Just great
(please leave feedback I wanted to try something new)
I stand inside the Callanish circle, wind whipping strands of hair across my face, phone raised for one last moody shot before the rain hits. My black leggings cling to my legs from the damp, hoodie loose over my puffy jacket, hiking boots sinking slightly into the soft turf. I feel ridiculous posing like a tourist influencer, but whatever.... Dallas feels a million miles away already, and I need something to post that doesn't scream "freshly dumped and running from my life."
I step closer to the tallest stone. It's rough under my fingertips, warmer than it should be in this biting cold. I trace a crack in the lichen, curious, stupidly curious.
The world rips.
Sound tears through my skull like metal shredding.
Light blinds me. My stomach flips as if I've stepped off a skyscraper. When everything steadies, my phone is dark and dead in my hand. No bars. No screen. No nothing.
Useless.
The visitor center is gone. The parking lot is gone. Just moor stretching out forever, sheep scattered like dirty clouds, smoke curling thin from distant stone cottages. The sky hangs lower, heavier, the color of old bruises.
I look down at myself same leggings, same hoodie, same bright purple backpack. Everything feels wrong, glaringly out of place.
I touch the stone again as though to go back to nothing.
I try again nothing.
Hoofbeats drum closer.
I turn just as he crests the rise on a shaggy Highland pony. He's big, broad, wearing a white shirt and pants, boots crusted with mud. A long rifle rests across the saddle, a dirk at his belt. Brown hair, wild at the ends. Face hard eyes ice blue and unreadable.
He pulls the pony up sharp and stares down at me like I've just crawled naked out of a fairy mound.
"What in God's name are ye, lass?" His voice is low, thick with the island burr. "Some Sassenach runaway playing at being a man?"
I blink. "What?"
His gaze drops deliberately to my legs, lingers on the way the leggings hug every curve, then climbs back up. "Ye're wearing trews. Like a lad. Or worse. No decent woman bares her limbs so shamelessly. Are ye escaped from some asylum, or did a laird lose a wager and dress ye up for a jest?"
Heat floods my face. Confusion snaps into fury.
"These are leggings, you caveman asshole. They're clothes. Normal fucking clothes where I come from. I'm not dressed like a man...fuck you."
The words explode out, sharp and American, too loud against the quiet moor. His pony snorts and shifts. For a heartbeat his face stays stone, but something dark sparks in those eyes...anger, maybe, or interest.
He swings down from the saddle in one fluid motion, boots hitting turf hard. Up close he towers, smells of woodsmoke and leather and wet wool. He steps right into my space, forcing me to tilt my head back.
"Caveman?" he repeats slowly, tasting the insult.
"Ye've a reckless tongue for a woman alone on MacKenzie land."
The man's ice-blue eyes narrow, flicking over me again like he's trying to decide if I'm a hallucination from bad whisky or something worse. He doesn't step back. If anything, he leans in closer, the scent of peat smoke and horse sweat sharper now, crowding out the wet-earth smell of the moor.
"Leggings," he repeats, rolling the word like it's foreign poison on his tongue. "Ye speak as though the word should mean something to me, lass. It doesna." His voice drops lower, edged with something that isn't quite amusement...more like a man humoring a child who's wandered too far from the nursery. "And ye curse like a trooper fresh off a press-gang. No woman of breeding talks so. No woman at all, if she's right in her head."
I open my mouth to snap back, but he cuts me off with a sharp gesture, palm out. The rifle across his saddle glints dully in the bruised light.
"Enough," he says. "Ye're no' right, that's plain. Mad, or English, or both."
He circles me slowly, boots squelching in the turf, inspecting me the way he'd check a lame sheep. His gaze lingers again on the leggings...my thighs, hips, the way the fabric clings where the damp has made it second-skin tight then up to the bright purple backpack straps cutting across my puffy jacket. He reaches out, quick as a snake, and tugs at one strap. I flinch, but he only lifts it slightly, testing the weight, the strange synthetic feel of it under callused fingers.
