Her Outlaw

by Geralyn Dawson

  Emma observed the purchase without comment, her thoughts obviously somewhere other than the dress shop. Taking advantage of her inattention, Dair added a couple more provocative items to his transaction, then quickly ushered her from the store. They were halfway to the bookshop before she spoke again.

  “MacRae? Just what are the symptoms of Venus’s Curse?”

  Dair scowled, his mouth opening, then closing like a fish out of water. Amazingly, what being caught on a balcony naked as a babe couldn’t accomplish, the prospect of answering that particular question did. The back of his neck went warm with an embarrassed flush. “Emma…I…how about we stop by Madame LaRue’s on the way back home?”

  BELLS JANGLED AS DAIR OPENED the door of Robbie Potter’s bookshop and motioned for Emma to precede him inside. The expected musty smell of old books greeted her along with the more surprising fragrance of bayberry and jasmine. “Robbie’s latest hobby is perfumes,” Dair explained.

  Emma nodded and glanced around the shop at the intriguing items hanging on the walls and stacked atop bookshelves. Outside of Bernard Kimball’s collections at Chatham Park, she’d never seen such an eclectic assembly of items. A Comanche war bonnet, a pair of wooden shoes. One leg to a suit of armor.

  “Interesting place,” she observed, watching dust motes dance in a beam of sunlight shining through the plate glass window.

  “Robbie is an interesting man.” Dair led her toward the back of the shop through a labyrinth of narrow passages framed by tall bookshelves that all but blocked out the light.

  Emma took pride in the fact she managed to swallow her scream when she turned a corner to face a human skeleton hanging from an iron pole.

  “Welcome home, Robbie,” Dair greeted the burly, bespectacled man seated behind the counter.

  Robbie Potter glanced up from the book he was studying and delight lit his brilliant blue eyes. “MacRae! I suspected you might be back in town when I caught up on my newspapers last night. Sounds like you’ve enjoyed a profitable couple of weeks.”

  Emma shot her companion a curious look. What was that about?

  Dair gave her no opportunity to enquire. “Has anyone been by asking for me since I left Edinburgh last winter?”

  Potter scratched behind his ear and frowned. “Anyone?”

  “Anyone out of the ordinary.”

  “Hmm…nae. I dinna think so. Just Mrs. Holl—”

  “May I introduce Mrs. Emma Tate,” Dair interrupted. “Emma, Robbie Potter, scholar, perfumer, and displaced Highlander.”

  “A terrible fate we share, MacRae.” Potter winked at Emma. “Pleased to meet ye, pretty lass. The boy here has left out some of me more interesting pursuits, but we’ll leave that be until I get to know ye better.”

  “Excellent choice,” Dair drawled. “Mrs. Tate and I are in need of some information, Robbie. Put on your scholar’s hat and see what you can tell us about this. Emma? The ruby?”

  Emma’s heart began to pound as she reached to pull the pendant from her bodice. She was probably being silly, but this felt like such a…moment of import. It was as if she stood at a crossroads about to take a step that would change her life.

  Clasping the ruby in her hand, she slipped the chain from around her neck. She placed the back of her hand against the counter, drew a deep breath, then slowly opened her fist. The necklace spilled out onto the counter and Robbie Potter’s eyes went wide. “Quite a stone ye have there.”

  “It’s big,” Dair agreed. “But that’s not all. Look.” He switched on the lamp on the counter and pointed out the engraving.

  Robbie Potter stared at it for a long moment, then his eyes went round with shock. “I knew it,” Dair murmured with satisfaction. “Tell us what you know about this stone.”

  “I dinna…I think…oh bide awee.” The Scotsman dragged a hand down his whiskered jaw and he started mumbling to himself. “Lost…legend…never existed. Treasure. Hmm.”

  Abruptly, he moved from behind the counter, clucking his tongue as he began searching the stacks. “A woman. Women. Tis it. A journal. Aye. Still have it. Leather bound. Hmm…”

  Emma glanced at Dair to see him staring out into space, his own thoughts obviously churning. “Dair? Are you following this?”

