Not Without Juliet (A Scottish Time Travel Romance) (Muir Witch Project #2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

flashlights were gone—even the one that had died.
    Which is impossible .
    Finally, she found a handle. It turned out to be a hammer. Then she found a small tin cup, a couple of candles, a leather bag with a cork in it, but nothing she remembered seeing when she’d had a flashlight. The hammer wouldn’t get the plug out of the hole any better than the crowbar, but at least it was another weapon.
    The little room lightened and she turned back to the plug, to find that it had been removed. She was so surprised she nearly fell through the hole.
    The light from below jumped and flared like firelight and the big blond stood directly beneath her, where the barrel had been, with his arms held out like he was planning on catching her. A large tree trunk was tipped against the wall behind him, next to the barrel. The end of it looked like it was just the right size to plug the hole. Maybe it was the source of the original plug.
    The foaming puddle of urine was now only a shadow on the floor.
    And still, the hitter hadn’t come.
    She whispered, in case he was listening just outside the room. “When he comes in, I’ll jump on him and bash him with this hammer. Just don’t look up!”
    The blond man’s face fell.
    “No one is comin’, lass. Daniel’s guardin’ the steps. Ye’re safe, ye are. Now come down and give us a hug.” Again, he raised his arms.
    Great. They were both going to die. Why couldn’t she have just backed up into the trees and waited Gabby’s man out?  She had enough chocolate in her pockets to keep from starving, and she’d left a couple bottles of water against that stupid squirrel’s tree. She should have crawled back...but no, she’d frozen. She’d let fear cripple her and now she and at least two others would die for it—this one, and whoever Daniel was. Unless she could prove herself one last time and take the hitter down.
    “I dinna ken what’s running through that head of yers, Jillian,” said the man. “But since you dinna seem to be goin’ anywhere else, ye may as well come doon.”
    She’d never get the drop on the hitter with this big bear staring at her, and since it didn’t look as if he was going to listen to a word she said, she gave up.
    “I’m not Jillian, by the way.” She dropped her legs through the hole and was caught against a large chest, then lowered to the ground. She stood on one foot, refusing to lower her stockinged foot to the ground until she had hopped side-ways away from the dark circle. Then she discreetly wiped one boot on the drier dirt.
    “I don’t suppose ye brought along Monty darlin’?”
    “No, I’m alone,” she said.
    “And ye say ye’re not Jillian. Then just what are ye doin’ in the witch’s hole, wearing Jillian’s own face?”
    Jules huffed out a breath and summoned up the courage to answer.
    “I’m the sister, the sister she conveniently doesn’t remember she has.”
    She’d been practicing that line for a while, only she’d hoped to say it to Jillian’s face. Now she’d never get the chance. That was, unless the hitter was so stupid he couldn’t find the basement. If she hurried, maybe she could get out of the castle without being caught, but she wasn’t about to run away and let these people take a bullet meant for her.
    Then she got an idea.
    She grabbed the barrel and started tugging.
    “Please, Mister,” she said. “Do me a favor and climb up into the hole. Just for a few minutes. I wasn’t kidding—a killer is gunning for me, and he can’t know you’re in here. There’s nothing you can do for me, so you may as well save yourself.”
    She stopped trying to move the barrel. The guy was shaking his head, standing there with his arms crossed like she’d said something to piss him off.
    “I’ll never stick so much as me nose in that tomb, lass. And no man is coming. Daniel would have made a great clattering if someone tried to get past him.”
    Great. Well, at least she’d given it a shot. It wasn’t like she