be two of you, and…” he trailed off, huffing out an exasperated breath. “And I have no idea what would happen, but none of the options are great.”

She pursed her lips and refused to meet his gaze. “Then what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Avoid yourself and anyone who knows you from that time. Otherwise, you’re good.”

“Really? Really?” The good thing about the anger was that it made her forget how much her head hurt and her mouth tasted like the inside of a dumpster. “What the hell am I supposed to do, then? Just hang out in your front room for the next eight months?”

“Look, searching for you right now would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. It’s going to take them awhile to find you, and if you play the game right, you might be able to get out of their reach forever. Use it. Find out what you need to know. Make the best of it.”

Use it. Use it. How did she use it? She groaned, dropped her head into her hands, and screamed into her clammy palms. “Why is this happening to me?”

“Evie, I—”

“Just leave me alone, Alec,” she grumbled and bent at the waist to lean into her knees. Darkness closed around her, the lights finally dimming from the backs of her eyelids.

He didn’t move for the longest moment. When he did and his steps echoed down the hall, her shoulders sagged in defeat.

Everything was spinning out of control. From the moment she first saw him standing on her parents’ back porch with the neighbor’s dog, it just spiraled faster and faster, each moment taking her further from feeling steady.

Her fingertips slid away from her eyes and pressed into her temples. She massaged the sick feeling away until her heart stopped racing and the cramps in the pit of her stomach dissipated.

Once she was sure she wouldn’t be sick, again, Evie braced herself against the wall and straightened. The floorboards creaked as she entered the small white kitchen. He waited for her, his gazed fixed on the doorway, his hips resting against the edge of the counter, feet out before him, arms crossed over his chest. On the stop top, a pair of pans popped and sizzled.

She stopped and hung her head, glancing up through her lashes. “I, um…”

“Hungry?”

She nodded, thankful he interrupted her weak apology.

He withdrew a pair of plain white plates and set them down on the counter. As she passed her weight from one leg to the other, he spooned eggs, bacon, and spiced potatoes onto each dish. Without a word, he slid both plates onto a small drop-leaf table. He strode back across the kitchen to withdraw forks from a shallow drawer and paper napkins from a cabinet over the stove. He laid out both next to the plates and held out a hand toward one of the chairs.

She sat down at the closest setting, balancing on the edge of the seat, her legs crossed at the ankles below her. She folded her hands in her lap and waited for him.

“Please,” he murmured, waving at her food and moving toward the refrigerator.

Hesitantly, she picked up the fork, rolling it between her fingers.

Plunking down a pair of water bottles between them, he sat down and dug into his pile of eggs.

She took it as a sign and stabbed a small cube of potato with the tines.

“Feeling better about everything?”

She thought about lying. “No.”

They ate in silence, but the discomfort was too much for her to bear.

“I, uh, I was thinking about what you said. About using the time travel—whatever, you know what I mean. I just… I don’t know how.”

He chewed, regarding her lazily, but even after he swallowed, he merely regarded for her a moment. “Well, what is it you hope to discover?”

“How am I supposed to know?” she shot back, instantly defensive. But she knew. Of course, she knew. She took a deep breath and sighed heavily. “What they want with me, and from me.”

He nodded and shoved some potato across his plate while he chewed. “And what do you know so far?”

She shrugged. “I don’t really know. I met Iain at a bar. I was with a friend.” When had Evan become a friend? She decided to mull over that word choice later. “I mean, it wasn’t a set up or anything, he was just there with the rest of the officers in his unit and we were introduced. We talked a little, but he didn’t ask for my number or anything, he was polite. I ran into him again at the coffee shop in the exchange, he said hi, and asked if I was going out with everyone again that night. I saw him there…” she trailed off, wondering if she should really delve into how she had had sex with the other man. Alec had told her it wasn’t any of his business, but…“We got better acquainted—”

He jaw ticked. He was obviously gnashing his teeth, and she pretended not to notice. But her heart skipped a beat and blood rushed through her ears. Her face grew hot and she licked her lips free of salt and spice and grease. She wanted to tell him it was only a hurried, semi-drunken coupling that was more like scratching an itch than an intimate rendezvous. They’d barely lasted a few minutes once the condom was on.

“There was something odd.” She furrowed her brow, remembering the condom wrapper she felt compelled to retrieve at the crack of dawn the next morning. “He, um… he dropped a scrap of paper.” She paused, trying to remember the words scratched across the crumpled college-ruled lines. “About Flora MacDonald.” She brightened. “It said Flora MacDonald, and then underneath it ‘Thistle and Rose.’ Or maybe it was ‘Rose and Thistle.’”

He dropped his fork onto the plate with a clatter, his eyebrows meeting over his nose. He braced his elbows onto the table, folding his hands together as he frowned. “That is odd.”

“I thought so, too! She’s one of the most famous Jacobite women in history. I’ve read everything there is to read about her, and I’ve never come across anything to do with thistles or roses. Prince Charles’s father James had a claim to the English throne, sure, but she didn’t.”

“Aye,” he murmured absently, his gaze staring off into some unknown space in the scarred wood of the table.

She quirked an eyebrow at his use of such an antiquated term but was too excited about the little piece of the puzzle she may have unearthed from the depths of her own mind.

