Free Not Without Juliet (A Scottish Time Travel Romance) (Muir Witch Project #2) by L.L. Muir Page B

those long red curls.
    “Hoo hoo!” she hollored. “Hey! Red!”
    The red head popped up and he scanned the crowd until he saw her. He looked none too happy to be pulled away from a good time, like he was in the middle of a neighborhood basketball game and she’d told him he had to come home for lunch. He really was enormous. Ewan looked like a kid hanging on his back with one arm around his neck. The hitter was all but grinning. Ewan, on the other hand, looked furious.
    “I’m going now,” she called, as if she were popping out to the store. “Give me a few minutes’ head start, Laird Ross. Would you?”
    Ewan sputtered like a fish.
    “Bell! Don’t do it!” The hitter’s voice died in her wake. And she made damn sure she left a wake. Dogs scattered. She pulled a pile of wooden buckets over next to a wagon, making sure a mess pointed the way out of the torch-lit inner bailey, through the opening where the old Muir sisters had been waving at her.
    She was standing on the bridge before she remembered about the moat. But it was no land bridge, just a wide, sturdy piece of construction built across a large creek. The cheerful gurgle of water over rocks was not the toxic water full of vicious creatures she’d always imagined a moat to be.
    Once she was on the other side of the bridge, she realized that old crumbling curtain wall was now perfectly intact, probably two stories tall, and caging her in. And more importantly, caging in a hitman among a clan’s worth of collateral damage.
    She kept moving.
    Little buildings were scattered around the edges of an expansive outer bailey that had once been, or rather, would one day be , a huge parking lot. Light glowed orange from behind a window here and there, but for the most part, the structures were random gray shapes in the blackness. The air was cool against her face and the combined smells of grass and manure reminded her of Wyoming, but she pushed the memories away—not out of pain this time, but from necessity. She had to stay alert.
    Thanks to torches lit on either side, she could see where the massive main gate was closed up for the night. It stood where, not long ago, the chain had hung between two modern posts with the little sign that read, “See Us Tomorrow.”
    The long stone battlements had torches burning every fifty yards or so. Some of them moved back and forth—probably carried by guards. Above the gate, the torches held still while men moved back and forth just below them.
    Jules hurried toward that gate, past the buildings and out into a dark stretch of ground that seemed to move in waves. She walked right into something short, nearly toppling onto her face. When her hands shot out to steady herself, she felt something soft—and mobile.
    Sheep.
    The wool-covered creatures bumped around her for a second or two, then moved away when they realized she wasn’t one of them. She said a little prayer, grateful they’d stayed quiet, then she got moving again, bracing herself to step in sheep dung.
    The wall was gigantic. She couldn’t believe there wouldn’t be more of it left in five hundred years. Something that big couldn’t just erode away. People would have to tear it down and carry the stones away. But why?
    She moved more carefully as she neared the light of the gate torches, but the two guards manning the wall there were facing outward. A grid covered the wide opening, and on the inside, giant doors stood open. Apparently, they weren’t expecting an attack. Too bad they didn’t realize it was going to come from within.
    Off to the left, there was a staircase that led to the top of the wall. What could she do, climb up there and explain things, then ask them to lift the gate and let her out? Oh, and leave it open until the killer left too? Wouldn’t they be a little suspicious when she described the guy as being dressed just like her? Jeans and black coat?
    Yeah, she needed a better plan. And she couldn’t just wait around for something to