  “Actually, I think…there’s something. It’s just beyond my reach. He said a…journal. That’s—” He broke off, grimaced fiercely. Emma saw his hand make a fist, his knuckles turn white.

  It took her a moment to recognize the problem, then she touched his arm. “Headache? Do they always come on this fast?”

  He spat a particularly foul expletive beneath his breath. “Can’t do this now…”

  “Where are your pills?” She felt his jacket pocket.

  “Pants. Don’t…hell…forget the pills.” He closed his eyes, swayed on his feet, and Emma feared he’d fall.

  “Mr. Potter?” Emma dug in Dair’s pants pocket for the brown bottle. “Dair is ill. Do you have somewhere he could lie down?”

  The bookseller didn’t respond, and when a faint moan escaped Dair’s lips, Emma lost patience. “Potter!” she screamed.

  Still, he didn’t answer.

  “For goodness’ sake,” she muttered. She hurried behind the counter and grabbed Potter’s chair, then set it beside Dair. She pushed on his shoulders, trying to get him to sit down but the stubborn man kept his knees locked.

  “Sit down before you fall down!” She shoved again, and this time he sank into the seat. She forced a pill into his mouth, then went looking for Robbie Potter.

  It took Emma every bit of two minutes to track the bookseller down in a narrow alcove, his head buried in a book. Emma let out a frustrated growl and whacked him over the head. “Potter! Dair is sick. Where can he lie down?”

  “What? Oh. Sick, ye say?”

  “Do you have a couch in the store?”

  “There’s a bed upstairs.”

  “I don’t know if he could make it upstairs,” Emma muttered. She recalled the other headaches she’d witnessed and compared the severity of the onset of this one with those. “I think we should try, though. Help me.”

  It was a struggle, and once Emma feared all three of them would tumble down the stairs. By the time Dair collapsed onto the narrow bed, not a drop of color remained in his complexion.

  “Ye want me to send for the doctor?” Potter asked.

  Emma chewed her bottom lip in indecision until Dair reached out and grabbed her hand in a viselike grip. “No.”

  “Let’s give him a little time,” she said, sitting beside him on the bed.

  “I have a potion my sister sent me right afore she died. A great cure-all. A bit of a witch, she was. Me only relative.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Potter. Maybe later.” Robbie couldn’t leave the small room fast enough and once she and Dair were alone, Emma gently massaged his temples, his forehead, the back of his neck. Acting instinctively, she leaned down and kissed his brow. He stirred restlessly and she shushed him. For the next half hour, she watched him suffer and her heart simply broke.

  Now she understood. Now that she knew him better, she could see why he went to such lengths to keep his illness secret. To see such a strong man laid low…to witness his total vulnerability…Emma shook her head. How he must hate it.

  When he began to stir and she sensed his recovery was at hand, Emma took heart in the fact that despite the obvious severity of the pain, he’d recovered more quickly than she had expected. The medicine his doctor prescribed must be working. This headache had appeared just as bad if not worse than the one he’d suffered the day she robbed the coach, but he came to in half as much time. Faster, but grumpier, she thought as he sat up and growled at her like a wounded bear.

  “This is lovely. Did Potter see this disgrace? Of course he did. He helped drag me up the stairs.” He finished with a string of curses mean enough to make a Hell’s Half Acre cowboy proud.

  “Excuse me,” she drawled in a dry tone. “Are you feeling better? I can’t quite tell.”
/>
  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. I just…forget it. Let’s go see what Robbie’s turned up.”

  They found him seated at a table near the skeleton, a stack of books beside him. He busily scribbled on a tablet already half-filled with notes. Hearing them approach, he looked up. “There ye are. Glad yer better. I have something for ye.”

  “Oh?”

  The older man laid down his pen. “I have…” he paused theatrically before adding, “…treasure. It’s called the Sisters’—”

  “—Prize,” Dair finished.

  Just the words made Emma’s heart beat faster. Potter looked up at Dair in surprise. “You know of it?”

  “That’s it? That’s what it’s called?” Dair dragged his hand down his jaw.

  “Yes.” Potter pushed to his feet. “Where did you learn of it? Your clan? Is it still whispered about?”

