Page 59 of Blood of the Thistle

Anna laughed for what felt like the first time in ages, and for a few minutes she thought she’d succeeded.

She told him about airplanes, television, cars and eventually wars that had drawn much of the world into the same conflict. Bram asked how hundreds of people could possibly be carried through the sky and wanted to know what made a picture move, but each small spark of curiosity faded before she could coax it into a real conversation. It was only after describing how the future world had put a man on the moon and receiving little more than a thoughtful aye that Anna remembered, with a sinking heart, that he didn’t actually believe her. Not about the part that mattered, anyway. For all she knew, he regarded her accounts of 2026 as elaborate tales and merely lacked the cruelty to tell her so.

After a while, she simply stopped trying to engage him.

Her dejection finally forced the question: why was she still with Bram? Following him at first was pure survival; she’d been terrified and confused, acting on instinct alone. But now? She was still lost, but she was no longer in shock. Shouldn’t she question if heading north, farther and farther from York, was the right choice? Sometime in the last week, without making a conscious decision, her goal had shifted. She was no longer a lost woman trying to get home, but a woman accompanying Bram MacCailin on his journey. She could argue that her choices in those first few bewildered days didn’t count, but that was an excuse, and she knew it.

Still, she knew also that some part of her, for reasons that seemed to evolve day by day, kept choosing Bram, choosing to remain with him—and that not all of those reasons had to do with safety and less fear.

The realization struck her with the force of a physical blow: she was an idiot.

The thought, surprisingly, was followed by a flicker of dark humor.

Well, she supposed she could at least take comfort in the fact that she hadn’t repeated her usual mistake. Bram, at first glance, hadn’t struck her as the sort of man any sensible woman would have chosen. The first time she’d laid eyes on him he’d been barefoot, dressed in filthy rags, wearing an iron shackle, and looking desperate enough to kill anyone who stood between him and freedom.

Anna sighed. Good grief. That doesn’t actually make me feel any better.

If anything, it suggested her judgment had somehow deteriorated. Apparently she’d progressed from choosing men who checked all the boxes and seemed a good fit but ultimately disappointed her, to choosing an escaped medieval prisoner running for his life, who in no way would have been able to check any eligible bachelor box but had, in the space of a single kiss, managed to rearrange everything she thought she knew about wanting another person.

By the end of the third day, the dense forests finally gave way to rolling meadows. For the first time since she’d arrived in this century, Anna saw a home.

A small stone farmhouse, nestled among thatched outbuildings and encircled by a timber fence, breathed life into the landscape. Smoke curled from its chimney, a sign of warmth and people that struck a deep, yearning chord within her. After a week of seeing this world only as a dangerous wilderness through Bram’s watchful eyes, the sight of something so ordinary felt profound. It looked peaceful, almost like a historical reenactment farm she could have visited back home. The illusion was so powerful, so tempting, that she had to remind herself it was real—a home in the year 1305.

They moved on, keeping distance between them and the home, and Anna saw that another house lay beyond the first. Ahead, beyond a low stone wall that marked the far boundary of the second farm, stood an orchard. Row upon row of fruit trees stretched across a gentle rise, their branches heavy with late-summer apples in shades of green and red beneath the slanting rays of the descending sun. Fallen fruit lay scattered through the short grass beneath the trees.

Anna’s mouth watered. She’d not realized until then just how weary she’d become of living upon whatever Bram happened to find. For more than a week they’d survived entirely upon berries gathered from woodland thickets, mushrooms Bram declared safe to eat, and an assortment of roots he’d unearthed with his knife, each one introduced by a Gaelic name that meant absolutely nothing to her. She’d eaten them because he had, and because she was that hungry, but they had been earthy, fibrous things that filled her stomach only briefly before the persistent ache of hunger quietly returned. She hadn’t complained of course, partly because she knew there was little point, but mostly because Bram always gave her an equal share, even as she imagined he needed it more than she.

A small stand of trees, perhaps fifty feet in length and little more than a dozen feet deep, provided the only concealment anywhere near the farmstead. Bram steered the gelding into the thin screen of trunks and undergrowth before drawing gently upon the reins. It was meager cover at best, but from there was only fifty feet of open ground separating them from the nearest fruit-bearing trees.

“I hope you’re thinking what I’m thinking,” she said, too delighted by the bounty hanging from the branches to maintain the stiff, careful tone she’d adopted most recently in response to his growing reserve.

“Thieving?”

A smile curved her lips. “Oh, actually I was thinking about filling my belly.”

“Which will require thieving.”

“Okay, true,” she acknowledged. “I’ve never stolen anything in my life, but I have to tell you, I’m really not worried about preserving that record right now.” She paused and then added, “Honestly, if that were bread growing on those trees, I might even consider committing armed robbery.”

She thought she heard the faintest hint of amusement in the quiet breath behind her before Bram answered, “I dinna ken it will come to that.” His voice remained low and characteristically even, yet it lacked the flat detachment that had marked nearly every exchange between them since the kiss. “Let’s abide for a moment, and see what goes on there.”

***

He reined the gelding into the stand of trees, the concealment offering no relief. For three days, he had walled off the memory of the lochan, pouring his focus into the ride—the track of the sun, the lay of the land, the constant search for patrols. But now, waiting for darkness, there was no distraction. There was only Anastasia. She sat before him, her back a warm, solid press against his chest. A stray strand of her hair, lifted by the breeze, brushed his jaw, and the simple touch was a fresh torment. She did nothing to invite his notice; she simply existed, and her existence was a greater threat to his control than any English patrol. He knew with cold certainty that to remain this close to her any longer would be an agony.

Bram swung down from the saddle and wordlessly assisted Anastasia before stepping away almost at once, taking the reins with him. He tethered the gelding where it might graze quietly before crossing to a nearby oak and leaning one shoulder against its rough trunk, deliberately placing several yards between himself and the woman who had occupied far too many of his thoughts these past three days.

She settled herself against the slender trunk of a young ash, drawing her knees close while she watched the farmstead in silence, and though she remained several paces away, Bram found himself conscious of her every movement.

The kiss three days ago had been a betrayal of his own vigilance. In that moment by the lochan, Anastasia had stripped him of all awareness, leaving him deaf and blind to everything but her. An English patrol could have ridden them down, and he’d have died without ever drawing his sword. That lapse alone was a chilling indictment. But it was compounded by the faces of the men he’d lost to Raghnall Hay’s ambush—men who would never feel a woman’s touch again. He had survived, and for what? To forget his duty in the arms of a stranger? He had no right to such comfort while the traitor lived. He’d intended for her to feel his withdrawal, to believe him cold or regretful. It was a necessary cruelty. Letting her think the kiss meant nothing was a far lesser sin than admitting how deeply it had scarred him to pull away.

His frustration lay not with Anastasia, but entirely with himself.

And he was at all unaware of what she’d attempted with her near-constant chatter these past three days. She wanted to draw him into conversation again, and when his answers failed to encourage her, she simply filled the silence herself. He’d heard a great deal about her sister Mallory—her children, her many tattoos, her troubles and questionable choices—and despite that rather remarkable accounting of the woman’s faults, there was no mistaking how dearly Anastasia loved her, or how deeply she missed her.

There was a certain charm to her prattle that he had been careful never to reveal he enjoyed. Her thoughts wandered down scattered paths, one subject leading inexplicably into another, and even as he struggled to believe half of what she told him, he liked listening to her tell it. Her voice was sweet and expressive, changing with every story, and Bram had discovered to his considerable annoyance that he could have listened to it from dawn until nightfall without tiring of it.

But now, Bram watched the little farmstead for the better part of an hour before deciding to approach.