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Daniel Jr., aka Danny Boy, clamped Haley into a hug, and the smell of fish filled her senses. She looked up and smiled into the eyes of her oldest brother. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail for his gig as a short-order cook in a seafood joint. Danny was tall and had a cleft chin.  Haley couldn't understand how the most charming of them could be so completely single.

Colin and Conor, the twins, vied for a spot by their sister.  They'd been the biggest troublemakers of all the six kids  -
holy terrors
, her mother used to sigh  - and now they were the most stable of the lot. One was married, the other might as well be, and they'd left their dates seated to come

and scruff Haley's hair, take her bag, and unwind the scarf

from her neck.

“C'mon, beautiful.” Danny pushed his way back between  their brothers to undo the top of the sweater still buttoned  tight around her neck. “Loosen up a bit.”

“A beer will help!” Gerry shouted from the table, raising his  glass in a toast and  flashing a wide, gap-toothed grin. His  free hand fumbled with the crumpled pack of cigarettes he  wasn't allowed to smoke inside.

“Yeah. Doc!” Jimmy shouted. He beamed at her from his  seat, his arm wrapped tight around his girlfriend Maggie.  Haley had to laugh at the sight of him  - the tips of his ears  already red with drink. They protruded almost comically  from his head, accentuated by his buzz-cut hair, regulation  cop just like Dad's. “Get in out of the cold.”

“Yeah, it's colder than a nun's t ”-

“Gerald Patrick!” Her father's voice boomed from the other

end of the bar. “Jesus. Mary, and Joseph, boy. You kiss  your mother with that mouth?” He approached Haley, a  pint in one hand, a basket of curly fries in the other, and  leaned down and bussed her on the cheek. “My day has  greatly improved with the vision of you. darlin' girl. I'm glad  to see your work could spare you of an evening.”

More than forty years had passed since her dad had stepped off the boat from his native Donegal, but he'd never lost the warm Irish burr in his voice.

“And I take it Mom's at bridge night?” Even though they'd  all stayed local, Haley's mother had been unhappy to see  the last of her kids leave the nest and had taken up all  manner of hobbies since. And their mother had been the

only one surprised by how much fun she was having now.

“And where else?” Danny ushered Haley to a seat.

“Time to focus, people.” Gerry poured himself another.

“Gerry has twenty bucks on the over,” Danny said, glancing

at the television.

“He's crazy.” Conor looked at his sister intently. “What do  you say? You've always been good at picking the line. Will  the game go over fifty-four points?”

Haley took a deep pull of her beer while she considered.  “Dallas hasn't gotten their running game going yet.” she

said with the same gravity with which she approached her  scholarship. “I think it's going to be a shoot-out, so yeah,  I'd side with Gerry on this one.” She raised her pint to the  brother in question.

“Listen up!” Jimmy reached over the table and stole Gerry's  lighter from his hand. “Hey, attention, people.” He clinked  the old metal Zippo on the side of his glass. “I said shut up,  you dips.” Jimmy swatted the nearest brother on the head.

“What the- ” Danny recoiled, and smoothed his hair back

down into his ponytail.

“Apologies, ladies.” Jimmy ignored Danny and nodded at  the women. “But we have an announcement. Maggie, love?”

His girlfriend shyly pulled her hand from beneath the table.  Directing her words to Haley, she said, “We were waiting for you to get here. I wanted you to be the first… the first to hear…”

“You'll have a new sister!” Jimmy shouted, and was at once

drowned out in cheers and a few female shrieks.

“Really?” Haley leaned into her, genuinely pleased. “I've got

to see the ring.”

Colin spoke above the din. “And when are
 
you
 
going to make an honest woman of
 
yourself
', Doc?”

Haley didn't deign to give him a look, and merely kicked her brother beneath the table. She held Maggie's hand, shifting it under the light, setting the small diamond to twinkling. “Oh guys, it's beautiful.”

Maggie's sweet face bloomed into a smile. Between the strawberry blonde curls that framed Maggie's delicate heart-shaped face and the six-two length of her swarthy brother, Haley couldn't wait to see what their kids would look like.

“And look,” she wriggled her ring off and angled it up to the  dim bar light. “Jimmy knew my size, and even inscribed it  for me.”

Haley took it from her, focusing on the tiny script. “James loves Maggie.”

“The lout couldn't think of anything more creative.” Gerry

said.

“Shut up.” Jimmy threw his brother's lighter back at him.

“Her fingers are small.”

“No.” Haley frowned at them. “It's simple and perfect. It  says it all.” She turned to Jimmy. “It's lovely. Just perfect.”

“Blessings kids.” Her father raised his glass in a toast.

“May the road rise up to meet you… ”

“Get comfortable.” Gerry leaned low over the table and

winked at Haley.

“May the wind be always at your back.”

“And here we go,” Danny muttered.

“May the sun shine warm ”-

A  roar erupted in the bar, and all eyes went to the TV screen. The Patriots had scored a touchdown, and soon everyone's attention was back on the game.

James loves Maggie
 
Haley thought, warm inside at the thought of it. Jimmy was a good guy, he deserved every happiness. Her eyes were on the screen, but her mind began to drift.

