Free Border Lord by Julia Templeton Page B

Annabelle’s dress at her. “Here, put this on. I want ye to stay here. Do not leave, and do not, under any circumstances, unlock the door until ye hear my voice.”
    “Brochan.”
    He turned.
    She swallowed hard, and blurted, “Will you give me to him?”
    “Ye belong to me, Annabelle. To me and no other.”
    To his surprise, she smiled. “Brochan, before you go, there is something I must tell you.”
    His heart missed a beat, terrified of the next words out of her mouth.
    “I am not Annabelle MacLellan.”
    He shook his head, certain he had not heard her right. He remembered how surprised he had been when he entered the priory chamber and saw her standing there, a woman older than six and ten. God’s breath, had the nuns at the Priory of Grace duped him into believing one of their own was MacLellan’s daughter? “If you are not the real Annabelle, then why is yer father here?”
    She came to her feet, wrapping the blanket about her slender body. “This is where it gets difficult.” She cleared her throat. “My name is Terri Campbell, and I’m from the twenty-first century.”
    He watched her for a long moment, shocked she could keep a straight face. His lips quirked. “This is not the time to play games, Annabelle. Yer father is riding here and I am needed downstairs.”
    “Brochan, I’m Terri Campbell.”
    “Terri Campbell? An odd name, particularly for a girl.”
    The smile disappeared from her lips. “Perhaps it is a bit androgynous, but it is my name, and I am from the future, whether you choose to believe me or not.”
    Misgivings worked its way up his spine. “I do not have time for these games.”
    She walked toward him and put a hand against his chest. Her expression was earnest, her tone firm. “Brochan, I am who I say I am. One day I left my job, working at a museum in London. Having found my fiancé sleeping with anotherwoman, I drove to Scotland. When I came upon the Priory of Grace, I stopped, intrigued by the building.”
    At the mention of her fiancé he went still, his hands closing into fists at his sides.
    “While on a tour of the priory, there was a chamber that had been boarded up. The guide told us the story of Annabelle MacLellan, the young woman who had been brought to the nuns for safekeeping by Angus MacLellan himself. He feared for his daughter’s safety after he had killed your brother by mistake.”
    “He did not kill my brother by mistake. He did it intentionally. Our clans have always been rivals.”
    “I am just telling you what the tour guide told us. Please hear me out.” She dropped her hand back to her side. “I was told that the chamber had not been opened for over seven hundred years, because it was haunted by a nun’s spirit, a nun who had been murdered by Annabelle’s father. Her spirit haunted the chamber and made the nuns so afraid that they sealed it off, never opening it again.”
    “And ye opened this chamber?”
    She nodded. “I did.”
    Though the story was entertaining, he grew restless. “And what happened?”
    “I woke up in this time.”
    “In the body of Annabelle MacLellan?”
    She shook her head. “No, in my body actually. I wish I could say I was only sixteen years old, but I am actually ten years older than the original Annabelle.”
    Which made her six and twenty. A prickling began at the back of his neck, growing with each second. From the moment he had met Annabelle, something had seemed wrong. The way she had readily accompanied him, notfighting him, almost being happy to leave the priory and the nuns.
    She had not been a virgin either, as the real Annabelle would have been. Nay, this woman knew how to make love to a man. A woman of six and twenty who knew what sexual gratification was.
    “Ye believe the chamber is how ye came to be here?”
    He could see the relief in her eyes as she nodded. “I thought it was, but trust me, I pushed on every stone in that room. Nothing took me back. When you came, I felt that perhaps you would