Not Without Juliet - By L.L. Muir Page 0,31
spun her around until she thought she was going to puke. He put her down immediately, smart man.
“But that doesn’t matter now,” she said.
“The hell it doesn’t.” He started pulling her toward the car door, but she pulled back.
“I mean, what matters right this minute is finding my sister.”
“Come, now, Jillian. Just because those two think some woman looked a bit like you, doesna mean she’s yer kin, does it? Once ye have a babe, perhaps it will put an end to yer search for more family. Ye’ll have me, and the babe. What more could ye need?”
Jilly struggled against his hold and he loosened his arms.
“It haunts me, Montgomery, not knowing anything about my family. And the idea that I have a sister just feels like there’s hope, like the haunting might stop. Besides, one day there will be a little girl, or boy, who asks about the American side of the family. And if I do have a sister, she might have those details.”
He pulled her tight again and tucked her head beneath his chin.
“Haunted, ye say? How can a man, even as braw and brave as I, fight a haunting, then?”
She smiled against his shirt. “Let’s go find my sister.”
“Oh, she’s gone, Jilly.” The Muirs were back. “We checked. She did not come out of the tomb.”
“She disappeared?” She was afraid of that. She’d done the same every time she’d been in the tomb.
“And the gunman—er, the man with the gun went in as well. He didn’t come out either.”
“And she is yer sister, Jilly dear. You look as much alike as Quinn and Laird Montgomery.
For some reason, she resented the Muirs for meeting her sister before she could, and resented them even more for sending that precious woman into the tomb. No one ever wanders into a stranger’s cellar, sees a hole in the ceiling and says, Hm. I think I’ll climb up there and have a look around.
There was no doubt about it. They’d sent Juliet back in time on purpose, just like they’d sent Jillian a year before. The question was why?
The old sisters shrugged and looked away as if in answer.
Jilly tugged Montgomery toward the old castle. “We’ll just have to go after her.”
Monty stopped walking. “No. We won’t. Ye will go nowhere but home. Who knows what might happen to my child?” His eyes went wide. “Not to mention my wife. Nothing can happen to you, my Jillian. Nothing!”
Jilly shook her head. “If you think I’m going to let you go off to who-knows-where without me, you’re out of your mind. Where you go, I go.”
“But I see a need for haste, here,” Monty reasoned.
Jillian narrowed her eyes. “Agreed.”
Monty took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. “If I asked you kindly to stay and look after our child—a daughter even—would you—”
“Sure. You go. I’ll stay.” She shrugged.
He frowned. “Truly?”
He looked a little too pleased. She couldn’t wait to let him down.
“Only, be sure to get out of the tomb fast,” she said.
“Fast? You mean quickly? Why?”
She crooked a finger so he’d lean close. Then she whispered in his ear.
“Because Junior and I will be right behind you.”
He straightened quickly. “Son of a—”
“Don’t you dare.”
CHAPTER NINE
The pain is worse because I want to live.
The thought was already forming in his head before Quinn woke on the hard dirt ground. Again.
There was not so much as a moment’s confusion about where he was this time. His mind was alert—brought to attention by a hard, mean headache. That ache made it immediately clear that he yet lived. Either that, or hell was going to be a bit more hellish than he’d imagined.
He groaned if only to prove his ears worked. When he then heard the shuffling of feet, he supposed it was his blind babysitter going to alert the media that he was awake and ready for the next Gordon sibling to come have a go at him. Why not?
“Has no one ballocks enough to kill me thoroughly this time?” he complained, for even though he’d decided he wanted to live, the pain in his head was convincing him otherwise. What he wouldn’t give for some good old headache tablets and a bag of ice.
Someone shuffled in his direction and the darkness was pushed back a bit by the orange glow of single weak torch.
“Why nay, Laird Ross,” said a woman. “I haven’t ballocks at all. But I do mean to see ye dead. Unless...”
Quinn thought it only right that he sit up,