by Beth Trissel
Somewhere in the Highlands
Somewhere in Time Series
Book 3
(The Sequel to Somewhere My Lass)
Sci-Fi Fantasy Time Travel Romance
By Beth Trissel
Story Excerpt
Fergus turned to dive after Hal’s hazy form.
No time to glance at his watch. It had been a mad scramble since they first charged through the portal, but five minutes must’ve passed by now. That truck needed to blow!
A loud boom and bright light answered his prayer.
“Fire in the hole!” Fergus shot down to the hard-packed earth and stone below.
Hal grabbed him, breaking his fall. “Always wanted to shout that, didn’t you?”
“Yep.” Fergus swept his gaze over the faces faintly illuminated by the glow from above. “You guys OK?”
“A relative term,” Hal grunted. “But tolerable.”
Beezus gave a short nod.
“This place is just as charming as I remember. No wider,” Fergus noted.
“Real cozy,” Hal said under his breath.
“Dug by dwarves, I expect. You may need to crouch down as we go along.”
“Counting on it.” Hal again. Beezus was sucking in deep gulps of air.
Fergus fished in a pocket for the LED flashlight and flipped it to green. That hue made everyone appear garish, but would show up less in the gloom. Beezus looked scared spitless, and with good reason. Morley might as well have painted a big red X on her. She was ‘it.’ But Fergus would die before he’d let Morley take her. The problem was, he might not still be here to stop him.
No room to ponder that challenge now. The clicking that emanated from Hal told Fergus his quick-witted friend had retrieved his ultrasonic device to better navigate their way. He’d better think fast too.
“Here, Beezus.” Fergus pressed the flashlight into her trembling fingers. “We can’t risk you bringing up the rear in case we’re pursued and you’re snatched again. Shine this ahead and follow the tunnel. Hal will go next and me last. And don’t look too closely at your surroundings.” He remembered his last trek through this tunnel with rats scattering across their feet, not to mention spiders and pushing through cobwebs. Wishing he could take her into his arms, Fergus laid a hand on her shoulder. “We’re right behind you. And if all goes as planned, Niall waits ahead.”
She lifted a quivering chin, resolve in her eyes. “Watch your back.” Snatching up trailing skirts with one hand, she directed the light with the other.
Angry voices sounded overhead.
Fergus snapped, “For God’s sake, don’t they ever give up?”
“That would be a negative, Captain,” Hal said gruffly.
He tailed Beezus and Fergus brought up the rear. At least the really big men couldn’t get through this narrow pass. That still left a considerable foe. Of course, Fergus had smoke bombs inside his coat to toss over his shoulder. And he did. Luckily the breeze was in his favor.
Coughs and curses carried from behind, then a man with a strong Scottish burr roared, “After them, lads!”
Praise for the Author
“Ms. Trissel’s alluring style of writing invites the reader into a world of fantasy and makes it so believable it is spellbinding.” ~Camellia, Long and Short Reviews
Author Awards
2008 Golden Heart® Finalist
2008 Winner Preditor's & Editor's Readers Poll for Best Romance Novel
Publisher’s Weekly BHB Reader’s Choice Best Books of 2009
2010 Best Romance Novel List at Buzzle
Five Time Book of the Week Winner at LASR
2012 Double Epic eBook Award Finalist
2012 Reader’s Favorite Finalist
2013 Won Book of the Month at LASR
Additional Romance Titles by Beth Trissel
The Bearwalker’s Daughter (The Native American Warrior Series)
Through the Fire (The Native American Warrior Series)
Red Bird’s Song (The Native American Warrior Series)
Kira, Daughter of the Moon (The Native American Warrior Series)
The Lady and the Warrior (Short)
A Warrior for Christmas (Also in audio)
Enemy of the King
Into the Lion’s Heart
Somewhere My Love (Somewhere in Time Series)
Somewhere My Lass (Somewhere in Time Series)
Somewhere the Bells Ring (Somewhere in Time Series)
Nonfiction Works by Beth Trissel
Shenandoah Watercolors
A Christmas in the 1960’s in A Very Virginia Christmas by Wilford Kale
COPYRIGHT July ©2013 by Beth Trissel
Contact: [email protected]
Cover Art by Elise Trissel
Published in the United States of America
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Dedication
To the brilliant geeks who inspired my quirky hero, Fergus~
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
About the Author
“Never tell me the odds.” ~Han Solo
Chapter One
Early November 2011, a Victorian home in historic Staunton, Virginia
Footfalls pounded down the stairs from the second story. A woman cried, “They’re coming!”
Beezus? Angus Fergus lowered his leather recliner with a thump. “Who is?”
Long brown hair spilling down over her red Trekkie T-shirt dress and hoodie, Beezus Mac tore into his living room. Particularly surprising as Fergus hadn’t even realized his friend—wished she were his girlfriend—was in the house.
“Here!” She thrust an ornate gold box at him. “Hide this!”
