Perfect Timing

by Catherine Anderson

  “Ye truly believe I’m mad, do ye not?” She sent Quincy a knowing look. “I venture a guess that I would feel the same if I were not druid and aware that there are things in this world that defy explanation.” She turned from the stallion and arched a finely drawn brow. “Surely, being of druid descent yerself, ye’re aware of that as well, Sir Quincy.”

  Now he was a druid? Quincy almost laughed. He’d read about druids, but he’d never believed they had magical powers. They’d merely been well-educated individuals who’d found it easy to hoodwink Irish and Scottish peasants into thinking they possessed abilities that normal human beings didn’t.

  He glanced at his watch. It would take the police about twenty minutes to show up, yet his burglar revealed no inclination to run. In her shoes, he would have been searching for the closest exit. Maybe she was so delusional that she actually believed what she’d told him.

  * * *

  Ceara grew increasingly uneasy as the minutes passed. In her mum’s crystal ball, Quincy Harrigan had appeared to be handsome, but nothing she’d seen in the glass had prepared her for the reality of him. A man of her time always wore an inar and brat over his léine and trews, which served well to conceal his body. Such was not the case with Quincy. His exposed léine was made of a strange blue cloth that clung to his well-developed shoulders and chest, leaving nothing to her imagination. Through the rungs of the stall gate, she could also see how tightly his trews skimmed his powerfully muscled thighs.

  She didn’t care for the way he stood there staring at her, as if he were waiting for something to happen. Recalling his reference to the “police,” she decided he’d been referring to his constables, whose job it undoubtedly was to keep the peace and uphold the law on his lands. But if that were the case, why had the constables not yet arrived? At her father’s manor, keepers of the peace were in close residence and didn’t take this long to respond when trouble was afoot.

  A wave of yearning for home struck her. Though she’d been in this new place for less than a night, she sorely missed her parents, younger sister, brothers, and all the familiar things she’d left behind. Did this man not understand the magnitude of the sacrifice she had made in order to come forward in time? Instead of acting grateful, Quincy Harrigan seemed angry. That made no sense to her. Had she not explained her reasons for being here clearly enough? She was on a mission to save lives.

  “Do ye comprehend why I have come here, Sir Quincy?” she ventured.

  He pushed at the brim of his black hat, which was far and beyond the oddest headwear she had ever seen. Then he arched a dark brow at her. “I think I have a pretty clear picture,” he replied.

  “Yet ye are not pleased that I am here?”

  He ran his dark gaze down her body, making her skin tingle beneath her garments. His firm mouth tipped up in a humorless grin. “How many months did it take to perfect your Irish brogue? It is part of the role you’re playing, right, as vital to the illusion you’re creating as the gown you’re wearing?” He shrugged a strong shoulder. “What I can’t figure is why you’ve gone to such lengths.” Hooking his thumbs over the wide leather belt that encircled his narrow hips, he added, “I suppose that’s for the cops to determine and not really my concern.” He glanced around the enclosure, his gaze lingering on the other animals’ stalls. “Unless, of course, you sneaked in here to harm my horses.”

  Ceara’s indignant denial trailed off as she heard a horrific wailing in the distance. Dogs began barking upstairs somewhere, their cries muffled. Quincy left the area for a moment, then quickly resumed his post at the railing. “Right on time. I opened the gate for the police by remote control.”

  The awful noise increased, and Ceara heard what put her in mind of thick, heavy doors being slammed closed. A sudden cessation of the wailing preceded a rush of footsteps coming toward the building. Seconds later, voices rang out in the cavernous enclosure.

  She jerked with a start when Quincy vaulted over the stall gate and strode past the stallion to grasp her arm. “This way,” he said, pulling her forward. “Beethoven won’t react well to a bunch of uniforms.”

