by Regan Black
“M-my presence?” He stammered. “I l-live here.”
“For how long?”
“All my life. Twenty-seven years,” he added.
The woman shied away and the squire caught her hand, pulling her close to his side. Were they lovers? His squire had given a vow and Gawain’s temper grew at the obvious affront. Peter whispered something at her ear that caused her to gawk, eyes wide.
Gawain cataloged her features quickly. Her almond shaped green eyes were as sharp and deep as emeralds and framed with thick lashes and auburn eyebrows that winged in the manner of fey creatures. He vaguely remembered meeting a lass with those eyes, but he couldn’t pinpoint when.
Uneasy, Gawain glared at the sight of his squire’s hand joined with the woman’s. Had he been awakened because the man had broken his vow and rendered the spell useless? He turned the full force of his attention to Peter. “You gave me your vow,” he said through gritted teeth.
“What? Oh, no.” The man laughed nervously. “Right. That wasn’t me. I didn’t make that vow. I’m not Peter.”
At his side the hound’s lip curled. The growl was barely audible, but it matched Gawain’s increasing frustration. No one other than the man who’d given the vow should know of it. Clearly, his squire had betrayed him. His palm itched, eager for the hilt of his sword as he stepped forward. “Who has turned you? And when?” How much advantage had Morgana gained on Gawain’s quest?
“No one.” The squire leaned back, raising his hands. “Times changed, sir, moved forward. My name is Nick O’Malley. Allow me to introduce Tara O’Malley.”
His squire had been an O’Malley and had vowed to be the end of that particular family line. What in all of heaven or hell had happened to derail his simple instruction and put the world in peril? Far from appeased, Gawain offered Nick’s woman a cursory bow. Chivalry could not be discarded on the grounds of his distress. “Pardon me. I am Gaw-”
“Wayne,” the man with his squire’s face interrupted. “Use Wayne while you’re here.” The man’s smile was tight, forced, as his eyes darted among the people passing by. “And we are happy to see you. We need your help.”
Nick’s caution, while troubling, assured Gawain he had woken in dire times, yet managed to arrive in the right place. There was a familiar comfort in being needed. He stretched the limits of his power, diverting magic from his glamour to prod the people closest to them, seeking the source of the threat that had brought him here.
“Stop,” Nick commanded in a low tone. “Your disguise is slipping. We can’t afford to draw the wrong kind of attention.”
The woman gawked at him, a bewildered worry in her eyes. Gawain immediately refocused his magic on his appearance. When the pair calmed, his gaze again wandered over the startling environment and population. There were too many changes to catalog. Few were likely relevant to his purpose here anyway. “Send away the woman so you can explain yourself.”
“I can explain, but she must stay with us,” the squire replied. “Alone, she’s in danger.”
“Bull. The woman,” she bit out each syllable, “can take care of herself.”
Gawain saw neither a bull nor any other imminent danger. “Explain yourselves,” he demanded. If Morgana targeted Nick’s woman they needed to act immediately. Gawain looked her over from head to toe, ignoring her indignant gasp at his extended perusal. “Have we met before, Tara?”
“No.” Her nostrils flared and her full mouth thinned to an angry line.
Gawain sensed something more lurking beneath her temper and indignation, but Nick swiftly interrupted the questions parading through his mind.
“I’ll explain everything and it will make sense soon enough. I hope,” Nick said. “We can’t discuss it out here on the street.”
Gawain set his feet, wanting answers now. Here. People barely acknowledged the three of them as they hurried about their business in every direction. “No one appears concerned with us.” He couldn’t decide if that was a boon or an insult. In Arthur’s realm, he would be recognized and welcomed, his return celebrated. Nothing here resembled Camelot or the lands Gawain had known. What king had developed this immense city? He reeled in his troubling thoughts. “What year is it? Who is the king?”
“That can wait.” Nick rolled his eyes. “It’s irrelevant anyway. Follow me.” His hand clasped tight on the woman’s arm, he turned his back and walked away.
