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He grabbed a bar and fingered it. “I saved yer life back there.”

“And landed us right in the midst of an enemy. Your enemy, by the way, not mine.”

“Ye landed us in the midst of the enemy. Nae me. Ye were the one who opened that lid like we were the only two people in Scotland. As though ye wanted them to catch us…”

She rubbed the floor of the cart with her boot and pursed her lips. “I didn’t want them to catch us. Stop blaming me. What do they want with us, anyway?”

Owen glanced back at the riders. One of them returned a look—an attentive, heavy, careful glance. He was far enough away, but just in case he decided to ride closer, Owen moved across the floor to sit next to Amber. She raised her brows.

“They’re taking us to Stirling Castle. ’Tis one of the Sassenach strongholds in the south of Scotland.”

“How far?”

“Two or three days of travel, I think.”

“And what do you think they want from us?”

“Information, most likely. Mayhap, ransom. Probably both.”

She sighed. “I suppose that means prison?”

“Aye.”

He lowered his head to her, and her scent tickled his nostrils—something clean and flowery and foreign.

“’Tis why we must try to escape before we reach Stirling.”

Amber glanced at the guards again. Then at Owen. “I suppose that makes us allies. At least for now.”

“Aye. ’Tis best we work together, mysterious Amber from caliphate.”

She measured him with a stare.

“Mind your business, Owen Cambel. And I will mind mine.”

She even pronounced his clan name like Amy did, with that wee pause between the m and the b. He liked that.

How mad was he exactly to be thinking what he was thinking? And how mad was he that he wanted to listen to his name coming from her lips again and again? Especially since the worst thing he could do now was lose his head again over a woman while they were being held prisoner.

Chapter 5

Amber grasped the bars of the cage and looked around at where they were stopping. The terrain was less hilly. They’d probably left the Highlands and were moving closer to the Lowlands now. There were plenty of opportunities to get lost in the relatively thick woods here.

Owen exchanged a look with her. She hated that she needed to rely on a complete stranger to free herself—especially a man. Especially after what had happened to her in Afghanistan.

But at the moment, she had no choice. There must be some sort of way out of the cage and away from here. Wherever “here” was.

Where was she exactly? She still couldn’t fully buy into the idea that she’d traveled through time. Could this be a hallucination or a vivid dream? And where would she go if they managed to escape the English soldiers?

She had no idea. All she knew, she had to escape. She wouldn’t let herself be taken to prison for no reason.

Owen had already checked the giant iron lock on the cage, and so had she. If she’d been from the fifties and wore any hair pins, she could have tried to pick the lock with one. Maybe Owen knew how to do that, but she couldn’t think of anything thin and sturdy enough to do the job.

The soldiers were dismounting and setting up camp. They started making fires and pitching tents. Amber thought that some things never changed, like the look of defeat and sadness on a soldier’s face after losing a battle, the grief. She’d known that pain, too.

As the English passed by the cage, they threw curious glances at Owen and Amber, most of them halting for just a moment to ogle her. They were no doubt curious about the way she looked. They might not have seen anyone who looked and dressed like her around here, but that was no reason to stare. Her fists itched to punch the bastards. She felt Owen tense every time they stopped, too.

The air was still bright, but shadows grew longer and everything around them got that golden hue of early evening. Amber crawled to sit next to Owen, and he cocked his head to her.