Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series) by Sarah Woodbury Page B

she
was taking this news. When Meg had gone into labor with David,
she’d ended up outside her mother’s house in Pennsylvania because
clearly that was where she’d needed to be. But to return to Oregon
where they’d lived for so many years caused an unexpected ache in
her heart. Like Anna, Meg had real friends here and a life that had
been totally, radically different from the one she now led in Wales
with Llywelyn.
    “ We’d be happy if you can
just get us closer than this,” Meg said. “Could you drop us off at
the convenience store in Mission?”
    The driver looked the women up and down,
concern in his eyes. In their medieval dresses and cloaks, damp and
shivering, Meg had to admit that they must have looked a sight.
“Are you sure?”
    “ Definitely.” Meg pulled
open the door. The man found the latch that would move the
passenger seat forward, and Anna crawled into the back beside the
man’s daughter.
    “ I’m Meg, and this is my
daughter, Anna.”
    “ Nice to meet you,” he
said. “I’m Jim. This is my daughter, Star.”
    “ Thanks for the ride,” Anna
put in.
    Meg glanced into the back and saw Star scoot
the blanket she’d been sitting under closer to Anna so they could
share it. “Thank you too,” Anna said.
    Star smiled.
    Jim started driving, and after yet another
long look at Meg, he turned the heat to ‘high’.
    Meg put her hands right up
to the vent and let the heat seep into her. She hadn’t been back to
the United States for seven years, and it was odd how natural it
felt to be sitting in this truck. She had to acknowledge, for the
first time in a while, how fundamentally foreign the Middle Ages still was to
her.
    Jim spoke American English
and drove an American truck on an American road. Regardless of his
ethnic background, Meg knew him in a way she could never know someone she had
just met in medieval Wales. In the Middle Ages, even after all this
time, Meg was still on the outside looking in.
    “ Do you have a phone?” Jim
said.
    “ No.” Meg shook her
head.
    “ Not that it would do you
any good out here. No service.” He hesitated for a second and then
seemed to decide something, because he added, “When we get there,
you can use my phone to call who you need to. I can’t just leave
you in the parking lot.” Then he glanced in the rearview mirror at
Anna. “I don’t mean to pry, but are you guys in
trouble?”
    Neither Anna nor Meg answered. Meg wanted to
trust him, but after what happened the last time she’d come to the
modern world—or when David had come the following year—Meg thought
it might be better to involve as few people as possible in their
problems. It was bad enough that her brother-in-law, Ted, had found
himself mixed up with MI-5. Meg didn’t want to inflict men in black
SUVs and Kevlar on a total stranger.
    Still, it was fortunate that Meg hadn’t
ended up in some place she knew better. She might have known Jim in
that long ago life, and he would have been even more full of
questions. He was her age, but since she hadn’t grown up here, they
hadn’t known each other at school. And because he was her age, he
was unlikely to have taken a class from her, if he’d even gone to
college in Oregon. Nor was there any reason for him to recognize a
random history professor who’d disappeared seven years ago.
    “ The reason I ask is that I
noticed when you got in the truck that you have blood on your neck,
Anna,” Jim said. “Were you in a car accident or—?” He left his
concern hanging, but Meg imagined he was thinking along the lines
of domestic violence.
    Meg glanced back at Anna, and they shared a
long look. Meg still didn’t want to tell Jim anything and wouldn’t
know what to say if she did, but Anna stuck her head between the
seats. “Do you live around here, Jim?”
    “ Up Meacham Creek.” Jim
tipped his head to indicate back the way he’d come.
“Why?”
    “ Actually … um … I was
wondering if you knew Cassie McKay?” Anna