Exiles in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (21 page)

She gave him an assessing
look.

“
After all we’ve been
through together, you still think I bite?” Callum said.

“
Of course not.” She walked
to him and took the water. “I could sleep, except for the fact that
we’re so exposed out here.”

Callum scooted over so she could sit
beside him in a cradle created by the tree roots. She sat stiffly
at first, and then scrunched down so she reclined against the tree
and their shoulders were only a few inches apart, rather than the
two feet Cassie usually kept between them. Except when she tended
his wound, Cassie hadn’t ever touched him. Not even once. Because
of it, he was trying not to touch her either, though he really
wanted to. She maintained a cushion of space around her that he
didn’t feel he could violate. As an Englishman—and a veteran of the
military at that—he had a reputation for being reserved and
undemonstrative, but his coolness had nothing on
Cassie’s.

“
In Afghanistan, I learned
to sleep with one eye open. I haven’t lost the skill.” Callum
reclined a bit more and Cassie followed suit, using her cloak as a
pillow rather than his chest, which he certainly would have
preferred. They both closed their eyes.

“
My grandfather used to
tell me stories to get me to go to sleep,” Cassie said. “I had a
teddy bear the same size I was; I would rest my head on its belly
and fall asleep while my grandfather talked.”

Callum smiled. “Neither of my parents
went in much for bedtime stories.”

“
Maybe that was a good
thing—Coyote stories can sometimes keep you awake,” Cassie said.
“He’s the trickster in our legends.”

“
Like Loki in the Norse
tales?” Callum said.

“
Uh … sort of … but not
really.” Cassie gave a low chuckle deep in her belly. “I was really
looking forward to
Thor
II
. I miss movies.”

“
I miss stories in
general,” Callum said. “Many nights in Afghanistan, I would read
myself to sleep.”

Cassie glanced at him. “Me too! When I
first came to Scotland, I didn’t sleep except in bits and snatches,
if at all. I’d tell myself stories like my grandfather used to as
the only way to lull myself to sleep.”

“
I don’t like to think of
you surviving by yourself,” Callum said. “I can’t imagine what you
went through.” Already, his muscles were relaxing, listening to
Cassie talk. This was the most open she’d been with him since
they’d met. He set an internal alarm for sunset; they had fewer
than six hours.

“
I know I don’t have to
tell you how hard it is to sleep when you’re afraid,” she said.
“And when I did sleep, I had nightmares, and not of
Coyote.”

Callum’s hands tightened into fists.
“I wish you hadn’t gotten caught up in this. For me to be here is
one thing. For you ....”

“
Bad things happen
sometimes.” Cassie curved onto her side, rubbing her cheek against
her cloak.

“
I’m sorry.” He didn’t know
what else to say.

Now she shook her head. “I would go
home if I could, but even if Meg were to take me back to our time,
it wouldn’t be the same as when I left. I’m not the same person I
was then.” She paused. “But you probably already understand that,
too, don’t you?”

“
Yes.”

Her breathing became soft
and even. Callum took the risk of sweeping a stray hair out of her
face without touching her cheek. She didn’t move so he didn’t add
to his answer. He’d gone to Afghanistan with what he thought were
realistic expectations. He hadn’t joined the military because he
loved war or shooting people. He had wanted to make a difference,
and by the end, had become good at what he did. But he’d come home
bruised on the inside. What made his return so much harder was the
fact that except for the one scar on his chest, he looked much the
same on the outside as when he’d left, and therefore people
expected him to
be
the same.

Listening to Cassie talk, he’d had
another thought: that she was the loneliest person he’d ever met
other than himself. Like him, she’d lost everyone she’d ever loved.
Like him, she struggled for control and had created a world for
herself that kept her safe, and that included keeping everyone at
arm’s length—literally. She was as traumatized by her past as he
was by his. He just hoped he wasn’t about to make it
worse.

Callum woke Cassie at sunset as he’d
promised, both having slept solidly. “Are you ready for this?” he
said.

“
I don’t know,” she said.
“We’re risking our lives for something neither of us believes in.
Do I care who takes the Scottish throne?”

“
We believe in justice,
both of us,” Callum said, “and in doing what is right.”

Cassie rested her chin in the palm of
her hand. “Sadly, I still do, despite the fact that so few people
around us seem to.”

“
Besides, this is about
rescuing friends, not about Scotland.”

“
Okay.” Cassie sat up
straight. “If I’m going to risk my life to save a Guardian of
Scotland, we might as well get started.” She shot Callum a laughing
look. “This James Stewart had better be worth it.”

“
They may have Samuel too,”
Callum said.

“
And he’s a true friend, I
know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t joke about something like
that.”

They stood and shared a
moment’s hesitation. Callum looked at Cassie, she looked at him,
and just as Callum was telling himself
to
hell with it
, she stepped towards him and
wrapped her arms around his waist, squeezing him tightly. “You take
care.”

Callum clutched her to him, his lips
to her temple. He wanted to hold her all night, but instead he
said, “You need to do exactly as we planned.”

“
I will.”

They released each other and stepped
back. “Let’s go,” Callum said.

Cassie nodded, turned on
her heel, and walked off, heading up the hill to the lookout post
they’d designated. Callum watched her go, still feeling the warmth
of her body against his.
God
—not only had she touched him,
she’d
hugged
him.
He swallowed hard, shook himself, and resolved not to presume to
know what she meant by it.

For now, he needed to put away his
emotions and focus on what lay before him. He had to trust Cassie
to do her job just as he would do his. Callum circled around the
hill that she’d climbed. He briefly crossed the trail that led to
the fort, scuttling across it as quickly as he could, and then
moved into the woods on the other side.