  Dair stared off into nothing for a long minute before shaking his head. “I don’t know how I knew the name.”

  “What is it?” Emma asked softly. “What is the Sisters’ Prize?”

  Potter blew out a heavy breath. “It’s a lost treasure of Clan MacRae. Its value is said to be beyond measure, though any who share in its wealth are guaranteed great happiness.”

  Emma clasped her pendant. “You think my ruby is the treasure?”

  “If it’s the Sisters’ Prize ruby, it’s part of the treasure, one of its cornerstones,” Robbie explained. “An engraved ruby the size of a hen’s egg.”

  Dair’s brow had furrowed. “When was the treasure lost?”

  Robbie pursed his lips. “That is uncertain. History holds that the Prize aided the clan at significant points in history—sieges, battles and the like. I have found no reference to it after Duncan MacRae’s successful defense of Eilean Donan in 1539, although I’ve not yet had the opportunity to make an extensive search.”

  Emma thought it all a little too far-fetched. “My ruby is not the only large engraved ruby in existence. There might be no connection between it and your legend at all.”

  Besides, if Dair MacRae thought he could claim ownership of her necklace based on an old family legend, he had another think coming.

  He reached for the pendant, held it in his hand. He rubbed his thumb over the engraving. “It’s these words, this symbol. I don’t know how I know it, Texas, but your ruby is the key.”

  She smoothly repossessed the necklace and slipped it over her head. Where it belonged.

  “It’s not just the ruby, but the necklace itself,” Potter added. He tugged a handwritten manuscript from his pile of materials and flipped through the pages until he found what he sought. He pointed to a paragraph. “Look.”

  Emma moved to stand beside Dair and she leaned over the page to read. The script was faint and flowing, smudged in places, totally illegible in others. It took a moment of study to comprehend. Once she adjusted to the rhythm of it, she was able to make it out.

  …riches beyond comprehension. The Sisters’ Prize grew throughout the centuries…smudge smudge smudge…began with the three treasures nestled inside a small chest made of silver. Three smudge smudge on long chains of finest gold. Three stones—sapphire, emerald and ruby—set in filigree pendants are of value beyond measure bring to their smudge smudge…

  Emma grabbed Dair’s arm. “Our necklaces.”

  “I was right. I knew it.” Dair drummed his fingers on the table. “What about the engraving? Have you found anything about the words or the symbol? Can you identify the language?”

  “Nae, though something plagues me, a memory I canna quite place. Although, if you believe in the fanciful, I never will find the key. Look.” Robbie Potter pulled a book from the middle of his stack. He opened it to a marked page, then sat back in his seat and gestured for them to read.

  Emma viewed the fanciful drawing of mythical characters on the opposite page before focusing on the words he’d indicated.

  It is told that in days long ago, a fairy prince fell in love with a mortal woman, the fair Ariel. As fate would have it, she gave her love to another man, a mere mortal.

  Emma’s knees went weak and she placed both hands on the table to support herself. She’d heard a version of this story before.

  The prince was mightily displeased, and in an effort to prove the mortal unworthy of the maiden’s love, he put the man to a series of fearsome tests. To the prince’s dismay, the mortal withstood every challenge, though at great physical cost. Finally, fearful of her beloved’s safety and at substantial risk to herself, the fair Ariel called upon the prince and demanded that he recognize that the love she and the mortal shared was powerful, vigilant and true, and that no trial or challenge would change it.

  Ungracious in defeat, the prince acquiesced to her demand with a caveat. Since the fair lady claimed her mortal love would outlast a union with a fairy prince, it must be proved. Her children and her children’s children and their children, down through the ages, would be called upon to enforce her claim.

  Lady Ariel elicited a promise from the prince. When, in any one generation, three sisters, three daughters marked with the sign of Ariel find love to prove the claim of Ariel and accomplish a task of great personal import, the curse will be broken for all time.

  After all his trials, the mortal warrior placed no trust in the word of a fairy prince, so he appealed to a higher authority, the prince’s mother, and asked for a physical symbol of the pledge between immortal and man. The fairy queen gave him three stones—blue, green and red—to be presented with the claim that conditions had been met for the ending of the curse.

