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As Iain persuaded the fire to intensify, Abigail drew her cloak and the blankets around her shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, gazing into the fire.
“We cannae have a relationship with secrets between us.”
“A relationship?”
Iain balked. Had he misread her emotions? Had she just wanted a physical dalliance? Didnae she want a relationship with him?
He couldn’t say anything. He just stared into the fire, wondering how he could have gotten everything so wrong.
Perching on a rock close to his legs, Abigail pulled down on his kilt. “Sit down.”
Like a man possessed of little brain, he did so, but he didn’t take his eyes off the dancing flames.
Abigail let out a long, loud breath. “I do have a secret, Iain, but I don’t know if you are strong enough to hear it.”
His back stiffened, and he glared at her. How dare she question his strength, his manhood?
“Don’t get weird on me. I meant the secret is something so, um, out of this world, I doubt anyone in Scotland at this time would be able to handle it.” Her eyes widened. “Hang on, you said we both have secrets. You tell me yours first, and I just might tell you mine.”
Still trying to make out what she said in the first instance, Iain raised his eyebrows. “What do ye mean by ‘Scotland at this time’?”
“Don’t change the subject.” She smiled. “What’s your secret?”
Her perfect smile shot straight to his heart, and he knew if she was to leave him, his heart would never feel that way again. He had to tell her the truth and hope she wouldn’t think less of him.
“I am to wed.”
She reared back. “What? You’re engaged and yet you still kissed me, tried to make out with me?”
“Make out what?”
“Never mind, but you did kiss me. More than once, I might add.”
Iain could only hang his head. She was right to be angry. He was a cad. “I am not affianced, but I am expected to wed the daughter of our neighboring clan, the MacKinnons.”
***
Abby didn’t want him to regret kissing her, but she knew he was right; there was no way they could be together. She studied his lowered profile. He couldn’t look unhappier with his situation.
“Don’t you like your girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend? I have many friends, both young and old lasses.”
“The girl you’re supposed to marry.”
“She is beautiful.”
Abby had to stop herself from wincing at that proclamation.
“And she is a highborn Scot.”
Another strike against Abby.
“Then what’s the problem?”
He looked at her, hurt and disappointment in his eyes. “I dinnae love her.”
“Oh.”
What else could she say? Arranged marriages were the norm in Iain’s time, and she was sure they couldn’t back out of one once they were announced. It was probably for the best. She had to go home, and he had to get married . . . She bit her lip. To someone else.
“Well, I’m sure you will learn to love her once you get to know her.”
“I already know her. She is young and braw, aye, but has a mean streak I dinnae think I can live with.” He slapped his knees and stood up. “I willna marry Fiona.”
She hoped she wasn’t the cause for his change of heart, because he needed to continue with his life the way he was going to before he’d met her. “Did you just come to that decision right now?”
“Nay, I’ve been thinking on it for some time. Fiona would be as miserable with me as I would be with her. It isna right to make people marry.”
“What about her father?”
Iain let out a sigh. “Laird MacKinnon might have a different point of view, but mayhap we can come to an arrangement.”
Abby frowned. Wars were fought for much less in these times. Clans were always squabbling with one another over land, animals, and whatever else they could come up with. She smiled again. “I hope things will work out for you.”
“Aye, now tell me yer secret.” He squatted in front of her, piercing her with his gaze. “Where are ye really from? And tell me about the strange fashion ye were wearing when ye rescued me.”
It was Abby’s turn to stand up. She moved closer to the dwindling fire and stared into the flames. How was she to tell him the truth? He wouldn’t believe her. It would be too much for him.
“You won’t believe me,” she said.
He stood up beside her. “I’ll know if yer not telling the truth.”
Wringing her hands, Abby swallowed, but her mouth had gone dry. Maybe she could come up with a better story. No, she had to tell him the truth. He already knew she was too different with her dialect, and he did see her modern clothes, although she’d hoped he was too sick to notice at the time.
“I think you’d better sit down again before I tell you.”
He regarded her for a moment and, with a shrug, sat down on the rock. He regally waved his hand as if showing her a room at an open house. “Ye have my attention, lass.”
She gave him a wry look and sighed. “You’re not going to believe me, but what I’m going to tell you is the truth.”