The canoe was where they’d left it—he
hadn’t allowed himself to consider what he’d do if it wasn’t—and he
got into it. He pushed off from the bank and used the paddle
without any real expertise—though Cassie had tried to instruct him
earlier—first on one side of the boat and then the other. He tried
not to make even a single splash that could call attention to his
progress.

Darkness had fallen at last, bringing
a night as clear as the day had been. Stars peppered the sky and
the starry band of the Milky Way hung above Callum’s head. He
hugged the shoreline, barely putting his oar in the water at all,
just enough to keep the boat away from the tree roots, branches,
and debris that lined the shore. Several rivers fed the eastward
flowing loch. Thus, the natural movement of the water carried him
towards the fort even though his overall progress was
slow.

It wasn’t a dark night, so what most
worried Callum was the moment he came around the bend in the
shoreline that had kept him hidden from any watchers at the fort.
If someone was keeping an eye on the water, looking for movement,
he would see Callum. For once, Callum wished for cloud cover and
rain, even if it would have made it hard for him to see until he
reached the fort. His only consolation was that the torches that
lit the fort would hamper the guards’ night vision.

Callum eased closer to the shore,
hardly daring to breathe, and suddenly had to fight against the
current which was making the boat go faster than he wanted. Soon he
reached the point on the shoreline where the trees ended. The Earl
of Lennox had cleared the vegetation around the lodge, leaving
fifty yards of no man’s land between the trees and the palisade.
Since no trees grew down to the shore either, Callum would be
exposed the whole of that distance.

He hesitated in the darkness, waiting
and watching. Men patrolled the wall-walk, though like the men he
and Cassie had seen on the trail earlier that afternoon, they
seemed half-hearted about it. Callum was all in favor of bored men
when they were his adversaries. He and Cassie had agreed that she
should give him half an hour to get into position before she lit
the first bonfire. Neither of them wore watches, of course, and
Callum’s internal clock told him that it had been a bit longer than
they’d planned.

But then Cassie got to work: a flare
of light went up from the first bonfire and they were in
business.

They didn’t actually want to burn the
forest down, just distract the defenders of the fort long enough
for Callum to get inside. A second fire started, a hundred yards
from the first one. Even at this distance, Callum could smell the
smoke, but the alarm coming from the fort drowned out all other
sounds including the slap of water against the boat. Only two men
had patrolled the palisade before Cassie lit the first bonfire, but
a shout from them had brought other men running. A dozen now stood
above the gatehouse, pointing at the fires.

It was time to go. Callum put his head
down and paddled as fast as he could for the end of the western
wall of the palisade. The lodge had been built on an almost flat,
grassy expanse that ended with a three-foot drop to where the water
lapped at eroded rock and dirt. With the fort essentially open to
the loch, the Earl of Lennox had given lip service to defense. He’d
built a fence to keep animals and raiders out but never thought
about a determined man like Callum.

Callum pulled the boat next to a
relatively flat rock and climbed onto it without even getting his
feet wet. Lifting his head above the level of the grass, he could
see into the interior of the fort. Three boats rested side by side
a foot from his nose. All to the good. He could leave his boat
where it was, partially pulled onto the rock so it wouldn’t float
away, and no one would be the wiser. Perhaps Callum could escape
with the prisoners this way after all.

He crouched between the boats, still
keeping his head down. He’d put his cloak back on before he left
Cassie, hoping its dark color and hood would disguise him long
enough to confuse any MacDougall who gave Callum a second look.
What Callum really wanted was for everyone to be distracted by the
fire arrows—

Thwtt!

Cassie’s first arrow hit the steep
roof of the lodge. It had been built primarily in stone, mortared
and two stories high, but had a thatched roof like most medieval
houses in Scotland. Her assault came almost too soon. Callum barely
had time to reach the back wall of the building before four men
raced past him heading for the loch, buckets swinging from their
hands. Before they wondered why Callum wasn’t helping, he ducked
through the rear door.

Just inside, he stopped short. He was
in a large room that ran unbroken by walls all the way to the front
of the house. The door opposite him was open, and he could see into
the courtyard beyond it and to the front gate. The room itself was
empty of people, though from the remains of a meal on the long
table by the hearth, men had been eating here before Cassie had lit
her fires. To Callum’s left, a stairway ran up the interior wall of
the building to a second floor loft that took up the front half of
the lodge. It was open at the back, without even a railing to
prevent a wayward sleeper from falling to the floor
below.

Callum peered upwards into
the darkness of the loft. “Stewart!”
Nothing
. And then, “Is anyone
there?”

Still nothing. Unless the prisoners
were gagged or unconscious, they weren’t there. Given that nobody
guarded this building, Callum thought his conclusion likely. He
backed out of the door he’d come in. The men fighting the fires had
formed a line that curved around to the front of the lodge. They
passed water buckets from hand to hand.

Callum flipped up the hood of his
cloak and dashed to his right towards the smaller building that he
and Cassie had seen from the hill. It was attached to the wooden
palisade and made of loosely fitted wooden planks. It also had a
thatched roof that the fire hadn’t reached, which explained the
lack of attention currently being paid to it. Callum held his knife
in his fist, ready to slash at anyone he met coming through the
door. During hand-to-hand combat in tight quarters like the hut,
his sword would only get in the way.

Unsure if it would be better to sneak
in or burst in, Callum opted for a combination of the two. He
quietly lifted the latch to release the lock and then put his
shoulder into the door with a quick thrust. Whether those inside
had been alerted by the shouts and simply wanted to check on their
companions’ progress, or if Callum hadn’t been as quiet as he
intended, the door slammed into the forehead of a man coming to
open it. He fell against the northern wall of the hut, momentarily
stunned.