Helen gasped and turned away.
Simon chuckled. A small throw blanket sat on the couch. He wrapped his hips into the material before saying, “I’m decent now.”
Helen glanced over her shoulder briefly before turning back toward him. It was then he noticed the blood flowing down her leg beneath the makeshift bandage. Renewed concern for her wellbeing filled him.
“You’re bleeding.”
She glanced at her leg and laughed. “It wasn’t a dream.”
“I’m afraid not.”
Simon stepped toward her and she pulled away. His dirk rose before her.
He lifted his hands. “Do you really believe I’ll hurt you, lass?”
“I-I don’t know what—”
“Come now. We need to clean that before an infection seeps in.” Besides, giving the girl a task would put her mind to work and keep her from falling apart.
She nodded, and started walking toward another room. Simon caught her arm when her body tilted after applying weight on her swelling leg.
Inside the small bathroom, she turned on a light. The action brought a smile to his face. Electricity was a beautiful thing. He remembered it now.
Helen sat on the side of the tub, and lifted her leg to remove her shoes.
“I’m going crazy, aren’t I?” She asked the question but never stopped her task.
“You’re not crazy.”
Simon helped her remove her sock and twisted the knob at the faucet. Water flowed through the pipes. Only when the water started to warm did he ease her leg to the tub. With a gentle hand, he untied the bloody rag and tossed it to the side.
“I was in Scotland this morning.”
“As was I.” Simon found a washcloth and pressed it under the water. Helen stared at the back wall and let him tend to her wound.
“We were in the woods a few minutes ago.”
“That’s right.” She flinched when he placed the cloth on her leg.
“We’re in my apartment. Now. In California.”
So that’s where they were. “This will hurt.” Dirt had caked into her wound, and Simon started to scrub slowly away at the grime.
“How did we get here?”
Her question answered a few of his. She had travelled through time, but had no idea how she’d done so. Earlier, when a flash of light and a roar created by the fabric of time being stretched had detoured him from his task of returning to the Keep, Helen emerged from the fog. Never being sure who, or why, a person would travel from the future to sixteenth century Scotland, Simon had kept his guard high.
This woman, who now held perfectly still while Simon ministered to her leg, must have sought something in the past. And she must also be Druid.
He wondered if she knew that last fact.
“I’m not entirely sure how you managed to move us here.”
“I didn’t do it.” Her voice rose in defense.
Well, I certainly didn’t do it. The time traveling stones were safely tucked away in the Keep and couldn’t have been responsible for their travels.
“What were you thinking about right before we ended up here?” Simon continued to scrub her leg while they spoke.
“I thought I was going to die.”
“Aye, what else?”
She shook her head and shivered, no doubt thinking of the men who chased her. “That’s it. I was going to be killed in a Scottish forest by a bunch of freaks wearing costumes.”
Simon reached back in his own memories of his childhood—to a time when he had believed he would die at the hands of evil. All he had wanted was to go home. Run to his mother and go home. “Did you beg to go home?”
“Yeah, I guess. Anywhere but there.”
In his knowledge, no Druid was able to shift in time by merely wishing it so. There had to be stronger powers at work.
“Before you arrived in the forest,” he kept questioning. The bleeding on her leg had stopped and his hand rested on her knee. “You were chasing a paper, right?”
She nodded and then jumped in alarm. “My backpack, the book.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Things. I’m worried about things and I nearly died today.”
Simon took her hands in his urging her to sit back down. He noticed gravel embedded in her palms and renewed his attention to her skin.
“Where were you before you ended up in the forest with me?”
“Just outside of Dundee. I pulled off the side of the road and was walking.”
“Were you looking for something, or simply enjoying the day?”
Her eyes skirted across his briefly before pulling her hands away and reaching for a cake of soap. “Both.”
“What were you looking for?”
“It’s not important.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Helen pushed away from the tub and hobbled to a cabinet where she removed bandages. “I was following a hunch.”
“A hunch?”
“Looking for a missing person.”
“Are you a police officer?” Simon knew one personally. His pseudo uncle, Todd, spoke of hunches all the time.
“No.”
“Were you looking for a loved one?”
“Just a kid.”
Her own child, perhaps?
“No one I know. It doesn’t matter.” She lifted her leg up onto the countertop and covered her wound with ointment from a tube. “I’ll never follow a hunch again. It isn’t like I even know any of Simon McAllister’s family or anything.”
Everything inside Simon grew still.
At least he knew why Helen practically landed in his lap. She was looking for a child, however, not a man. He needed more answers. “How long has this child been missing?”
“Two and a half years. It’s a cold case. None of the authorities are putting much effort into finding him.”
That hurt. A missing teenage boy meant so little to this world. Simon blew out a long breath. Some pieces of the puzzle were snapping together.
“What is it?”
“Excuse me?” he asked.
Helen ran a hand over her arm as if chasing away the cold. “You know something.”
Definitely Druid. The lass displayed a sixth sense that helped her read people. The women in his family were far better at it than the men.
With as much dignity as one could manage when wrapped in a blanket, Simon stood and made a grand gesture of bowing. “My lady, Helen, allow me to introduce myself.”
She held perfectly still, waiting.
“Simon McAllister, at your service.”
Chapter Five