Beyond The Moors

By Ellie Lynn

Unable to put a friend's disappearance to rest, Jenna Morgan sets out to discover the truth. Instead of a simple hike through a familiar path on the outskirts of town, her journey takes her through unknown territory, opening up in a field in eleventh century Scotland. Forced to join a medieval hunting party, her destiny takes a sharp turn once they cross the moors into highland territory.

When an ill lowlander is brought to his keep, Laird Richard Mathieson takes one look at the lovely blonde and knows he's found his future wife. Winning her heart is another matter as she staunchly refuses to accept that he is not her missing friend. But it's the highland way to take a bride when gifted by the Almighty God, and she is truly a gift from the heavens.

With obstacles at every turn, including the determined laird and a savage warrior who wants to claim her for his own, survival in ancient times is a lot more difficult than Jenna ever imagined. After a fierce attack, she must decide whether to return to her own time or give up everything she holds dear to stay with the love she has found in the past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Deslisle Publications
• Release date: May 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781775349105

Ellie Lynn

They always say 'write what you know', so Ellie Lynn started out writing romantic comedy. She's since discovered a love of historical western romances as she channels Gunsmoke and Bonanza, but still writes the occasional contemporary. These days she calls rural Saskatchewan home with her husband, two incredibly spoiled dogs and Horatio the salamander.

Book preview

Prologue

Aidan sighed. She makes me crazy, Mike. I know she cares about me, but dammit, she’s so stubborn she won’t admit it.

Mike nodded, a conversation they’d had so many times. Yeah, she does. She’ll come around, one day. Just be patient.

I’m trying. In the meantime, I’ve got to get her off my mind for a while. I’m going to practice for a while. The archery competition is next week so I should try to get in a little training before Coach has a fit.

In the woods? Make sure you don’t hit any kid or anything. You never know who you’ll see making out in there.

Aidan grinned. I’ll be careful. I know this area like the back of my hand. Practice here all the time. He picked up his bow, waved at his friend and followed the path into the treed area at the outskirts of town.

Chapter 1

One year later

Where are you, Aidan? Jenna whispered into the dark. Where did you go?

She couldn’t sleep. One year ago tomorrow, Aidan Mathis disappeared off the face of the earth. One minute he was there, the next... he wasn’t. There was no sign of foul play, no trail to follow, he simply vanished into thin air and no one could explain it. And worst of all, Jenna Morgan had just turned him down for the hundredth time for no reason other than she was scared. Scared to admit she really did like him. It had taken her so long to realize her feelings, and once she had, reality set in. With graduation only a couple of months away, they would be going to different colleges, in different parts of the country. What was the point of getting involved, only to have her heart broken? It was stupid, but it was the truth.

She rolled over and glanced at the clock. Almost five a.m. Was there any point in even trying to sleep now? The sun would be coming up in a few minutes and her only plans for the day were to head to those woods and try to retrace Aidan’s steps. Not that she expected to uncover something new that the police and search parties didn’t find, but she had to do something. And who knew, maybe she could figure out what happened that day.

Jenna pulled on a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt and tucked her feet into a pair of sneakers. She was on her way out the door as her father made his way into the kitchen.

You’re up early, he said.

Yeah, I thought I’d hike on out to the waterfalls today. I really want to test out my new camera. No sense telling him where she was actually going. He’d only tell her it was too dangerous to strike out on her own, especially after the police and search and rescue parties came up with nothing except for a few footprints that proved he’d taken the path into the trees. No broken branches, no signs of struggle. Aidan wasn’t a little guy. With a six-foot, muscular frame, there was no way someone could have grabbed him unless he wanted to go with them, so no matter what anyone said, she believed in her heart that Aidan wasn’t dead. He was alive somewhere.

All she knew was someone had to try to find him, really try. And that was exactly what she would do.

Be careful, he called after her.

I will. See you later, Jenna said.

Fifteen minutes later, she stood at the edge of the tree line. With a backpack containing provisions for the day slung over one shoulder, Jenna paused and eyed the path that disappeared into the copse of trees. This path that hundreds of people had used over the years was the same one that Aidan was last seen on, one year ago. It looked the same as it did the last time she’d come out here, and the time before and the time before that. A short path connecting the south end of Mill Creek to one of the suburban neighborhoods on the north side of town.

With the sun peeking over the horizon, she tucked her cell phone into her pack, pulled her hair back into a pony tail and pushed forward.

The last time she’d seen Aidan, he’d been wearing his favorite faded jeans and a crisply ironed western shirt. Blue plaid, with fake pearl buttons. She remembered them because they were all she looked at while she tried to avoid eye contact with him. How could she look into those piercing blue eyes as she told him yet again that she only wanted to be friends? How could she look him in the eye and lie to his face? So instead, she focused on those damn pearl buttons.

Her mind flashed back to that day. The crestfallen look on his face when she said no. She hadn’t even given him a chance to ask her out again, just cut him off with the ‘No, I told you before, I just want to be friends’ speech. It was a cruel thing to do. He didn’t deserve someone like her, and she certainly didn’t deserve someone like him.

