Just where am I? Stone circles riddled the Gaelic countryside. Touring the nearby wood might help ascertain this location before the stars sketched out the night sky's astral map. With his nidium claymore, a wise Ring Master would wait until night settled, read the stars, calculate the astronomical path back to his time of departure, and find his lads. Perhaps the sword would work? I could try the key under the cloak of darkness. Away from censure from these Centurians. Hide what I was doing from those who needn't know. Maybe learn something new in this century? Debunking the fairy-controlled mechanism of time travel would make a Post-Modern alchemist famous. Well, that's if he returned to his Time of Origin to share the knowledge from his travels.
****
Katie Innis gripped the steering wheel, guiding the boxy front end of the blue Agila carefully around an indecisive edge of forty or so milling sheep. Make that four hundred. Damnable creatures.
"We'll never get anywhere if you don't let me see the map," Jennifer Torn, one of Katie's two best friends, whined in the backseat.
Will these adults argue all day? The huge creased sheet of paper hovered a smack away. One karate chop and those sunlight-brightened soft greens and blues of the paper where Pam Rucker held the map in the passenger seat would be tattered toast.
Jennifer's hand snatched at the map.
Pam slapped at Jennifer's manicured fingers. "I'm not finished reading the map."
"Come on, Katie," Jennifer begged. "Tell Pam neither of us thinks she can read a map."
As if I don't have anything better to do dodging sheep south of Edinburgh? And if I hit one animal, there'll be hell to pay. I needed to escape from my girlfriends even though they had paroled me from my familial metal-smith apprenticeship for a Scottish excursion. Holyrood here I come turned into Holyrood-save-me-from-my-unbearable-best-friends. I stared into the rearview mirror.
Jennifer's brown eyes pinched in disgust in the rectangular reflective surface.
Not only is the perfect dark-skinned brunette begging for assistance with her chocolate gaze, but Jennifer struggled to tuck a long dark strand of hair back into the short ponytail she wore. The diva can't even stop primping to goad Pam.
Just let the day end free of bloodshed. Tomorrow, drop them off at the airport. None too soon. All the talk of rich boyfriends with big wallets, among other large endowments, was simply too much. Oh to find a guy who is as provisioned as the men these friends claimed to have found. Why can't I find a trustworthy man? One who wanted to sip a steaming cup of coffee and discuss global peace instead of how long it would be before he could get in your pants. Talk about World War III. Whether the battle is between friends or foe, a girl can't escape the madness. There's no perfect place in the world. Not even in a car with friends while on the perfect vacation. I glanced at Pam.
Trees swayed in the Scottish wind beyond Pam's shoulder where she hunched over the map. Her short red hair spiked skyward like the scruff of an angered corporate bulldog. And that was just what Pam intended to become.
"Katie?" Jennifer whined again.
Pam shot a cutting gaze over her shoulder.
"Don't try me, little girl."
School chums sure could wear out their welcome. I stomped on the brake. "Enough!"
The cup of cold coffee sloshed wildly in the cup holder beside the gearshift's base. Luckily, we drove so slowly through the mutton flock that the abrupt stop didn't matter. I stared at the woolen uniquely Gaelic social class milling around the compact car.
The sheep's bleats hung over the silence inside the vehicle.
The erupting coffee stilled in its well.
Escaping the sheep proved as impossible as getting through this last day of vacation. I turned, glared at my two college buddies, and snatched the map from Pam's grasp. "One more day!" I shook the crackling map out over the steering wheel and glared into their wide-eyed innocence. "You two act like you've been married twenty years."
But a twenty-day anniversary sounded pretty damned nice. I shook out the map even more and searched for the route. Anything to stop thinking about the bickering. "If you don't try to get along, we'll never get to Edinburgh. The day will be wasted. Hence, another day in Hell."
"Hell?" Pam gasped. "This is Scotland. You dreamed of Scotland."
Focusing on the sheep-free picture of Scotland, I had to bite my tongue to hold back more bitter thoughts from filling the small car's interior. I'm so not going there with them. If I did, they'd beg me to go back to the States. When Scotland promised so much! And what about a girl's art? The Scots can have one more year to produce an incredibly provisioned Dafydd Emyr. Or a man who looked half as good as him. One who could be trusted to mean every word he said.