“Halt!” This was Gawain’s quest. He’d given his word to his king, regardless of time or unfamiliar terrain. Nick could not be allowed to forget who was in charge. Gawain knew he needed guidance through the rules of this world, yet he would not traipse about uninformed, led by a man he didn’t know well enough to trust.
The younger version of his squire turned, urging Gawain to approach. “It’s the twenty-first century, sir,” he explained in a voice no more than a coarse whisper. “Your squire, Peter, was my grandfather many times over. In every generation one of us is chosen, trained, and prepared for the eventuality of your return. I am a modern day squire, if you will.” His gaze turned to steel, an expression his ancestor had not mastered in Gawain’s time. “That is all I will say about it out here. Lingering in public isn’t smart.”
Nick’s statement and obvious concerns only raised more questions. Gawain reached for the hound, the contact settling both of them. “This is impossible.” The buildings, the sheer number of people and developments he could not put into words threatened to overwhelm him.
“Apparently not so much,” the woman grumbled, crossing her arms. “He managed to keep all those pesky details from everyone. Even family.”
“Especially family,” Nick corrected with a wry twist of his mouth. “We need to get off the street.”
“I see,” Gawain said. The response wasn’t a complete lie, though it was close. Not even his hound had picked up a trace of Morgana’s presence. Could he believe this O’Malley’s tale? Would this man prove more faithful than his ancestor? “Why did you bring your woman into this?”
~*~
“For the love of God, drop the act. I’m not his woman.” Tara wanted to give her temper free rein, wanted to shout and possibly throw a well-aimed punch or two. Anything to get this pair of men to understand she wasn’t helpless, inept, or stupid. Furious with the entire impossible, messy turn her life had taken, she jerked her arm out of Nick’s grasp. “I’m his cousin.”
“Show some respect, Tara,” Nick grumbled under his breath.
She ignored the stranger and went toe to toe with Nick, wishing she’d worn heels to put her closer to eye level with him. “Respect? I can’t believe you hired an actor to make fun of me. This is a disaster. I’ll fess up to Mom and Dad and see what they have to say.”
Nick caught her, stopping her escape again. “They’ll only tell you to listen to me. He’s real,” Nick whispered. “Magic, spells, and time-traveling are real. This knight and his greyhound are our best bet at this point.”
She rolled her eyes, the dismissive gesture failing when her gaze tangled with the strange man. This Gawain-Wayne person put on a good show with his peculiar accent and archaic manners she had to assume were appropriate in the sixth century. His handsome face made her skin prickle with an inexplicable awareness. They’d never met - she wouldn’t have forgotten him - but he was familiar. His eyes were the perfect blue of a bright October sky, framed by the strong bones of his face. His golden brown hair was pulled back and a thick, overgrown beard softened the edges of a square jawline.
It was as if he’d stepped out of a classic painting, minus the armor, horse, and lance. She must be associating him with her youthful fascination with the history and stories of the era Nick said he’d come from.
He couldn’t be real, not the way Nick implied. Time travel wasn’t possible. No more possible than her awkward sense of acquaintance. Uncomfortable, she aimed all her discomfort and irritation at her cousin. “A police report is our best bet,” she countered. “Alerting museums and pawn shops isn’t a bad idea
either.” This stunt sure as hell wouldn’t get the dagger back.
“No,” Nick insisted. “That’s a recipe for disaster. I know a place we can talk, safely.”
She bristled at his lofty tone. Older than her by only two weeks, he had no right to toss around all this judgment. Twenty-four hours ago she’d been minding the family pub in Brooklyn Heights. Her life had been normal and going along well enough. Then the dagger had up and disappeared from her locked office between shifts. Not once in the history of the O’Malley family had the dagger gone missing. It wasn’t a matter of misplacing it. The narrow, seven-inch blade with a simple hilt topped with a dull, uncut ruby wasn’t a particularly beautiful piece yet it was a revered family heirloom connecting each generation to the one previous.