It rolled around and around in her head as she moved into the woods. It seemed like hours later when Jenna paused and wiped the sweat from her brow. Glancing at her cell phone’s clock, her suspicions confirmed that it was almost noon. She’d been so engrossed in her thoughts, she lost track of the time. And it was hot and muggy, which was really weird since they weren’t that close to water and the weather forecasts called for sun with overcast periods, but no rain. But that wasn’t what was strange. The weirdest part was that this path should have only taken fifteen minutes to travel through to the clearing on the other side. Here she was, almost six hours in, and still no sign of the clearing. At this rate, she’d only have time to do one pass of the trail before heading home.

She sat on a fallen log to eat her lunch, keeping a wary eye about her. She hadn’t heard anything except for the rustling of leaves and the occasional bird chirping, but she was on edge. Glancing over her shoulder at the path she had followed so far, it was an easy decision to determine it would be quicker to go forward than back the way she’d come. The clearing had to be just up ahead, even if she’d somehow veered off course. She could easily go around the edge of town to get back home. Still, something didn’t feel right.

Pulling out her cell phone, she checked her coordinates with the GPS. With only one bar of signal strength, she sent a quick text message to her friend Mike. ‘Checking out the woods. Kinda creepy but I’m okay.’ Seconds later, a chirp on her phone indicated the message didn’t go through. She tried again for the same response. Disgusted, Jenna turned her phone off, then powered it up again. Sometimes that worked to fix dropped messages.

It didn’t. This time there were no bars left, and her battery light blinked off and on like a bad omen. Dammit! Why didn’t she think to charge her phone last night? She threw the offending object into her backpack, finished her lunch and grabbed a sweater from the pack before tucking the knapsack into a small crevice under the tree. She’d come back for it later—there was nothing in it she needed anymore and it only seemed to get heavier with every step she took.

With her water bottle in hand, and a sweater tied around her waist, she got up and headed along the path once again.

JENNA’S FEET ACHED. Where the hell was she? She hadn’t stopped walking all day, only deviating from the path in spots where she needed to go around debris or large branches. Then she was right back on the main trail. It wasn’t possible to have wandered off course that much. Now, the light was fading in the forest, which meant the sun was going down. It had to be at least seven or eight o’clock.

She rubbed her arms to ward off the chill closing in on her and pulled on her sweater, grateful now for the last-minute addition to her pack. With no more time to dawdle, Jenna moved swiftly along the path, praying she wasn’t going further into a dense forest.

A clopping sound made her stop jogging and turn toward the noise. What the hell?

It was a horse, with a rider on top, barreling down on her. She jumped to one side, falling backward over some deadwood. She scrambled closer to the log and pulled herself into a ball to make herself as small as possible. Just in case this wasn’t a friendly sort. Voices came closer, male voices in a language she couldn’t understand. With luck, the horse’s rider hadn’t seen where she’d fallen, but he slowed his mount and scanned the area, so she was pretty sure he had. Careful to make as little noise as possible, she pulled several branches over her, and hoped the camouflage would provide enough protection.

Her heart pounded against her chest wall. The rider dismounted and moved steadily closer to where she hid. He was methodical as he pushed brush aside, and overturned small bits of branches, leaves and other woodland debris. He turned away seconds before he would have found her. She blew out the breath she’d been holding. Then suddenly his arm shot out and wrapped around her wrist, wrenching her from her hiding place.

No! Let me go! Jenna screamed.

He laughed and threw her over his shoulder.

She screamed again and beat her fists against his back, pinched at whatever skin she could pull up and kicked her legs mostly into the air because he seemed prepared for that. He threw her across his horse and pulled himself up behind her. With her head on one side and her feet hanging down the other side, Jenna struggled to see her surroundings as they pulled out of the woods and into a meadow.

The clearing! She was finally at the clearing, which was the least of her concerns right now. The rider laughed and called for someone, then shoved her to the ground. She fell in a heap, then scrambled to her feet. As she rubbed her derriere, a small huddle of burly men surrounded her.

Oh, God. She was in trouble.

Aidan Mathis? she said. I’m looking for Aidan Mathis. Have... have you s-seen him? she stuttered. She backed slowly away from the growing crowd until she came up against a hard, muscled wall. The soft whinny of a horse showed what that wall really was. Her gaze swept over her surroundings in a rush.

Several bonfires decorated the area, with large tents scattered about. A makeshift corral held a couple dozen horses, and several men paired off and sparring with swords.

Her head cocked to one side. When did a Renaissance festival come to town?

The man who’d pulled her from the woods grinned down at her seconds before he slapped her across the mouth hard enough to drop her to her knees.

She gulped and raised a hand to her face. She tasted the blood before she saw it. Are you insane? she demanded. What the hell is going on? Where am I?

He muttered something again in that language she couldn’t understand, and again the men sniggered. This wasn’t good. She needed to get the hell out of here as fast as she could. Cautiously, she turned toward the forest, hoping not to gain any extra attention while he laughed it up with the other men, then broke into a full sprint, running for all she was worth.

The shout behind her was probably a curse that the brute uttered. Jenna glanced over her shoulder in time to see him swing himself back up on his horse. She turned and ran harder than she’d ever run in her life. Almost to the tree line. If she could make it, she could seek cover and...

He reached her before she could finish her thought and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her up onto the horse in front of him. Dear God, she never thought anything could hurt as much as that did. With her hands raised