Rendezvous With Yesterday (The Gifted Ones #2)(22)

She smiled. “Deal.”





Beth had a much more difficult time sparking a fire with the flint than Robert did with the matches. The expression on his face when the little splinter he held ignited after a single strike was classic.

“Had I not produced the flame myself, I would suspect sorcery,” he breathed, eyes wide. “May I strike another?”

She couldn’t resist his boyish smile, so full of delight and eagerness. Nodding her permission, she watched him remove another match from her knife handle and explained the purpose of the colored tip.

He did not seem at all like a man bent on treachery. She felt no bad vibes and read no deceit in his gaze, no subterfuge. Neither when he questioned her about the match, nor when he taught her how to use the flint with such patience, encouraging her and praising her when she succeeded.

For the past hour or so, Beth had fought an inner battle with herself. Her instincts, which had always guided her so well in the past, kept urging her to give Robert her trust while her brain forbade it. She simply could not understand what had happened to her, what—if any—role Robert and his friends might have played in it or what possible purpose it would serve.

Everything inside her told her she was no longer near Houston. And with the temperature dropping as the sun set, she had to doubt she was even in Texas. No place in Texas was this chilly at night during the summer, even after a cold front.

So where the hell was she?

She thought again of those wooden wagon wheel ruts.

Pennsylvania?

How in the world would she have come to be there? Someone would’ve had to move her. But who?

Logic would indicate that Robert and his friends must have played a role in it since they were the only people she had encountered since waking. But they could have harmed her in a hundred different ways by now and hadn’t. They had all been kind to her instead.

Yes, they were weird. Their determination to adhere to their medieval role-play seemed insane under the circumstances. But, again, they hadn’t harmed her.

Those instincts of hers kept telling her to trust Robert, while her brain advised her to run and seek help. But where would she run? She and Robert had encountered not one other person in the two hours they had searched for Josh. And she had seen no structures whatsoever on the road. So where could she go?

Even if she made it back to the road she and Robert had traveled, she doubted she would make it very far on foot. No streetlights had lined the thoroughfare. And the road’s surface had been so rough and pitted that if she used her phone’s flashlight to look for Josh instead of keeping it trained on her feet, she would probably step in one of the deep gouges and twist her ankle.

She glanced at the dense foliage around her.

Since she didn’t know where she was, Beth had no idea what wild animals might lurk in these forests. And if she lucked out and actually ran into other people…

Based on what she had observed in the bounty hunting business, strangers would be just as likely to take advantage of the situation and harm her as they would be to help her.

With the sun setting and her lack of knowledge regarding the landscape, sticking with Robert—at least for the time being—seemed like the safest option.



Unless her intuition, for once, was wrong and he and his friends weren’t members of a reenactment group at all, but instead were escapees from a mental institution who actually believed they were medieval knights.

Not all crazy people were violent, after all.

Her stomach twisted into a tighter knot.

Or perhaps she was the crazy one. What were the chances that she had gotten shot, passed out, and been transported to a place that boasted both a thriving Amish community and a medieval reenactment group?

She sighed.

If Robert and his friends were neither crazy nor acting, and she was of sound mind herself, what was she supposed to conclude? That they really were medieval knights and she had somehow traveled back in time?

Not. Time travel wasn’t possible, not outside of fiction. Every member of the scientific community she had seen speak on the subject had agreed that time travel was a technological feat that had not yet been accomplished and thus remained purely theoretical.

Besides, she had seen no time machine. And if getting fatally shot made one travel through time, then thirteen thousand people in the United States would be hurled back in time every year. She was pretty sure that would’ve made the news.

Robert raised his head suddenly.

Beth followed his gaze to Berserker.

The horse stared into the forest, ears pricking as if it detected some sound she couldn’t.

Robert rose abruptly. Gripping her arm, he pulled Beth up, dragged her behind him, then drew his sword.

Gaping, Beth offered no protest as he pressed her close to his back with his left hand and held his sword out in front of him with his right.

Someone or something approached.

Her eyes fell to his weapon.

He actually thought he could protect her with a sword?

Her heart began to beat a little faster, with nerves and with something else, too.

Relief, perhaps?

Robert didn’t want to harm her. He wanted to protect her.

And she wasn’t about to let him get hurt doing it. A sword, no matter how impressive its length, weight and sharpness, could not compete with firearms.

Turning slightly to one side, Bethany eased her knee up until she could reach her ankle and removed her .22. Robert’s broad, mailed back blocked her view as she flipped the safety off and lowered her foot to the ground. Rising onto her toes, she clutched his tunic to steady herself and peeked over his shoulder.