A warm palm draped my arm.
Jennifer's perfectly French-manicured fingers squeezed my forearm. "What's wrong Katie?"
"Nothing." To admit the truth would be crazy. Cousin Sticky Fingers was back at the Innis house, waiting to cop a feel. The creep was always lurking. I had half a mind to carry one of my favorite swords. But I would kill the bastard. End up in prison. Sticky Fingers would not be the end of my vision. Katie Innis would become a renowned sword smith. One who had visited every place worthy of visiting while in Scotland. Another day wasted here? Not on anybody's life. I followed the map's knotted spaghetti tousle of roads, located the black line winding north to Edinburgh, and licked her lips. "I just can't take any more of the bickering."
"Bickering?" Pam condescended.
Like truth is questionable? My gaze swept across the dashboard's round gauges to lock onto Pam's black eyes. "Bickering like a dog and a cat locked in a coat closet." I turned back to the map, fighting a shrug. "We're almost there. I hope you two can manage to play nice in heavy traffic."
"I resent that," Pam said.
Does it matter? "I resent your juvenile behavior." Without a glance, I thrust the cackling map to Pam. "I'm trying to drive half-ass backward." I sucked down a deep breath, watching the trees sway above the woolen-covered road. A year's worth of driving backward hadn't cured the problem. Yet.
Pam shook out the rattling sheet of paper defiantly.
"She's right." Jennifer sighed in the back seat. "I'm sorry, Katie."
Now to get out of a discussion. And have an awesome day on vacation. I gripped the steering wheel with both hands.
The amoebic groundcover of bleating wool had completely engulfed the road, swarming around the car.
Great. Every sheep is as important to a Scot as his whisky and music.
"How will we get out of this mutton sand pit?" Jennifer moaned.
The sheep probably zeroed in on Jennifer's heightened receptivity to males. The herd has to be entirely male. "Wait it out." Boy, am I tired of waiting. Waiting. For every damned thing known to man. Okay, maybe not everything. All I want is to see if the tenements under South Bridge are haunted. Is that too much to ask from a month's vacation? A good spook is just what we need. Anything to churn our blood. Before I returned to cousin Sticky Fingers' lair and played the cold fish.
Pam rustled in her seat. "So, you going to latch onto that cousin of yours?"
Never. "Where I come from, that's called incest. End of subject."
"What's his deal anyway?" Pam propped her elbow on the car door, then leaned her cheek against a palm and bent fingers.
Pam Lovelace is anything but a fool. The unsettling expression meant she had realized the tight line I walked at the Innis house. Well, whenever Uncle John isn't around to kick arse. The big man can sweep the garage with his dolt son's mop of brown hair.
"You didn't take us by there this year." Pam blinked accusingly.
Why air out secrets? I studied the churning woolen surface. "I wanted to get on the road. There's so much to see and so little time."
"He gave me the creeps last summer," Pam droned.
The backseat squeaked. But Jennifer remained oddly quiet through Pam's inquisition.
What? Had they already discussed things? "Why?" I truly don't wan
t to know the answer, universe. Don't want to give up on my dream of becoming a renowned artisan.
"I swear he shooed off a magnificent man at the pub that first night last summer. The man was making a beeline for you." Pam smacked her armrest with total disgust.
"Listen, Cousin John and I share a few genes. That's all."
"All humans share the majority of their genes." Jennifer piped.
The biologist sat with arms crossed over her more-than-ample chest.
Some friends. They had teamed up to drill me. "You too?"
"He makes my skin crawl. He's like a room full of leeches." Jennifer shook her fingers as if disgusting worms clung to them.
Instead of arguing something ridiculous and scientific along the line of nematodes writhing under epidermis with the peanut gallery in the back seat, I kept my eyes on the road. If I was lucky, I'd find a way out of here. This ridiculous farce of a friendly discussion.
The sheep had almost cleared the blacktop. "I can take care of myself." Hopefully.
