Time Everlastin' Book 5 (2 page)

Gil and Katherine nodded,
while the bouncers watched her, deadpan.

"You're right, of course,"
Taryn said airily. "I just wanted another visit before I return to
the States."

"Ye ask a lot o' questions,"
Mavis snipped.

"Ye never said wha' ye do
write," said Gil. A half chewed piece of bread fell from his mouth
onto his plate. Without missing a beat, he popped it back into the
waiting cavity, and lifted his eyebrows in a gesture for Taryn to
respond.

"I'm a journalist," Taryn
said, deciding it was best not to reveal she was also a paparazzi.
The latter profession had a tendency to raise people's hackles.
"When I was last here, I was considering doing a piece about the
standing stones, but decided against it."

"If ye are no' here for a
story," said Katie, her voice so soft Taryn strained to hear every
word, "then why so many questions abou' our family
history?"

"I really am on vacation,"
Taryn said with a light laugh, inwardly patting herself for not
mentioning Broc MacLachlan or Ciarda Baird's names. "Don't tourists
usually ask about your ancestors?"

An Oscar
performance.

"Some," Gil said with his
mouth full of stuffed intestine.

Taryn gulped back a reflex
to gag. "I-ah, love Scottish people. They have such a fascinating
history."

"Na canny how yer car willna
start," said Katherine, an accusation in her tone.

"Nothing funny about it."
Taryn sighed. "The rental company is going to get an earful. I had
to reschedule my flight out, and the airline charges for that
privilege."

"I see," Katherine murmured.
"Weel, Miss Ingliss, ma brither will be here in the morn. Samuel
will give yer car a looksee. If it canna be fix, he'll take ye to
the rental company."

It took all of Taryn's
willpower not to grin. In her vast experience, there was hostility
and there was
hostility,
the kind that gave her the impression these plain,
questionably-good folk would love to have her head mounted on their
parlor wall.

"I'm so sorry I've been so
much trouble," Taryn said, so sincerely she almost convinced
herself she cared what these people thought or did. "I realize now
I couldn't have food poisoning. You all would be sick, too, right?
It must be a stomach flu. Bad timing."

"Trouble is as trouble is,"
Mavis said in a singsong manner. She stared at her emptied plate as
if confused.

"I'll be ready when Samuel
arrives," Taryn said. "It's a shame none of you own a car, or I
wouldn't have to impose on you another night."
The hell I wouldn't.

"Usually," Katherine said
with a cynical smile, "we have no use for but one car, Miss
Ingliss. Yer stay here happened at a time when Samuel had business
on the mainland."

"Yes. Like I said, bad
timing." Taryn faked a yawn. "I really am tired."

"Wastin' food is a sin,"
Mavis repeated, her head bobbing.

"I'm afraid my stomach won't
hold anything more."

"Wastin' food—"

"Aye, mither," Katherine
said patiently, and forced a smile as her eyes shrewdly appraised
Taryn. "Miss Ingliss kens wha' her stomach can endure—efter her
mysterious ailment."

"That's very gracious of
you."
Get me out of here before I really
toss my cookies.
"If you don't mind, I'd
like to retire to my room. I have a big day tomorrow."

"We'll be retirin' early
ourselves, this eve," said Gil. "There's been a rash o' burglaries
in the area. We'll be lockin' up."

Taryn offered a blank look,
although she understood what was said.

"If ye should get up, Miss
Ingliss, ye canna leave the

house," said
Katherine.

"I have no intention of
going anywhere till morning." Taryn dabbed at the corners of her
mouth with a linen napkin, and stood. "Good night."

"Good night," was echoed by
the others.

By the time Taryn reached
her room on the second floor, she was ready to burst in to
laughter. She ran to the bed and dropped her purse on the
nightstand. Snatching up the pillow from beneath a colorful quilt
depicting Celtic knots, she pressed it over her face and laughed
until a stitch in her side sobered her. Then with a long sigh
tinged with an afterglow of hilarity, she sat on the bed and tossed
the pillow against the oak headboard.

A rap at the door brought
her to her feet. Opening it, she found Katie, a steaming cup in
hand.

"I brought ye some het
chocolate ta help ye sleep."

Probably loaded with
knock-out drops.
"Thank you. It's so nice
of you to worry about me."

Katie graciously inclined
her head. "Good night, Miss Ingliss."

Taryn was in the process of
closing the door when Katie said, "Wha's it like?"

"Excuse me?"

"Writin' for a
livin'."

"It's a hard life, but it
does have its perks."

"Like wha', for
example?"

"The freedom to travel, to
meet new people, to see new places." Taryn sighed pensively. "Have
you ever been away from this island?"

Katie's eyes widened. "Och,
no!"

"We have but one life, Taryn
quipped.
Unless you're Lachlan Baird or
Beth Staples.
"There's a big world out
there, Katie."

"Aye," Katie murmured. Her
gaze lit on the cup in Taryn's hand. "Be sure to drink yer
chocolate."

"I will. Good
night."

Taryn was staring at the
dark contents of the cup when Katie closed the door. It was drugged
all right.

Why disable a
guest?

Curiouser and
curiouser.

Engaging the doorknob lock,
she looked around the room to find a place to dump the hot
chocolate. The bathroom was in the hall. She couldn't risk being
caught carrying a full cup out of her room. There were no plants.
No vases. No containers. The oak bed, nightstand, dresser and
wardrobe were devoid of knickknacks. Doilies were no
help.

What to do?
she mused, eyeing the cup ruefully.

