Our Shared Horizon (Kaitlyn and the Highlander Book 10) Read online

  Fraoch pulled me to the wall and spoke in a low voice. “There is a battle nearin’.”

  “Really, why?”

  “We daena ken, the army is comin’ tae fight, but we arna sure of the reason. We only ken they are prepared tae raise arms against the Campbells.”

  Quentin said, “The castle doesn’t have enough guns, Hayley, there’s not enough. Plus there are so many women and children here. The food, as you know, is in short—”

  I said, “We could go get some supplies.” I glanced at Fraoch, noting his pained expression. “I mean, you, Quentin, should go get supplies.”

  He said, “I’ve talked to Fraoch about it, he agrees, you and I should both go.”

  “Me and you should both go and get the supplies and bring them back, right?”

  The two men gave each other a look.

  “Aw man, are you guys conspiring against me?”

  Fraoch said, “Hayley, tis nae safe for ye here—”

  “It’s not safe for you either! “

  “I canna leave a castle when there are women and bairn tae protect.”

  “Exactly, you’re protecting the walls of the castle. I’ll be inside the castle to be protected — easy. That’s what I signed up for, that’s what I’m doing.”

  Quentin and Fraoch gave each other another look.

  Exasperated, I said, “No shit — I’m married to one of you, the other I have been friends with forever, and the two of you met today, yet the Bro-code got you all, ‘We know what is best for Hayley.’ Well, bullshit. I’m willing to help get the supplies, but I’m bringing them back. This is my decision.”

  Fraoch said, “What is a bro-code?”

  “This,” I waggled my hand between the two of them, “when ‘brothers’ have an unwritten agreement to watch out for each other, often at the expense of the women around them, a bro-code.”

  Fraoch nodded and smiled. “Aye, a bro-code. Much like the agreement I made with Black Mac earlier this day.”

  Quentin laughed, raised a fist, and they literally fist-bumped. Quentin said, “Taught him that today, you’re welcome.”

  “Ugh,” I groaned. “Seriously? I’m helping, and then I’m coming back. Or I’m not leaving at all. But this is my home now.”

  “Who would have thought Hayley would be all ‘this is my eighteenth century hill and I’m going to die on it’?”

  “Me, when I decided to marry it.”

  Quentin said, “Okay, I’ll go on my own, I’ll return tomorrow.”

  “What about Magnus and Katie’s rule, you’re supposed to wait a week between jumps?”

  “Do you see them here? When boss is back here in the dark ages, he can make the rules. I’m the commander. This is an emergency. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Fraoch said, “I will wait for ye in the woods. Hayley will remain here at the castle.”

  I said, “No, I should go with you to the woods. I have a vessel: I know how to use it. A gun: I know how to use it. We’ll be better together.”

  Quentin said, “I’ll give you some more guns for protection.” Then he said, “I’m not relishing the idea of two jumps in one day, but Katie’s done it before. If she can do it, I can.”

  “I did it.”

  “Right, anything you can do I can do better,” he teased.

  Fraoch chuckled. I rolled my eyes. “Let me grab a few things for you from our gear in the room.”

  Thirty-one - Hayley

  In our room I said, “I’m sorry I argued about going home, but you’ll see, we will be better together. This was the best way.”

  He was wearing a worried , expression on his face. Finally, he said, “I wish ye would go. Ye shouldna hae come back. Sean, Black Mac, and I went out tae see the men, there are too many...”

  “Then we should all go with Quentin.”

  He shook his head.

  I put my hands on his chest and looked up at his face. “Quentin is going to go get weapons. And then we’re going to kick these guys asses.”

  “Ye will be fightin’?” Fraoch scoffed.

  “Hell yeah, it’s better than being in the kitchen. I was not good at that.”

  He smiled, “Ye will get better, once ye hae bairn. Twill come natural tae ye.”

  I said, “Wait, what? What do you mean by that? Once I have bairn — what?”

  “Aye, once ye hae a bairn, we will... what dost ye mean with the starin’ at me?”

  “We talked about this. You don’t want bairn. I don’t want bairn. We discussed this.”

