Page 7 of So Close To Heaven (Far From Home #11)

“Come, then,” he said. “?Tis a guid beast, and ye’ll do nae harm ridin’ pillion. Should’ve kent to offer sooner, but I dinna ken the...”

He let that trail off and she wondered if he’d been about to say he didn’t think the laird would have approved.

Pride fell by the wayside. She was utterly exhausted, depleted.

She took Kendrick’s hand and let him half-lift her, grateful beyond words.

She swung a leg over and settled behind him.

The moment she sat, even with the hard jostle of the saddle, a wave of relief rolled through her.

She could have wept from sheer gratitude.

“God bless you,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his lean middle, her belly allowing her to keep some distance between them.

“Aye.”

The wiry one trotted his gelding up alongside, and the kid with the kind eyes followed close behind. They moved now as a tight knot within the center of the long column, and for the first time all day, Ivy didn’t feel utterly alone.

“I know this is Kendrick,” she said to the other two, “but I don’t know your names.”

“Ewan, I am,” the wiry one introduced himself.

“Blair,” said the youth with the kind eyes.

“Aye, but his wife calls him The Clod I Married, ” Kendrick teased, grinning.

Blisters and fatigue momentarily forgotten, Ivy blinked hard. “ Wife? ” she echoed with a disbelieving snort of laughter. “How old are you?” Her gaze snapped to Blair—lanky, all elbows and knees, and still carrying the awkward grace of a teenage boy trying to grow into a man’s frame.

“Ten and eight,” Blair answered, bristling slightly, his jaw tightening.

“And two bairns he has as well,” Kendrick added.

“Bairns? Kids?” Ivy repeated, her voice climbing with incredulity. “You have kids? ”

Blair gave a quick, uncomfortable nod.

Kendrick, in front of her, chuckled. “Aye, we’re nae sure how he managed that.”

Ewan chimed in from the side, “Ye mean to say, how Marion suffered through it.”

Blair flushed crimson, clearly wishing the subject would change, and tried to shift the spotlight. “Kendrick’s got hisself a wife and a wee bairn, too.”

“ What? ” Ivy gaped at Kendrick’s back. “Are you serious?”

“Aye,” Kendrick said, shrugging, as if he were not a child-groom. “Married last spring.”

Ivy stared at them, struck dumb.

These boys—because that’s how she saw them—were married, with children? Her mind reeled. Again, she wondered if they were part of some remote, undiscovered Highland tribe. A community so deep in the wilds they’d somehow missed the last few centuries of progress.

“How old are you, Kendrick?” She had to ask.

“Ten and eight,” Kendrick replied.

She turned her stunned face to Ewan, who shrugged sheepishly. “Ten and seven, lass.”

“Are you married, too?”

“Nay,” Ewan replied, cheeks reddening.

“Nae with that face,” Kendrick suggested.

“He has a perfectly fine face,” Ivy said, made defensive of him for how uncomfortable he looked right now.

“Aye,” Kendrick said with a wink. “Fine for scarin’ hens off the kirk steps.”

Ivy’s mind itched with questions. How could they be so young? And married already, and with kids!

“What year is it?” she asked, jokingly, then laughed.

“Year?” Ewan asked. “What do ye ask?”

Ivy shrugged. “I just mean—and no offense—but it all sounds like something out of a long-ago century. I feel like I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole and landed in the fifteenth century.”

While she shook her head over the oddness of what they were saying, she caught the exchange of glances between Kendrick and Blair.

“What?” She asked.

Kendrick harrumphed a small laugh. “Ye say long ago and then fifteenth , which we dinna ken yet—likely willna live to see.”

“Dinna make sense, lass,” said Blair.

Ivy’s mouth hung open while she processed this. Wait. What?

A heavy cloud of heat settled in her chest in an instant. It settled there like a lead blanket—thick, pressing, unignorable. She felt it crawl up her throat and lodge behind her tongue, where the next question wouldn’t come.

What were they saying? They had to be confused. Or maybe just teasing her. Right?

But nothing in their faces looked playful now. Not even Ewan’s.

What were they saying? she wondered, her thoughts now racing. What do they mean they won’t live to see the fifteenth century?

Suddenly, the trees looked taller, the shadows deeper. Ivy glanced between Ewan and Blair, considering the clothing they wore, the way they spoke, the weapons they carried—the battle she’d witnessed!

But no, the very idea was absurd.

Possibly a full minute had passed before Ewan prompted gently, “Lass?”

“Ye’ve gone all white, lass,” Blair commented.