She remembered the electric mix of fear and excitement when the dagger had officially become her responsibility. Her earliest memories involved watching her father use the dagger for opening mail at the pub as had his father before him. When it was her turn, he’d sat in that tiny office and handed over the dagger along with a far more serious version of the family fairytale.
Her mother, Siobhan, had been at his side, her hand on his shoulder while he’d revealed a new and solemn chapter to the story she’d learned as a child. The truth, as he’d put it, was an ongoing war of light versus dark, gallant knights and treacherous sorcery, and an unquenchable determination to see that good prevailed. By accepting the dagger, she’d been charged with keeping the potent relic safe. Her mother, eyes misty, quietly added that Tara should contact Nick if anything strange happened to her or the dagger.
The exchange had rattled her, haunted her day and night. For weeks she jumped at shadows, paranoid she’d be the first O’Malley to fail the family. Siobhan, seeing straight to the heart of the matter as was her habit, reminded her that the O’Malley dagger had been safely passed from each firstborn to the next since the sixth century. Tara merely had to maintain the status quo.
Whoops. First girl in the line and she screwed it up, though she’d believed she had everything under control. As months passed without any trouble she’d relaxed, focusing more on the honor and joy of her new business challenges, and releasing the stressful burden of safeguarding the heirloom with a murky, mystical history.
Like most of her siblings and cousins, she’d taken the tale of the grand O’Malley family origins with a grain of salt as she’d grown up. The idyllic notion of an ancestor in service to Gawain the Gallant of King Arthur’s Round Table striving against dark forces to create a peaceful, just world offered an excellent way of illustrating valuable life lessons. Precautions and dire warnings aside, she’d never believed she’d come face to face with a knight from the past.
Yet, if Nick wasn’t playing games, Gawain the Gallant was standing right here, glowering at the city she loved and braced for a battle she couldn’t fathom. She glanced again at her cousin. Nick couldn’t seriously believe this was the original Gawain the Gallant. There had to be another explanation.
Amid twenty-first century progress, the world was advanced and complex and no amount of exceptional storytelling could convince her that an antique dagger, in the wrong hands, could release some great and terrible evil. A quick scan of daily headlines proved that sort of trouble already oozed from every nook and cranny of the world. The O’Malley dagger couldn’t possibly have any influence over those tragedies, big or small.
Still, it was a terrible embarrassment to be the first O’Malley to lose the dagger. Yesterday, the dagger and the supporting tale seemed like a grand fairy tale perpetrated by her elders to ensure the O’Malley ruby stayed in the family, some sort of insurance against the family fortune. She knew firsthand it was hard work and diligence that kept the very modern, very successful businesses going strong.
Now, faced with this rough-edged, antiquated man with the dreamy blue eyes and handsome greyhound at his side, she wondered what else Nick knew that she didn’t. He’d accepted the man’s shocking appearance, the accent, and the name readily enough.
Gawain the Gallant. Seriously?
She shook her head to clear the persistent cobwebs. The fanciful little girl deep inside her heart wanted to believe it, but this man couldn’t possibly be the same Gawain who’d campaigned with King Arthur. She had to think of him as Wayne, a 21st century actor dedicated to earning his pay. Despite her Irish heritage, she couldn’t wrap her brain around the concept of a visitor from 1500 years ago. If all of it were true, if she accepted a time-traveling knight, she had to accept other aspects of the tale. The terrifying elements she’d rather not consider.
To her, the stranger was a walking nightmare. He frightened her, stalking across the street and demanding information they didn’t have, his lean, attentive dog at his side. She’d tried to believe it was chance, some random stranger suffering a delusion, but that was even more improbable than the reality her cousin had just begun to explain.
“There is no time to waste. I need answers immediately,” Wayne said. “How was the dagger stolen?”
Nick winced at the demand and Tara leaped to his defense. “Are your ears full of cotton?” She was tall among the women of her family, yet Wayne’s dominating form made her feel petite. “Nick said he’d explain when we have some privacy.”
