Perfect Timing

“Six and twenty. I ken that I’m quite long in the tooth for a bride, but me intended, a young man I adored, was killed in a riding accident when I was young, and afterward, I ne’er met anyone else I could accept, and me sire, being the O’Ceallaigh, dinna press me. His coffers were full, and he had no need of a strong alliance with another clan, so he allowed me to remain a spinster.” She drew the covers close under her chin. “’Twas only over the last year that I began thinking about breaking the curse, and once me father agreed to let me come forward, it took a goodly amount of effort to find ye Harrigans. Me mum was using the name O’Hourigan in her chants.”

  Quincy recognized nervous chatter when he heard it and decided to go with it. Perhaps an exchange—the longer the better—would help her relax. He couldn’t resist asking, “Why did you volunteer to come, Ceara? You must have known it would be dangerous.”

  She nibbled her soft bottom lip as she considered her answer. “’Twas mostly fer me father. He nears the end of his life, and the curse, cast upon innocent women by someone in his line, has long been a great burden on his conscience.” She shrugged. “It troubled me as well. Those who ride under the O’Ceallaigh colors commit no violence against women and children, and yet a vengeful O’Ceallaigh ancestress cursed countless women of the future, not because she bore them any personal animosity, but because she wanted to punish the O’Hourigan man who humiliated her at the altar. ’Tis not our way to wreak vengeance on the innocent—nor is it a proud and just way to right a wrong. ’Tis a black mark on our name, and only a virgin daughter of the O’Ceallaigh can lift the curse. Me sister, Brigid, is too young to marry in this century.”

  “So the job of coming fell to you?” For Quincy it really wasn’t a question, and he hadn’t missed the sadness in Ceara’s voice when she’d said her sister’s name. “How old is Brigid?”

  “Two and ten,” she said with a slight smile. “’Tis glad ye should be that ’twas not she who came. Me father says she will drive him deep into his cups before he can get her married off.” Her smile widened. “He jokes, of course. The O’Ceallaigh scorns the practice of forcing daughters into loveless marriages.”

  “And yet he sent you here, knowing you’d be forced into the same?”

  Her blue eyes widened on Quincy’s. “Nay! ’Twas na the way of it. At first he forbade me to come. ’Twas only because I kept pestering him that he finally relented, and even then, he worried that something might go wrong.”

  Quincy had never had children, but he knew he wouldn’t hesitate for an instant to put his life on the line to protect his nieces and nephews from harm. “What did your father fear might go wrong?”

  “’Twas uncertain—all of it. Druids have traveled forward, but none have been able to return to report on their journeys. Me father was terrified I might leave Ireland and land in the wrong place. ’Tis a very big land, yer country.”

  “Weren’t you afraid, too?” Quincy asked.

  She nodded. “But me life there had no real purpose, so I chose to take the risks. To me, it was the one gift I could give me father to ease his heart before he passes on. Me sire is a fearless warrior, and so are me brothers. I’ve ne’er done anything brave fer the good of others, so here I am.”

  According to Quincy’s calculations, her father had already passed away more than four hundred years ago, but to Ceara, that time in history was still as real and immediate as this moment. “So you came forward not only to ease your father’s conscience but also to save the lives of others.” Quincy mulled that over for a moment. “In that case, when you volunteered to come forward, why didn’t you choose to come earlier in time, say two or three centuries ago, to save even more Harrigan women from the curse?”

  Her expression turned bewildered. “’Twas impossible,” she said with a lift of one slender shoulder. “I canna clearly explain why, but a druid can come forward only to a future that he or she can see in a crystal ball. I’ve no idea why so many years had to pass and so many other lives had to be lost.” A crease formed between her brows. “All I know is that me mum could call up only this time, and no other choices were left to me.”

  Quincy muddled his way through the tangle of possibilities and finally gave up on making sense of it. Her brow creased again, more deeply this time. “’Tis all verra confusing. I canna figure out time and how it works. How can me time and yer time exist at the same moment?”

  Quincy’s temples panged with the effort to decipher what she’d said. “So, in your time, your mother was able to see only this time in her ball.”

