Rendezvous With Yesterday (The Gifted Ones #2)(13)

“Your clothing is passing strange,” Michael commented, his tone bewildered.

“What’s so strange about it? It’s jeans, a bulletproof vest, and a jacket.”

“Why do you wear breeches?” one of the others—Stephen?—asked with something akin to disapproval. “You are a woman.”

“Last time I checked I was,” she drawled. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“And the fastenings,” the fourth one added. “How did you refasten your vest without needle and thread?”

“Ever heard of Velcro?”

“Nay,” Stephen and Michael answered with every appearance of honesty.



These guys just didn’t give up, did they? “Whatever. Let’s just get going.”

The leader motioned to his men, who moved to mount their horses. “You shall ride with me,” he informed her.

Beth took one look at the mammoth-sized, stomping, snorting stallion he led toward her and abruptly turned coward. “Um, you know what? I think I’m going to walk.”

He frowned. He did that quite often, she noted, and wasn’t sure if it was because he disagreed with her words or simply couldn’t understand some of them. “’Twill be faster if you ride.”

“Nevertheless, I’ll walk.” She scuttled backward as the horse drew near.

The others all mounted their horses and sat, looking down at her as if she were certifiable.

Or perhaps just being difficult.

But she wasn’t being difficult. She was being a wuss.

“Why?” the leader asked.

“Because I, um….” Ah, hell. How was she supposed to come up with a good excuse when that huge thing was peeling its lips back from its teeth and stretching its neck out as if it wanted to take a nice big bite out of her?

“You shall ride with me,” he commanded again.

“No. I mean, nay.”

Great. If the tightening of his lips and the muscle jumping in his cheek were any indication, she had offended him.

Beth sighed. “All right. Here’s the thing,” she confessed in a low voice the others leaned forward and strained to overhear.

The leader obligingly ducked his head to better catch her words.

“I have never been this close to a horse before,” she told him softly. “And, as embarrassing as this is for me to admit, I just realized that I’m apparently afraid of them.”

He blinked. “You have never been nigh a horse?”

Resentment bubbled up inside her, heightened by her embarrassment. “Look, not everyone in Texas owns a ranch, you know,” she blurted defensively. “We aren’t all cowboys. We don’t all own horses and wear boots and fringed shirts and big belt buckles and cowboy hats and listen to country western music. That’s such a stereotype! I grew up in the suburbs of one of the largest cities in the country, for crying out loud! The only time I ever even saw a horse was when my parents took me to the rodeo when I was a kid. And the horses there didn’t look nearly as huge from my seat way up high in the nosebleed section as yours does now.”

“Cowboys?” he queried, seemingly confused.

“Nosebleed section?” This from Stephen.

“Suburbs?” Michael parroted.

“Yes!” Her temper erupted in a growl of frustration. “I mean, aye!”

The leader held his hand out to her. “Berserker will not harm you.”

“Berserker is your horse’s name?”

“Aye.”

“And that’s supposed to reassure me?”

He didn’t seem to know what to say to that. Not that anything he said would erase her qualms.

“I will not let you fall, Mistress Bethany. You have my word that you will come to no harm if you ride with me.”



She stared up at him, taking in his handsome, earnest features.

Something about this man was starting to grow on her. Something that made her want to throw caution to the wind and give him her trust.

He must have sensed she was weakening, for he moved in then with a killing blow. “If you ride with me, we will cover ground more quickly and will have a greater chance of finding this Josh you seek before nightfall.”

Great. He had found her biggest weakness. She would do anything to find Josh and see to his safety, even ride an oversized horse with an attitude.

Her wary gaze on Berserker, Beth placed her hand in the leader’s much larger one.

It was warm and tanned and callused but capable of gentleness, she learned as he folded his fingers around her own.

“Your hand is as cold as well water,” he exclaimed, frowning down at it. Curling his other hand around it, he brought it to his lips to blow warm breath on it.

Butterfly wings fluttered in her belly. “What was your name again?” she asked.

“Lord Robert, Earl of Fosterly.”

She nodded slowly, his touch doing strange things to her insides. “Well, Robert, I’m going to hold you to that promise. So, I guess you’d better go ahead and give me a boost.”

Something about the way she said his name surprised him. She saw it in his eyes and felt it in the tightening of his grip on her fingers before he frowned over the rest of her words.

Shaking his head, he dropped his hands to her waist, lifted her effortlessly and deposited her sideways on the saddle. It was an odd one, not like those she had seen in movies, but Beth barely registered it as she clutched the high pommel with a death grip.