All for the Heiress (9 page)

“They’ll clear up by the time we reach them,” Shane said curtly, slamming back into the room. He motioned for her to turn around and then did up her dress, finally handing her a bundle containing a hard roll and some dried haddocks. “I found out we’re in the right year, anyway. I dinna know what month they left from, though, so who knows how long they’ve been back.”

“How did you find out?” she asked. “Wow, we made it to the right year on the second try. You’re quite the natural at witchcraft, aren’t you?” She was sincerely impressed but he took it as teasing and scowled at her.

“I just asked the lass in the kitchen what year it was, then joked around a bit to distract her from thinking me softheaded or mad. I dinna think we’ll be chased with pitchforks, anyway. And listen, it feels like an eternity since I’ve seen Catie. We need to move it before she marries that wank— ”

“Oh, there’s no need for name calling. I’m sure there’s time. She didn’t want to get married at all,” Mellie said, but didn’t want to waste more time either, and absolutely didn’t want to be out in the cold again. “Let’s sell my jewelry and get a horse, or ride on a mail coach, or whatever’s available.” She dug through her bag, becoming more frantic by the moment when several things besides the gold were gone. “Have we been robbed as well as chewed on?” she asked, slamming down her bag. “The gold is missing, as well as our planner, my spare socks, and a canteen.”

He rummaged through his bag and turned to her with his hands out. “They aren’t in here, but nothing’s missing either. See, we still have the watch and all the knives. Why would a thief miss out on those?”

Mellie returned to her bag, dumping the contents out on the floor. They both knelt and pawed through it, Mel becoming more agitated as she struggled to remember. She was positive she’d packed those items, she recalled seeing everything neatly laid out on her bed so she could go over them one last time. She’d tucked the earrings and her communion cross into a sock, and along with their planning notebook, put them in a separate waterproof bag, feeling a twinge for using something plastic, but not wanting wet socks.

She groaned. Piper had called her away on an errand, and then it was all a blank. She must have forgotten to put them in. She felt even worse when Shane patted her consolingly.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffled. “We’re completely skint now because of me.”

“Well, we could just as easily say it’s because of me,” he said. “I didna even have anything of value to bring, and it was me who wanted to stay in this five star resort instead of going to the castle.”

She laughed at his logic and scratched her arms. He grabbed her hands to still them, shaking his head.

“Try not to. It makes me want to, and they willna heal unless we leave them alone.” He wiped the few tears that escaped off her cheeks. Embarrassed, she shoved everything back into her bag and stood up. Continuing to torment her, he wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and shook his head. “We’re going to freeze to death, most likely.”

“Probably,” she agreed. “To the castle, then?”

“No, it turns out I was right to not want to go there, though I was loath to rub it in your face.” He unfolded the map and put it on the rickety side table, pointing to the Ferguson land, which seemed far, far into the north. “The lass in the kitchen says they’re in some sort of upheaval at the castle, and the new laird, who I think must be Pietro, is having a hard go of keeping control as well as his head.”

Mellie gasped, then remembered that Catie and Oliver had come from a few years ahead of this time, and Pietro had been alive, and still the leader of the clan.

“Castle on Hill is as gossipy as ever,” Mellie said. “You couldn’t have been downstairs twenty minutes and you learned all that?”

“I piled on the charm,” he said with a modest shrug.

She grabbed his cheeks, a manic kind of hope taking over her. So they’d have to walk, and were covered with chiggers, and broke, and it was the dead of winter. Surely they’d reached rock bottom and things could only get better.

“Thank heaven for this face of yours,” she said, squeezing until his lips puckered.

He slipped out of her grasp and with a sour look, continued stabbing at the map. “See how the road is all windy and goes west for a ways here?” he asked. “But the forest goes straight north to the mountains, and then it’s a short detour back to the road, only a few kilometers from the Ferguson border.”

“You want to go as the crow flies?” she asked, frowning and trying to remember what kind of wildlife lived in this time.

“Aye, we’ve hiked these woods hundreds of times, how different can they be? And some of the wee ruins may even be buildings now.”

She studied the map, following his finger as he dragged it over the dark blob that signified the forest. The road did seem to go a long distance out of the way, and in this time, weren’t there dangerous highwaymen? Neither option seemed ideal, but they had to choose one. With the weather the way it was, the quickest route seemed the best. Aimlessly digging at her arm, she nodded agreement.

“The forest, then.”

He put his hand over hers to still her scratching. “If we move fast and keep a positive attitude, we’ll barely feel the cold.”

“Okay, coach.”

They packed up and headed out, Shane haggling without shame for a small flask of whisky and some more rock-like bread lumps with their last tiny coin. His good mood was infectious and he got her singing along with him for the first few miles as they trotted along parallel to the river to keep proper direction. After her toes and fingers went numb and she realized how very little ground they covered, she stopped singing, and her pace slowed.

“Hey, I made it way more than five minutes.” Shane turned around to see her lagging and she hurried to catch up.

“Aye. You even made it through the roach attack quite admirably.” She scowled at his obvious effort to keep her cheered, viciously hoping to take a little wind out of his sails.

Instead of pouting, he chortled. “All right, how long is it going to take me to live that down?”

“Oh, that’s going to follow you to your grave, my lad.”

He stuck his tongue out and took off running. Not wanting to get left too far behind and wanting to thump him a good one, she sprinted to catch up, not even minding that it was such an obvious ploy to keep up a brisk pace. She wanted to get through this forest as quickly as possible, too, and felt ashamed that he was being the bigger person, yet again. He was going to suffer for it when she caught him, that was for sure. All she wanted to do was lumber along and stew in her misery, how dare he make her happy?