Ivy forced herself to ask again, seriously now, with a strange dread filling her, “What...what year is it?”

Haltingly, Blair answered, “?Tis the ninth year of King Edward’s false rule in Scotland.”

King Edward? A wave of dizziness overwhelmed her. She tightened her grip on Kendrick’s sides.

“What is the year ?” She asked deliberately. “In numbers.”

“Thirteen hundred and five,” Kendrick said slowly, as if wondering why he needed to state the obvious.

Ivy blinked. “No,” she said, looking from face to face. “Seriously. What year is it?”

They were all staring at her now.

Thirteen hundred and five. She tried to speak, but no sound came.

While it didn’t make sense—obviously it made no sense!—it did explain so much. Right?

Still, it was inconceivable.

The forest closed in. The ache in her feet and legs and chest vanished behind the ringing in her ears.

“No,” she whispered. “That’s not possible.” She shook her head, almost vehemently, as much as her waning energy would allow. “No,” she whispered again, the word barely escaping her lips.

Her arms, once tight around Blair’s waist, slackened. Her spine went soft, her head tilting backward before her vision turned an unnatural gray. A rushing sound filled her ears, like wind through a tunnel. Thirteen hundred and five. It couldn’t be. Could not be.

She heard Kendrick’s voice, which suddenly sounded as if he were very far away. “Lass?”

She slipped sideways from the saddle, her body a loose bundle of limbs. Kendrick reached for her, but she was already sliding.

“Shite!” she heard him curse as he twisted around.

She dropped like a rag doll into the cool bracken of the forest, a hard fall broken only by Kendrick’s hand grabbing hers at the last moment.

When next she had a conscious thought, it was of a vicious voice. Loud, harsh, thunderous. It pierced the fog that held her under. She tried to blink, but her lashes felt weighted. Her limbs wouldn’t respond. Something warm cradled her head, and somewhere close by, the forest echoed with anger.

“What in the name of Christ is this?”

The roar came from above and slightly behind her, snapping through the air like a whip.

Another voice, panicked and younger: “She just... she collapsed—”

“Collapsed?” That same deep, growling voice again, fury woven through every syllable. “And nae shite! Yer burden, I said to ye, and ye left her to march for all those miles—she’s carryin’, damn ye!”

She flinched mentally, even if her body couldn’t manage it. Her pulse pounded weakly at her temples. Carrying? The word echoed somewhere inside her brain, as if she’d forgotten for a moment.

Bootsteps thundered against the forest floor, each one thudding closer. Then... silence.

The air shifted, becoming warmer, closer. And then a callused thumb brushed her temple, sweeping aside the hair clinging damply to her flushed face. A hand touched the side of her head, her cheek.

“She breathes steady,” came the muttered observation—rough, low, angry still.

The fog ebbed and light broke through her lashes.

Ivy’s eyelids fluttered open, sluggish and heavy, blinking against the blur of light and shadow until the shape above her sharpened.

A face hovered in close—sharp angles, bronzed skin, and eyes that burned a rich golden brown, flecked with darker notes that should have frightened her, but strangely didn’t just now.

Alaric MacKinlay. Son of Torcull. Laird to all MacKinlay kin. Mormaer of Braalach.

She’d known it even before she’d opened her eyes.

As soon as she met his gaze, he averted his.

With practical motions, he shifted his weight and began checking her limbs, his touch clinical but never careless.

His large hands skimmed over her arms, pressing gently along the length of each bone, apparently seeking any sign of swelling or tenderness.

He did the same to her legs, his fingers firm and methodical as he assessed her knees, ankles, and shins.

Ivy held her breath, not from fear exactly, but from the strange intimacy of it. He wasn’t caressing her—far from it—but something about the way he handled her made her pulse thud harder. Not once did he pause, hesitate, or glance at her belly.

His palm flattened lightly against her calf and stroked evenly downward, and she flinched—not from pain, but from what seemed a lover’s touch.

His eyes flicked up to hers then, a question in his sharp gaze, and she shook her head faintly, indicating no pain.

He moved on, his fingers grazing over the laces of her boot, turning her ankle just slightly to test the joint.

She exhaled sharply, a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“Nothing seems amiss,” he murmured, half to himself.

Despite everything—the confusion, the humiliation of fainting, the sheer madness of whatever she’d learned that had made her pass out, his way-too-disturbing touch—Ivy found her voice.

“I’m...fine,” she whispered, though it was hardly true.

He sat back on his heels, his gaze flicking once more to her face. “Nae blood. Nae broken bones,” he said. “Aye, ye’ll be sore come nightfall, mayhap, but nae more.”