The bullet hit my lung.
He fingered the bullet again and realized it protruded from his chest far enough he could grab the edges of it with his fingers. It had been deeper at one point. Of that he felt sure. But somehow it had popped back up again like a buoy.
This is going to hurt.
He dug his nails around it and braced himself.
One, two—
He pulled it out with a sucking pop. A searing pain radiated across his chest and he gasped, falling sideways, his elbow pushing deep into the mud.
He closed his eyes as the pain slowly subsided. He’d have to be careful, because now he knew there would be no antibiotics for this wound. The pain had helped him realize the truth.
I jumped.
He’d been blocking the possibility from his mind, but only time travel explained the weather, the damp, and the way a bullet had punctured his lung only to pop back out far enough that he could pluck it up like a lucky found penny.
His body had healed enough to live—the bullet had been pushed out of his lung—but he didn’t feel reborn. He felt ragged and sore.
He took slow breaths, each deeper than the last, until the wheezing subsided. It became easier to breathe. The lung had sealed, but the area still ached.
Sean rolled off his elbow and sat staring at the people. A little village sat maybe five hundred yards from where he’d landed. From where he’d appeared? He wasn’t sure what it had looked like when he arrived, but apparently, no one had seen.
The peasants didn’t notice him even now, but he watched them and chewed on the awful truth. Unless he’d awoken on the outskirts of a renaissance festival, he could safely assume he’d gone back in time hundreds of years.
No medicine. No Jaguars.
No Catriona. No Broch. No Luther.
He’d only just been reunited with his son and now he was gone from the boy’s life again. Catriona still needed time and training—
He set his jaw.
No time to dwell.
He needed to find somewhere safe to heal. He wouldn’t last an evening half-soaked, lying on the cold peat.
Peat. It was peat surrounding him.
Could I be back in Scotland?
Groaning, he climbed to his feet. He stared a moment at his sneakers, worried what his new neighbors might think of his strange footwear, and then shrugged. It didn’t matter. He could make up a country from which he hailed and they’d believe him. Their education of the world stretched only as far as their eye could see. He could tell them he’d come from a country called New Balance.
But don’t be too strange. Next thing you know, they’ll be claiming you’re a witch.
That never ended well for the witch.
Hand on his chest, he stumbled down a shallow hill and entered the small crowd of people. A few villagers cast curious looks in his direction before hurrying on their way. Apparently, he hadn’t bumped into anyone in charge yet...anyone who felt they had the right to demand to know who he was.
He tapped the arm of a man pulling chunks of bread off a loaf and stuffing them into his mouth as he stared into the distance.
“What day is this?” he asked.
Please speak English. Some of the conversations he heard around him sounded English, but others didn’t. His head still felt jumbled. He wasn’t sure if they were speaking funny, or if his muddled head hadn’t yet found a way to process what he heard.
The man snapped from his trance and looked at him. He eyeballed Sean’s modern shirt, his attention falling and lingering on the sneakers before returning to his face.
“Whit day? Tis tenth October.”
Sean shook his head. “I mean what year?”
“Whit year?” The man laughed. “Tis year o’ our laird seventeen twenty-yin.”
Judging from the peasant’s accent, filthy tartan and leggings...
“Scotland?” he asked, wincing at how silly he sounded.
The man squinted at him. Sean could tell amused ridicule had turned to uneasy suspicion. Only a man with something wrong in his head wouldn’t know the year, month, day or country. This man had no interest in talking to a lunatic.
“Aye, Glen Orchy,” the man mumbled as he wandered away, clearly unconcerned his sudden departure might be read as rude.
Sean nodded and tried to appear as pleasant as possible.
October tenth, seventeen twenty-one, Glen Orchy.
Sean felt his skin crawl.
No. It couldn’t be.
The day his wife had been killed by Thorn Campbell.
Sean glanced at his wrist and realized he hadn’t worn a watch. He’d gotten tired of constantly checking it—it was like having a second boss, wrapped around his arm, nagging him.
Shoot. The one day I could really use one…
He stopped a passing woman. “What time is it?”
The woman gave him the same odd look as the last man, but raised her hand to peer at the sun. “Tis early morn.”
“I still have time,” he said aloud. The woman left him without asking what he meant.
Sean scanned the surrounding moors, trying to find a way to orient himself.
It couldn’t be an accident.
Why would I come back to this time, this place, if it wasn’t to save my wife?
He’d been given a second chance. His young self was out there, somewhere, on his way to battle Thorn. But he could go to his home—the place he should have stayed—and stop Thorn’s men from murdering his wife.
Surely, he must have been to this village a million times. He’d simply forgotten. He’d been in Los Angeles for nearly thirty years.
North.
Yes. He remembered now. This village lay five miles south of his cottage.
Too far.
He couldn’t walk there in time. He didn’t know the exact moment his cottage