Though he was taller, she was an experienced runner and overtook him with ease, scoffing at how out of breath he was. She darted in front, about to be a jerk and run a literal circle around him, but he grabbed the strap of her bag and tugged her back, laughing with glee as she stumbled and he burst ahead again. Flinging herself forward, she jumped onto his back, nearly bringing him to the ground.

He was like a heater from all the running, and she clung to his neck as she caught her breath and giggled from the exhilarating race. He reached around and jostled her into a piggy back position, and after the slightest hesitation, she rested her face against his warm, hard shoulder for a second.

“Let me down,” she said finally. “The way you’re huffing and puffing makes me feel like a tugboat.”

“Ye barely weigh more than my bag, I’m just not used to running in such cold. Plus you’re nice and warm, so stay put for a bit more.”

“Okay, as long as you’re not being nice.”

He laughed, but it had a bitter tinge. “God forbid I should be nice to ye? I wonder about ye sometimes, Mel.”

She gave herself one last second of resting against his back, just the one second because he felt so good, then broke free of his hold and slid to the ground.

“Am I so awful?” she asked, pulling on his pack to get him to face her. “Be serious, do I repel people? Am I going to die alone?”

He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing at her, but his eyes were bright with amusement. “I dinna know a sweeter person. But ye’re entirely too hard on yourself.”

“I’m not that sweet,” she grumbled, thinking of the times she’d participated in ripping him apart, just because she was bored.

He clasped her shoulder and nodded fiercely. “I’m speaking in general, aye? Nobody’s perfect all the time, no matter how hard they try. Chill out a bit, and I feel certain ye willna die alone.”

She wanted to apologize, get it off her chest once and for all, so it no longer stood between them. Instead, she sat down and took a protein bar from her bag. They were homemade and wrapped in waxed paper, the best she could do to adhere to the no modern things rule. She’d filled them with dried fruit and brown sugar but they were already well on the way to being stale. Their sad breakfast of hard flat bread seemed days ago, not hours, and her stomach growled after the fast, long hike. He sat beside her and unbuttoned his coat, sweaty from their tussle. She handed him a bar, too tired to keep up with her guilt.

“What are ye thinking of right now?” he asked after they ate in silence for a while.

“Egg rolls,” she said without hesitation. “And pork ribs. You?”

He closed his eyes and took another bite, chewing laboriously before answering. “I was actually thinking we’re going to freeze tonight if we don’t find a shelter.” He opened his eyes and frowned at the sun, which was rapidly sinking below the trees. “But now I’m also thinking about ribs. With barbecue sauce, aye?”

“Of course.”

They both stood at the same time, wordlessly agreeing they needed to keep moving as the cold settled back into their bones. Mel started singing again, a pop song she didn’t know all the words to, humming those parts until Shane picked up the slack, filling in the words she left out.

She was determined to stay positive, forcing herself to think about how Oliver might greet her, praying he was even at the Ferguson farm when they arrived. When they arrived was her mantra. There was no way they could fail.

The sun eventually sank until they stumbled along in the near dark, and she begrudgingly took Shane’s offered hand so she could keep up. The stars were out by the billions when he stopped short, causing her to get pulled backward as he kept a firm grip on her hand.

“Yes, I knew it. I knew there was no way there couldn’t be buildings in this time,” he said, pointing across the river.

She squinted into the gloom and saw a darker outline against the trees. It did seem as if there was a small shack on the other side. It was a stone’s throw away, but may as well have been miles. She didn’t know what he was so excited about, not about to try crossing the icy river in the dark. But he was already splashing around in the shallows, running back and forth.

“Look, it’s barely a stream here. I bet if we keep following it, we can find a place to cross.” He flapped his arms. “God, I’d give anything for a flashlight.” He then further alarmed her by cupping his hands around his mouth and hollering at the building. No one answered or came out, a thing Mellie couldn’t be sure was good or bad.

She gave up and helped him look for a place to cross, and she was shocked to find a wide split log laying neatly across it several yards upstream. A proud smile broke over her face as she led him to it, and he acted as if she herself had cut it down and put it there, whooping and doing a little dance.

“I bet hunters put it there in the season and it hasn’t rained or snowed enough yet to wash it away.” He jumped onto the end and tentatively bounced on it to test its strength. “I seriously didna want us to freeze to death. That would have sucked so bad.”

She laughed at him and followed him over, as easily as if it was the bridge in the village. Her spirits lifted considerably, thinking of getting a fire going and rinsing the grime of the day away with some heated river water, and putting lotion on her bites. They wouldn’t have a hot meal, but she was so exhausted, it barely mattered.

“I hope this mattress doesn’t have bugs,” she said.

Shane peered through the cracks in the rough hewn log and mud walls, and knocked at the door before pushing it open. He stepped inside and laughed, motioning her inside with him,

“Ye should have hoped it had a mattress,” he said.

The shanty held a squat stool covered with a pile of blankets that were little more than large rags. A small window, which was really a hole in the wall, made the place not much warmer than the outdoors. The tiny stone hearth had a half burned log in it, and the packed dirt floor was stirred up from old footprints. At least, she hoped they were old.

They dug around the shrubs until they found a few somewhat dry twigs, and Shane had swiped a peat brick from the inn, pulling it out of his bag with a flourish. It took them ten minutes to get a flame started, each taking turns banging on the flint to create a spark.

“We should be better at stuff like this,” she said, wiping her brow.

“We’ll get better,” he assured her, taking his turn.

They cheered when the peat finally began to smolder, then kept blowing on it and prodding it until it was a fire to rival any other.

“Here’s to survival,” he said, taking out the flask of whisky and downing a swig.

“Survival is the best,” she agreed, taking a drink and huddling up closer to the flames.