Not Without Juliet - By L.L. Muir Page 0,69
minute. It was a comfortable silence. Jules could almost imagine she heard her sister’s thoughts.
Someone cleared his throat on the far side of the tree. “Does this mean you two are ready to—”
“Go away!” they shouted together, and this time they laughed.
The guy was gone so fast Jules didn’t know if it had been Quinn or Monty who’d tried to interrupt them.
“So. Is there anything else you wanted to get off your chest?” Jillian asked. “You know, in case we need to cry some more before I finish stitching up Quinn?”
“No. I think—well, at least I hope—I’m done being mean to you.”
Jillian laughed.
They heard a scuffle, then a strange thunk, then silence.
“Jillian! I’m bleedin’,” Monty called.
Jillian shook her head and didn’t move.
“Then stop fighting with Ewan,” she called back.
They giggled, then waited.
A few minutes later, there was another plea for attention.
“Quinn’s bleedin’ again!”
That time, it sounded like Quinn’s voice, but they both jumped to their feet and went hurrying around the tree. Monty and Ewan didn’t look too happy to see them. They both passed a coin to first Quinn, then James.
“How much did you lose, husband?” Jillian walked over and prodded Monty’s arm with a sharp fingernail and he winced.
“Naught,” he said.
“But I saw you pass coins,” she argued.
Monty looked at Quinn and grimaced. Quinn shook his head so slightly Jules wondered if she’d imagined it—if it weren’t for the guilty way he avoided eye contact when he reached for her.
“What did you bet on?” she asked him.
“Nothing of import,” Monty claimed.
“What did you bet on, husband?” Jillian ran her dangerous fingernails up Monty’s chest and by the time she reached his neck, his defenses were forgotten.
“The first wager was determined by which was made of sterner stuff and wouldna greet first.” He cleared his throat. “Knowin’ ye fer the strong woman ye are, I bet on ye, wife.” He grinned like he expected a reward.
Jules figured greet meant cry. Well, at least Quinn had bet on her. He’d lost, but he’d bet on her. She made a mental note to reward him later, but saw nothing wrong with hugging him tight right then.
“And the second wager was whose blood would bring ye runnin’,” Monty continued. “I must admit to being a wee disappointed in ye, mavournin’.”
“Be disappointed later, uncle,” said Quinn. “For I meant what I said. I am bleeding again.”
***
Jules resumed her pacing between the same two trees while she waited for Jillian to finish with Quinn. He’d already pulled out a stitch, and didn’t mind getting poked again, but something about it bothered Jules and while she paced, she realized what it was.
What if he got an infection? Here. Now.
Could she convince him to go back to the real world with her? Was she wrong to even think it? Wrong to ask him?
But there was something else bothering her too. Something more immediate. Another foreboding.
She spun on her heel and met her sister’s gaze. She suspected the frown on Jillian’s face matched her own. Whatever the foreboding was, her sister felt it too.
“Montgomery,” Jillian called. “We need to leave. Now.”
She said something to Quinn. He nodded. Then Jillian shoved her supplies in her little first aid kit and headed for her horse. Jules could only think to go to Quinn. He raised an arm and waved her to him, smiling, oblivious to whatever it was she and Jillian were feeling.
She took two steps through the pine needles when she was stopped by James’ bellow—the alarm she’d been dreading to hear for months.
“Gun!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A dozen thoughts flew through Jules’ mind while she ran and lunged for Quinn.
Would she hurt him when they collided? Could she protect his head? Had the Gordon’s been watching and decided to perform their own execution? Or had a hitman been following her after all? It wasn’t impossible to think a Skedros might have tagged along, might have jumped into the parade line through the car park and into the tomb. It didn’t matter that it was fourteen hundred something and guns might not have been invented yet—James was there, and James had one. Therefore, it was possible someone else did too.
Jules had spent far too many months in close quarters with FBI agents not to react as she did. With all the false alarms and dry runs, she was programmed to hit the ground when anyone yelled gun. But Quinn was another story. Maybe his twenty-first century senses had dulled over the past year. Of course he still knew what a gun