Page 28 of Bewitching the Knight (A Knight’s Tale #2)

S amantha reached for Ian’s hand.

“Weel, weel, what have we here?”

She glanced up to see Malcolm, smiling and awful, and just beyond him, Jerry, sick with fear.

“Jerry, help me.”

Fright evident on his face, Jerry yelled, terror and determination in his voice, and launched himself at Malcolm. He grabbed both his arms and held them from behind.

Malcolm jerked his body back and forth as he tried to fight Jerry off and Samantha knew she didn’t have much time. She quickly plucked Ian’s dagger from its sheath and cut her finger with it.

Jerry strained to hold Malcolm as she lifted Ian’s bloody hand. “Samantha, don’t leave me.”

“I won’t. Jerry, you’re going to have to grab the crown and make sure you cut your fingers on it like last time, remember? Cut your fingers on it Jerry, just like before. Blood is the catalyst.”

Jerry was holding tight to Malcolm who was going wild, thrashing to and fro. “I…I will.”

Ian looked at her.

Samantha smiled. “Trust me?”

He gasped. “I do.”

“Jerry, now !”

Jerry shoved Malcolm away. Samantha placed Ian’s bloody hand on the crown, then shoved it on his head as Jerry grasped it. Malcolm came careening toward them, hands outstretched, to latch on tight. Screaming, they all pulled, jerked, yanked, and wrenched.

They were still screaming when the ten or so tourists, snapping pictures of the monument, gasped, gaped, and screamed themselves.

Samantha released the crown, and pulled Ian’s hand free.

Jerry, wide-eyed and bloody, jerked backward, tossing the crown topsy-turvy into the air.

Samantha lifted a blood-covered hand toward the tourists. “Oh, thank goodness. Call an ambulance. This man has been shot with an arrow.” One man pulled out his cell phone, and Samantha slumped in relief, placing a hand on Ian’s shoulder.

Jerry stood. Realized what had happened, and screamed, “Yeah!” He jumped up and pumped his fist in the air. “Yeah! Yeah!”

The older couple nearest him, backed away.

Mad Malcolm was looking around in confusion. He studied the tourists for a moment, took a few threatening steps forward, and finally raised his bow in the air and shook it as he screamed, long and loud.

They backed away, leaving a clear shot down the trail, and he took off running, shoving one man off his feet as he passed.

They all watched him disappear.

Samantha, holding Ian carefully, watched the man with the phone finish the call. “Are they coming?’

He nodded. “They’re on their way now. Less than five minutes, they said.”

Samantha looked at Ian’s pale, confused face. “Just hold on, Ian. Hold on for my sake, will you?” She prayed hard. Please, don’t let it be too late.

His grip briefly tightened on her hand and she admitted it to herself. She was scared. According to the history books Ian died on this day in the past. In his past, anyway. What if he still died this day? What if fate was set in stone, unchangeable?

A weird combination of hope and fear gripped her. Hope that fate would give them another chance, and fear that the past could not be changed, no matter the circumstances.

* * *

After a tense ride to the hospital and a rush down the hallway, Samantha had been banned from the surgery and directed to the waiting room.

Jerry had money wired to him and had gone off in search of real food as he called it. Samantha found a telephone, reversed the charges, and waited tensely while the phone rang.

She breathed out a sigh of relief when her grandfather answered and accepted the call. “Hello?”

She was so relieved to hear his voice, she burst into tears. “Hi, Grandpa,” she sniffed, and tried to get control.

“Samantha? Is that you? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. A friend of mine has been hurt. We’re at the hospital. I’ll…I’ll tell you all about it later. In the meantime, how are you doing?”

“Well,” he hissed in a breath between his teeth. “Much better now that I know you’re alive. I worried when I didn’t hear from you. The university tracked down your rental car weeks ago, but you’d disappeared.”

“I know.” She leaned back against the wall and wiped her eyes. She was amazed by all that had happened since she’d exited that car. “I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”

Grandpa exhaled loudly. “I knew you’d pull through. You’re too resourceful not to. Is your friend going to be okay?”

Samantha blinked back more tears. “I think so. I hope so. How about you? How’s your health?”

“I’m holding steady. No thanks to you for disappearing like that. So? Did you find it?”

“I did, Grandpa. I sure did. That and more.” She glanced at the bundle on the hospital chair beside her. One of the tourists had placed it in a drawstring bag and handed it to her in the ambulance.

Grandpa was silent for a moment. She heard him swallow. “I haven’t heard anything on the news. I’ve been watching. I thought maybe someone saw you with it…and took it. Took you .” He laughed. “Send me a photo? I’ll get that nurse to help me access the email.”

“Will do. But Grandpa, I told you I’m bringing it home, and I am. As soon as my friend is released from the hospital, I’m coming.”

He laughed again. “Well, if I see you, I’ll see you. Let me know if you need bail money.”

She chuckled. “I will. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Digger.” He laughed again. “I love you too.”

After they hung up, Jerry appeared, looking cleaner and wearing hospital scrubs. He shrugged. “It’s all they had. Any word?”

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“He’ll make it. He’s tough. Tougher than anyone I’ve ever met.”

She nodded.

He sat beside her and took her hand. “Samantha. I have to thank you.” Tears filled his eyes. “I couldn’t have stayed there. I wouldn’t have lasted.”