  The relentless pressure of his grip told Ceara that balking would accomplish little. She allowed him to tug her along, stood obediently as he opened the gate, and then exited the stall with him. It wasn’t until she saw a blue blur of men running toward them that she grew truly frightened. With a slight shove, Quincy Harrigan forced her forward, and the next thing she knew the men were upon her. They grasped her shoulders with unnecessarily rough hands, spun her around, and wrenched her arms behind her back. Cold metal clamps closed around her wrists.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” one of the constables barked at her. “Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights that have just been read to you?”

  Ceara understood the implications, if not the specifics. These men meant to incarcerate her. As two of them flanked her and grabbed her arms to lead her away, she threw a frantic glance over her shoulder. “Me satchel!” she cried. “’Tis mine! I cannot leave it behind!” The bag held all her keepsakes from home. Without them, she would have no reminders of her family. “Please, will ye not at least let me keep me things?”

  The men holding her never broke pace. Ceara continued to look back and plead to fetch her belongings until they tugged her through a doorway to exit the building. Blinding flashes of red and blue created a whirling confusion of light that bathed everything in the semidarkness. Ceara had never seen anything so stunning, not even when her father ignited gunpowder to impress guests at his annual festivals. Surely not even a thousand candles could produce such a lavish display.

  Stumbling forward between her two captors, she stared with growing alarm at three shiny, dark blue carriages. While peering into her mum’s crystal ball, she’d glimpsed similar horseless conveyances and knew that some mysterious, unseen power propelled them into motion. But none that she’d seen had looked exactly like these. Atop the roof of each one perched a long, boardlike object that emitted the spurts of bright color, and along the sides golden flames had been painted. A third officer hurried forward to open a rear door of the closest equipage. One of Ceara’s escorts shoved her toward the opening, clamped a hand over her head, and pushed her down onto an incredibly soft seat.

  “Feet inside,” he ordered.

  Ceara swung her legs up and over the threshold. The man leaned forward to pull a strap over her shoulder and across her torso. With a sharp click of metal, she was imprisoned where she sat, her bound hands forming an uncomfortable lump at the small of her back. Battling tears, she saw that thick wire mesh separated the rear compartment of the conveyance from the front one. She truly was being imprisoned. But what was her crime?

  She caught movement from the corner of her eye and turned to see Sir Quincy standing just beyond the window. Booted feet spread, arms akimbo, his face shadowed by the brim of his hat, he looked intense and fearful. In the flashing light, she saw the grim set of his lips and the twitch of a muscle in his lean cheek. What had she done, she wondered, to make him hate her so? Such enmity was born only of a heart filled with malice. He had not troubled himself to bring her the satchel. Indeed, he projected an air of such hostility that she was surprised he had done her no physical harm while they had been alone in that monstrosity he called an arena.

  Fear clutched her heart. She knew only one man in this time and place, and clearly she could expect no assistance from him.

  Chapter Two

  As the officers drove away, Quincy couldn’t drag his gaze from Ceara’s tear-streaked face, pressed imploringly against the window glass, her eyes filled with urgent appeal. He considered himself to be a good judge of character, and he knew damned well the woman had to be emotionally ill, but something in her expression tugged at his conscience and made him feel like a rotten skunk for having her arr
ested.

  Determined to get on with his day, he shook off the feeling. The world was filled with unbalanced people. Some took drugs. Others were just born messed up in the head and needed treatment to keep them on an even keel. Quincy wished none of them ill, including his intruder, but with his brother’s wife at death’s door, he already had plenty to deal with, and now, thanks to Ceara O’Ceallaigh, if that was even her real name, he had an extra mountain of work ahead of him.

  He reentered the arena shouting for his forewoman. “Pauline! Get down here! We’ve got a mess on our hands!”

  “I’m right here, boss. No need to shout.” Pauline, a short, stocky woman of fifty-six, stood near Beethoven’s stall. In the dim illumination her salt-and-pepper hair, cut short like a man’s, shone like polished silver. A perplexed expression rode the handsome features of her square face and was reflected in her gray-blue eyes. “What the frack happened down here? It sounded like every cop car in the county raced in with sirens blaring.”

