Swept Away (The Swept Away Saga, Book One)

Chapter Thirty-Two

"Why do ye think ye were brought here, to this time, if not to find me?" He smiled confidently as he spoke, ignoring my several attempts to stop him. "It can't be a coincidence that ye came here, of all places."

"I don't know why it was this time," I snapped, feeling heated. "It just happened, okay?"

"The ship stops at Oak Isle but once a year. Are ye suggesting that was pure chance as well?" Good grief he was stubborn! I didn't blame him for being curious about how and why I'd come here, but he was tying it all back to himself, trying to prove that we were meant to be together.

I'd wondered the same things on many occasions, if I had been lost so he could find me. But what kind of god or creator would be so cruel as to do that to me? I'd already lost my family in my own generation. Did I really need to lose another love here? Refusing to answer, I turned away from him, lying down and rolling to my side, staring at the wall. Blessed peace filled the space and I sighed, closing my eyes.

"I know ye've been struggling," he spoke softly after a few moments. "I could see it in ye that first night on the ship, when ye didn't know yer clothes from top to bottom. I thought ye were simply scared because pirates had taken ye. I'd never have guessed ye were stolen from a different time as well."

Snorting, I continued to look away, trying not to melt against him and let him comfort me.

"Ye want to go home, more than anything?" He asked quietly, reaching out and taking a strand of my hair between his fingers, rubbing it gently.

"I—I do." My response was greeted with silence and I felt him lower himself next to me, sliding close. More than anything, I wanted him to hold me, but his injured arm kept him from doing so.

"Will ye not mourn me anyway, lass?" he whispered, a strange hitch to his voice. "Because I will feel the loss of ye every day in my bones. Knowing that ye aren't in my world will destroy me."

His words brought tears to my eyes and I rolled over, snuggling against him as I let them fall. "I don't know what I want anymore." The statement had been brewing in my mind for some time, but I'd never realized it until then. He had changed everything, thrown it out of place without doing anything other than existing. "It seems like I should go home, because that was the time I was born in. That's where I belong, in the grand scheme of things. But there's nothing there for me, not really. All I would be going back to is graves—and yours would be included with them.

"But staying here? I don't understand this time. I don't understand the politics, or how to do things without modern conveniences. In my time, most people carry around a little box that has the ability to tell them anything they want to know, within seconds! It can call someone on the other side of the world and you'll be able to speak with them in real time. Water comes out of pipes, heated and falling like rain, and you bathe yourself in it. It never runs out! We don't have to fill a tub with buckets by the fire and hope that it stays warm for more than a few minutes. Ships are powered by more than wind, crossing the Atlantic in a number of days instead of months. We know how to fly! Illnesses that exist now are virtually extinct in my time. It is literally so different that I feel like I can't describe it well enough for you to understand."

Looking up at his face, I could see his wide eyes trying to process the information I'd dumped on him. It must have sounded like magic, made up stories that could never be real, but he was obviously trying to imagine it all.

"A box that can tell ye anything? That can speak?" he finally asked, looking at me with a burning curiosity.

"It doesn't really speak. Well, some of them do, but it isn't smart like a human. All of the data is loaded onto it and it just relays it back. It's called a smartphone."