Caught in Time

Chapter 10. A New Wardrobe

This one is a little bit longer than usual, please let me know if it is a bad idea to make the chapters longer. I am thinking about keeping them about 2500-3000 words long.

-Cara-

Keegan took her to a little square, not more than a ten-minute walk from the house the family lived in. Cara studied the open area and it was filled with life and movement. What looked like little shops were put up and merchants of different kinds were shouting around them. Cara assumed that they were announcing prices, offers and what different types of products they had. In front of the merchants' stands stood their customers whom either observed the products or haggled with the business owner.

Cara took it all in. The life around her and Keegan was a lot for her to process. There was no sight of modern life anywhere; no electricity, no running water, not even a proper street to walk on. Cara looked down on the ground and it was just dried up dirt with marks of wheelbarrows or hoofs from horses.

Out of the blue Keegan pulled her gently but quickly back a step, his hand around her left arm.

A man pulling a cart by his own walked past them. Cara nodded thankfully towards Keegan, he had prevented her from either getting knocked over or caused the man to lose his speed. Her eyes fell to the man's feet and he seemed to struggle with the cart. Then she looked down on her own feet. She grimaced when she noticed that her feet were already dirty.

I just took that bath... She thought and sighed. Do they not own a pair of spare shoes I can borrow?

Suddenly she noticed that Keegan was looking at her. The charming green eyes studied her feet, as if he had noticed that she herself had studied them. He then looked at her and mumbled something to her. Cara crossed her arms uncomfortable and pressed her lips together. Keegan sighed and turned his eyes back to the square.

It is getting really old not being able to understand a word of what anyone says to me... Why are we even here? Cara wondered.

In the middle of the square stood a well which small children was playing around. They were playing some sort of tag around it and their laughter was the uplifting. There were four of them and from the look of it they were not related, they did not share any traits. Maybe they had been left there while their parents were shopping? The innocence in leaving ones children alone, without a caretaker, like this caused her to smile a little. The place Cara was currently in had to be a safe and small one if people trusted their children to be safe while alone like this.

However, the place was a little too small to be called a town... It was more of a village. Since Cara clearly was in some sort of society with no modern utilities it would be most fitting to call it a ''village'...

Keegan walked calmly next to her, but he seemed to be on the lookout for something. The emerald green eyes were wary and his whole body seemed a bit tense. Cara took her chance and studied him in secret for a second.

Keegan was truly well built with his broad shoulders and height. Cara could almost see the muscles on his back through his worn linen shirt. Her eyes dropped to the arms of the shirt and she was not left disappointed as she studied how his biceps caused the shirt to crease somewhat. He had rolled up the sleeves, so his lower arms were naked and exposed. They were pure evidence of all the manual labor he probably did day in and day out; they were magnificently well shaped, and his hands were large. To Cara's slight surprise Keegan also seemed to have a tan, even though he was clearly a ginger. Still, she hadn't seen much freckles on either of the family members which she deemed a bit strange. All the gingers she could think of had freckles, and some never got a tan, they got severely sunburn and then turned even lighter in skin tone. But Keegan was not your regular ginger... He was... in lack of other words: freaking hot.