  Quincy nearly smiled. Pauline was a great fan of Battlestar Galactica and had watched the series so many times that frack had become her favorite curse word. “We had a B and E,” he informed her. “Some gal dressed up in Renaissance clothing. Somehow she got in without setting off the alarm.”

  Pauline muttered the word frack with more vehemence. “How’d that happen?”

  “Good question,” Quincy replied, “but for now, my greater concern is the safety of my horses.” A few years ago, several of his sister Sam’s horses had been poisoned by her ex, who’d been trying to cash in on equine mortality insurance policies. As a result, everyone in the family, including Quincy, had followed Sam’s lead and beefed up security on their ranches to prevent any harm to other equines. “After Sam’s experience, it’s never far from my mind that it could happen again.”

  The color drained from Pauline’s face, which was, as always, devoid of cosmetics. “You think she laced their grain with something? Why?” She shook her head. “I don’t get why anybody would do such a thing to innocent animals.”

  Quincy shared that sentiment, but he didn’t intend to overlook the possibility. “We need to empty and wash out every feed bag, toss all opened grain sacks, and discard all loose hay. I doubt she would have tampered with bound bales.”

  Pauline didn’t need to be told twice. She started at the first stall at one end of the arena, pitchfork in hand, and Quincy began his mission at the other end. He’d barely started working when he was bombarded by his dogs, Bubba and Billy Bob, who had been bunking upstairs with Pauline during Loni’s illness to spare them the stress of being bounced back and forth between his home and Pauline’s apartment during his absences.

  “Hey, guys!” Quincy set aside the pitchfork and crouched to curl an arm around each squirming, red-and-white fur ball. Pauline gave them superb care, but the dogs still couldn’t quite grasp why they could no longer be with Quincy all the time. Brothers from the same litter, they’d turned ten on March 7, but neither of them had started to act his age yet. Australian shepherds tended to outlive many other breeds, but Quincy hadn’t expected them to still be puppylike after a decade. “So much excitement,” he commiserated. “Sirens blaring and people yelling down here—and my boys were locked up in Pauline’s apartment, missing out on all the fun.” Quincy gave each dog a playful roll on the soft dirt. “Have you been off doing your jobs, sniffing out every nook and cranny to see how that lady got in here?” He briskly ruffled their long fur to rid it of dust. “That’s my good boys. Put those sniffers of yours to good use.”

  When the dogs’ excitement had ebbed, Quincy resumed his task, hurrying because the love-in with his mutts had put him behind Pauline, who was working at her usual efficient speed. The shepherds quickly lost interest in stall cleaning and took off, running shoulder-to-shoulder as if physically attached, to sniff up trouble in another corner of the arena.

  It wasn’t until Quincy reached Beethoven’s stall that he remembered the satchel and weird hat that Ceara had unwillingly left behind. He hurried over to jerk open the bag, rifled through the contents, and found nothing to substantiate his suspicion that the woman had entered the compound to poison his stock. Weird. Ceara had a myriad of possessions inside the grip, everything from clothing to a sewing thimble. Quincy barely spared the items a glance, his sole focus on finding vials or telltale dustings of powder.

  When he met Pauline at the center of the workout area a few minutes later, she lifted her hands. “Nothing. I forked out all the loose hay and straw and rinsed out the feed bags from each stall, but my nose told me there was nothing bad in any of them.”

  Quincy’s nose had told him the same thing. “Well, it doesn’t look as if she came here to taint the feed. But just to be on the safe side, when the hands get here, have them toss all opened bags of grain and all the loose bales that are in hay storage. Tell them I want the horses to get nothing that might be contaminated. Grain from only sealed bags and hay from only bound bales. Everything else is out of here.”

  “You leaving?” Pauline asked.

  Quincy glanced at his watch. “I have to call the security company. I want to know how that woman got in here, and then I want to know every move she made afterward.” Quincy nearly winced when he remembered that he had all the other ranches to oversee as well. “Damn, Pauline. I can’t be in several places at once. I’ll need you to check on all the other ranches for me today. When Bingo gets here, turn this place over to him.”