"What devilry is this?" he mutters, almost to himself. "No wool, no linen, no leather I ken. And this color...bright as a king's whore's petticoat. Ye're no' from Lewis. No' from Scotland at all, I'd wager. Americas?" He spits the word like it's a curse he's only half-learned. "Aye, that fits. The colonies send all manner of mad creatures these days...religious fanatics, indentured rogues, women who think themselves men I suppose."
He lets the strap drop and straightens, towering again. The pony stamps behind him, impatient.
"I'm no' mad," I say, but my voice cracks on the last word. The dead phone in my hand feels heavier than it should, like proof I'm losing my grip. "This is... this is impossible. The visitor center was right there. Cars. People. My flight leaves in three days. I have a life—"
"Visitor center?" He snorts, short and harsh. "Ye speak in riddles, lass. There's naught here but the stones and the moor and MacKenzie land as far as a man can ride in a day. No center for visitors, unless ye mean the factor's house down by Calanais village, and even that is humble. And flight?" His brow furrows deeper. "Ye mean to say ye think ye can fly like a bird? God's blood, ye are daft."
He studies my face now, really studies it searching for lies, for cunning, for anything that makes sense in his world. Whatever he finds makes his mouth tighten.
"Right, then," he says, decisive. "Mad or no, ye canna stay here alone. The rain's coming hard, and there are worse things than cold on these moors after dark...cattle thieves, broken men, things that walk when the mist rises. Ye'll come with me. My holding's no' far. My sister will see to ye, maybe talk sense into that reckless mouth, or at least get ye out of those... trews... before ye scandalize the whole island."
He turns toward the pony, then pauses, glancing back. "Unless ye'd rather stand here shouting at stones till the fever takes ye proper. Yer choice, Sassenach. But dinna think I'll leave a woman...even a mad one....to freeze or worse."
I stare at him, heart hammering against my ribs. The wind picks up, carrying the first fat drops of rain. The stones loom silent behind me, ancient and indifferent. Dallas...my job, my ex, my stupid Instagram life....feels like a dream I can't wake from. This man, this place, this impossible now... they're solid. Too solid.
"Fine," I mutter, wiping rain from my face. "But if you try anything, caveman, I'll kick your ass back to whatever century this is."
He laughs then...low, rough, surprised. "Brave words for a wee thing wi' no blade and no sense. Mount up behind me. And dinna call me caveman again, or I'll think ye're asking for a lesson in manners."
He swings into the saddle and reaches down a broad, scarred hand. I hesitate only a second before taking it. His grip is iron, warm, pulling me up like I weigh nothing. I settle awkwardly behind him, arms around a waist that's all hard muscle under wet wool, the pony's coarse mane brushing my cheek.
The rain starts in earnest as we turn away from the circle. I don't look back. I can't. The stones are already fading into the mist, and whatever just happened what I just lost feels like it's slipping away with them.
But the man in front of me is real. And he thinks I'm insane.
Maybe he's right.
The pony picks its way down a narrow track that's more suggestion than path, hooves sucking at the mud with every step. Rain sheets sideways now, cold enough to sting, soaking through my hoodie in minutes. I press closer to the man's back without meaning to his body heat is the only thing between me and shivering outright. He doesn't comment, but I feel the subtle shift in his shoulders, like he's aware of every inch where we touch.
We ride in silence for what feels like forever, just the drum of rain, the creak of wet leather, and the occasional snort from the pony. My arms are locked around his waist more tightly than I'd like to admit; the motion of the horse forces me against him, thigh to thigh, chest to back. Every jolt reminds me how solid he is. How very not-Dallas he is.
Finally the track widens and a low, long house appears out of the grey stone walls, turf roof sagging under the wet, smoke leaking from a chimney like it's too tired to rise. A couple of shaggy cattle huddle against the gable end. No lights in the windows, just the dull orange flicker of firelight behind small, thick panes.
He swings down first, boots splashing, then reaches up without ceremony and pulls me off the pony like I'm a sack of wool. My legs are numb; I stumble when my hiking boots hit the ground. He steadies me with one hard hand on my elbow, grip lingering a second longer than necessary before he lets go.