“What do you think it means?”

She leaned forward, a bubble of excitement curving her lips up into a grin. It was an excitement she felt with the first blooming of a new idea, a new hypothesis, when she was lost in research. A tiny fragment of a theory could blossom into something bigger. Something no one else knew.

He didn’t answer but relaxed against the back of his chair and fished his phone out of his pocket. His thumbs tapped rapidly over the screen.

After a moment, he flipped the device around to her. “I think that it means there is a woman by the name of Flora MacDonald who owns a shop called the ‘Thistle and Rose.’”

Her gaze jumped from the screen to his face. “Really? You searched it??”

He shrugged and pressed the screen off before laying it face down on the table. “Got the job done, didn’t it?”

“So… where is this shop?”

“Outside of Atlanta. Georgia.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know where Atlanta is. I went to college there, remember?”

“Know where it is, then? The shop, I mean.” He picked the phone back up, flicking the screen on and entering a pass code. He held the screen toward her so she could read the name of the town.

She leaned forward but shook her head. “I mean, I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never been there.”

“And Flora MacDonald?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure I would remember a woman who had the same name as, well… Flora MacDonald. I’m a Jacobite Rebellion scholar.”

Alec was silent for a moment, his stare unfocused, his finger idling tapping on the wood of the table. “What do you have in that purse of yours?” He nodded toward the slender leather strap of the pocket book draped across her middle.

She lifted an eyebrow. “My wallet, some hair ties, a few pain pills—”

“ID?”

“Yeah, I have them all with me.”

“All?”

“You know, military, driver’s license, student ID, passport—”

“You keep your passport in your purse?”

“Habit. From living overseas.”

“That’s odd.”

“I don’t think it is,” she said then bit off a piece of bacon.

“Right.” Abruptly, he stood, picked up his plate, and dumped it in the sink. Pulling open the blinds with one hand, he looked out into the dark. “I’ll be back in an hour. You should be safe here. Don’t let anyone in.”

All she could do was blink at him. “Wh-what?”

But he was already shoving keys into his pocket and pulling open the back door.

Evie sat there in stunned disbelief for a few minutes. “Well, that was weird.” She looked down at her plate of half-eaten food. She contemplated letting it go to waste, but instead picked up her fork and finished it off, a little sad when it was all gone.

With a sigh, she set to the task of cleaning up the dishes, finding soap resting next to the sink, a sponge propped up against it. She left everything drying in one side of the sink, and turned to scan the room. She felt awkward just waiting there, but she also felt like she was covered in a month’s worth of grime. Hoping he wouldn’t mind, she went poking through the house, looking for a fully-stocked bathroom. She found one tucked between a linen closet and the laundry room near the front of the house.

After turning the water all the way up to scalding, she dropped her summer clothes on the ground, and got to the pleasing task of ridding herself of Otherworld dirt and sweat. She came away smelling of Alec’s soap, spicy clove and citrus.

Evie was wrapping herself into an over-large towel she found under the vanity when a knock landed on the door.

“Evelyn?”

She tucked the towel around herself and stuck her head around the jamb.

“I brought you some clothes.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Should I even ask?”

“I’ll let you get dressed.”

She pulled the bag open and looked inside. A pair of jeans and a red sweater were carefully folded there, a little tissue-paper packet on top, and a pair of ballet flats nestled among them. She drew the tissue paper out first, finding a pair of ivory satin panties and matching bra. She sniffed in amusement that he had gotten her anything other than her preferred cotton but wasn’t sure how she felt that he managed to find her exact size in either.

Dressed, she met him back in the kitchen. “I could have gone with you to pick out the clothes.”

He was putting the dishes she had washed away in the cabinet. “I had to go get my car, too, only have one helmet. And it’s cold out,” he added as almost an aside.

“Your car?”

“Yeah, it was at the hospital.”

She stared at him in confusion.

“I’m on shift this evening. I drove the car in, but I’m going to need that if we’re going to Atlanta. I traded myself the bike.”

“Bike?” she echoed, but shook her head, not waiting for an answer. “We’re going to Atlanta? What? Now?”

“If you’re ready.”

She stood there in silence for a moment. There had to be a good reason why she couldn’t hop in his car and drive across the country. On the other hand, she had already broken all of the “Don’t go with strangers” rules, as it was, and what was her other option? Live on his couch until a better option materialized? “I… I guess…”

He turned off lights, and she followed him to the front of the house. He hefted his pack back over his shoulder and opened the door for her.

“Aren’t you going to be confused when you leave work and find your car gone?”

“No.” He pulled the door shut behind him and turned to lock it. “This isn’t a first.”

“Oh.”

“Besides, I remember coming out of work one night in December to find the bike in the spot I left the car. I cursed myself a few times, and then slept it off in the on-call room.”

Evie shivered and immediately understood why. “So, you do this often?” she asked.

His hand was at the small of her back, leading her off the front porch and to his car. He opened her door for her first, and then the back passenger door, slinging his pack onto the back seat.

“Frequently enough.” He shut that door, and quietly clicked hers shut, as well.

“For how long?”

He turned, meeting her gaze in the dark. “Honestly? I can’t even remember.”