He set his laptop on the end table beside the jellyfish mood lamp and ‘There is no try, only do,’ Yoda coffee mug, and sprang to his feet. Warily, he took from her hands the gilded chest, its metal cold in his grasp. The only other light in the room came from the laserpod streaming a starry blue galaxy on the ceiling making everything appear surreal, especially her find—or take.
He gaped into her frightened eyes. “What is it?”
Darting glances over a slender shoulder, she insisted, “No time to explain. They’re coming. The MacDonalds are coming.”
An old fear welled in him. “All of them?”
“Not certain. I heard shouting behind me.”
No angry bellows reverberated in the old home. Yet. “Beezus, what have you done?”
She gulped out, “I borrowed your energy field detector—”
“Absconded with it, you mean.”
“And went through the portal,” she rushed on. “
Only supposed to be an in and out job, but I was seen in the crypt.”
He dropped his gaze to the shine of gold. The reliquary had a disturbingly familiar design associated with some seriously bad mojo. It came to him—Raiders of the Lost Ark!
“Cripes, Beezus. Tell me you didn’t steal the Ark of the Covenant.” According to the Old Testament, anyone who touched it was zapped by a bolt from heaven.
“The original is God knows where, and considerably larger, Fergus. This is from Persia, or some ancient place, carried to Scotland by the Knights Templar.”
That accounted for it winding up with the MacDonalds. “Any idea how many irate Scotsmen are on your tail?”
“Might only be one. Sounded like more shouting than that.”
“If it’s the fiend I’ve encountered, all it takes is one.”
Fergus raced to a corner of the room, flipped open the head on the life-sized droid, a replica of R2-D2, and stuck the jewel-like chest inside its body at a vertical angle. He snapped the head shut. Turning around, he ran into the front hall, making a mental note to find a new place to stash his stuff now that Beezus knew of his secret safe—assuming he lived that long. He grabbed the lightsaber from the Chinese urn holding canes and umbrellas in the foyer.
Beezus followed at his heels. “But that’s just a toy!”
“Actually—” He hit a switch on the end and the weapon of the Jedi came to green glowing life. “It’s a taser. I made a few alterations.”
She drew up. “Cool.” Even in her near panic, she sounded impressed.
“Grab a stout walking stick while we’re at it.”
Springing to action, she snatched a heavy knobbed cane with an impish monkey head.
“You would choose that one.” The same cane Neil had wielded in pursuit of the Red MacDonald two years ago. Fergus pivoted and made for the winding staircase. “What were you doing back in the MacDonald camp at Domhnall castle?”
She clambered behind him. “That’s where the portal leads.”
“Still? I figured the portal would’ve shifted after it closed.”
When he last passed through the wormhole connected to the mysterious door upstairs, it had been from the crypt below the castle chapel. He’d magnified the sensor in his energy field detector to pick up any activity, however slight, but not a blip or a buzz—until now. And Beezus had been the one to find it?
Annoyance and alarm melded in the flood of emotion coursing through him. “And you went through it because?”
“That reliquary should be mine. I’m the rightful MacDonald descendant.”
“How do you figure? There are hundreds of them, even got their own restaurant. You may have heard of it, Mickey D’s?”
“Not this line. And I’ve got the key to open that chest.”
She probably swiped that too. In a flash of insight he realized Beezus Mac must be short for Elizabeth MacDonald.
“Why don’t the original MacDonalds have the key?”
“Lost it during one of the raids on the castle. It turned up later in the family. Domhnall’s in ruins now.”
“And the gold box I just hid?”
She panted, “In a Scottish Museum.”
Exactly where it belonged. Fergus never should’ve told her about the wormhole linked with this house and his adventure through it two years ago. In a moment of weakness, punch-drunk from too much caffeine, lulled by those bewitching golden-brown eyes and an overpowering desire to share with someone, he’d succumbed.
She’d hung around the perimeter of his cyber circle, a geek wannabe, or so he’d thought, pretending friendship, he now realized. A recent transplant to Staunton, she’d appeared on his doorstep as though drawn to him, the fortunate chosen one. He should have known no woman that good-looking paid him much notice without an ulterior motive. If only he wasn’t so doggone attracted to her.
“You’re fortunate you didn’t get stranded back there. The portal’s unpredictable,” he warned.
She was practically on his heels. “This is bad enough. You’ve got to keep the MacDonalds from coming through.”
“I can’t close a fricking wormhole, Beezus. Just drive back anyone emerging through it.” Or die trying.
In his Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock T-shirt and jeans, he wouldn’t appear much of a threat to a 17th century Highland chieftain. But it was imperative to keep the Red MacDonald out of the house and the 21st century altogether. His last appearance here had fatal consequences. The man was a murderer, vowing vengeance. And none too fond of Fergus.
Well, the feeling was mutual.
