Read Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) for Free Online

our identification and luggage, and
then they can drop us on the shore with no more questions
asked.”
    “That’s not going to work,” David said.
“We’re Americans. They’ll hold us until they can sort out who we
are and how we got here. Besides, I don’t lie well. Even if they
don’t understand what is really going on, they’ll know something’s
off.”
    “For a politician, you are disconcertingly
honest.” For a few more seconds, Cassie’s eyes followed the
approaching cutter, but then she faced David. “I know it’s too late
now, but the instant we woke up, we should have run and not stopped
running until we got back home again.”
    “How could we have done that in the ten
minutes between waking up and when that ship appeared?” David said.
“Could you have swum to shore?”
    Cassie licked her lips. “How do you imagine
this playing out? Less than a year ago, they chased your parents
halfway across Wales, trying to prevent them from returning to the
Middle Ages. Callum came with your mother because he wanted to
arrest them. Are these MI-5 agents going to view us any differently
than Callum did? They’ll lock us up until they can figure out if
we’re safe to be loosed on the world, and if they do believe us,
it’s going to be even worse. Time travel, David! You’re going to be
like every holiday of the year wrapped up in one neat bundle and
delivered to their doorstep.”
    “Cassie—” David began.
    “No, David.” Cassie glowered at him. “Even
after more than six years in medieval Britain, with all the
poisonous politics, backbiting, and outright murder, you still
think the best of people? They’re going to lock you up and never
let you out!”
    David didn’t know what to say. He’d brought
his friends here with a certain kind of confidence that never left
him. He was the King of England, and that meant he had to
show confidence at all times. Only his closest friends and family
knew how often he struggled with uncertainty. Bile rose in his
throat, which was hurting badly enough as it was. He didn’t answer
Cassie.
    She nodded slowly as she watched him. “You
know I’m right, don’t you?”
    “Yes. You’re probably right.” David could
smell the diesel fumes from the coastguard cutter, even from this
distance. He felt lightheaded and took in a deep breath to steady
himself. “I may have miscalculated.”
    Cassie didn’t rub it in, though she could
have.
    “I’m glad you said something, but now it’s
too late to do anything but what we can,” David said. “It was too
late the instant the coastguard found us. I’m sorry. We’re cornered
now.”
    Cassie didn’t answer, just turned away from
him to observe the approaching ship.
    “I have to tell the truth, Cassie.”
    “Okay.”
    “What does that mean?” David inspected the
cutter too, acknowledging that its only relationship to the ship
they were on was that they were both technically ‘ships’. The
coastguard cutter was metal and sleek, needing a mere handful of
men to crew it.
    “It means okay,” Cassie said. “What’s
done is done, and we’ll deal with what is before us and try to get
out of this in one piece.” Then she shot him an actual grin. “It
can’t be more dangerous than facing down King Edward without a
sword.”
    David managed a laugh, and then Callum
stepped between them, holding a billfold in his hand.
    “What do you have there?” Cassie took it
from Callum and opened it. It contained not money but Callum’s MI-5
badge. Cassie stared at it and then at Callum. “I don’t know which
is more incredible—that you kept it, or that you brought it!”
    Callum looked sheepish. “I didn’t bring it
to Scotland, as you well know, but I threw it in my bag this time
because—”
    “—because you were traveling with me,” David
said.
    Cassie’s mouth was open. “I knew you thought
a lot about returning to this world when you first got here, but I
didn’t know you still did.”
    “Every day.”