Love Came Just in Time (27 page)

“Pal, we aren't in Limbo, we're in New York.”

His expression of resignation turned to alarm. “New York? Is that closer to Hell, then?”

“It's actually closer to Jersey than Hell, but we try to forget that bit of geography, except when the wind's from the south, then it's an inescapable fact.” She tucked the pen into her hair and loosened her grip on the shears. “Look, let's try to get you back to where you came from, okay? You tell me how you got here and I'll help you get home.” That sounded reasonable enough.

He leaned more heavily against the table. “How can I go home? I'm dead.” He shifted and a snootful of his aroma hit Jane square in the nose.

“Nope,” she said definitely, “you're not dead. I told you, you're in New York. Different state of being entirely.”

He looked very skeptical, but she pressed on.

“Do you have any family?”

“I've kin in the Highlands,” he said. “I've also kin in the Future, but I daresay I've bypassed them to get to here.”

A wacko with delusions of time traveling,
she noted. She'd read those time-traveling romances and knew all about how it worked. Standing stones, faery rings, magical jewelry—those were all devices necessary for the time traveler. Since there were none of the above in the vicinity, it was a safe bet the guy was kidding himself. Jane wasn't familiar with any of the local sanitariums, so she decided to ignore that alternative for the moment. She took a different tack.

“You got family in the area?” she asked. “In Manhattan? Queens?”

“I'm first cousin to the laird of my clan,” he said wearily. “But I fear there are no queens amongst our kin.”

Jane opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, then shut it and shook her head. Better not to know.

“Okay,” she said slowly, “how about your name instead.”

“Ian MacLeod.”

That was a start. “Birth date?”

“Allhallows Eve, 1279.”

“Right,” she said, starting to feel like Joe Friday. Maybe if she could get just the facts. “Whoa,” she said, holding up her shears, “let's fix that. What year did you say?”

“The Year of Our Lord's Grace 1279,” he repeated absently, looking around in something of a daze.

“All right,” she said, putting that tidbit into the “Really Wacko” column. “Let's move on. What about your family?”

“All left behind in 1313,” he said, plucking at his skirts with grimy fingers. “Save my cousin Jamie, of course, but he's in the Future.”

Okay, we'll play it your way,
she thought. “The Future? What year would that be?”

“1996,” he said, leaving fingerprints behind on the antebellum gown. “That was the year he said they would hope for.”

“Wrong,” she said, shaking her head and hoping the motion would dislodge the rest of his words. The year they would hope for? What kind of babble was that? “1996 is the past, buster,” she continued. “We're in 1999. Just a blink until the new . . . um . . .” She found her voice fading at the look on his face.

“1999?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“1999, not Limbo?”

She was sure she had never before seen such a look of dreadful hope on anyone's face. She nodded slowly.

“1999,” she confirmed. “That's the year, New York is the place.”

His eyes suddenly filled with tears. Before she could ask him why, he had fallen to his knees.

“Ach, merciful Saint Michael,” he breathed, his hands clasped in front of him. “I escaped . . . I escaped in truth!”

Escape. Now there was a word she didn't really want to hear from him. It conjured up thoughts of bars and breakouts and maimed guards. But before she could tell him as much, he had begun to teeter on his knees.

“Um, Mr. MacLeod,” she said, holding out her hand, “maybe you'd better . . .”

He looked up at her with a smile of such radiance, she almost flinched.

Then his eyes rolled back in his head, his eyelids came down, and he pitched forward, landing with his face on her toes.

She looked down, speechless.

A passed-out nutcase lying on her feet. What else could happen this weekend?

She was fairly sure she didn't want to know.

She stared down at the unconscious and very fragrant Ian MacLeod sprawled at her feet and wondered what in the world she was going to do with him now. And then she noticed the condition of his back revealed so conveniently by the zipper he hadn't been quite able to get up. She could have been mistaken, but those scabs looked an awful lot like Hollywood's rendition of healing whip marks.