Another, much older, inscription popped into her head.  Just who would dedicate a dagger to their sweetheart? “
For  JG, with love from Ma
-”

J.
 
Not a lot of
 
J
 
names in Scotland. Haley wracked her brain. She decided it was safe to assume the recipient had been a man. Maybe John. Though, Scotland in the seventeenth century, the Gaelic version Iain more likely would have been used.

No
, she thought,
 
he was in all likelihood another James, or

Jamie
.

But
 
Ma
 
would be harder to pin down. You'd have Mairi,

Malveen, Margaret, Marsali…

“James loves Maggie!”

“Hey Mag!” she heard Gerry tease. “Give your new brother

some sugar.”

“Mag.”

“
 
With love from
-”

“Magda?” Haley exclaimed. The bar had fallen momentarily  silent and everyone turned to her, but for Gerry, who was  scanning the bar for whomever this new girl might be that  his sister was greeting.

“Sorry. Just thinking.” Haley hid her face in her glass as

she took a big sip.

“You need to focus, ” Colin scolded her.

“You need to
 
will
 
them to win, Haley.” Conor nodded

somberly in agreement.

JG
, she thought. James Graham's wife was named

Magdalen.

But the dagger was dated 1675. Graham had been hanged at least twenty years before that.

She shook  her head. She was grasping at straws.

JG could be any one of thousands of men.

But how many of those would have the resources to buy such an extravagant weapon?

“Hey Doc.” Gerry snapped his fingers in front of her. “Earth

to Haley.”

“I tell you, she needs to focus.” Colin gravely shook his

head.

“Huh?” Haley looked at them blankly. “Oh, yeah, yeah.”  Shifting, she stared blindly at the flat screen hanging in  the corner.

Maybe the piece was misdated.

But it was a flintlock pistol. Anything prior to 1650 would probably have used a wheel lock mechanism.

“I have to go.” Haley stood suddenly, screeching her chair  along the sticky barroom floor. She was going to drive  herself crazy. There was no way on earth that dagger had  belonged to the famous war hero,  hanged in Edinburgh in  the middle of the seventeenth century. She needed to buff  the rest of the thing off; she'd see it was Margaret or  Marjory or Martha who'd given the strange gift, and then  she could stop spinning out. She swore to herself she'd

once and for all focus on her dissertation. Just as soon as

she figured out this one little mystery.

Her pronouncement was immediately met with grumbling and dire predictions.

Danny stared at her in disbelief. “It's bad mojo to leave before halftime.”

“You have only yourself to blame if they lose,” Colin said.

“Aren't you going to celebrate with us?” Jimmy attempted,

in the most masterful tack of all.

“No, really, guys. I need to chase something down.”

“We'll only release you if you're referring to a male student  in that school of yours.” Gerry stretched his leg along the  side of the table as if to halt her escape.

“Stop fooling around,” Conor said, “and sit your butt down.

Doc.”

“Really. Sorry everyone.” Haley reached over to give Maggie

a big hug. “Welcome to the family.”

“She's really leaving?” Conor asked his father in disbelief.

“God help her!” Danny shouted.

“Leave the girl be.” Her dad nodded sagely. “She's got more  important affairs to tend to than a mere football match.  Our Haley knows what she  needs to do.”

Haley scampered back out into the cold, winding her scarf about her neck as she went, the sound of hooting, cheering, and teasing about “affairs” sounding at her back.

Chapter Two

Argyll, Scotland. 1646

The branches of the old rowan barely bore his weight as he scaled them, and yet the wind in the leaves made more of a rustle than MacColla. It was a moonless night and he felt his way, clinging closer to the trunk as the branches grew thinner and more fibrous with his ascent. Just as the

treetop began to stoop with the burden, he saw the roof

materialize from the darkness.

It was a ruinous old structure nestled among the trees, a stout, near-windowless tower house, despite its grand title of Inveraray Castle. During the day, wooden steps bypassed the ground floor to lead to the entrance via the great hall on the second story. As such, invited guests wouldn't have to endure the unsightly cellars and vaulted kitchen, and the uninvited would be denied entry when the staircase was retracted at night.

MacColla's laugh was low and quiet. He would, most assuredly, be considered among the uninvited, and yet the fools must've thought some removable steps to be adequate security, for there were no guardsmen to be seen.

There were no suitable windows to climb to from the

ground, leaving the roof as the second best access point.  He studied it from his perch. A dormer bearing a single  door was the only thing that interrupted the silhouette of  the sharp peak. A low stone parapet flanked a thin

walkway along the roof's edge, presumably to prevent  guardsmen from falling the five stories to their death. Faint  starlight shimmered in small patches all around, captured  by the night's dew.

Ah, and wet too.
 
MacColla thought with a smirk.
 
Tweren't simple nough to begin with.

It was no matter. He'd risk life and limb without a thought to get to his Jean.

He heaved his weight. Perhaps it was a good thing after all that Campbell's lair was in want of windows. As it was, he'd be lucky if none heard the tremendous creak the old tree's bones moaned into the night.

MacColla leapt, hurtling his massive body through the air, crashing along the side of the roof and sliding down to land with an ungraceful thump on the narrow walkway.