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“Och, good, ye hae a guard, I dinna discern it as I hadna seen them around. Aye, ye can tell yer guards tae be watchful of the storms and they will keep the trouble from yer gates. I wondered why ye dinna hae them, I am relieved.” Then he asked, “Were the men who came tae my bedside yer guards?”

“Yes, at the hospital, those were police men. That’s who I would call.”

He smiled. “Ye see, yer guards dinna think I was a scapegrace, they let me be.”

“True, they said you had no prior criminal record, of course you are not from here. They hadn’t seen you sword fight. You carry a sword, maybe you are a… what did you call it?”

“A scapegrace...” He screwed up his face. “But ye say they are yer guard and ye said ye called them earlier and yet they never came.”

It was my turn to chuckle. “I was lying.” I added, “But I will call them, if anything goes down that frightens me.”

“Dost they live here on yer land?”

“No, they are in town.”

“How long will it take for them tae arrive?”

I lied, “They can be here really fast, within minutes.”

The corner of his mouth went up. “Och, that is slow, ye need a better guard. Ye need me tae stay and protect ye.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, fine, you can stay here tonight.”

“Thank ye, but also, Mistress Lexi, ye need a guard who will be here when ye are in trouble instead of sauntering up after tis done. Nae wonder ye need tae carry a weapon, ye ought tae hae men here tae carry weapons for ye. Tis a good thing I am here.”

“I have a man, Cooper, he’s just out of town, and I can totally take care of myself while he’s away. Plus, the only danger is what follows you here, it’s not really fair to act like you’re going to protect me when you’re the reason for the danger.”

“Aye, tis nae fair, but I will keep ye safe and as soon as I can go I will go and draw the trouble away.”

“Good, and in the meantime, you’re still hungry, need some food? The water… is…” I got up, strolled into the kitchen, and opened the fridge. It was running but only had jugs of water inside. “There’s cold water in here.” I opened the freezer. “No ice in the trays.”

I opened the cabinet. There was a Tupperware container of cereal. It was pretty old. Some instant coffee, not helpful, and a few assorted dishes and… not much.

I turned to tell Torin I would need to go to the — but his head was back on the couch, his eyes closed.

I whispered, “Torin?”

One eye opened, he muttered, “Aye, Mistress Lexi?”

“There’s no food, really, but water, do you need anything?”

“Nae, Mistress Lexi, I will just sleep.”

“Okay, come knock on the door if you need anything, I guess.”

“I winna bother ye, I will leave in the morn.”

I nodded and left the back-shack.

I was strolling up to the house, until I remembered the sword fight, and that scary man who had wanted to kill me, just an hour ago, and I got a prickly feeling on the back of my neck. Was I alone?

I ran to the porch, crossed it fast, slammed the screen door closed, and latched it. Then I closed the door and locked it.

I rushed to the window and looked out. Torin was on the stoop of the back-shack, watching that I made it home safely. He went back inside.

I assumed the lights would turn off, but everything stayed on.

He didn’t know how to turn off the lights.

I had a time traveler in my yard.

He claimed he was from the sixteenth century. He seemed like he was from a long time ago. It seemed true.

This was the most bizarre night of my life.

In all that time I had left my phone on the counter and now that I looked I had missed three calls from Cooper.

My answering machine was blinking.

I listened to the message:

Hey Lexi, tried to call, did you forget your phone again? My meetings went great today. I think they liked the powerpoint. So hey, call me when you get this, but also headed to bed soon, so not too late.

I checked my watch. It wasn’t too late. I called, wondering if this guy in my backyard was something I ought to tell him.

“Hey Lexi. Did you forget your phone again?”

“Yep, how did you guess?”

“Because you hate it, you never carry it.”

“So your meetings went well”

“I think so, they seemed to like the presentation. I’ve got another meeting in the morning with the full team of investors.”

“I’m so glad. When will you know for sure?”

“I’m hoping they’ll tell me tomorrow. I thought maybe they would have told me earlier today, but realistically they’ll need to meet to discuss. They might let me know later in the week by phone, but I doubt they need to wait.”

“It’s fine, I’m sure they loved your presentation.”

“Yeah, but it’s a lot of money, they gotta cross the Ts and dot the Is.”

I laughed, “Exactly. And did I detect a slur, you were in the bar celebrating?”

“Yep, glad that part is over. Man, I was wound up over it, drank a lot, now I gotta sleep so I’m fresh tomorrow. It’s exciting. Blue Ridge Cabins and Adventures is happening, Lexi, I can feel it.”

“Good, me too, can’t wait.”

“Once the investments roll in I’m gonna be flush. It’s going to be grand.”

“I can’t wait to celebrate. I invited some people over, I’ll have dinner waiting for you, we’re going to have champagne to celebrate your first check.”

“Getting ahead of ourselves, might take a few weeks before the first check.”

“Well, fine, but I’m still popping the champagne. I’ll let you go so you can get some rest, Coop, love you.”

“Love you too, Lexi, see ya tomorrow night.”

We hung up and I went to watch some TV in the living room. The Bachelor was on, but it was a repeat, so I kind of paced the house, checking the back-shack through the window — the lights remained on.

About ten pm, I called Jen. “So what’s happening? Did you ditch Mr Passable?”

She answered, cryptically, “Oh, how are you, is everything okay?”

I said, “Is he right there? Do you need an excuse, because Dude is missing if you do. I need you to come help me find him. If not, I just wanted you to know that Dude says hi.”

She said, “Tell Dude I said hi, also how did Cooper’s meeting go, did he call you?”

“Went great, think he’s going to get the investors.”

“Great, okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

We hung up. Apparently the date was going well and she didn’t plan to ditch him.

My eyes drew back down to the back-shack, fully lit, and wondered if I ought to be nice and go down there and turn off the lights.

Then I wondered if I had lost my mind.

There was a sword-wielding mean guy around, and a nicer one sleeping inside the back-shack. I was just going to saunter around in the dark? He was right, I did not have good enough guards.

Just going down to the back-shack in the middle of the night to ‘check’ on him?

It was a ridiculous idea.

But then again... it wasn’t the middle of the night.

I heard a soft jostle of my screen door and my heart dropped — but then Dude meowed. He sounded pissed that I had locked him out.

I let him in. “Sorry, Dude.”

He brushed past me and headed straight for his food bowl.

As I closed back up I looked up at the sky. Would there be another storm? I hoped not, this was all plenty of excitement for one night.

I checked the back-shack again. Light still on, door still open.

I returned to the study, feeling kind of bored.

I had three different half-finished projects — a stained-glass window of a field of purple flowers that was near finished; a cross stitch of a family tree —the trunk was done but I needed to add the family names on the branches; or the Heritage scrapbook I had started two years ago, a few months after I lost my parents.

I sighed. A lot of my hobbies were so damn sentimental. The last thing I needed to do right now was be melancholy. I had real things to worry about.

Like the dangerous, hot guy in my back-shack.

So I turned on the TV and just did that.