Just what kind of trouble was he in?

And why was he so thrilled to be in New York in 1999?

Somehow, and she certainly couldn't have said why, she had the niggling suspicion that he was just as rational as she was and that he had never seen the inside of an asylum to escape from.

But that was a hunch she really didn't want to pursue. Instead, she turned her rampant thoughts to the matter at hand—namely getting Ian MacLeod out of Miss Witherspoon's workroom on the off chance that someone else was feeling exceptionally diligent and decided to come in for a little unpaid overtime.

Moving him without his help was out of the question. She wasn't a great judge of those kinds of things, but she hazarded a guess that he was several inches over six feet, certainly tall enough to get a kink in his neck while looking down at her. He was heavier than she was by far—even taking into account those last many pounds she hadn't managed to get off in time for bikini season. Dragging him out, even if she could manage it, would do nothing but leave grime on the carpet and ruin the gown. Short of dumping cold water on him, probably the best thing she could do was wait for him to wake up and hope he hadn't left too much of himself on the Scarlet O'Hara dress.

So she took a deep breath, sat down with her shears, and waited.

IAN WOKE WITH difficulty. It seemed to him as if he struggled up from his dreams like a man struggling to escape the embrace of a pond lest he drown. He knew there was a reason to wake, but he couldn't remember what it was. He only knew he had cause to open his eyes and soon, else he would lose what he desperately wanted.

He opened his eyes and realized he was still in the white room. He lifted his head to find the woman who had delivered the glad tidings sitting a few paces away from him, holding onto her strange weapon.

A Future weapon, by the look of it.

Ian smiled, a smile so fierce it hurt his face to do it. He had done it! He had escaped the past and landed himself precisely where he had dreamed of being for years.

By the saints, it was a miracle.

“How're you feeling?”

Ian looked at the woman and realized that he would have to do a great deal of work on his speech before he sounded as she did. He'd learned English, of course, being the laird's cousin and all and potentially in line for the chieftainship, and he'd practiced a bit with his cousin Jamie's wife while she was with them. Hopefully it would suffice him until he could master the new tongue.

“Well enough, mistress,” he said, with as much dignity as he could muster, being facedown on the floor before her. “I fear I never asked your name.”

“Jane,” she said. “Jane Fergusson.”

“Fergusson?” he croaked.

She waved her hand dismissively. “We've got a Scottish ancestor way up in the branches of the family tree.”

“Well,” Ian managed, “as long as he's not likely to drop from that tree upon me presently.”

“He died a long time ago, I'm sure.”

Ian decided on the spot to let the past stay in the past. No sense in punishing this girl for what her kin had done. For all he knew, she wasn't directly related to the Fergusson. As Ian's back twitched from a remembered flogging, he certainly hoped not.

Jane Fergusson rose to her feet. “We need to get you out of here.”

Ian immediately felt her urgency become his. “Why? Is it a bad place?”

“You're in Miss Petronia Witherspoon's Elegant Eighteenth Century Wedding Fashions, and believe me when I tell you Miss Witherspoon would not be pleased to find you wearing one of her bridal gowns in your . . . um . . . present condition.”

Ian heaved himself up. It took some doing, and he tangled himself soundly in his skirts before he managed to gain his feet. Even then he had to hold onto the table for a moment or two until the stars ceased to swim about his head. He looked sideways at Jane and tried to smile.

“I've been a bit . . . er, detained for the past pair of months.”

“Detained?”

She looked less than eager to hear the entire tale, but Ian felt he owed it to her.

“I was in an enemy's dungeon. I fell asleep dreaming of Hell.”

“And woke up just yards from Jersey,” she said with a nod. “Makes sense.”

Ian wasn't familiar with the place called Jersey, but he had the feeling he'd be well to avoid it. He continued, trying to piece together what must have happened. “I think they mistook me for dead and pulled me free,” he said. “Perhaps they carried me to our land and left me there.” He shrugged. “I've no idea, truly, but I'm grateful to be here.” He smiled, to show her how grateful he was.