  She nodded. Then, after studying his frown, she smiled wanly. “Do na trouble yerself with the how of it, Sir Quincy. Not even the wisest druids of me day can understand it. I wish I knew more, but I do na. I can only say me heart was in the right place and I came forward to save the lives of those I could. The most difficult thing fer me to accept was knowing I could ne’er go home again.”

  Quincy couldn’t fathom how that must have felt. His family, this land—the sense he had of being where he belonged—meant the world to him. Would he willingly board a flight to some faraway place, knowing he could never return?

  “Why is that?” he asked. “If you can travel forward, why not back?”

  “For one, traveling forward is said to drain a druid of power, so most wouldna have the strength to return. That is why I was so joyous to learn I can still make fire.” She twisted the sheet in her small fists. “I am drained—of that I have no doubt—but at least me gift to make fire has been left to me. Also the learned ones claim traveling backward in time is impossible. I do not know the why of it, but I accepted before I came that I will be here fer always.”

  For the umpteenth time that day, Quincy felt cold chills of shock and recognition. He had two master’s degrees, and had studied physics. He was familiar with Einstein’s theories on time, velocity, and the possibility that forward time travel might one day be achieved. He also recalled that the famous scientist had postulated that travel backward in time would always be impossible. Brain overload. In a vague, intellectually removed way, Quincy could grasp the concepts of time travel, but when he tried to analyze them, his cranial circuit board started to short out.

  The fleeting thought that Ceara might have taken physics at some modern hall of learning occurred to him before he brought himself up short. There was no point in searching for flaws in her story now, not after Loni’s assertion that it was genuine. He was coming to believe Ceara, as crazy as it all still sounded. Besides, nobody in her right mind would take a hoax this far, especially not a trembling virgin who was clearly terrified to have sex with a stranger.

  Quincy could only feel sad. The first time for any woman should be with someone she at least thought she loved. Ceara didn’t know him well enough to be sure she even liked him, and he couldn’t afford to give her more time. In short, everything about this whole mess had to be much more difficult for her than it was for him. Though he wasn’t proud to admit it, Quincy had engaged in plenty of handshake sex over the years, sometimes with women he barely knew. Ceara had never been with anyone, and now she lay there, so small and defenseless, as vulnerable as a flagpole in a lightning storm.

  A throbbing ache stabbed behind Quincy’s eyes. He couldn’t do this. Well, he could, but everything gentlemanly within him recoiled at the thought. He’d never been with a virgin, for starters. And he’d never made love to a shy, reluctant woman, either. It came as a bit of a shock to him to realize that maybe he was like that guy who sang the country-western song about liking his women a little on the trashy side.

  He pushed to his feet. He seldom drank alcohol, but tonight called for desperate measures. He kept spirits on hand for members of his family when they visited. As he moved to head downstairs, Ceara peered owlishly after him.

  “Where are ye going?” she asked.

  Quincy almost said he was going nuts and invited her to come along, but he bit back the words. “I’ll be right back.”

  What would a young woman who’
d probably never imbibed like to drink? In the kitchen, Quincy rifled through his liquor cupboard. His dad’s Jack Daniel’s had quite a bite and wouldn’t appeal. He pushed bottles this way and that, thinking maybe he could make Ceara a white Russian, but then he remembered he had no half-and-half. God forbid. The stuff was so full of fat, he got twinges in his arteries just looking at a carton. Sam’s merlot was too dry. Maybe chilled white zinfandel would do. It was sort of sweet, more the thing for a first-time drinker.

  He opened his Sub-Zero fridge and spied an unopened bottle of champagne in the door. Just the thing. Practically all ladies liked the bubbly. He located an ice bucket in one of the lower cupboards, filled it with cubes, and popped the cork from the bottle before nestling it in the ice to stay chilled. Before heading back upstairs, he fixed a plate with snacks and grabbed two flutes, determined to imbibe tonight with his bride. Maybe knocking back a couple of glasses would ease his headache and numb his senses.

  Ceara still lay on the bed like a sacrificial virgin, which, damn it, she actually was. Quincy carried the ice bucket, snacks, and glasses over to the small round table in the sitting area and then went to his walk-in closet to find a clean shirt. When he emerged and tossed the garment to Ceara, she blinked in bewilderment.