  “Aye we talked on it, but ye are a woman, tis the only thing ye can do. How can ye nae want bairn? Tis a woman’s duty.”

  I walked in a daze to the bed and sat on the edge. “Fraoch, you told me that you didn’t want bairn, because you were still haunted by the loss of your wife and your bairn. You told me this and you... Why are we talking about this right now? We don’t have time to talk about this. We’re in a siege. We’re supposed to help Quentin get ready to go. We’re still on our honeymoon. You’re supposed to be saying that you love me, not that ‘bairn are my duty’. What in the world? You told me you didn’t want them!”

  “I daena want bairn, but I want ye tae hae bairn. Ye daena want tae hae m’bairn, Hayley?”

  I threw my hands up in exasperation. “I would want to have your bairn if I wanted to have bairn, but no, I told you this more than once.” I huffed. “I mean I think I told you, I thought we were on the same page. You heard me say it, right? And you didn’t want bairn either so we were in agreement.”

  “Aye, but ye daena hae a choice in the matter. A bairn will come and ye will be a fine mother, ye will see.”

  Quentin knocked on the door. “Almost done? We need to hit the road.”

  “Ugh.” I groaned. “This is too big an issue to discuss right now, I—” I took a deep breath.

  He looked crestfallen and lost. He was stopped mid-motion with his arm down inside a bag.

  Quentin asked again, “Ready Hayley?”

  I went to the door and peeked out. “A couple more minutes, okay?”

  I turned back to Fraoch.

  “You don’t want a baby, right?”

  “I daena, I am verra worried on losin’ ye tae the—”

  “Where I come from, when I come from, there’s a pill I can take, so I won’t have a bairn, not right now. Especially now with all this danger. I take that pill. I didn’t think I needed to tell you about it, I just assumed we were talking about the same thing....” I shook my head. “It’s not because I don’t want your bairn, it’s that I don’t want any bairn. Fraoch, you don’t want a bairn. I don’t want a bairn. We aren’t going to have a bairn.”

  His brow drew down.

  “We daena hae tae hae a bairn?”

  “No, we don’t. And we can ‘play at hotcockles’ as you called it, as much as you want.”

  He tilted his head back and said, “Play at hotcockles as much as I want? I think ye would be surprised by how much I am wantin’ tae.”

  “I think you’d be surprised by how much I want to too.”

  “Could I strip ye of yer clothes now, Madame Hayley?”

  “Actually now it wouldn’t be fair to Quentin.” I grinned. “We have a mission. When we get back, definitely. We don’t need to discuss this more?”

  “Nae, we are in agreement.”

  I put my forehead on his chest. “God you are exasperating sometimes.”

  “I ken, but ye married me anyway.”

  I looked up and took the kiss he was leaning down to give me. “And if I was going to have a howling bairn, with all the baby shit and baby milk and diapers and...” I shuddered. “If I was going to do all of that, it would be with you, my love. Instead our story is about me and you. That’s pretty great.”

  “Tis.” He stepped away and we went to meet Quentin in the hall.

  Thirty-two - Hayley

  Quentin said, “We’re headed northeast, to Fartairchill, where Magnus and I jumped in and out when we wanted to a
rrive without the castle seeing us. Magnus is calling it the back up location. Fraoch knows the area, he agrees.”

  “Makes sense,” I said.

  We jogged down the dark hall, my flashlight pointed at the ground by my feet. We slowed at the stairs, because they were uneven, and we had to cling to the walls to keep from tripping. My skirts did not help. Quentin was in the rear and he had to slow to keep from stepping on my skirts and yanking me backwards.

  Once our feet hit the ground floor, we raced across the crowded courtyard, and then Quentin moved to the front and led us to the kitchen, through it, dark and still, though people slept on the floor, and then into a storage room, and another until he brought us to a low door.

  I said, “Great, a tunnel?”

  He said, “Yep, small and dark as hell. We need to be quiet in—”

  “One question: Will there be spiders?”

  Quentin shuddered. “I don’t even want to think about it. Tell yourself it’s the eighteenth century, they haven’t been invented yet.”

