Reunited (Book 2 of Lost Highlander series) by Cassidy Cayman

he heard was the clatter when it hit the floor.
    He opened his eyes to see the beams of the ceiling above him and shot to his feet, heart racing, head spinning. He reached out and grabbed one of the stall doors. The rough slats of the door under his fingers made his racing heart nearly stop. That was wrong. Everything was wrong.
    Holy hell. Where was he? He spun in a circle and sat down in the straw, squeezing his eyes shut tight. After a count of ten, he opened them and groaned. Nothing had changed.
    Or rather, everything had changed. His stable was not his stable anymore. He ran from stall to stall, peeking over the swinging wooden slat doors. His horses were not his horses anymore. Looking around frantically, he saw that he was alone in the barn. Where were his stable lads?
    He ran out the door, at least the door was still in the right spot, and made it to a patch of gorse that shouldn’t have been there, fell to his knees, and threw up.
    Shaking, he managed to stand back up and turn around to face the castle. It was nearly dusk and the whole thing was lit up like a birthday cake, except a good half of it was missing. There were people milling about in the courtyard below, a wagon of some sort was pulling up and a couple of children jumped off the back of it and ran into the kitchen. There were chickens pecking around in a small enclosure at the far end of the yard. A large herb garden was surrounded by a low stone wall. None of it was right.
    A trampling sound from behind him made him whirl around. Coming out of the forest at the top of the hill was a group of men, all wearing kilts and carrying various hunting weapons, game birds hanging from their belts. In a few minutes they’d be upon him.
    He looked down at his clothes. Grubby jeans, riding boots, t-shirt and flannel shirt over it.
    He had a more formal, old fashioned looking uniform of buff breeches and wine red jacket he wore when an important tour was scheduled. Piper had been adorably excited when she picked it out for him, but had assured him he could wear whatever he wanted for regular everyday work.
    Even that uniform would stick out like a sore thumb in the group of men he saw. He had a gut feeling he needed to stay out of sight, even though he couldn’t quite understand what was happening.
    Deciding to trust his gut, he ducked down low and tore off around the back of the barn, waited breathlessly for the men to saunter past, then tore up toward the forest the way they had come, almost hysterically anticipating an axe blow to his back, but not stopping or looking behind him until he was hidden in the trees.
    He wrestled his phone out of his pocket. It was completely dead, though he’d had a full battery charge just that morning.
    Getting his bearings, he made his way north along the tree line. If he stayed along the edge of the woods, he knew he would wind up at the ruins of some old crofter’s huts that were a mile or so away.
    He’d scouted the area the day before as a possible place to hide one of the daft flags Piper insisted on using instead of having a proper hunt.
    It was closer than the village and one of them still had a partial roof. He’d hunker down there until morning and by then maybe everything would be back to normal.  
    The sun was setting and he moved closer to open land, keeping his eyes down, not wanting to trip and break his neck on an exposed root or fallen log. He concentrated on his surroundings, mentally taking note of every tree, vine and twig, listening for birds, doing everything he could to avoid asking himself any difficult questions.
    He remembered the pitchfork falling out of his hand. Maybe he’d had a heart attack and no one had found him yet. He almost faltered in his steady pace, wanting to return to the stable and see if he was still lying there and this was a crazy out of body experience.
    No, better keep moving, if for no other reason than being back at the strange barn and the even stranger castle gave him the