“That is enough out of you,” Wayne shot back. “This isn’t your business.”
“Quiet. Both of you,” Nick intervened, stepping between them. “You’re drawing attention.”
“In Times Square?” She waved a hand. “Who would notice us over the Naked Cowboy,” she flicked a hand that direction, “or anyone else?”
She clamped her mouth shut at Nick’s sharp glare. She probably shouldn’t piss off the one family member she’d confided in. “Fine. We can take the subway back to the pub.”
“He won’t be happy on the subway,” Nick countered. “And the pub isn’t safe. The thief was there.”
“Well, we can’t walk across the East River either,” Tara said. “Unless that’s another trick you’ve tucked up your sleeve.”
“Do you not have horses?” Wayne asked.
Tara laughed. “We don’t have horses in the city.”
“Trouble,” Nick interjected. He held up his hand, palm facing Wayne. “Can you, umm...” He gestured for Wayne to mirror his movement.
The bigger man frowned as he pressed his palm to Nick’s in the slowest high five ever recorded. “What’s that about?” Tara asked. “What are you doing?” Neither man answered her.
Wayne faced one way, his dog the other and she watched the man’s blue eyes travel from passersby to billboards and back again. She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, except the man in front of her.
“My arrival has not gone unnoticed.” Wayne sounded proud of himself.
Nick nodded. “Take a cab.” He pressed a key and a card into Tara’s hand. “Take Wayne and the dog to this address and stay with them. Everything he needs is there. You’ll all be safe. I’ll meet you as soon as I can and we can make a plan.”
Her cousin had been muttering off and on about the danger to her since she’d admitted the theft to him late last night. “I can’t just go into hiding. You know I have to get back to the pub.”
“The pub will wait,” Nick said in the tone her uncle, his father, had used to halt many a family argument.
“Is that so?” She cocked her hip and folded her arms over her chest. “I’ll let you explain that to Ma.”
The color leached from his face. “You’re not safe until we recover the dagger. Aunt Siobhan would agree with me if you told her, so go ahead.”
Her earlier threat had been all bluster and they both knew it. She had no intention of admitting this fiasco to anyone else in the family or otherwise. “Fine.” She drilled a finger into his chest. “I’ll babysit your new - old - friend. But you owe me answers.” She gave him her back as she hailed a cab.
“You’ll have them.” Nick’s eyes, normally full of laughter, were grim and serious. “He’ll
keep you safe,” he said at her ear when the cab stopped at the curb.
Wayne was big and intimidating, but she had her doubts about his ability to fend off a modern-day attack. “I can take care of myself.”
“What is this carriage?” Wayne asked.
“It’s called a taxi,” she said, opening the door. “In you go.”
“I beg your pardon?” He frowned at the vehicle. She shot Nick a dark look. “Oh, this will be great.” Reaching out, she thought better of her intention to touch the man, instead, snapping her fingers for his dog. “Come on, sweetie. This way,” she crooned as she ducked into the back seat.
“You slide in across the bench,” Nick explained to Wayne. “Like a wagon or carriage.”
Wayne’s broad chest rose and fell on a deep inhale and exhale. He closed his eyes briefly, his fingertips resting lightly on his dog’s head. The dog jumped in willingly and after another moment, Wayne followed.
His presence filled the car, and more than that, his tension. “It’s safe,” she said, in a lame attempt to put him at ease.
He gave her a skeptical glance, his powerful hand splayed over the dog’s shoulder, before he turned his attention to whatever invisible dangers he sensed creeping through Times Square.
She gave the address Nick had provided to the driver and prayed they made it across the bridge without any more outrageous questions.
Chapter Two
The cab stopped in front of a stately brownstone only a few blocks from the pub. Her family was big, with branches of O’Malleys all over New York City as well as the northeast, but this house was completely new to her. She decided it was the least of the day’s surprises, considering the things Nick had alluded to both before and after Wayne had shown up in Times Square.