  I stared through the door. “Good, because that hole looks like it might have spiders and I’m liable to really really freak out if I see one. Just so you know.”

  “You won’t. Trust me. And maybe don’t look anywhere, just concentrate on my shoulder.”

  “What if your shoulder has a spider on it? Ever think of that?”

  Quentin and I both shuddered.

  Fraoch said, “If ye see a spider ye just smack it with yer hand, tis naething tae think on.”

  We both shuddered again. Quentin asked, “Everyone locked and loaded?”

  Fraoch said, “Tis the meanin’, is m’bhean ghlan ready?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then, aye, I am lockinload.”

  “Perfect. In we go.” Quentin pulled his night vision goggles on and switched off his light.

  The tunnel sucked, and I was short enough that I didn’t have to duck. Quentin and Fraoch had to duck and it seemed really awful by their grunting and furious exhaling. After many yards of anxious following him with close-by squeaking sounds and rustling noises and god only knows how many spiders, I did focus on his shoulder.

  We made it to the door at the end, Quentin first. “Hold onto me, Hayley, stand right behind me.”

  Fraoch asked, “We clear?”

  Quentin peeked. “Yep, looks like it. We have to get to the bridge and cross it, but then it will be easier going.”

  “How long?” I asked.

  Fraoch said, “Tis nae far, we will arrive at the churchyard by dawn.”

  I gulped.

  Quentin said, “You can use your flashlights now. But we should start moving.”

  We walked fast. At the river we spotted a group of men, but they were far away down the bank. We quickly turned off the flashlights and hid in the bushes, waiting for a few tense moments before continuing on.

  Quentin wore the night vision goggles, I followed, clutching the back of his shirt. Fraoch was right behind me. He didn’t seem to need to hold on, somehow seeing well enough in the dark.

  At last we came to the village and crouched behind a tree. Fraoch pointed, “The churchyard is just there.”

  Quentin handed Fraoch his gun, and asked if he wanted the night-vision goggles.

  “Nae, I can see. Ye canna see?”

  “I can’t see anything. It’s total darkness.”

  Fraoch said, “I can see tae the churchyard, tis clear.”

  Quentin said, “Okay then, you want them, Hayley?”

  “Definitely.” I pulled them down over my eyes. But everything looked crazy and I wasn’t used to it, so I propped them up on my head. I would have time after he was gone to figure them out. Quentin held a flashlight in his mouth and dug through his bag. He took a long drink of Emma’s potion, and then dropped two tablets on his tongue, unscrewed the top of a water bottle, and tossed the pills back. “I took some back at the castle, but a little more won’t hurt.”

  I said, “You got your vessel? We’ll cover you from here, ready?”

  Quentin said, “Yep. You’ll be here when I get back?”

  Fraoch said, “Aye, Hayley and I will be waitin’ under this yew.”

  Quentin said, “Okay, and I’m off,” he pointed the light down on the vessel, twisted the rings, and set it to buzzing. Then he ran toward the churchyard,

  The rising sun was on the cusp of brightening the sky, but then the storm clouds rose, darkening everything. Fraoch and I held onto each other as the wind whipped and buffeted around us and then after some long scary moments slowly dissipated, leaving just an empty churchyard and a sky that was beginning to dawn. It seemed like today was going to be good weather, a day where we would be hiding in the woods of course, that wasn’t great, but good enough weather, finally.

  Thirty-three - Kaitlyn

  My day was a bustle of activity at odds with itself. Emma, Beaty, and I had spent the morning shopping for Halloween costumes for the kids, because I remembered being a child when my mom took me at the last minute and all the best costumes were gone. We wanted to go sooner than later, plus we wanted photos of the boys in their costumes. This was reminiscent of that day, what seemed forever ago, when I lost the baby, which was melancholy, but I refused to be sad.

  Standing in the aisle of the Halloween costume shop, holding up two packages for Archie, I asked, “Do you want to be a doggy or a kitty?”

  He pulled a different costume from the rack, just about tearing the bag before I could see what was inside.

  I asked, “A knight?”

