happy with such news? Welcome the knowledge that he would be dead before too long.
“Three weeks.”
Ben skidded to a stop. “What!” That could not be true. Three weeks! He couldn’t die or disappear in three weeks, and considering he’d had no intention of going anywhere again, the former must have happened to him.
He wouldn’t let it happen.
“And ye tell me now!”
Kenzie stood and came over to him. “Please don’t be angry with me. I couldn’t tell you something like that. How could I tell you by the end of May 1605 you’d be gone? When I had no evidence, nothing to even point at to say, ‘here—this is the cause?’ You’d just think I was this crazy woman from the future.”
Ben didn’t reply. The lass made a little bit of sense, but… “I need to know of those things, so I might put in place armed men, increase my guards during both night and day to hold off any such attack. I can have men be aware and listen for any whispers of enemy talk. We’re only weeks away from my supposed death and yer telling me this now.”
He strode toward his horse, the need to get back to the castle, to Alasdair, bearing down on him. Nothing would happen to the lad, nor his home, or the people who took refuge there.
“Dinna follow me, lass,” he said, ignoring Kenzie when she came up and clasped his leg as he tried to slip into the stirrup.
“I’m sorry, Ben. I wasn’t supposed to care so much. I thought that by coming back I could keep myself removed from the people of this time, to not feel anything for what has already passed. But I can’t. And I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before, but how do you tell someone such a thing without causing panic? All of what you’re now feeling.”
“Telling the truth can sometimes hurt, but better to know one’s enemies and not be standing beside them waiting for a dirk in yer back.”
“Ben,” she said, pulling his reins and stopping him from leaving. “Please don’t shut me out.”
“What I want to know, lass, is were ye just going to stand in the keep and watch us all die. What was ye plan? To return to Gwen and Braxton’s before it occurred? I canna look at ye now.”
Kenzie blinked away the sting of tears as Ben galloped toward Castle Ross. She looked about and smiled at the few farmers who cast inquisitive glances her way. That they’d noticed her and Ben’s argument was obvious by the uncomfortable looks they gave her in return.
She walked back over to where they had eaten lunch and packed up the small pack of food and drink before going over to where her horse was grazing and putting it into her saddle bag.
Lifting her leg, she managed to get her foot in the stirrup and get up on the saddle. Now, all she had to do was get back to the castle without getting lost. From here, she could just make out the roof of the structure, so she shouldn’t have too much trouble, as long as no one tried to kill her along the way.
Medieval Scotland was a lot different to her own time. As she rode her horse, a placid mare who didn’t like to exert herself too much, Kenzie thought over what Ben had said. That he was angry with her was expected, but she had never given thought to what she would have done if they were attacked when she was here.
Kenzie had just assumed…well she didn’t know what she’d assumed, but it was stupid no matter what it was. She had come back to seventeenth century Scotland to find out what happened at Castle Ross and Ben on that fateful day in May. She would have to be here to see it.
And that in itself put her in danger. Not that she couldn’t get herself out of this time in minutes, but still…
“Returning to the castle are ye, lass? Where’s the laird?”
Kenzie started at the sound of Evan Grant as he pulled up alongside her. He was a big man, tall and as strong as Ben, but where pleasure coursed through her veins when near Ben, with Evan, her blood ran cold.
There was something about the man she did not trust or like. He was as off as food that was left out in the sun too long.