Page 37
A soft nicker had her opening her eyes.
Was that a horse? Indoors?
Smoke, wet wool, and something savory cooking over a fire reached her next, making her stomach growl.
She lay still beneath a heavy wool blanket while the room gradually came into focus. Peat crackled low in the hearth, rain tapped against the slate overhead, and cold air brushed her face through an opening that might have been where a window or a door was meant to be.
The mattress rustled beneath her when she shifted, straw packed beneath a linen covering, and every movement uncovered another complaint from her body. Her knees throbbed from hitting the ground outside the tunnel, one wrist ached when she turned her hand, and the muscles along her shoulders and thighs remembered yesterday’s horseback ride considerably better than she did.
Rough beams crossed the ceiling, darkened by smoke and age, while the stone walls had been repaired in patches that made no attempt to disguise how old the place was. At the far end of the chamber, gray daylight and a brisk breeze entered through a missing section of wall.
The seriously good-looking Scot stood by the hearth, stirring an iron pot with a wooden spoon.
Jamie Campbell.
Memory snapped into place. The storm shaking the hill. The old woman appearing inside the passage. Calum shouting as the lights failed. Jamie finding her outside a tunnel that should have opened next to Glenbrae Distillery and instead opened onto a landscape where the distillery, access road, warehouses, fencing, restoration vans, scaffolding, power lines, and everything else belonging to her own century had vanished.
Dunarraidh Castle, which had been a picturesque ruin when she’d entered the tunnel, now had smoke rising from rooms that were no longer in ruin.
And Jamie had told her the year.
Olivia stared at the ceiling for another moment.
She’d entered the tunnel in 2026, the same tunnel all the consultants before her had sworn was cursed, and after what felt like having her insides rearranged, walked out into the exact year attached to the whisky everyone at Glenbrae had spent years trying and failing to reproduce.
Sleep had done absolutely nothing to make that coincidence less insane. She pushed herself upright too quickly, and the room tilted hard enough that a small sound escaped her.
Jamie turned immediately. The spoon dropped into the pot, and he crossed the room before Olivia could decide whether the floor was actually moving.
“Easy, lass. Ye’ve already struck yer head once.”
His hands steadied her without gripping, and when he eased her back against the mattress, he stepped away again as soon as the room stopped threatening to turn sideways.
“I’m fine.”
Jamie’s gaze dropped to where both of her hands were clutching the bedding.
“Aye, I can see that.”
Olivia ignored that. “How long was I asleep?”
“All day and night. ’Tis morning.”
No wonder she was famished. She breathed slowly until Jamie no longer appeared to be standing at an angle, then pushed the blanket aside and put her bare feet on the flagstones. The cold went through her so quickly she nearly yelped.
Her waterproof pants, her socks and her boots were missing. Olivia looked toward the hearth and found them sitting beside the fire. Most of the mud had been cleaned from the black leather boots, and they’d been placed near enough to the warmth to dry without scorching. Her socks and pants lay beside them.
“Ye shucked them off before you fell asleep.” Jamie followed her gaze. “Before ye threaten me, they were soaked, and I cleaned most of the muck off. Ye canna put wet socks on. You’ll catch a chill.”
“I wasn’t going to threaten you.”
His eyebrow rose.
“Immediately.”
His mouth twitched.
“I’ve never seen such trousers. The ones by hearth keep the rain from soaking through.” He rubbed his chin. “I wiped the rain away.” Then he looked at her legs. “What fabric is that?”
