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“If only I had not followed my ambition but come back when I promised. Ubba would have found someone else to raid the monastery. But she would be alive. I killed her. Her and my whole village. Charred beams now stand where people lived for generations. As strong a warrior as I am, I cannot protect those I love.”

Cathy’s heart squeezed. She scooched closer and took his hand. His skin was rough and calloused, and his fingers were cold. She rubbed them between her palms.

“My fiancé died—almost died—because he protected me,” she said. “And I’d rather he hadn’t. I’m sure she felt the same.”

He inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring, his jaw muscles working under his beard.

“If she loved you, Andor, there is no way she blamed you for any of that. You shouldn’t, either.”

He glanced up into the milky gray sky lying low above the dark branches of the trees, his face as tense as a mask. A raven crowed somewhere.

Cathy’s eye burned with unshed tears. She wondered if Andor’s wife was up there somewhere. Or if Brad was. Maybe they both were present in some way. Maybe they were like angels, watching over Andor and her.

Andor returned his gaze to her, his eyes dark with pain. “I would like to believe that. But even if it is true, I can never forgive myself. Not when endangering her life was so clearly in my hands. All I had to do was keep my promise to her and come back home when I was supposed to.”

Cathy squeezed his rough hand in hers and put her head on his shoulder.

“Even that weak monk, Aethelred, who cannot lift a sword, has more strength than me. He forgave me. But I do not think I should be forgiven, Cathy.”

Helplessness weakened Cathy’s shoulders. She couldn’t make him forgive himself. He needed to find his own way to do that, and she hoped that he would, with time. All she could do was offer him comfort.

And she hoped that time would work a miracle for her, too, and take her back to the future. Although, strangely, the urge to return to the life she knew shrank daily.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Does that look empty to you?” Cathy said, pointing between two rolling hills.

She sat in front of him on the horse. With her luscious behind between his thighs, today’s trip was the most pleasant he had been on in ages. Now dusk was starting to fall, and the horse was getting tired, so they had left the road in search of a place to spend the night.

Andor squinted in the direction Cathy pointed and saw two wooden buildings with thatched roofs.

“It is hard to say.” He brought the horse to a halt. “I shall go and check. If someone is inside, it is better that they do not hear us approach. Stay here.”

He jumped off the horse and helped her dismount, too. Then he unsheathed his sword and went to the houses. The farm had likely either been abandoned or raided—if someone still lived there, they would almost certainly have a fire burning and candles lit against the coming night. The door to what looked like a cowshed was open and hay was scattered on the dirt floor. The second building had a south-facing window with wooden blinds. The door was open. He stood and listened but heard nothing but the distant burbling of flowing water—probably a stream or a river—the wind and the rustling of the woods that lay three dozen steps away. There was a vegetable garden behind the house, empty.

Andor peered inside the house and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. There were signs of battle—broken clay jars and wooden utensils littered the reed floor. The smell of dust and decay hung in the air. A hearth stood in the middle with a cauldron. Andor’s stomach rumbled at the thought of a hot stew, something other than grilled hare.

His eyes fell on the single bed and he closed them briefly. He would sleep on the floor because he would not be able to restrain himself if he slept in the same bed with Cathy. She was already promised to another and was eager to get back to him. Andor should be careful not to allow her into his heart.

The owners would probably not be back. So unless other travelers decided to stay here for the night, they should be safe and would have their first decent rest in a long time.

Andor went back for Cathy, who took the news of their night’s lodgings with a heartwarming smile that made him grin, too.

Inside the house, she looked at the hearth and the cauldron with the same hope that boiled within him.

“Are you saying that we might have something warm to eat today?” she asked.

“We might. Go check the garden, maybe there are still some vegetables left in the soil. I shall bring water and firewood.”

He gave water to the horse, cut the wood, and came back into the house. Cathy was peeling parsnips, and white carrots lay on the table next to her.

“There is a root cellar over there.” She pointed at a small trapdoor in the floor in the far corner of the house. “I’ll cook up some soup or a stew with what I can find in there, and maybe a rabbit would be nice.”

Andor put the water on the floor and the wood he had cut in the hearth. “I shall find one then.”

He started the fire and put water in the cauldron to start heating. As he went out the door to look for a rabbit, he glanced back at the room and the sight made his chest ache.

It was so homey. The warmth of the fire in the hearth, his woman cooking dinner, him going hunting. Everything he had forbidden himself to have…was afraid to have. And yet, deep down, he wanted it more than his next breath.