She squeezed his hand. “I wouldn’t have left you.”

He nodded. “I wouldn’t have blamed you. After I belittled you, tried to steal your find. I just want you to know I’m sorry… and I’m grateful. Nothing like Medieval Scotland to put things in focus, you know?’

She wiped at the tears filling her eyes. “I do.”

“So, is it serious? With you and MacGregor?”

Samantha nodded. Better to think of this than of the fact that Ian could be dying without her. “Probably. I think so. Yes.”

“So, you’re staying with him? Here in Scotland?”

Samantha continued to think positive. She wouldn’t allow anything else. He wasn’t dying in the other room, surrounded by strangers, in unfamiliar and perhaps fear-inducing surroundings. She gripped Jerry’s hand. “I’m trying to sort out what to do. I can’t leave him. Obviously. But I can’t take him home because he has no ID. But I need to get to my grandfather. He’s dying of cancer.”

“I’d heard that. I’m sorry. His death will be a blow to the archaeological community.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

“Tell you what. I’m booked on a flight out in,” he glanced at the clock on the wall. “Three hours. The rental car company picked up my car while we were gone and they’re holding my luggage at the airport. What if I overnight you my passport?”

Samantha rolled her eyes. “You guys don’t look alike.”

“Same dark hair, similar green eyes. Same height. The guy has some major five o’clock shadow going on.” He shrugged. “It’s worth a shot, right?”

“He’s got fifty pounds on you.” She looked at him, grimaced, and felt a surge of sympathy. “More like seventy now.”

Jerry shrugged. “Steroids? And don’t forget, I’m better looking. But it might work.”

Samantha snorted. Chuckled. Thought about it. “Thanks. You’re right. Can you overnight it here to the hospital? I’ll tell them I’m waiting for a package. I’ll call you if anything changes.” Tears filled her eyes again.

Jerry stood and pulled her to her feet. He hugged her tight. “He’ll pull through. He’s not soft like us. Just wait and see.”

* * *

A few hours later, Jerry was gone and a young, dark-haired doctor came out to talk to her. “Your friend is going to be okay. He’s a tough customer. We got everything out, splinters, chainmail and all. The arrow didn’t pierce his spine, or lung, which was lucky, but did puncture the intestine.”

Samantha made a sound of distress.

“Don’t worry. We fixed him up and he’s on antibiotics. He’ll be free to leave in a week or so, but it’ll be a few months until he’s back in fighting form. His fitness level will help with that. He’s resting comfortably now. You can go in and sit with him if you like.”

Samantha started to cry.

The doctor patted her on the back and made awkward soothing noises.

A moment later, she chuckled. “Sorry. I’m not usually a crier.”

The doctor chuckled. “So…how did the guy end up with an arrow through his chainmail? A reenactment gone wrong?”

Samantha grinned. “You know what? That’s exactly what happened.”

The doctor looked satisfied. “You just won me a bet. Come on. I’ll take you back.”

When she went into the room, Ian was still out of it, pale, dozing fitfully, filling the entire bed. She took his hand and he breathed in sharply and struggled to wake. He was groggy, but he finally managed to focus on her face and he grinned at her. She got teary-eyed all over again.

“So, yer not a liar. Nor a particularly good story teller either, aye?”

Samantha smiled back, just so happy he was alive, that he’d live. “What do you mean by that?”

“I thought you the most wondrous teller of stories.” He indicated the room around him. “What a disappointment to find that all you told was the truth, and that not even verra well.”

“Hey.”

They grinned at each other.

“You’re taking this awfully well.” She indicated the room. The IV drip. The hospital bed.

“I feel as if I’m floating. And that if I keep looking at you, ’twill be all right.”

“It will. You’ll see. And you’re floating because they’ve drugged you up.”

He smiled. “It feels good. No pain at all. Ye’d think I’d never had an arrow piercing my innards, let alone one earlier today. Or, my pardon, hundreds of years ago.”

Samantha shook her head at him. “You think you’re very clever, don’t you?”

He chuckled. “What can I say? I’ll have to be, married to one such as ye.”

She smiled, so happy in that moment. He was alive. He loved her. He would accept all this. Still, she saw no reason to make it too easy. “Married?”

“Oh, aye. The first day we met, do you remember? Ye demanded my firstborn child. If yer to have him, I’m going to have to insist upon a priest at kirk.”

“You’d have a priest marry us?”

“I’d handfast ye, but then ye’d have the chance to get away.”

“Hmm. You call that romantic, do you?”

Ian grinned. “I’m thinking this week.”

Samantha arched a brow. “I believe you have to ask me first. And be able to stand on your own two feet. I’m not having one of those shabby hospital weddings where the groom lazes around in bed to say his vows.”

He laughed, shook his head, then lifted their joined hands and kissed the back of hers. He gazed into her eyes for a long moment. “I realized something earlier. When I was dyin’. You are my home.” He squeezed her hand. “Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be. I love you. I can’t be without ye. Samantha Ann Ryan, will ye do me the honor of becomin’ my wife? Will ye have me?”

Samantha’s breath caught and her heart fluttered. Even sprawled out on a hospital bed, the man still could raise her temperature. Apparently being proposed to by a man lazing about in bed didn’t deter her in the least. Tears sprang to her eyes and she smiled and nodded.

“Yes, my sweet Scot. I’ll have you. Just you try and get away.”