He knelt down and put out his hand. “Give it tae me. Tis mine.”
“Nae, ye canna hae it.”
I would fall tae m’death on the rocks, or I would journey through time. I dinna want tae do either. They were both brutal and terrible and I felt certain they would both kill me. If I tried tae do one would I end up doin’ them both at once?
“Max!”
His voice was still too far away, “Hold on!”
The man said, “Give me yer hand.”
Either way I was certainly a dead man.I might as well depart.
I pulled the vessel from my sporran, tucked it under my arm, clamped down, and twisted it with one hand, grunting from the effort. I felt the dragging clawing pain shoot up my arm and body as m’other arm slid from the root and I was flung.
I was pulledtae consciousness once more. Everything ached. My body was tormented by pain, but the sun was bright, the smells intense, the feel of the wind was soothing, the now familiar smell of earth and grass — twas the time of Mistress Lexi and I was somehow returned tae her lands.
14
LEXI
2004 - LAUREL RIDGE HOUSE
Iwoke up on the couch, my feet under Jen’s ass. The left one was asleep.Ow ow ow owie.I dislodged them by shoving her aside, pulling them out, swinging my legs off the couch, and pressing the foot on the ground, stamping?—
Jen mumbled, “What?”
“My foot’s asleep.” I massaged it. “You slept on me.”
She said, “You’re kind of onmybed, no complaining. You have a bed upstairs, this downstairs is mine.” She opened one eye to look at Dude.
He meowed.
“Fine, it’s your couch, Dude, but still, I let you sleep with me, so you share.”
“I also have a guest room, you know this.”
She said, “I blame the wine and the hottie down there in your back-shack.”
“How is it his fault you drank too much?”
“He was confusing me with his, you know, muscles.”
I chuckled.
Then I looked at her with wide eyes. “You think he’s still outside standing guard?”
“Let’s go see!”
We both clambered up and went to the window. It looked empty down at the back-shack shadowed from the surrounding trees, even though it was late morning.
For some reason I whispered, “Is he in there?”
She said, “We must go see.” She added, “With coffee.”
We watched the back-shack as I brewed a pot, then we took our mugs and a carafe with coffee for Torin down the hill to check on him.
As we approached, I called out, “Torin? Torin, are you here?”