  For many long years, Ariel and her mortal lived in peace and harmony and happiness. She bore him a child, a daughter they named for the fairy queen—Roslin.

  “A Clan MacRae fairy tale?” Dair said scornfully. “Surely you’ve something else, Potter. Something based in reality.”

  “I thought you believed in fate,” Emma said, her mind spinning.

  “Fate, yes. Fairies, no.”

  She opened her mouth to challenge him, but second thoughts stopped her. She needed to think about this, to reason it all through. Yes, this story was known to her.

  Roslin of Strathardle had repeated it the night she gave necklaces to Emma, Mari and Kat McBride. Emma looked down at her left palm and retraced the line Roslin had traced a decade ago. The mark of Ariel, she’d called it. Kat considered it more appropriately referred to as The Bad Luck Love Line.

  Emma had neither believed nor disbelieved the tale. She’d been about to marry Casey—a love she believed met the strong, true and vigilant qualifications—and the prospect of a tragically short end to her marriage never entered her mind.

  Things had changed since that night in Hell’s Half Acre. Both Emma and Kat had learned the lesson of being unlucky in love.

  Emma glanced at Dair who’d propped a hip on the table and now thumbed through another of the bookseller’s tomes. Fate, not fairies, hmm? How would he react when she relayed the news that the story in the book wasn’t news to her? What would he say when he learned that the tale Roslin told that night differed in two key details from the one they’d just read?

  That night in Fort Worth, Roslin had named the mortal Ariel loved—a McBride. Thus, the tale became the Curse of Clan McBride.

  However, Roslin had neglected to mention Ariel’s surname—MacRae.

  MacRae and McBride. A treasure and a curse. And three unique necklaces. “I need to sit down,” she murmured.

  Potter scrambled to his feet. “I’m sorry, lass. I completely forget my manners when I get involved in a mystery.”

  She offered him a wobbly smile. “No, I…actually, I think I want to walk.”

  Turning abruptly, she headed for the door. She wanted to flee. The bookshop. The stories. Mr. Alasdair MacRae.

  She heard him ask the historian to continue his research into the Sisters’ Prize to which Potter responded that he knew of another expert to consult. The bell jingled as she pushed the door open, then she
was out on the street in the sunshine breathing in great gulps of fresh air.

  She struck out walking blindly, heedless of her direction, barely aware that Dair trailed right on her heels. Memories crowded her thoughts. Roslin of Strathardle handing her the necklace, reading her “mark of Ariel” and telling her it revealed her to be a nurturer. Her sister Mari running into her bedroom at Willow Hill using a description of Kat’s necklace to prove their younger sister hadn’t died in the Texas Spring Palace fire. Luke Garrett sitting in the back room at Mari’s candy shop giving Emma’s necklace credit for helping him to rescue Mari from certain death at the bottom of a cavern. Kat’s grief-dulled eyes lighting with delight upon learning that Jake Kimball had her necklace. The look on Dair MacRae’s face as he pointed out the engraving on her ruby that she’d never noticed before.

  Oh my oh my oh my.

  Mari and Luke had already proved to share a love that was powerful, vigilant and true. Now the necklaces had led Kat to Kimball. Led her to Dair MacRae.

  Destiny. Fate. Fairy queens and princes. Did she believe in any of it? The first two she could accept with little effort. The last? Oh my oh my oh my.

  “Emma, slow down,” Dair said, taking her by the arm and holding her in place.

  She shot him a glare. “Just because you’re stronger than me doesn’t give you leave to use that strength against me.”

  “Just because you have wings on your feet doesn’t mean I should have to run down the street after you, either. Haven’t you already caused me enough public humiliation today, Texas?”

  She sucked in an audible breath, then blew out a heavy sigh. “I need some time to myself. Please. All this…this…” She waved a hand back in the general direction of the bookshop. “I need time and peace and quiet to digest it.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and studied her. “You’ve a rather wild look in your eyes. Are you all right?”

  The gentle breeze sent an errant strand of hair dancing around her head, and Emma impatiently tucked it behind her ear. “It’s too much to soak in.”

  “It’s a treasure hunt, Emma. Don’t make it more than that.”