Jennifer grabbed the shoulder of the driver's seat and leaned forward. "When are you coming back to the States, Katie?"
Why does everyone ignore an artist's dreams? "Metal working is my calling. When I've failed." That's what Father always said anyway. Besides, Jennifer was in grad school at Scripps. She wouldn't have time for a sword smith while studying deep-sea rifts with heaving tanned masses of muscle that stretched Speedos to the absolute limit. Not to mention imaginations. A trip to the beach sounded like good medicine.
"Failed?" Pam lilted.
Non-artists will never understand. Artists rarely made a fortune. Hoping to amass great wealth pounding lumps of iron into knives was absurd. The challenge in the creative process sparked my life. Not the money. A life as a sword smith would gloss over my loneliness. And these Gaels think smiths are magic themselves. I just need a chance to let the magic manifest in myself and kick my life into happy gear. I blinked.
The last fluffy white tail wagged goodbye to us, the travelers.
About freaking time. "Hurrah!" I gunned the gas.
The car shot forward, leaving Pam's last horrid comment behind with the lingering silence.
"We're off to Edinburgh." Hopefully, the point would change the subject.
The boxy car bounced along beside the sparkling River Esk into a heavily-wooded stretch of winding blacktop.
Jennifer thrust her nose into Katie's periphery from the back seat. "Hey stop here. Let's take some pictures."
Anything for art. I steered the car off the road, underneath a huge tree.
The car dipped down a bit toward the tree trunk.
Something slid from beneath the seat and tapped my foot.
What? I glanced at the floorboard.
The Welsh and Your Welsh Ancestry video.
The black plastic tape had worked out from beneath the seat.
The image of the perfect man, Dafydd Emyr, took form in my mind. That killer smile. That highly tuned body. Mr. Welsh Dashing had all the makings of a perfect husband. He looked completely trustworthy. What were we thinking not going to Wales for vacation? I sighed, swung the car door open, and threw a hiking boot into the grass.
Jennifer toted both of her cameras west toward large oak trees.
"She's taken far too many photography classes," Pam snapped over the car's glinting roof.
What's wrong with an obsession with an art form? But Pam would understand money. "At least we don't have to take pictures. She'll e-mail them to us." Free is good.
"Not even NASA has enough memory to store all those images."
Is Pam planning to drive me insane? "She hasn't taken that many. Besides, it's a form of art." I scanned the rustling leaves of the trees flanking the road.
Pam skirted the car, and halted, scowling beside me. "I'm sick of this obsession you have with art. You really happy here? Because I've got a position back in Cincinnati with your name on it. We could use an artist--"
"No. No graphic art. Wrong medium." I wagged my head for affect. "I'm quite happy learning the craft. It's a family thing. Connections and all."
Pam shot me an even sterner motherly scowl.
Humans aren't omniscient. Poker face, Katie. I stared back at the city chick's assessing gaze.
A girl can be happy here if things just picked up. If I find a man, someone who wanted to see me at each day's end like Uncle John and Iona, a man who didn't cheat on you every time he turned around, I'd be happy.
"You know what I think?" Pam asked.
Did it matter? I stared off into a copse of hazel. "I don't want to know."
"I think you're miserable."
Just miserable in the loneliness department. "Life rarely serves one prime rib around the clock. So, the past year was bangers and beans. A haunch of beef has to fall on my plate any day now. Lonely, yes. Miserable? No." I shot Pam a broad smile.
"The job will always be there as long as I'm breathing. You can even stay with me."
Right. "Room with you and your fiancé?" I guffawed.
Beyond Pam's shoulder, Jennifer hurried toward the car, drew up short, and grinned. "All right. I've got them."
The contrast between my two friends was striking. Pam was low maintenance for efficiency's sake. Jennifer was high maintenance without makeup. No sense in hating Jennifer's perfect white teeth and full lips. Some things never changed. I pulled the door handle and fell back into the squeaking seat.
Note for future reference: it's best not to take Jennifer along when kilt-hunting. Unfortunately, our thirty-day man-hunting escapade was rapidly concluding. Hitting every castle, music festival, and clan gathering had provided nothing in the way of brains, brawn, and sex appeal. How could the journey with Jennifer along? Men zeroed in on the biologist like ants swarming Mt. Sugar. I thrust the gearshift in reverse and looked over my shoulder out the rear window.