Fergus tore down the upstairs hall lit by the floral china lamp on the table along one gold print wall. A full moon shone through the windows, the old glass wavy in the light.
There!
At the end of the passage stood the intricately carved door, the oak darkened with age. The stained glass archway above it fanned out in a half circle of saffron, red, and gold like the entry to a chapel. The door to nowhere, so called as it led out onto a nonexistent balcony. But nothing could be further from the truth when the portal opened.
The aged wood swung wide.
Through the blackened archway appeared the demon Fergus dreaded ever to meet again, Red MacDonald. Shadows dulled the fiery mane blowing over his scarlet and green plaid, but Fergus spotted the great sword slung across one broad shoulder in leather back scabbard. The hilt of the claymore protruded above the giant’s shoulder blade.
One step closer and stout legs encased in full-length green trews came into view. Then those glittering blue eyes.
How he hated those eyes.
The enraged Scotsman pierced him with a glare. “You!”
A primal yowl tore from some place deep inside Fergus and he raised his lightsaber.
Chapter Two
Too stunned to move, Beezus watched Fergus charge the battle-hardened chieftain looming a head above him. Before this fearless assault, she would’ve termed Fergus boyish. Definitely a geek. Now, observing him in action, he struck her as wiry and agile.
Dear God. That broad sword was coming right at him.
He dodged the great blade and spun around. In an unbelievable feat, he leapt across the lethal edge and out of its reach. Back he dove, prodding the menace with his improvised taser. The air sizzled green.
The Scotsman howled. Fergus sprang away—caught off-guard when the flat of the sword whacked him on his temple.
He staggered back, shaking his head, dizzied by the blow.
The powerful urge surging in Beezus went beyond mere self-preservation to protecting her own. When Fergus had achieved this status, she wasn’t certain. But any notion she might’ve had of leaving him to battle it out alone while she escaped with the relic fled in the wake of this protective swell. Rushing at the Highlander, she landed a blow to his thick skull with the heavy end of the monkey headed cane.
Bellowing like an affronted bull, he rounded on her. “Git off ye thieving lass, or ye’ll suffer dearly.”
“No!” Fergus shook off his blow and charged. “You get back!” With the fury of ten, he thrust the weapon of the Jedi into his opponent’s midriff.
Howls sounded against the green crackle. Arms flailing, the big man toppled back through the open door. Then—
Silence. He must be unconscious.
Scant time to rejoice. A second Scotsman rushed through the entryway and Fergus bounded forward to meet him. He ducked the slicing blade, spun away and back around so fast he blurred before her eyes. He wielded his unlikely weapon like a pro.
Fergus once remarked, ‘Why be a regular knight when you can be a Jedi?’ But she hadn’t thought he was seriously in training.
Was that even possible?
Apparently so. The astonished Highlander stumbled back under Fergus’s swift attack. More cries amid the green crackle and he tumbled down beside his fallen leader. The men crowding behind them hesitated.
In that instant, Fergus grabbed the door and slammed it shut. Jaw clenched, he g
ripped the white porcelain knob. His youthful face—one she’d also thought appealingly youthful, framed by sandy-brown hair—was set in fierce lines. Here was no boy, but a warrior. All the forces of Hell would not prevail against him.
As if summoned to their aid, a plump middle-aged woman in a lavender dress and crocheted sweater appeared. Not out of thin air, like a ghost, but if she’d been there before, Beezus hadn’t noticed her arrival.
In her dimpled hands, she held a flowered carpetbag similar to the one Mary Poppins carried. Without a word, she knelt by Fergus and reached into her bag. Out came handfuls of what looked like sea salt. With steady fingers, she poured the coarse granules along the crack at the bottom of the door. A succession of stones followed, quartz, crystals, pink, green, turquoise, all colors. She hurriedly lined them up beside the salt at the base of this gateway to the past.
“These ward off negative energy.” She spoke over an ample shoulder, her gaze pinning Beezus. “I’ll do what I can to keep the portal shut, but can’t promise more than a few days.”
Beezus eyed her in wonder. “How can you assure even that?”
“I have certain gifts, child.”
She was like Mary Poppins.
Dipping back into her floral bag, the woman withdrew small tight bundles of dried herbs. Beezus recognized the green-gray leaves of sage in the fragrant blend she laid alongside the stones, but wasn’t sure of the others. Taking a lighter, the woman set fire to a bundle and waved it around. The smoldering leaves charged the air with a spicy scent. Under her breath, she murmured indistinct words in a foreign language, Latin perhaps. Maybe she was Catholic, or—
“Are you some kind of sorceress?” Beezus asked.
A smile creased her pleasant face and shone in clear blue eyes similar to Fergus’s. “A seer, dear.”
“Mom just knows things.” Fergus seemed more himself now that the immediate crises had passed.
“You’re Mrs. Fergus?” The last Beezus had heard his mother was away managing her art gallery in Winchester. She’d certainly made a timely arrival home, but she supposed a seer would.
