The Parchment Scroll Read Online Free PDF Page B

her kidnapper shoving her into his shirt and kissing her.
    She scanned the beach, but they were moving fast now that he had her again.
    Like he doesn’t want to chance a round two.
    Jules couldn’t see anything but the rolling waves of the ocean to their right and rocky sandy terrain that bled into grassy hills up ahead.
    If she really had traveled through time, the Isle of Skye didn’t look much different.
    “Weeeel?” he prompted. “Can ye no’ speak now?”
    She didn’t let his thick brogue roll over her body. Totally ignored its appeal, too. He was a barbarian who’d grabbed her, smacked her ass, and hauled her around like a rag doll.
    The bastard.
    Breath exited her mouth on a whoosh. “I—”
    The big horse slowed and the man nudged her shoulder. “Ye, wha’, lass?”
    More ‘ lass,’ just like in modern-day Scotland.
    She hated that she preferred when this guy said it. Jules shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” I traveled back in time. Actually did it. Magic is real. She trembled.
    “Cold?”
    “No.” His body heat at her back was keeping Jules warm, staving off the goose bumps on her legs from rising higher. She’d cooled off from her run, but her heart still pounded. As much as she hated to admit it, she was cozy in the barbarian’s unyielding embrace. She wouldn’t tell him that, though. “What year is it?” Jules blurted.
    “The year of our lord, sixteen hundred and seventy-five.”
    Three years off… “Claire came to 1672.” She spoke more to herself than him, but her captor cocked his head to one side—she felt more than saw it.
    “So yer parchment said.”
    “Magic,” she whispered.
    He didn’t comment. Jules wanted to ask him a hundred things, or demand to know where they were going. She needed to make a plan to find her sister. Then get them home, damn the nonsense about love and marriage. Claire—and Jules—belonged in the twenty-first century.
    She’d have to work on getting away from the barbarian first. Then find Bree. Jules was going to need the Irish chick to get home.
    “We’re almost there.” He broke the silence as if he could read her mind.
    “Where’s there ?”
    “Armadale.”
    Armadale.
    She’d heard that name before. The bartender, Rob MacDonald had told her his clan’s stronghold was in ruins—at least in the twenty-first century. “MacDonald.”
    The man stilled. “Aye. Ye know of me?”
    She glanced over her shoulder and shook her head. “I know Armadale is the stronghold of Clan MacDonald.”
    “Aye. My clan.” His tone bled pride.
    Jules’ heart skipped a beat. Her mind ran in circles. Websites, books, magazine articles flashed before her eyes, and she didn’t like the math her head was doing. Clans MacDonald and MacLeod were rivals—enemies.
    They’d been at war— real war —not even a century before the seventeenth.
    How did we end up three years off target?
    Never mind that…
    If Claire’s letter was at all true, Jules had fallen into the hands of her sister’s husband’s enemy. She swallowed a gulp. Fear skittered up her belly, sliding down her arms and legs. Her pulse thundered in her temples.
    What’s he going to do to me?
    Police training fled as the reality of what she’d done— where she was —settled over her. Jules was almost naked, without a weapon, and in the arms of a man who’d already proven he had a savage streak. He’d chased her down after she’d punched him in the nuts.
    What kind of revenge will he seek?
    “Please don’t hurt me.” The words tumbled from her mouth, and she shook in his grip. She twisted around to look at him.
    “Who said anythin’ abou’ hurtin’ ye?” The man reared back. Looked insulted.
    “My sister married a MacLeod.”
    He chuckled. “Poor lass.”
    When their eyes met, the satisfaction she read there pushed away her fear, reigniting her anger.
    This guy’s a pompous ass.
    Jules frowned. She should probably rejoice he didn’t seem angry