Swept Away (13 page)

“I thought about it,” Ella admitted.

“Perhaps it's best this way.”

T
he next day
at the convent was a somber one. Ella went through the motions of her chores, her mind whirling as she worked with plans that she created and discarded one by one. The fact that she had explosives was good but explosives would only be useful if she had a plan. A really creative, brilliant plan. As she kneaded the dough, punched it down and shaped it into loaves, she tried to remember any television plots that might help. She also ran through the plotlines of favorite movies and novels.

When Greta asked her at lunch if she would like help in devising the plan, Ella knew Greta was just trying to pacify her. Ella thanked her but said no, a plan based on C-4 and Taser plugs would not easily be contrived by a seventeenth century nun, even if she
had
been born in the twentieth century.

The rest of the convent was still in mourning for the two sisters they had lost the day before. The novices looked terrified as if at any moment they might be plucked out of their home and taken away.
A very real concern
, Ella thought, as she helped wash dishes after dinner. She smiled encouragingly at the younger nuns. Their fear almost radiated off them as they moved about their chores. Waiting.

Frustrated with her inability to form a sensible plan that could save them, Ella found she couldn't sleep that night. After hours of trying, she grabbed a wool cloak and slipped out of the nunnery and into the garden. Careful not to get too close to the place where the door swung open to her future world, she sat on a stone table in the middle of the garden under a large olive tree.
I'm no good at this
, she thought.
I want so badly to help but I don't have any ideas. None. Blow up the castle. Only there's not enough C-4 to do that.

Feeling a wave of hopelessness crash over her, Ella gave away to futility and sadness. Her shoulders shook with her sobs as she wept without restraint. And as she cried, she realized that she too was mourning. Only she was mourning for herself because today it occurred to her that what she had really been trying for, what she had been reaching and hoping for her whole life long—what she gave up Rowan for—wasn't an international job full of adventure and prestige. What she had
really
wanted all along was love. The chance to love and be loved. And because she never looked herself in the eye and saw that
that
was what she truly wanted, she spent thirty years going down rabbit holes and blind alleys—just like her father always told her—looking for something that never existed.

And when the chance for love
finally
did come into her life, she had thrown it away. She couldn't even blame it on fate or bad timing or anyone else. And when she finally formed that thought in her head and with it the realization of her failure, she buried her head on her folded arms on her knees and cried until there were no more tears to cry.

R
owan stared
at the barmaid and pointed to his empty glass. His cowboy hat sat on the bar next to him. There weren't many people in this evening so he didn't worry about taking up an extra stool. Besides, he intended to make it worth Olga's while. Or whatever her name was. She came over and brought him a fresh whiskey and soda and sat it down in place of the empty one she took away.

“I'll be needing a double next time, ma'am,” he said.

“I already took the liberty,” she said, smiling sweetly. “You did not drive, did you?”

He was touched that she wanted to make sure he wasn't going to drive drunk tonight. “No, ma'am,” he said. “I did not.”

“Then the double is on me.”

“I thank you, ma'am. Will you join me?”

“
Natürlich
,” she said as she placed a glass on the bar next to his and poured a shot of Tequila. “Are you alone?”

“I am alone,” he said, draining his drink.

“Not married?”

“No, ma'am,” he said. “Not even close.”

“Are you a cowboy?”

“Guess I'd pass pretty close to it in Heidelberg,” he said, pushing his empty toward her for a refill.

“You are sad about something, I think.”

“You are very good at your job, darlin'. Yeah, I'm sad.”

“I can be very good at helping you not be sad.”

“Well, actually, I think I'll just let the whiskey handle that,” he said. “No offense.”

“The whiskey will only make you sadder,” she said. “This much I know.”

“I reckon you're right,” he said. “I guess at this point I just don't give a shit. I hope you'll excuse my language.”

The bartender sipped her drink and then pulled a business card out from under the bar. She wrote her number on it and pushed the card across the bar to Rowan.

“When the whiskey does not work, I hope you will come back,” she said. “You must fight love with love. This much I know.”

“Good to know.
Danke schön
.” Rowan pocketed the business card and tapped his empty drink glass. “Meanwhile, if I could trouble you…”

By the time he left the bar at closing time, he knew he was solidly drunk. And that was perfectly fine with him.

The night before, when he knew he had missed Ella by mere minutes, he had run out into the street as if the night and the silence of the buildings could direct him in some way. Not knowing which way she had gone, he had run without thinking toward the
Altstadt
.

Now, drunk and defeated, he wove down the noisy party street that was
Altstadt
in 2012. The night before, at this spot, he thought he'd seen a shadow move on the old stone road leading up to the castle ruins. Tonight, he found himself drawn again to that place.
Stupid
, he thought.
If she wasn't here last night, she sure as shit ain't going to be here tonight
. And besides, there was no
here
, here. It was just the beginning of a stone walkway. He stumbled up the dark walkway, then leaned against the stonewall beside it and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. His Glock semi-automatic was nestled in his shoulder holster and he felt it pressing into his chest as he lifted the lighter to the tip of the cigarette. He took a long drag off the cigarette and felt the chill of the November night seep under his thin jacket.

“Where are you, Ella?” he said to the air, the night, the castle stones. “Where are you, girl?”

Suddenly, he felt something move deep inside him. It was a rush of warmth and lust and emotion all at once which seemed to engulf him. He staggered away from the wall and tossed the cigarette down. Inconceivably, drunkenly, he was overwhelmed by the feeling that Ella was there. He looked around and up and down the empty walkway.

She is here!
Rowan pushed himself off the wall, opening his arms wide as if to embrace the air or the feeling of her nearness, his heart full as an ocean of longing washed over him. In anguish, he called out: “Ella! Where are you?”