Rubbing her sweaty palms on her skirt, she tried to find the right way of telling him something that was still bizarre to her, let alone what it would be to him. She widened her arms to show him her clothes. “You can see these aren’t my normal style of dress. The ones I was wearing when you woke up in that first cabin were my real clothes.”
He nodded. Something tinged his gaze as his eyes roamed from her head to her feet and back again. Was it admiration?
“I know you didn’t approve of my attire, but where I come from, it is quite tame, really. Professional, even.”
“Where do ye come from?” He snorted. “Even I know women in the Americas dinnae dress like that. They are as modest, more so even, than the lasses here.”
“Look, just open your mind, will you?” She rubbed her face and, letting her arms drop, she decided to just come out with it. “I am not from here. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be in another time.” She stopped and looked directly into his eyes. “I am from the future.”
He let out a laugh. “The future?”
“Don’t laugh at me. It’s bad manners.”
His lips twisted, but the humor still sparked in his dark eyes.
“Trust me. If I could, I’d go back right now, but I can’t.” She massaged her temples. “That Thomas jerk has my time device.”
He jumped up and clasped her forearm, his eyes widening in confusion. “Ye expect me to believe ye are no’ of this world?”
“I . . .” She stepped back. “You’re hurting me.”
He gawked at his hand and dropped her arm.
“My apologies.” His jaw tightened, and his eyes narrowed, piercing her with his gaze. “Thomas has yer ti-ime device?”
The way he said time, she knew instantly he didn’t believe her.
His eyes were hard and cold. Judging her, and if she was any good at reading body language, he had just labeled her mad. A half-second later, regret filled his eyes as if he wished she hadn’t said anything.
She sighed. “Yes, and you said you’d help me get it back.”
Turning abruptly, Iain strode into the dark. Abby stayed rooted to the spot, staring at his back. He tipped his head back and stretched his arms out to the side.
He stayed like that for a few moments before returning to the light of the fire.
“I am obliged to listen to more of yer story. After all, ye being there at the exact time I needed help must have been God’s doing. For that, I thank God.”
“I’m good with that.” Abby sometimes wished she could have that sort of faith in a heavenly being. She had often thought it would make life easier, but then she would wonder if all the carrying on about sins would fill her with guilt. What she saw as everyday feelings and actions, the religious thought sinful. One came to mind immediately. Having sex before marriage. She bit the inside of her cheek. Maybe she should have followed that edict.
She had been intimate with her last boyfriend, and after he ran off, she’d wished she hadn’t given Peter that part of herself. If she was honest, it wasn’t as earth-shattering as she’d thought it would be.
She glanced at Iain. People of his time expected the women they married to be virgins. She gave a silent snort. Of course, no one expected the men to be virginal.
***
Iain spoke little to Abigail that night, and he was thankful she hadn’t tried to convince him what she said was the truth and instead left him to think about her proclamation. He couldn’t believe she was from the future, but he could believe she was confused. Mayhap she’d had a head injury also, and mayhap she’d lost her memory, and not knowing where she came from and seeing how different she was from the Scots, she’d imagined she was not of their time.
As he drifted to sleep, his father’s strange friends came to mind. At six years of age, he could tell they were different. And now, he could see they could have been related to Abigail. He wanted to ask her about them, but still couldn’t remember their names.
The next morning, Iain got up before Abigail and was just about to restart the fire, when muffled voices sounded on the other side of a small hill. He ducked and scrambled to Abigail, shaking her to awaken her.
She moaned, and Iain quickly put his hand over her mouth. Her eyes snapped open. “Shh,” he whispered, and pointed to the hill. “Someone is on the other side of that knoll.”
Abigail nodded, and he let his hand go. He nodded to the boulders they huddled beside. “Hide behind there.”
Abigail scooped up the bedding and scampered behind the rocks, and Iain crept up the hill, dropping to his stomach just before he reached the top and peeking over the rise.
Thomas, with a bandaged head, followed the road west. Three English soldiers rode to his rear.
Iain smiled. Only four. He could handle them. Once they were around the bend, Iain quietly followed but kept to the side of the road. The road forked ahead, and Iain was delighted they turned to the left fork that led to Uram.
Abigail’s confession sparked in his mind. He would still get her treasure back for her, but then they would part company, she to Inverness and her family, and once he found a boat, he would sail to Rum.