  “One of my shirts. Put it on, honey. It’ll cover you to the knees. While you dress, I’ll get a fire going.”

  “Shirt,” she repeated softly. “Is that what ye call it? At home, we call it a léine.”

  Quincy made a great show of turning his back so she wouldn’t feel self-conscious as she slipped from the bed in her altogether. She must have spied the champagne and snack plate, because she cried, “What are ye about, Sir Quincy? Haste is necessary, is it not?”

  He hated that she addressed him as sir, but with so much else on her shoulders, he didn’t want to bitch about it. “Not so necessary that we have to go at this like we’re killing snakes.”

  Ceara jumped back on the bed so fast she made the sheets snap. “Snakes?” she repeated shrilly, staring in alarm at the floor.

  “It’s only a saying, so don’t go running for high ground. There aren’t any snakes in here, and no poisonous ones on my ranch, either. Well, only rarely. We get an occasional rattlesnake, but they buzz to warn you.”

  “God’s teeth!”

  After he crouched before the hearth, the only sound in the room was the crinkle of newspaper sheets in his hands, followed by the chink of kindling and the thump of logs being placed on the grate. He didn’t allow his gaze to waver from the task. Maybe he couldn’t court Ceara properly, but he could at least make her deflowering as easy for her as possible.

  As he struck the extended lighter and touched the flame to a wad of paper, her voice rang from behind him again. “Why must ye use that strange-looking object that shoots sparks to start a fire? Wouldna it be simpler to use yer druid gift to make flame?”

  Quincy chuckled dryly. “I have no druid powers, Ceara.” From the corner of his eye, he saw that she’d taken a seat on one of the velvety barrel chairs. “When powers were being passed out, I must have been standing at the back of the line.”

  “Well, ’tis silly beyond measure to labor so, and whether ye grow angry or na, I shall use mine.”

  She flicked her fingertips toward the fireplace, and the sudden whoosh of flame startled Quincy so badly that he nearly pitched backward onto his ass. He caught his balance, staring with amazement at the now roaring fire—every wad of paper already burning and the pieces of kindling snapping as pitch exploded from the heat. No question about it this time: Quincy knew for a fact that there was no ignition device in that firebox.

  “That little trick is one that’ll take some time for me to get used to,” he said.

  “’Tis possible—even probable—that it is the only gift remaining to me.” Sadness laced her voice. “Perhaps God, in all His goodness, shall see fit to let me retain a few others as well. I have not yet put meself to the test. Mayhap that is for the best. It has been a very trying day. ’Tis uncertain I am that I can deal happily with any more disappointments.”

  Quincy wondered if he was one of her disappointments. Probably. He was forty, for Pete’s sake, not exactly ancient by any stretch, but way too old for a beautiful woman of only twenty-six.

  “As for yer gifts, or the lack of them,” she said, returning to the first subject, “there are two possibilities. Perhaps ye were born with gifts and simply do na know it, or yer blood is so watered down by yer ancestors mating with nondruids that ye’re almost a nondruid yerself. In me time, druids marry only druids.” She sighed. “’Twill break me heart if our children are deprived of their birthright. ’Tis a marvelous thing to be druid.”

  Children? Where was that drink? Within a few hours he’d gone from anticipating sleeping apart and then requesting an annulment, to accepting that he had no choice but to consummate the union, to discussing the traits their children would inherit. His head was spinning, and this marriage was starting to sound damn permanent. Which it would be after he made love to her. Then he truly would be tied to her, no wiggling his way out, and no turning back.

  He pushed erect and stepped over to the table to pour them each some sparkly. Between filling flutes, he glanced out the window. “No,” he said with a groan. “It can’t be snowing again. It’s supposed to be turning spring.”

  Ceara waved a hand, and just like that, the snow stopped. She laughed with delight. “Did ye see that, Sir Quincy? I am still able to control the elements!” She flattened a slender hand over her chest, looking too adorable for words in his blue work shirt, her red braid falling over her shoulder and curling like a rope on her lap. “Oh, me, that made me feel faint. Coming forward has weakened me powers. I can feel it deep inside. But at least I havena been completely stripped of them.”

