Free Perfect Timing by Catherine Anderson Page A

life may hang in the balance.”
    It was Quincy’s turn to throw up a hand. “Whoa. That woman says she came here to marry me. Well, she didn’t specifically say me , but I’m the one she sought out, and I’m the only single male left in our branch of the family.” Quincy cocked his head. “What are you saying, Dad, that I should slap a ring on her finger? That’s nuts. Why are we even entertaining the notion that the woman uttered a single word of truth? Traveling forward in time? Ancient curses? Hell, according to her, she’s of druid blood, and so are all the Harrigans. What exactly is a druid, anyway? In my opinion, they were simply learned people who found it easy to hoodwink the uneducated into believing they had special powers. It was all a bunch of BS then, and it still is now. Stuff like this doesn’t happen in the twenty-first century.”
    Frank drew a can of Copenhagen from his hip pocket. With a flick of his wrist, he tamped down the contents and put a chew in his mouth. “You mind findin’ me a spitter? I need to think, and I do my best thinkin’ with a wad of tobacco tucked inside my lip.”
    Quincy left the dining room to hunt up an empty water bottle. He detested his father’s tobacco habit and wished Frank would quit, but he’d come to accept over the years that it would never happen. At least Quincy’s stepmom, Dee Dee, kept Frank’s use of tobacco at a minimum. She pitched a holy fit if she smelled wintergreen on his breath, wouldn’t allow Frank to enjoy a chew inside their house, and essentially forced him to sneak behind her back to get his nicotine fixes.
    As Quincy passed his in-home office, he saw that Nona Redcliff had returned and was just slipping out of her jacket. He stopped to ask, “Before you took off for lunch, did you happen to find anything odd in the camera footage?”
    Nona shook her head. “Nope. If I didn’t know it was impossible, I’d swear that woman dropped into Beethoven’s stall from out of nowhere.”
    A cold wave of uneasiness washed over Quincy. “Well, you’re right. That is impossible, so keep on it, Nona. I’m counting on you to make sense of it.”
    “You got it.” Her brown eyes twinkled with humor. “Being Native American, I was raised hearing tall tales, but even as a child at my grandfather’s knee, I never believed any of them. The stars are not stepping-stones to the afterworld. The Milky Way wasn’t created by snow dropping from the paws of a large bear racing across the sky. It follows that druids cannot travel forward in time. I don’t know what the real story is, but I guarantee I’ll have an answer soon.”
    Quincy hoped so. Feeling slightly off balance, he returned to the dining room. Frank gratefully accepted the empty, clear plastic water bottle and removed the cap to spit. “Quincy, don’t blow a gasket, okay? I got somethin’ to say, and the only way I know is straight-out. I think you should either drop the charges against Ceara O’Ceallaigh or bail her out of jail, one or the other.”
    Quincy met his father’s gaze. “Do what ? You’ve got to be kidding. Why the hell would I do either? She broke into my stable. Beethoven is worth two hundred grand, for God’s sake! I could probably sell him for two hundred and fifty, just like that.” Quincy snapped his fingers. “She must have had a purpose in mind, and it sure as hell wasn’t to take a nap in the straw. Give me one good reason why I should get her out of the clinker.”
    Frank rocked back on his chair. “While you was gone, I took a little journey backward in time, recallin’ old stories told to me by my grandfather. He was Irish, straight from the homeland, and I can remember him sayin’ that a heap of his ancestors had magical powers. Maybe we are druids, Quincy, and over time, we forgot about it.” Frank paused for effect. “One of my buyers, who’s also a good friend, found out a few months back that his great-great-great-grandmother was a Louisiana