"Inside," he says, jerking his chin toward the low doorway. "Before ye drown standing up."
I duck under the lintel after him. The smell hits first peat smoke, damp wool, roasted meat, something herbal and sharp. The room is dim, lit mostly by the fire in the wide hearth and a single tallow dip. A woman—younger than him, maybe late twenties—looks up from where she's stirring a pot. Her hair is the same dark brown as his, braided tight, face wind-reddened and suspicious.
"Alasdair," she says, voice sharp. "What in the name of all that's holy have ye dragged home now?"
He shrugs out of his sodden coat, hangs it on a peg. "Found her at the stones. Raving. Dressed like a play-actor or a runaway. Says her name is—" He glances at me, expectant.
"Julianna," I supply, teeth chattering. Water drips off my jacket onto the packed-earth floor.
The sister...Mairi, I learn later...eyes me head to toe, lingering on the leggings the same way he did. Her mouth purses like she's tasted something sour.
"Sit by the fire, then, Julianna," she says at last, not kindly but not cruel. "Ye look half-frozen and twice daft."
I drop onto a low stool near the hearth, grateful for the heat licking at my shins. Alasdair...finally a name crosses to a wooden chest, pulls out a rough wool blanket, and tosses it at me without looking.
"Wrap that round ye. Those trews of yours are soaked through. indecent and useless against the cold."
I catch the blanket but don't move to change yet. "I'm not stripping in front of strangers, thanks."
Mairi snorts. Alasdair just watches me, arms crossed, expression unreadable again.
After a minute he speaks, voice low. "Ye've no ring on your finger, lass. No husband to come looking?"
I blink at him. "Excuse me?"
"A husband," he repeats, slower, like maybe I'm slow. "Or a father. Some man who'd ride out to fetch ye back before ye shame yourself further wandering alone dressed like that."
Heat crawls up my neck again, different this time...half embarrassment, half pure incredulity. "Excuse me," I say again, louder, "I'm a grown woman. I don't need a husband or a father to 'fetch' me anywhere. I'm thirty-two. I have a job, an apartment, credit cards, a 401(k)...I take care of myself."
He stares like I've started speaking in tongues.
"Thirty-two?" Mairi echoes from the pot, eyebrows climbing. "And never wed? No bairns?"
"No," I snap, clutching the blanket tighter. "Not everyone gets married at nineteen here? Wait...when even is here?"
Alasdair exchanges a look with his sister. Something unspoken passes between them....concern, maybe, or calculation.
"Ye dinna ken the year?" he asks quietly.
I swallow. My throat feels too dry all of a sudden. "It was 2025. January. When I... when I touched the stone."
Mairi makes a small sound, half laugh, half prayer.
Alasdair doesn't laugh. He steps closer, crouching so his eyes are level with mine. The firelight turns his irises almost silver.
"'Tis the year of our Lord 1747, lass," he says, each word measured. "January as well, near enough. The month of the wolf. And ye're on the isle of Lewis, in the Hebrides. MacKenzie land. My land."
The words land like stones in my stomach.
1747
Culloden's coming. The Jacobites. The end of the clans. I've read enough historical romance novels to know the broad strokes and enough to know how badly this could end for anyone who doesn't fit.
I stare at him. He stares back, waiting for the lie to crack, for me to confess I'm some English spy or a madwoman playing a cruel game.
Instead I laugh short, shaky, bordering on hysterical. "Of course it is. Because my life wasn't enough of a mess already."
Alasdair doesn't smile. But something shifts in his face less suspicion now, more of a wary curiosity, like he's looking at a puzzle he can't yet solve.
"Eat something," he says at last, straightening.
"Then we'll talk. And if ye truly are from... wherever ye think ye're from... ye'd best learn quick how to hold your tongue about flying machines and magic stones. Folk here hang witches. Or burn them."
He turns away to hang his rifle above the hearth.
I pull the blanket tighter, staring into the flames.
Thirty-two. Single. Jobless in the future now, probably. And stuck in 1747 with a man who thinks leggings are scandalous and women need husbands to exist.
Great.
Just great.
