Rendezvous With Yesterday (The Gifted Ones #2)(38)

So I would…

So they could…

Beth sighed. Even if all of the other stuff were true, which it only would be in a really bad B movie shown very late at night, what was the point? What was the end game? To make her think she was in Medieval England?

Yeah, right.

To make her think she was crazy?

They’re succeeding.

Why? If someone had wanted her to lose her mind, there were far easier ways to go about it. And except for the bail skippers she and her brother hunted down, who she was fairly certain did not possess such grand connections, she couldn’t think of a single person who might wish her harm.

Nor could she believe that Robert would participate in such a deception.

Feeling utterly confused and defeated, she let her head drop back against Robert’s chest and closed her eyes.

Maybe this was just another in a long line of crappy television reality shows: Thrust a modern woman into a medieval setting without telling her and watch her crack up.

Yeah, right. And get sued six ways from Sunday when she realizes what’s happened. Besides, how stupid would it be to do that to an armed bounty hunter? After shooting her! Because all of this had begun with her getting shot and nearly dying.

No television studio would be that stupid. And anyone crazy enough to pitch such an idea would be shut down by the studio’s legal team.

And, again, she couldn’t bring herself to believe that Robert would be a part of something that devious. Or Michael. Or Adam. Or even Stephen, as aggravating as he could be.

They could have harmed her in so many ways since they found her, yet they had all been perfect gentlemen.

Perfect gentlemen with no apparent knowledge of objects commonly used in the twenty-first century.

Again she sighed.

Maybe this was an Occurrence-at-Owl-Creek-Bridge thing and everything around her was a very elaborate fantasy crafted by her mind in the moments before she died. It would make sense, in a weird kind of way, since the last thing she had seen before losing consciousness was Josh. And, when they were younger, she and Josh had used Middle English as their secret language, confusing friends who—upon asking what language they were speaking—wouldn’t believe them when they had said they were speaking English.

But, damn, that was an unsettling notion. She wasn’t ready to die.

Lifting her head, she opened her eyes.

Terror engulfed her, as great as that which had pummeled her when she had watched blood spray from Josh’s wounds.

Gripping the arm Robert kept around her waist with one hand, she dropped the other to his thigh and clutched it so tightly the chain mail dug into her fingers.

“Stop,” she whispered through stiff lips.

Robert dipped his head. “What?”

“Stop,” she repeated louder.

“You wish me to—”

“Stop. Stop! Stop!”

Berserker did an edgy little dance when Robert halted him. Either the fearsome creature wanted to keep going or he sensed her fear.



Twisting to the left, Beth wrapped both hands around Robert’s big arm. “Help me down. I need to get down.” Too impatient to wait, she threw a leg over the saddle, slid off the huge horse, and landed on the ground with a stagger.

“Beth, what is amiss? Are you ill?”

She barely heard Robert over the sudden pounding in her ears as she turned away. Her heart felt as though it might explode at any moment. Her breath came faster and faster until she feared she might hyperventilate.

Stumbling a few yards to the crest of the hill that Berserker’s height had allowed her to peer over prematurely, Beth absorbed the fresh scenery before her with something akin to horror.

Below them spread a valley dotted with cattle and plump white sheep, grazing idly on the lush green carpet that overlaid the land. Small huts with thatched roofs appeared and grew in greater frequency as her gaze moved on, ultimately clustering together and forming a sizable village. Farmland, rich and bountiful, wove a gargantuan quilt. People, whom she didn’t need to see clearly to know were dressed much the same way the merchant and peasants had been, bustled to and fro as they performed the day’s labor.

Beyond them a moat slithered in the shadow of a stone wall whose height and width she could not begin to estimate from this distance. And beyond that, atop the opposite rise, standing proud and majestic in the brilliant sunlight, rose an enormous medieval castle.

Her whole body began to shake.

Not a few stones piled here and there amidst tangles of overgrowth.

Not the remains of a medieval castle. Or the shell of a medieval castle. Or a refurbished medieval castle preceded by a paved drive, carefully planned flower beds and a parking lot arranged for tourists’ convenience.

But a medieval castle that stood in pristine condition.

A castle that looked as though it could have been built yesterday.

A castle with absolutely nothing modern surrounding it.

No city. No suburbs. No small town.

No sidewalks. No paved streets. No old-time brick-and-mortar streets.

No cars. No trucks. No SUVs. No buses. No motorcycles. No bicycles.

No telephone poles. No cell towers.

No grocery stores—neither large chain nor mom and pop.

No post office. No police station.

No motels or bed-and-breakfasts welcoming tourists with colorful signs.

“It can’t be,” Beth whispered as full-blown panic paralyzed her. “It can’t be.”