"Okay, here's the thing," Dani said. "I told you this once before, and you didn't believe me. Believe it this time. I'm from a different time period, almost four hundred years in the future."
"Dani—" Disappointment weighing his features, he shook his head. "Please cease these fanciful tales. I'm nay daft enough to believe them."
"If I can believe you're suffering from a witch's spell, why can't you believe I'm from the future?"
He drew in a deep breath and let it out. "Can you prove it?"
Hmm. Good question. If only she hadn't set down her backpack at the Highland games before she'd picked up the sword, she would've had several modern things with her, including a cell phone and a camera. She had her clothes and jewelry but never wore a watch. The blouse and skirt were handmade.
"My boots are factory-made." She would not mention her bra and panties, which she had hand-washed and hung to dry behind the screen.
His gaze searched her face. "Why did you say you were from the colonies, then?"
"I was afraid you would make me stay in the dungeon or send me to a madhouse. I'm from the United States, which is the nation the colonies turned into in the late 1700s, after the Revolutionary War."
"Indeed?"
"Yes, indeed, your majesty."
He scowled. "I'm nay the king, so cease mocking me. Let me see your boot."
She took one off and handed it to him. He examined it. "'Tis a good cobbler who made these. But how does this prove you're from the future? Wait, this says made in Italy."
"Yes."
"Why wouldn't these United States you speak of make their own shoes?"
"Shoes and boots are made in lots of different countries all over the world."
He gave her the boot, and she put it on.
He shrugged. "Mayhap you traveled to Italy, or Italian bootmakers sent a shipload of boots to the colonies."
"Didn't you notice how different my English is from yours?"
"Aye, 'tis clear you're from a different country."
She sighed. "I have no other way to prove it."
"So, why do you want a sword if nay for killing me… or someone?"
"I went to the Highland games, and a man named Ranald MacTavish called me over to his clan tent. He said he knew my grandmother. He showed me your claymore and suggested I hold it. When I did, I heard a loud boom and felt a sharp pain in my head. I showed up in your bedroom, still holding your sword. Well, I dropped it. Anyway, you know the rest."
He stared at her for a long moment with a disbelieving expression. "Someone had my sword four-hundred years in the future?"
"Yes."
"Ranald MacTavish, you said? What did he look like?"
She described the Santa-wanna-be.
"Aye. Sounds like him." Gavin shook his head. "Ranald MacTavish was my great uncle. He died about a decade ago."
A chill spiraled through her. "So, he was a ghost?"
"And you're thinking if you hold my sword again, you can travel back to your own time."
She nodded.
