face me as a man.”
No one had ever dumped her on her rump and walked away before. It was the medieval equivalent of having someone hang up on her, and she was miffed she couldn’t call him back and hang up on him , or even knock him on his fanny in return. He had disappeared into one shadow or another and she was glad he hadn’t hung around to laugh.
Jilly scrambled to her feet, brushed the dust off her Lucky jeans—which she should never again refer to as lucky—and stalked off in search of her leather jacket. Castles, surprisingly enough, were cold even in the summer, and she couldn’t just pretend it was air conditioning.
She had tried that mind-over-matter trick far too often during the bitter winter months in Wyoming. It never worked. Leather, she had found, was the only sure thing. It had taken years of staking out the second-hand store in Cody to get her hands on one, and she wouldn’t give it up now, even if it would have had “witch” spray-painted across the back.
It suddenly occurred to Jilly that she didn’t actually know what season it was.
Dear Lord, she’d actually traveled through time. However, she was well aware of her mental stress levels. After watching her grandmother’s lucidity teeter around like a drunk on a rooftop, she recognized mental fatigue when she saw it, even if it was from the inside looking out. She was not strong enough to question time travel at the moment. In the last few days she’d been through enough trauma to justify years of therapy already, there was no sense adding more.
At least not until after she’d procured food, more sleep, and a day or two of staying alive.
She found some stairs that ascended, thank heavens, and started hiking. If it took some time to find the jacket, the exercise would at least warm her. The going, however, was slow. She had no idea fear could be so draining. If she could just get some food into her stomach, she was sure she would be able to stand and fight if necessary.
Please God, don’t let it be necessary .
As she passed a long slit window, the smell of roasting meat assailed her and she nearly vomited from hunger pangs. Once she located her precious possession, she would follow her nose and beg like a dog if need be, but she had to have some of that.
She’d gotten only a glimpse out the window this morning, just before that unforgettable kiss, and they had to have been standing at least on the third floor. Or perhaps it was the kiss that had made her feel so high.
Thankfully, with that bearing alone, she quickly found the room in which she’d awakened, slid into the softened brown leather, and was on her way. With hands braced on both sides of the narrow stairwell, her cowboy boots flew down the stairs in a blur of green toward the Great Hall doors, which would lead to her pre-cooked prey.
Jilly raised both palms to push the gigantic door open, but her flesh met flesh, not wood. And the flesh wouldn’t budge.
Laird Montgomery Ross, the honest to goodness laird of Clan Ross, in the Highlands of Scotland in the year fourteen hundred and ninety something, or so she believed, had barely beaten her to the door and now stood as yet another barrier between her and a very important meal. Reluctantly, she let her hands fall away from his chest.
Jilly did not behave well when hungry and unfortunately for him, she didn’t care if he thought her the biggest beyotch in the county. If they hadn’t recognized PMS in the fourteenth century, historians would look back on this day and say, “Ah, of course.”
“Move, you medieval oaf. There is food out there and if you don’t let me by you, I’ll eat your arm. Got it?”
He smiled, frowned, and smiled again, obviously having a difficult time playing the angry laird when being threatened by an “Englishwoman” whom he doubled in size. Standing that close to his full-faced grin, she couldn’t stay in character either.
She wanted him to believe Jilly MacKay was a harping
No one had ever dumped her on her rump and walked away before. It was the medieval equivalent of having someone hang up on her, and she was miffed she couldn’t call him back and hang up on him , or even knock him on his fanny in return. He had disappeared into one shadow or another and she was glad he hadn’t hung around to laugh.
Jilly scrambled to her feet, brushed the dust off her Lucky jeans—which she should never again refer to as lucky—and stalked off in search of her leather jacket. Castles, surprisingly enough, were cold even in the summer, and she couldn’t just pretend it was air conditioning.
She had tried that mind-over-matter trick far too often during the bitter winter months in Wyoming. It never worked. Leather, she had found, was the only sure thing. It had taken years of staking out the second-hand store in Cody to get her hands on one, and she wouldn’t give it up now, even if it would have had “witch” spray-painted across the back.
It suddenly occurred to Jilly that she didn’t actually know what season it was.
Dear Lord, she’d actually traveled through time. However, she was well aware of her mental stress levels. After watching her grandmother’s lucidity teeter around like a drunk on a rooftop, she recognized mental fatigue when she saw it, even if it was from the inside looking out. She was not strong enough to question time travel at the moment. In the last few days she’d been through enough trauma to justify years of therapy already, there was no sense adding more.
At least not until after she’d procured food, more sleep, and a day or two of staying alive.
She found some stairs that ascended, thank heavens, and started hiking. If it took some time to find the jacket, the exercise would at least warm her. The going, however, was slow. She had no idea fear could be so draining. If she could just get some food into her stomach, she was sure she would be able to stand and fight if necessary.
Please God, don’t let it be necessary .
As she passed a long slit window, the smell of roasting meat assailed her and she nearly vomited from hunger pangs. Once she located her precious possession, she would follow her nose and beg like a dog if need be, but she had to have some of that.
She’d gotten only a glimpse out the window this morning, just before that unforgettable kiss, and they had to have been standing at least on the third floor. Or perhaps it was the kiss that had made her feel so high.
Thankfully, with that bearing alone, she quickly found the room in which she’d awakened, slid into the softened brown leather, and was on her way. With hands braced on both sides of the narrow stairwell, her cowboy boots flew down the stairs in a blur of green toward the Great Hall doors, which would lead to her pre-cooked prey.
Jilly raised both palms to push the gigantic door open, but her flesh met flesh, not wood. And the flesh wouldn’t budge.
Laird Montgomery Ross, the honest to goodness laird of Clan Ross, in the Highlands of Scotland in the year fourteen hundred and ninety something, or so she believed, had barely beaten her to the door and now stood as yet another barrier between her and a very important meal. Reluctantly, she let her hands fall away from his chest.
Jilly did not behave well when hungry and unfortunately for him, she didn’t care if he thought her the biggest beyotch in the county. If they hadn’t recognized PMS in the fourteenth century, historians would look back on this day and say, “Ah, of course.”
“Move, you medieval oaf. There is food out there and if you don’t let me by you, I’ll eat your arm. Got it?”
He smiled, frowned, and smiled again, obviously having a difficult time playing the angry laird when being threatened by an “Englishwoman” whom he doubled in size. Standing that close to his full-faced grin, she couldn’t stay in character either.
She wanted him to believe Jilly MacKay was a harping
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