When Lightning Strikes (3 page)

Chapter Four

Sarah opened her eyes. She had no idea how long she had been sleeping. The throbbing in her head was now just a dull ache, but her side burned like fire.

She remembered now. She had been standing underneath the old tree on the hill and a really weird bolt of lightning had come down from the sky…and then everything went black. She vaguely recalled dreaming that David was some beautiful black-haired angel carrying her here. Where was
here
anyway? Her cloudy vision cleared as she began to fully focus her eyes on her surroundings.

There was a dirty old canvas overhead and she could smell the outdoors and there was sunlight pouring through a part in cloth of the tent, or whatever it was that was providing shelter from the elements. Shivering and cold, she realized that she was all but naked. Struggling to pull the rough blanket up to cover her bare breasts, she tried to sit up, only to discover that something held her firmly in place. It was a man’s arm. It was heavy, lightly dusted with black hair and thick with muscle.
This was not David’s arm.

“My God,” she whispered as she looked beside her.

It was the raven-haired angel of her dream. But how could this be? She had obviously not died and this was
not
Heaven, although this person – this man lying beside her – was beautiful enough to be an angel. He was shirtless and lying face down, with half of his wide back exposed and his arm was thrown around her like it belonged there. At that moment she smelled something that made her cringe.

What was it? She looked down.
“Oh, God it’s him!”
she thought.  Sarah crinkled her nose as the smell of his unwashed body continued to assail her nostrils. She fanned the air in front of her face as she moved his arm off her like it was a piece of garbage. Okay. Now she was disgusted.

Looking around her, she could see they were in an old wagon of some sort, and she began to shake all over. She didn’t know where she was or how she got here. Her nightgown was
torn completely in half and she wasn’t too certain that she hadn’t been raped while she slept by this reeking, half-naked stranger. She was truly scared now, and began to back away from him pulling the blanket with her.  And to top it all off, after sleeping for so long, she realized that she really needed to use the bathroom.

Dominic awoke with a start as the blanket that was partially wrapped around him was rudely torn away. He jumped up to a half-sitting position and turned to find the beautiful English witch hovering pathetically against the inside wall of the wagon clutching the blanket to her bosom. She was shivering visibly and just sat there staring at him wide-eyed, with a look of fear and confusion on her face. He sat back and gently spoke to her in his thickly accented English.

“Do not fear, demoiselle. I will not harm you…and I promise I have not compromised you either. Though I must admit I was tempted.”

She looked at him for a moment
. Great! So he’s assuring me he didn’t rape me in my sleep but he was tempted to. Nice guy!
She sat there in silence trying to figure out how to answer that one. Christ, those eyes of his. They stood out in stark contrast to his tan skin and black hair. They were so clear and blue, she felt like he could look right through her. She suddenly felt more naked than she was and could barely find her voice.

Finally she cleared her throat and then asked, “Who are you? How did I get here? And
where
exactly is here?”

Dominic liked the sound of her voice, sweet and rich as she spoke. Her language was most certainly that of the English, but her accent was like none he had ever heard. She spoke as though she held some authority over him, which led him further into his already strong belief that she was some noble’s spoiled daughter or niece. He regarded her for a moment more and then decided to answer her questions.

“My name is Dominic du Barbaronne. I carried you here. And
here
is…well…where we sit! In my wagon.”

He gestured for her to look around them and suppressed a chuckle at the humor in his own words. He slid forward,
moving in closer to her. “The question is who are you,
cheri
e

?”

He raised one thick, perfectly shaped black eyebrow, gave her a half-smile and cocked his head to one side seductively as he spoke. She wanted to slap him. He was a swaggering, narcissistic, horse’s ass! She could just tell by the way he looked and spoke. He probably carried a mirror and comb around with him everywhere he went. Too bad he didn’t carry a bar of deodorant soap and a bucket of water instead!

She thought about it for a moment and decided it was probably not a good idea to slap him after all. He looked and smelled
like some kind of homeless guy you’d see on the street….or maybe he was a rough barroom type who’d been drinking out in the sun too long, and if she pissed him off, he might decide to hurt her.

So instead she smiled sweetly and said, “Thank you for rescuing me, Mr. de Baraba…whatever your name is. But if you will turn around, I need um…some clothes for one thing, and I really to step outside and find the nearest place where there’s a ladies room.”

Her eyes traveled to a slight crack in the canvas flap that served as the door of the wagon and she could see the sunlight peeping through. And then comprehension kicked in….it was morning.

“Oh, SHIT! What time is it?”

She began to look frantically around the wagon and then stood up abruptly.
Bad idea.
Her side burned like fire and she remembered she’d been struck by the lightning as she quickly sat back down letting out a deep breath and grabbing the place that hurt. She pulled the blanket out from her body making sure he couldn’t see her bare boobs and could see a bandage had been neatly wrapped around her torso. Who had done this?

Oh, Lord, please say it wasn’t him
because that would mean he’d seen her pretty much naked as a jay bird. She prayed to GOD he hadn’t done anything else to her while she was out. She wasn’t sore down
there
so she figured he wasn’t lying when he said he hadn’t ‘compromised’ her or whatever the hell he’d called it.

In this day and age, it was a rare commodity to be her age and still technically a virgin, but well…here she was. She had decided that she wanted her first time to be with someone who really loved her and who she trusted instead of the typical casual sex in high school or college. Naturally, she and David had done plenty of exploring each other’s bodies, but she really wanted to wait until their wedding night to actually do the deed. It would add to the excitement and make it all the more special for both of them, knowing it was the
one
thing they hadn’t done and that he knew he was her first. After all that torturous waiting, the last thing she wanted to imagine was this smelly stranger touching her or being the first one to take what she’d been saving for David.