  “Me knight.” He grasped the handle of the sword that dangled beside it.

  “Ah.” Here we go.

  My nature was to try and talk him into being something more peaceful, perhaps less, ‘this is going to be your life someday’, but then again future Archie had wanted to help his dad, to be like his dad, and why not? His dad was pretty great.

  “Okay, perfect, you get to be a knight. You’ll carry a sword.”

  “Big sword!”

  I grinned. “Yeah, good point, this is a tiny sword, you want...” I followed his eyes to the plastic swords on the wall. One was a replica claymore, longer than he was tall.

  I pulled it down. “This is a very big sword, is that the one you want?”

  “Aye.” He said in the cutest little toddler voice and there was literally no way I was not going to buy it for him. Even if he would have to drag it around behind him or I would have to drag it around as I carried him trick-or-treating.

  Trick-or-treating seemed like a long way away and we really needed to focus on what was at hand... a big ass hurricane bearing down on the coastline.

  I sighed.

  The baby kicked quite a bit, a lovely feeling that I adored.

  Emma came around the rack with a bunny costume for Ben, but Ben streamlined for Archie’s really long sword. “Cool!” He said in his little baby voice so it sounded like coow.

  He looked up at Emma with big baby eyes and said, “Me sword too?”

  Emma looked at Archie and then at the costume in her hand. “You want to be a knight? You really wanted to be a bunny—”

  “Bunny with sword!”

  Emma stifled her laugh, “Okay, perfect, bunny with a sword. Your dad will love it.”

  I asked, “Beaty? Do you want a costume?” But Beaty wasn’t in the store.

  I passed my armful to Emma and went out to the parking lot to check on her.

  “Beaty?”

  She was pacing beside the car.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I canna, Queen Kaitlyn, tis a verra many monsters and evil spirits inside. I canna—” She burst into tears. “Ye hae left Archie inside, what if somethin’ happens tae—?”

  I put an arm around her and tried to soothe her. “In retrospect this is too much to show you, clearly. I’m sorry, this is all make-believe. Archie is fine.”

  She clung to me, “Twas a witch inside, she was starin’ at me and...” She sobbed, “She might hae cursed me!”


  I texted Emma:

  Can you send the boys out? Beaty is scared.

  A second later Emma was at the door of the shop, shooing the little boys out.

  “See? They’re fine.” I called them to come down the sidewalk.

  She wiped her eyes and hugged them both, kissing their faces and fussing over them as if they had just come through a dark evil forest into the light, which I guess in some ways they had. I made a mental note to remember that Beaty, with all her modern ideas, was still an eighteenth century girl and sometimes there was too much for her to have to learn all at once.

  On the way home Beaty sat between the car seats in the back. Both the boys were strapped into their seats holding their claymores in their chubby little hands, while Beaty explained to them, “Ye must be verra careful with yer claymore, tis an honor tae hold them. Dost ye understand? Tis tae protect yer family and yer home and ye must carry them with honor in yer heart.”

  I looked back. Ben had his sword in his lap, but was looking at the picture on the front of his bunny costume. “Bunny,” he said.

  Archie was holding his sword, point down, his two wee hands on the hilt and a serious look on his face, nodding his head, as if understanding every word Beaty said. Like it was in his DNA, the meaning of it: Honor, duty, family.

  Emma had been watching in the rear view mirror. We met eyes.

  She said, “That’s a lot to carry.”

  I said, “Yep, his father carries a big sword too. That’s a lot of pressure — being a son of Magnus.”

  I came out to the kitchen. “Guess what? It’s happening!”

  It was a quick lunch break. Zach and Magnus, along with the three young men we had hired, had been attaching plywood over the windows, cutting limbs back from the trees, and putting our garden stuff into the garages. I had gone out to watch Magnus use his battery-powered screw gun, something I never believed I would see him do and it was frankly hot as hell the way he held the plywood with his left hand and with biceps rippling pushed the screw gun against it. Yum.

  But now they were taking a break. Zach and Emma were making sub sandwiches, with handfuls of chips on paper plates for everyone.