  Quincy gave her a long, sharp look. He couldn’t believe, not for one second, that she’d stopped the snow from falling. It had to be a coincidence.

  She noticed him studying her with a frown. “Do ye want the snow back?” she asked. “I was only trying to please ye. Ye dinna seem to welcome it.”

  “Yes,” Quincy said, “I want the damned snow back.”

  She waved her hand again, and the downfall of large flakes resumed. Not a coincidence. The realization shook Quincy to his bones, and he almost downed champagne straight from the bottle. For an instant he thought of reruns he’d seen of the TV show Bewitched in which a woman could work magic by twitching her nose. He finished pouring the champagne with a shaky hand, handed her a flute, and sat on the other barrel chair to gape at her.

  “Ceara,” he said carefully, “the way I see it, the weather should be controlled only by Mother Nature. Stopping the snow could interfere with the ecological balance.”

  She crinkled her shimmering brows in a frown. “Is Mother Nature a powerful female druid?”

  Quincy couldn’t help laughing. “No, it’s just a saying. God, Mother Nature—the two are synonymous when it comes to nature and the elements.”

  Her frown deepened. “’Tis strange. Will God na take offense, being referred to as a female?”

  Quincy almost replied that some people of his day preferred to think God was a woman, but he decided Ceara had dealt with enough weird stuff to keep her mind racing with questions. “I think God has far weightier matters to worry about,” he settled for saying.

  Quincy noticed that she kept tugging on the tails of his shirt to hide more of her legs. She had gorgeous ones: trim ankles, shapely calves, and at the sides of the shirt where he could glimpse her thighs, they appeared to be sleek and firm. He especially liked the little dimples on her knees. Nice view, but he wasn’t one to enjoy himself at someone else’s expense. He flipped up the lid of the small storage ottoman and tossed her a plush brown throw. As he did, he wondered about his choices in color schemes. Everything was brown or gold—with one notable exception: Ceara added plenty of contrast to the room with her flawless ivory skin, big blue eyes, and red braid. As she juggl
ed her flute while covering her legs with the throw, her every movement made her hair spark like fire. Having her around would be good for him. She added brightness.

  She finally settled on the chair, her modesty temporarily preserved, and sniffed the champagne. She immediately sneezed and drew back her head, looking surprised. “’Tis wiggling!” She trailed a fingertip up the side of the glass, marking the progress of a rising bubble. “Would ye look at this?”

  Quincy grinned. Lifting his glass to her, he said, “It’s safe,” and to prove it, he took a swallow. “It’s called champagne, or sparkling wine. I believe it existed in your time, but maybe none of it ever drifted your way. It’s effervescent, thus the little bubbles. Some people call it bubbly.”

  She tried a taste. Her eyes widened and then she smiled at the tickle on her tongue. “I quite like champagne,” she informed him.

  In that moment, Quincy realized just how very beautiful she was. Perfection in miniature, he decided, much smaller than most women of this era, but bigger didn’t necessarily mean better. “So, Ceara, in your time, are you on the small side for a woman?” he asked.

  “Nay. Me mum is a wee bit of a thing, but I got more height from me da. In his day, he was a strapping man, as tall and stout as a tree.” She gave Quincy a quick assessment. “Not nearly so tall and stout as ye are, but a big man fer the time. After being here, me opinion is that mankind has grown much larger over the centuries, just as the earth itself has.”

  “The earth?” Quincy queried.

  “Oh, me, yes. D’y’na know that new and wondrous places have been discovered?” Her eyes sparkled with incredulity. “Why, yer verra own country was found and settled eventually, and I was told today of a faraway land called New Zealand that no one knew about in me time.”

  Quincy reviewed his history and realized that New Zealand had been colonized long after the sixteenth century, which did make it new to Ceara. He settled back on his chair to watch her enjoy her drink, pleased to see her downing it rather quickly between taking bites of cheese and crackers from the plate. She’d soon feel warm and relaxed, which was precisely his aim. As sick as Loni was, she would applaud Quincy’s decision to give Ceara this short time to relax before the marriage was consummated.