Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cian froze his ballocks off despite all the furs strapped to his body.
If John had included a new pair of denims in his supplies, he vowed he would never leave Balnacoorie without them again, in the winter months.
With the wind howling around him and tugging his great kilt in every direction, it was nigh impossible to keep his nethers covered. But thankfully, he was nearly home.
He’d lingered too long at John’s. He should have heeded the warning sooner. Had he truly believed such a bright blue sky could turn so cruel so fast, he would have flown back to his mountain, his sled flying behind him.
But he’d doubted. And he’d paid for it. Now he prayed to God that everything frozen would thaw.
He’d been careful to keep to the tree line he knew, hugging tight to Abernethy Forest like it was his mother, and he, a child afraid of being lost. Now, he had but one more hillock to climb and his day of poor luck would be behind him.
If that time traveler had come for him, he wouldn’t have risked such a storm to hunt him down. Surely. But why come for him at all, after so many years? Had Cian made some new mistake that gave his location away?
Impossible. He’d done nothing different.
He certainly hadn’t expected a pair of auld women to risk their bones to find Balnacoorie, even if they knew where the settlement had once stood. If they’d wished to speak to him, they would have waited for him at the armory.
Nothing to worry over, then. His home was as safe as…
He smelled woodsmoke and his heart dropped. Fire blossomed in his blood and sent him running the rest of the way up the hill. The storm raged on, blowing from all directions. The smell might have come from leagues away—
But it hadn’t.
White trails snaked their way down the old house road and into the glen. The sight of it would have made him turn back had he not worn himself ragged fighting the wind and taking the safest route. There was nothing for it but to go home and face the devil.
He paused while anger and frustration filled his chest and bellowed out of him. Then he ran full out.
Let the devil hear him coming…and tremble.
I shot straight up on the bed. I didn’t know what sort of animals Scotland had roaming around its mountains, but that was not a fox. Not a wolf, not even a bear. That roar had to have come from something much bigger. A cross between an elk and a lion, maybe.
And it was close.
I had to remind myself that dragons weren’t real, even in that fanciful country that claimed a unicorn for its official animal.
I couldn’t see anything from the window beside me, but I quickly pulled the little curtains shut, if only to keep something else from looking in.
Then I hopped off the bed and looked out the smaller square of glass beside the door.
From there, I could see straight down the road to where the row of houses ended.
A massive beast—or man—ran toward me, followed by something smaller nipping at its heels.
“What in the hell?”
I stopped breathing. They were headed straight for the bothy!
Holy shit. I need a weapon. I need a weapon.
I scanned the room. Nothing. The tools on the far wall were too far away. A lightweight ski pole wouldn’t scare anyone. Neither would a glove or a boot.
I snatched up one of my leg gaiters, lunged for the stove, and used it to open the hot door.
A long stick of wood was only half burned, so I pulled it out, made sure it wasn’t going to fall apart, then used the gaiter like a hot pad to hold it up.
More coal than flame, but I didn’t care. I had nothing else.
Twenty feet from the door, the man roared again and didn’t stop. Definitely a man. And he was pissed. The leather latch easily popped open for him and the door flew wide.
The roaring stopped. The furry creature had to duck low to step inside.
The only proof he was a man and not some Scottish version of a Yeti was the visible strip of skin on his face that showed his furious eyes and his nose.
The rest was all hair and fur, and ice and snow—except for an exposed thigh and knee, both of which were red from the cold.
“Where are your pants?”
His fury turned to confusion. “Wha—”
“I said, where are your pants?” I lifted a finger to point, then thought better of it.
He started to look down, then shook his head and pointed a fur mitten at the stick in my hand.
“What do ye intend tay do with tha’?” At least that’s what it sounded like.
He might have been speaking another language and announcing he was going to feed me to the vicious animal that had been chasing him.
Although he was pointing at the stick.
“That depends. What do you intend to do with me?”
His frown deepened. Could he not understand me any better?
“Poot. Tha. Doon. Afore ye barn m’ hoos to the groon.”
I repeated it in my head, only faster, and smiled when I understood. Then I nearly jumped out of my skin when he shouted.
“Noo!”
“Noo? Oh! You mean now. Gotcha.” Still rattled, I reluctantly turned my back to shove the smoldering wood back where I got it, then pushed the little door closed.
Suddenly the breath left my lungs in a whoosh, and my feet left the ground.
By the time I inhaled again, I was halfway across the room with my butt up against the big wood chest and my arms pinned to my sides.
Snow and ice and wet hides pressed against my face, and I struggled to get free from it all.
Finally, I had to tip my head back to breathe and looked into those furious eyes once again.
Blue. They were blue. And they promised…pain.
I swallowed, truly believing he was going to hurt me, and at a loss for what to say. “Please,” I finally whispered, with what breath I could get. “Don’t…”
Those blue eyes fell to my lips. “Dinnae what?”
“Don’t…hurt me.”
His gaze flew back to my eyes, my cheeks, then my eyes again. He could see I’d been crying and his anger turned to concern, then it was gone again.
He let me go suddenly, pushing me away from him in the same movement. “I promise nothin’.” He stomped out the door but came right back again, only this time he pulled a miniature sled behind him—a sled small enough to be pulled by one dog. And I guessed he was the dog.
He dragged it to the far side of the table and slid it against the wall. I noticed the shape. This was the vicious monster that had chased him down the road. I almost smiled, but I didn’t dare set him off again.
He glanced up long enough to say, “Dinnae move,” then bent over the load. Tail ends of ropes flipped around as he untied the stack of non-descript bundles. Was he planning to use them on me?
The last time I was this nervous around a man, it was a customer who had come into the restaurant drunk and planned to stay that way. He’d been dangerous too.
“Look,” I said. “The bothy is yours. I just came in to get warm. I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”
I crept back to the stove and stepped silently into my boots while reaching for my nearly dry gloves.
With them tucked under my arm, I grabbed my backpack and started shoving things inside.
I would need everything I had to survive the night, even if I found a place to hide in one of the other buildings.
But every instinct screamed at me to run and not stop running.
“Bothy?” I could tell by his voice he was facing me again, watching me.
I ignored him and moved faster. My jacket was hanging on the chair between us, so I reached for it without looking up.
“Ye said bothy.”
I slipped my arms inside and pressed my lips together. “Mm-hmm.”
“Ye thought m’ home was a bothy?”
I finally looked at him, wide-eyed. “This is…”
“My home. Aye.”
“I… I am so sorry. I was so sure… I thought maybe this was the Ryovan Bothy.”
One of his brows lifted and he set his hands on his hips, the rope still tangled in his fingers. “The Ryovan Bothy is leagues from here. Hours awee for a fann thing like ye.”
I ripped my gaze away from the ties and swallowed. “Fann?”
“Weak. Helpless.”
I ignored the obvious insult. “I got lost in the storm. I saw a light on the hill. I was desperate, so I followed it.”
“A light.” He didn’t believe me.
“I would never have found this place, but—”
“But ye did. Almost as if someone had given ye directions, no?”
“Directions?” I shook my head. “There was this flash of blue light. I saw it from the trees. And when I went to find it, it had moved to the top of the hill. Someone had to be carrying it, so I chased after them. I just needed someone to give me directions.”
His disbelief wasn’t just frustrating, it scared the crap out of me. I started to shiver so violently, my voice shook.
“At the top of the hill, I found no trace, no footprints in the snow, but I could finally see past the storm. Saw these houses, and I thought…I thought I wasn’t going to die after all, and—”
“Woman!”
I suddenly felt ill and grabbed the chair, but the cruel Yeti-man pulled it away…