Setting it on the nightstand
alongside a wind-up alarm clock, she knelt and slid her black
leather knapsack from beneath the bed. She unzipped it and fished
out a plastic container nearly empty of shampoo. Removing the cap,
she carefully tipped the cup over the opening. About three-fourths
went into the container, with little spillage. She replaced the
cap, making sure it was screwed on tightly, put the bottle into the
knapsack, and returned the bag beneath the bed.

Taryn stood and went to the
foot of the bed. As if her life depended on speed, she drew back
the covers and fitted sheet, exposing the mattress. She retrieved
the cup, sat on one corner of the bed, and slowly poured the
contents out, going back and forth in a line as the material
absorbed the liquid. She returned the empty cup to the nightstand
and removed a thin, spare blanket from the cabinet below. After
dabbing up the spills on the floor, she laid the blanket, thrice
folded lengthwise, over the wet mattress.

By the time you yokels
discover what I've done, I'll be long gone,
she thought smugly and patted the blanket.

Another rap came at the
door. Unlocking and opening it, she smiled tiredly at
Katie.

"I thought I would take the
cup to the kitchen if ye were through wi' it."

Taryn released a wide yawn.
"Oh, excuse me. I can't keep my eyes open." She fetched the empty
cup and handed it to the woman. This time her feigned yawn brought
moisture to her eyes.

She glanced at her watch.
"It's only eight. Usually I can't get to sleep until after
midnight."

Katie nodded. "Tis our fine
weather, Miss Ingliss."

"Good night, Katie. See you
in the morning."

"Aye, miss."

Shutting and locking the
door, Taryn glared at the brass knob. This family was definitely
hiding something.

She closed the floral-print
curtains, kicked off her flats, and stripped out of her jeans and
pullover sweater. She again pulled the knapsack from beneath the
bed. Two minutes later she was dressed in a snug-fitting black
jumpsuit, over which she slipped on an oversized red T-shirt. She
zipped the knapsack, pushed it beneath the bed, turned off the lamp
on the nightstand and climbed beneath the covers.

Someone would check on her
in the next couple of hours. People with a secret had a tendency to
be paranoid.

Curled up on her side, she
closed her eyes against the semi-darkness of the room. It was
several minutes before she was able to slow her heartbeat. The
blankets were drawn over her such that the T-shirt was visible at
her back but not the jumpsuit's long sleeves beneath the short red
ones. Her unbound thick, curly blond hair camouflaged the black
high neck of the jumpsuit.

Let them come. Once they
believe I'm asleep, they'll let their guard down.

Unbidden, Lachlan Baird
materialized on her mindscape. Too often he intruded into the
private recesses of her mind. She would never see him again, and it
wasn't because he claimed to be in love with Beth Staples. Hell, he
and Beth had shared their lives in death, then returned to the
living and had twins.

An impossible bond to
challenge.

The irony of finally finding
a man who left her breathless every time she looked at him, was
unfair. She was no saint. A wild romp between the sheets would have
sufficed, but he had no interest in her that way.

Some would say emphatically
that Taryn was a bitch, untrustworthy, and without a heart. She
used to laugh at those evaluations. Nice women didn't survive in
her chosen career. Nice women were trampled beneath the soiled
shoes of ambitious men.

My hide isn’t affixed to
their soles and never will be.

Her thoughts shifted back to
Lachlan. Ignoring a psychological knot forming in her throat, she
sharpened his image.

How was it that some men—so
few men in her experience—had the ability to rock a woman's soul
with a glance?

Usually her intuition was
impeccable. Not so in his case. The instant she laid eyes on him,
she was sure she had met the man destined to be her equal, her
significant other.

Right.

Life wasn't about wise
choices, only choices. Stealing his dirk and mother's journal had
sealed off any chance of returning to Baird House to see
him.

Roan was another matter. Her
estranged brother hadn't accepted her, either. She couldn't blame
him. While he was raised in Scotland by an aunt, Taryn was reared
by their parents in Rhode Island. She didn't need a big brother
interfering in her life.

I don’t need
anyone.

With a mental groan, she
remembered the pager. She should have called her editor, but Dan
Whitecomb would have just chewed her out again and demanded she
return to work.

Not until the mystery is
solved,
she thought.

A kind woman in an Aberdeen
flower shop had translated a portion of Ciarda's journal. Lachlan's
mother had mostly written about her young son's everyday
experiences. There was only a brief section wherein she wrote about
her family on the isle—a briefer notation on the standing stones,
and two lines on how she prayed Lachlan would never go near them
again.

The most intriguing, the
most inspiring, was a passage in which Ciarda wrote a prayer for
one Broc MacLachlan, and for the forgiveness of his
sins.

Sins always intrigued
me.

Later on in the journal,
Ciarda mentioned her desperation to keep Lachlan from the site, and
another prayer that he would one day forgive her
silence.

Silence about
what?

Broc MacLachlan had vanished
in 1799.

Did this MacLachlan clan
practice witchcraft, their rituals perhaps held at the
stones?

Had Broc met his end in
sacrifice at the site?

Lachlan was born in 1811.
Had Ciarda's family deemed him an eventual sacrifice?

The dirk and journal were in
the knapsack. Her ancestry was linked with the Bairds on Lachlan's
father's side. The dirk was the key to something, according to the
runes.

Besides the runes, hideous
gargoyle faces adorned the handle.

Gargoyles. What could they
represent?

Ciarda MacLachlan Baird had
died with a secret. The dirk was somehow tied in. Taryn's gut told
her the dirk was also a vital key to something connected to
Lachlan. The what, why, and how's were maddening.

And exhilarating.

A faint sound caught her
notice. Breathing shallowly, she listened as a key turned in the
lock, the door opened, and soft footfalls crossed the
room.

She could feel eyes boring
into the back of her head before a hand none-too-gently pushed her
raised shoulder. Seconds passed before she was jarred once
again.