She looked less than convinced. Maybe she didn't believe his tale. Perhaps she would believe him when he found Jamie and Jamie could vouch for the truth of it.

“Dungeon?” she asked. “Here in New York?”

“Nay, in Scotland. In the Highlands. In 1313.” He straightened and tried to look as trustworthy as possible. He truly didn't expect her to believe him immediately, but she would in time. Or perhaps she would merely take pity on him and help him find Jamie whether she believed him or not.

Assuming Jamie was in the Future. Ian had seen Jamie and his wife Elizabeth ride off into the forest. He'd even gone to the place where he knew the doorway into the Future to be and made certain they hadn't been overcome by beasties or brigands. There had been no sign of them. Ian had been convinced Jamie had found his way to 1996.

He most assuredly did not want to contemplate what a sorry state he would be in if he was wrong.

“Hmmm,” she said, fingering her weapon. “1313?”

“I need to find my cousin, James MacLeod.” There. Just saying the like made him feel more confident. Jamie had to be here. Ian would accept no other alternative. He put all doubts from his mind and concentrated on the task at hand—mainly remaining upright.

“Maybe you'd better clean up first,” she countered. “You really don't want to go around dressed like that now that you don't need to make an impression on Saint Peter anymore.”

He looked down at the dress and frowned at the less-than-pristine condition of it.

“I fear I've ruined the frock,” he said apologetically.

“Forget it. It wasn't one of my best anyway.”

He looked up at her. “Yours?”

“I designed it.” She looked around the chamber. “I designed all of these.”

Somehow she didn't sound overly enthusiastic about it. Ian, however, was impressed. He'd fingered the majority of the gowns looking for something he could use. Jane was a fine seamstress indeed to have done so much work.

“They're passing fair,” he offered. “Bonny, truly.”

“For bridal gowns,” she conceded. “Now,” she continued briskly, “let's figure out what to do with you.”

He made her as low a bow as he could manage without landing himself upon her toes again. “I am in your hands, my lady.”

He looked out from under his eyebrows to see the effect his words had had on her. She was looking at him with pursed lips and he straightened with a sigh. So she was resistent to his charms. Ian remembered his hastily made vow that he would mend his ways and settle with one woman. Perhaps Jane was not the woman for him. After all, he had the entire Future to choose from. No sense in not looking them all over before he made his choice.

But that didn't mean that Jane didn't deserve his most gallant self. It was the least he could offer, given his current condition.

 

 

A SHORT WHILE later he found himself riding, trapped, in what Jane called an elevator. All he knew was that the floor was falling from beneath his feet and he thought he just might shame himself by crying out. To take his mind off the interminable ride, he fingered the buttons of the raincoat he'd been given to wear over the remains of his plaid. His feet were bare and his sword was wrapped in a sheath of white fabric. He'd seen the wisdom of not parading about with his weapon until he was more familiar with the conditions of the day.

He'd just prided himself on surviving the torture of the little descending box when he found himself outside Miss Petronia's dwelling, standing on strange ground that fair burned the soles of his feet. The heat rose in waves from the hardened ground and beat down upon his person so strongly, he thought he might expire on the spot.

“Are you certain this isn't Hell?” he asked Jane, wiping his grimy brow.

She put her fingers to her mouth and whistled so loudly, he clapped his hands over his ears.

“Nope,” she said, when he pulled his hands away cautiously. “Welcome to New York in summer. It's hot as hell, but still a different place entirely.”

And then Ian noticed everything else. There were those little boxes on wheels—nay, those were the cars he'd heard tell of. He looked at them in astonishment, amazed at their speed and their braying calls as they surged by one another. Their drivers leaned out of them, shouting and swearing. He jumped as he heard one screech to a halt a mere finger's breadth from the back of another.