No sheep. Just trees beyond the road. I gunned the gas.
The car rolled backward, up the shallow incline.
Inclined. I am so inclined to do many things I want to do. Who cares what anyone things? I braked, shifting into first gear.
"Hey. I lost my lens cover," Jennifer squealed, scrabbling around the back seat.
Hopefully, the car hadn't rolled over the plastic. I slammed down the brake pedal.
The car rocked.
Pam twisted into the back, assisting in the search between the front seats.
"Here it is," Jennifer pealed, producing the round black plastic cap like a lump of gold.
Too easy. Now, we're off to the haunted Vaults. I toed the gas, turning back to the steering wheel.
The car jolted.
A tall object fell over.
A man. No! I gasped, slamming on the break.
"It was a man," Pam shouted. Her hand flew to her mouth.
No. I had not killed somebody. So much for a life to brag about. Hello prison. Where had he come from?
Jennifer unleashed a howl like a banshee.
The man isn't dead. No. He can't be. I flinched and jumped through my suddenly-gaping doorway.
He isn't dead.
My foot slid off the hard road into loose sediment.
But my life is on the line. I got my foot beneath me and focused on the man. He laid face up on the road, one arm twisted up behind his head, legs tucked under the front end of the car, all the way up to the bottom of his blue-and-green kilt.
He isn't dead. He can't be. I collapsed onto my knees at his side, my knees banging against brutal biting asphalt.
Pain isn't penance enough for what I'd done.
No. It can't be. He looks like Dafydd Emyr but with long black hair drawn back into a queue. I'd gone and killed Mr. Welsh Perfect.
A shadow purled west across the man's off-white shirt.
"They'll throw us in prison," Jennifer screeched.
"Quiet," Pam scolded, kneeling across the man. "Katie?"
The man's chest rose. Dark half-inch stubble spritzed his square jaw.
&n
bsp; "Katie?" Pam insisted over Jennifer's endless screech.
Not a lecture. "He's breathing." The words were more to reassure me than Pam.
"We need to get him to a hospital," no-fuss Pam said.
Corporate Bulldog's serious mask didn't need to rationalize. I turned back to the Dafydd clone. He looked as if he slept easy. Or was dead. "Sir?" I grabbed his corded arm and shook.
The man's steely arm was still warm. But he didn't respond. I touched his wiry whiskers.
Warm breath hit my knuckles.
"I'll check his leg for breaks." Pam reached for a thigh.
The girls would not grope him. "No." I swiped aside Pam's extending arm.
Pam frowned. "Why?"
"There's no sign of blood."
"There could still be a break." I waved off Pam.
"As long as there isn't fluid draining out of his ears, I guess you can shake him," Pam conceded.
Huh? "Why?" I studied the sleeping Dafydd.
"It's something I saw on one of those ER TV series. Spinal fluid running out ears equals a broken neck." Pam waved a dismissive palm in my periphery.
Ignoring Pam was probably not the best tactic. "I'll check his ears."
No fluid in his upward-turned ear.
My gaze strayed to his gorgeous profile.
The epitome of Sleeping Beauty on testosterone. Why did I have to run Dafydd Emyr over? Stop sulking, Katie. He could die. I slid my gaze back to the curve of his ear.
Jennifer quietly descended to kneel by his head. "Why is he dressed this way? He looks more authentic than the kilted guys we saw at the Mull Music Festival."
True. Between his sword and an amazing brooch encircled with Celtic knot work he does look historical. I tugged at the pin until the old safety-pin clasp on the back was visible.
What a treasure to make. And he wore his kilt in the old manner, pleated and wrapped around his waist with the long end thrown over his shoulder. Too perfect. He couldn't die. "Please, just get the bottled water." I scooted up to lean over his face.
To block the annoying sun with my shadow. "Sir?"
He wiggled his head a little.
Thank God. He's coming around. "Sir?"
10 Timeless Heroes; A Time Travel Romance Boxed Set Page 79