Not Without Juliet - By L.L. Muir Page 0,1

from Long Legs before bending and using their bare blades to chop at the blossom-covered branches. Tiny purple balls began flying. “We’re taking them to Morna’s grave. I will have no use for my heavy blade this day. The Gordon lads will see to my safety, will you not?” He turned to Long Legs.

“Aye. We will, that.” The Gordon man grinned.

“Laird, why does he sit yer horse?” Orie pointed, as if Quinn hadn’t noticed. All the Gordons stopped cutting flowers and waited. Quinn could feel them all itching to get their hands on the child.

“Twisted his foot is all.” He waved away Orie’s concern. “I’m sorry I did not wait for you, but I couldn’t take such an important lad all the way to the Gordon Keep. Go home now. Have the stable master take my sword to my chambers, and I’ll see you when I return.” He dared not step closer to the boy and the sword, but bent instead to gather the heather another man had cut, holding his breath and praying for obedience.

Thankfully, the boy was quick to follow orders, and Quinn continued his acting until the sound of Orie’s retreat faded to nothing.

Long Legs’ sudden burst of laughter sent a chill up his spine.

“A grand idea, that. Ye’ll be carrying the flowers, but they’ll be for yer own grave, not yer sister’s.”

Quinn was content with the irony that Morna was neither dead, nor his sister, but was living happily ever after in the twenty-first century. A year before, Morna had faked her death and then been taken into the future, along with the real Montgomery Ross. Quinn had volunteered to switch places with him, due to the plain fact Montgomery had the love of a fine woman to live for, and Quinn had naught.

And if Isobelle, Morna’s sister, danced, it wasn’t with the devil as she, too, was alive and well, though it was uncertain where she hid. It was a fine trick the Rosses had played on their neighbors, and all for the health and happiness of their women.

Ultimately, if Quinn was about to die, history would play out as it should, and no one would know the Gordons would be killing the wrong man.

CHAPTER ONE

Something dripped on Juliet’s head.

“I swear, if it rains on me one more friggin’ time...” She looked up and watched a squirrel disappear against the trunk of a pine tree. The small branch he’d run across still bounced, flinging little drops of moisture from its needles. “Damned rodent.”

She was sure he’d done it on purpose, but she wasn’t going anywhere. He’d just have to deal with having his forest invaded for a while longer.

She stood among the trees on a hillside that ran along the west and north sides of Castle Ross, close enough to keep an eye on the place while she worked up her courage. She’d been working it up for two days, arguing with the same stupid squirrel. At least, she thought it was the same one.

Using her voice had felt good. She couldn’t remember the last person she’d had an actual conversation with that wasn’t a waitress or something. But that was about to change. As soon as the gray Hummer returned to the castle grounds, she was going to suck it up, march down there, and say what she’d come to say. It wasn’t her fault that woman was always taking off with her husband every time Jules was ready to confront her. Even getting up early that morning hadn’t helped, either. The Hummer was already gone.

What were they doing? Shopping their brains out? Trying to spend all the money?

The thought of all that money disappearing made her nauseous.

No way, she told herself. No way could they spend even half of it in the year since that woman had inherited it, even if they bought a real life Scottish castle—which she knew they hadn’t—it belonged to the husband’s family. And a whole fleet of Hummers wouldn’t make a dent.

“It’s okay,” she told the squirrel. “Half is all I want.” She looked back at the castle. “And I’m not leaving here without it.”

She rolled her shoulders and worked out the kinks from sleeping, folded up, in the front seat of a car for two miserable nights in a row. She’d have stretched out a little in the back seat, but if someone caught up with her, she needed to be behind the wheel.

Sticking earbuds in her ears was a luxury she couldn’t risk, no matter how