In a rush of movement and nausea that made him think he was passing out, Rowan took two more steps and found himself in front of a garden gate under a full moon. He fell on the gate and struggled to right himself. The gate swung inward with his weight and he fell into a small bed of vegetables.

“Aw, shit,” he said picking himself up and feeling the mud on his knees. “Son of a bitch.” In the recesses of his quickly sobering mind, he could hear someone moving in the garden. And then he heard the one thing he never would have believed he would hear.

“Rowan? Is that you?”

He looked up to see Ella dressed in a nun's habit coming toward him at a dead run.

S
he flew
down the narrow garden path to the gate, the sharp stones biting into her bare feet, and launched herself into his arms. Her need to touch him and be held by him was as fierce and real as anything she ever felt. She hit him so hard that they both fell to the ground. She grabbed his face with her hands in the moonlight to look into his eyes and make sure it was really him.

“If wanting something so bad can make it appear, then I just brought you here all the way from Dothan, Alabama,” she said.

“Ella, girl,” Rowan said. “Is it really you? I can't believe I found you! Dear God, what are you wearing? What happened to you? I can't believe it's you.”

He held her arms in his hands, his eyes welling and searching her face in shock and disbelief.

“I can't believe you're here,” she said, still sitting on top of him. “I can't believe you're really here.” In spite of her best attempts not to, she started to cry.

“Hey, beautiful, don't cry. It's going to be all right. Everything's going to be all right.”

“How did you get here? How did you know I was here?” Ella said. She wiped the tears from her face.

“I didn't know,” Rowan said. “Ella, what's going on? Was that you in your apartment yesterday?”

“Yes! Was that you who nearly caught me? Oh, if I'd known it was you!” And she started to cry again.

“Whoa, there, whatever it is, it can't be that bad, Ella. I'm here, aren't I?”

She nodded and put her hands out to touch his face again. “I can't believe it,” she repeated, shaking her head in wonder. “But you really are.”

“Can we stand up? This mud is better for the plants than it is my khakis.”

They got to their feet and he wrapped his arms around her. They stood silently, just holding each other until Rowan finally pulled away.

“What are you doing in a broken down old garden in the middle of the night?” he asked. “Are you
living
here? Why aren't you in your apartment? Why did you quit your job? Why didn't you call me back? Or your father?”

“Oh, my God,” she said, pulling out of his embrace. “You don't know.”

“Don't know what?
What
don't I know?”

“Rowan, there is no easy way to tell you this so I'm just going to tell you and let it sink in, okay?”

“Okay.”

“We are no longer in 2012. We are in a different year in history. We're in the year 1620.”

“What the hell, Ella?”

Ella sniffed at the collar of his jacket. “Rowan? You been drinking tonight?”

“Doesn't mean I went insane.”

She reached out and took his hand and began to lead him out of the garden and toward the back door of the convent. “You know what?” she said. “You just come to it at your own pace. Meanwhile, let's get out of the cold. The last thing we need is for people to hear you talk. I have my own room here.”

“Why don't we just go to your perfectly nice apartment? Ella, what's going on? What is this place?”

Gripping his hand, Ella pulled him through the kitchen door. Inside it was totally dark and she whispered to him to be quiet.

“Put your hands on my hips,” she said. “And I'll lead you.”

“Where the hell are we, Ella?”

“Keep your voice down. I don't want the ladies to meet you until morning. They have enough going on right now.”

“The ladies?”

“All in due time, Rowan. For now, just follow me.”

Feeling his strong hands on her hips gave Ella a surge of strength and optimism she hadn't felt in months. As she led him through the medieval kitchen with its hanging poultry and rabbits, she could feel his fingers tighten on her, but he didn't speak. When they left the kitchen, she hurried down the stone hall to her room. She paused briefly to listen for anyone else up and about in the convent. She heard nothing and pushed open the door to her room.

In the moonlight coming through the single window in the room, she watched as Rowan automatically felt on the wall for the light switch he knew must be there.

“Forget it, Rowan,” she said, pulling him to the bed. “There's no electricity here.”

“You're kidding. What is this, some kind of hostel or ashram?”

“Something like that,” Ella said. She pulled off his jacket and dropped it to the floor beside her. “Come sit down.”

“I can't see my hand in front of my face,” he said. He sat down next to her on the bed and she knew he was confused and unsettled.

“Your eyes will adjust,” she said. She took both his hands in hers. “Rowan.”

“Ella.”

“We're together now. We've found each other literally across time itself.”

“You didn't drink any Kool-Aid at this ashram, did you? Because although you have no idea how happy I am that I found you, Ella, you sound really different.”

Ella laughed and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “I cannot believe that you are here. If I had any prayer, ever, it was answered when I saw you in the garden tonight. God gave you back to me. God gave me a second chance to not fuck this up.”

“Does God know you're using that kind of language? Because I'm pretty sure he frowns on it.” He shook his head. “What happened to you, Ella? I got that crazy middle-of-the-night call from you and then nobody knew where you were. Not your dad, not—”

“You talked to my father?”

“Hell, yeah, I did. You
disappeared
. I've been living in your Heidelberg apartment for over a week now and it's like you never existed. No friends stopping by, no phone calls. What the hell happened?”

“You came to Heidelberg to find me? Oh, Rowan. You came to
Germany
?”

“Okay, Ella, why are you talking like this? Of
course
I came to Germany. We're
in
Germany, aren't we? Why are you acting like this is news to you?”

“I thought you might have come here from the States,” Ella said. “You know, from Dothan.”

“I
did
come here from the States,” Rowan said. The confusion on his face made Ella want to laugh except she knew it wasn't going to be funny when he finally figured it all out.

“I'm just grateful is all, Rowan,” she said, squeezing his hands. “You have no idea what kind of trouble we've got here.”