Christ, her head was throbbing badly enough without thinking about that little scenario! Not to mention, she was probably already late for the hairdresser...and who knows what else! What if she’d missed the wedding? She looked around the wagon. Why didn’t he seem to have a clock hanging anywhere? She sighed in frustration.

“Look…thank you for carrying me in out of the weather, and for bandaging up my side, although I can’t say I’m happy that you saw me naked. It might have been a better idea to take me to the ER. I probably should go anyway, just to make sure everything’s okay. But thank you for what you did.”

He nodded. “You are welcome demoiselle.” He smiled and she noticed just how beautiful his teeth were.

“I really hate to ask, but can I borrow your cell? Do you even have one? You don’t seem to have a clock…or a t.v. or anything else around here. I walked out of the house without any of my things and I need to call my fiancé. I’m probably late for my own wedding!”

She held up her left hand for emphasis when she said the word ‘fiancé’ but then cringed when she realized she’d left her ring on the nightstand next to the bed. Dammit!

He sat there for a moment with a puzzled look on his face.
Cell…t.v….oh-kay. EeeArrh?.
What kind of words were these that she spoke? These were not words he had ever heard before. Perhaps her mind had been damaged by the lightning. Maybe she had struck her head when she fell. She had also said the word ‘fiancé’ and thus she was apparently betrothed. He felt the slightest twinge of disappointment at the thought before his mind traveled back to her strange words.

In the moments he sat there puzzling over her strange language, she ignored the pain in her side, opened the flap of the canopy and stepped out over the edge of the wagon and jumped to the ground since he wasn’t bothering to answer her.

‘Okay’
, she thought to herself.
‘Not only does he smell like crap, he treats women the same way. He can see I’m lost and he’s just staring at me like I’m crazy and didn’t even offer me he his cell…not to mention he has no clocks anywhere and lives…in a wagon?’

God, her mother was right. She
did
know her heart’s desire. And it was to be with a nice, clean-cut guy with a job, a place to live and manners…like David! Good thing she’d kept that coin after all and would make note to tell her mother this when she got home.

Dominic watched as the woman had climbed out of the wagon and he jumped out after her an instant later and followed close behind to make sure she did not try to escape, and to protect her from any of the men that might be lurking around and see her prancing about with nothing but a blanket covering her.

Sarah looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. There were two or three other wagons close by, and some men lying on the ground sleeping. Or were they dead? No. More than one of them was snoring. They were dressed like something out of a medieval movie or a Renaissance Fair. There were a few rough tents pitched around and remnants of one or two dying campfires. There were horses grazing close by and a couple of ponies loosely tied to the back of one of the wagons and two more tied to the wagon they had been sleeping in. They seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere.

Jesus. How far had he carried her? It couldn’t have been that far. Then she looked up at the top of the hill and saw something that chilled her blood. There was the ancient tree. It
had been scorched from the lightning and split down the middle, but it was the
same
tree. But how could that be? If that was the tree then her father’s house should be just off to the left and the LaCroix’s house and land should be off to the right. And where was the road? There should be a road just a few hundred feet from here! Something was terribly wrong.

Dominic walked up behind her at that moment and reached out for her arm.

“No, leave me be,” she said and pulled away from him.

She began to race to the top of the hill, and in her haste she almost lost the blanket covering her nakedness. She didn’t care. Dominic was hot on her heels, but still she ran. When she reached the top of the grassy crest, she stopped and looked down. What she saw there made her knees go weak.

There was no house at the bottom of the hill. The LaCroix house was nowhere to be seen. There were no roads anywhere except a small dirt path cutting through the unkempt countryside. Off in the far distance, maybe two or three miles away there was an estate of some sort. It looked like some kind of medieval castle with a fortress surrounding it. How could this be? This was
the
tree; there was no mistake.

“Oh, god what is happening to me?”
she thought. Maybe this was all some kind of nightmare or a hallucination and she would wake up soon. Somehow, she knew that wasn’t the case. She also knew she was not a raving lunatic. But where was her home?  This landscape was rough and unfamiliar. She began to breathe heavily and tears stung her eyes.

She looked down at the ground and spotted the ancient coin she had held in her hand the night before. She picked it up and looked at it
. What if? This was nuts..it just couldn’t be
.

She tried to suppress the thought in her mind, but she couldn’t. It was crazy, damn it! But there could be no other explanation. She remembered her mother’s strange words about passion and love across lifetimes and felt ice flowing through her veins. What if the coin had somehow transported her to some other century?

Dominic had watched as the woman looked around on the verge of hysteria. He had raced up the hill after her expecting her to try to escape, but she had come to an abrupt stop when she reached the tree and he had run into her almost toppling both of them down the steep grade. She began to breathe heavily and started crying after she picked up a galbi lying beneath the tree.

He reached out to offer her his hand, but she just stood there looking at him with tears spilling over her thick lashes. He tried to pull her to him to comfort her but she pushed him away.

“Mon fleur, if you will just tell me your name and where you came from, I can send out one of my men to inform your family that you are alive, quite well and will be returned to them unharmed…for a fair price, of course
.
”

Now a new wave of hysteria washed over her as the enormity of this situation came crashing down. What would he and his group of sleazebags do to her when they found out that she had no family to rescue her? Even worse what would they do if they found out the truth about where she had come from? They would most certainly brand her a witch. From the looks of things, she was probably somewhere in the medieval period where burning witches was considered quality entertainment. She felt as if the world was coming to an end. And, in fact, it had for her. Everything she had known and loved did not exist; at least not yet.