  Pauline nodded and squared her shoulders. Bingo was an ex–rodeo champ with a bum hip from a bronc-riding accident years ago. Though physically limited, he was still excellent with horses and had it in him to manage the hired hands for a day without firing up any tempers. At thirty-eight, he was still young enough to become Pauline’s replacement, if and when she ever retired, and Quincy had his eye on him, judging his potential for that position on a daily basis. As willing as Pauline was to keep working, she had a bad back, and Quincy knew her days as a horsewoman were probably numbered.

  “Gotcha covered, boss.” Pauline ran a hand over her short-cropped hair. “Let me know what you find on the security tapes. Once I get the crew lined out and have Bingo on top of everything, I’ll spare a few minutes to check things here. If the woman broke in, there must be evidence of it somewhere.”

  Quincy nodded his approval. Pauline was invaluable to him; she thought for herself and was quick on her feet. His dad had chosen well when he had selected her to become Quincy’s foreman at the Lazy H. Quincy had been only twenty-one and as green as grass when he’d started his own ranch. Pauline had advised him at every turn, sharing with him all her wisdom, garnered over a period of years.

  “Thanks, Pauline. I always know I can count on you.”

  She touched her temple in a mock salute. “Appreciate the attagirl, boss, but you’re wasting time flapping your lips. We got work to do.”

  Quincy managed a smile. He’d just pulled his phone from his belt to call the security company when his father entered the building via the personnel door. “Hey, Dad, good to see you.”

  Wiry and lean, yet well muscled, Frank strode across the sandy arena, his bowed legs bearing testimony that he’d been in a saddle most of his life. Beneath the brim of his brown Stetson, his hair still shone as black as jet, with only touches of silver at the temples. He paused to pet Bubba and Billy Bob, who were excited to see him after so long. Then he sauntered toward Quincy again.

  “What the heck happened over here?” His dark brown eyes reflected concern. “I heard the sirens. Woke me up from a sound sleep. Saw the cop lights clear from my place.”

  “Some woman broke into the arena. I found her sleeping in Beethoven’s stall.”

  “That took gonads. She’s lucky he didn’t trample her. He don’t cotton much to strangers.”

  Quincy quickly gave his father the rundown. “I swear, Dad, if I was the superstitious sort, I might have bought into her story.” With a shake of his head, Quincy laughed humorlessly. “Crys
tal balls, druids, and traveling forward through time. She has to be a bona fide nutcase.”

  Frank nodded in agreement. He looked drawn and years older than he had a week ago, when Quincy had last seen him in Portland. Normally when Quincy studied his dad, he took heart that he had inherited good aging genes and would still be fit and strong in his sixties. But this morning the forecast didn’t seem quite so positive. With Loni’s illness, Clint’s pain, and the grim prognosis, Frank was showing his age.

  Since his father contributed nothing more to the exchange, Quincy continued his story. “I have to admit she spooked me a couple of times. She probably made up the bit about our name being changed from O’Hourigan to Harrigan way back when, but her knowing about how Mom died and how sick Loni is?” Quincy shrugged. “That was downright eerie.”

  “O’Hourigan,” Frank repeated softly. “Why does that ring a bell?” His gaze sharpened on Quincy’s face. “I remember now. I think I’ve seen that name in the old family Bible.”

  Quincy’s nape hair stood on end. “You what?”

  “You heard me. When my family came here from Ireland during the potato famine, they changed our surname to something that sounded a little less Irish.”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  Frank swept his brown Stetson from his head and whacked it against his leg. “No, I’m dead serious. You gotta remember that bein’ Irish wasn’t a plus way back then. Changin’ the family name to Harrigan was part of our fresh start in the land of dreams and possibilities.”

  Quincy couldn’t quite believe his ears. “Are you saying our surname was once O’Hourigan?”

  “I can’t say for certain. I’d have to get the Bible out of the safety deposit box at the bank to check. But O’Hourigan sure as hell sounds familiar.”