Between Two Worlds (27 page)

Delaney wondered if her father missed her yet. Had he tried to
reach her? Was he worried? What about Meredith and her other friends? Were they
curious as to why she hadn’t been in touch? Did anyone at all miss her back home?
One person would miss her if she left the here and now. Gabriel’s handsome,
rugged face clouded all other thoughts.

She wiped the tears from her cheek and strolled down the street to
the boarding house. The house was still quiet when she stepped into the foyer.
She trod up the stairs and unlocked the door to her room. As she kicked off her
boots, she unbuttoned the waistband of her skirt and let it drop to the floor.
She slipped off her blouse, tossed it on the side chair, and crawled in between
the soft sheets wearing only her underthings.

The bed was so comfortable. Mentally and physically exhausted, her
eyes closed, and she allowed her mind to drift.

I’ll get some rest. Everything will be clearer after I’ve rested.

~ * ~

Morning sunlight filtered through the lace curtains, arousing Delaney
from her slumber. She stretched and yawned. A good sleep was just what she’d
needed. When she glanced at her watch, she was shocked to see she’d slept straight
through the night again.

When she went downstairs to breakfast, she discovered the front
parlor abuzz. Ike Kingston had arrived to deliver news to Lucinda and
Charlotte. Georgia and Fletch were standing by listening, too. From the
expression on all their faces, Delaney immediately knew something terrible had
happened.

“What’s going on?” she asked, as she entered the room.

All gazes fell on her. “Warren Hooper’s escaped from jail,”
Charlotte said.

“Someone attacked Sheriff Bowman last night and stole the keys to
the cell and broke that criminal out!” Lucinda cried. She clung to Ike’s one
good arm like she never wanted to let go.

 “Is the sheriff all right?” Delaney glanced at Georgia, who had her
arm tightly around Fletcher’s shoulder. His blue eyes were bright with awe.  

Ike answered, “He got clubbed in the head. But he’s all right. Doc
Whitman patched him up.”

Delaney’s eyes darted between Ike and the others. “Does anyone
know where Hooper and his accomplice are?”

Ike shook his head. “Nope. Some men are getting a posse up.
They’re going out to search for them. I thought I should come down and give you
all the news before I headed out with them.”

Lucinda’s eyes bulged. “You’re not going with the posse, Ike
Kingston!”

“I have to, Lucy. Warren Hooper is a dangerous man. And any fool
who’d club a deputy sheriff in the head is just as dodgy. We have to bring
those two rascals in.”

“But why you?” Her eyes misted over. “I can’t have you getting
yourself killed before we’re even married.”

Ike put his hand on Lucy’s arm. “Oh, honey. I’m not gonna get
myself killed. We’ll still be married next week, just like we’ve planned. Don’t
you worry your purty little head.” He patted her.

Delaney saw the genuine love and care the two had for one another.
That kind of relationship was what she wished for, and for a moment, she was
envious of Lucinda.

“I’ve got to go,” Ike said, stomping toward the door.

“Ike! Aren’t you even going to give me a goodbye kiss?” Obviously
upset, Lucinda looked like a little girl who’d had her lollipop taken away.

A slash of red deepened in his cheeks.

“Don’t embarrass the man, Lucy.” Charlotte gently reprimanded her
friend. “When he returns with the two outlaws, you can do all the kissing on
him you want.”

Georgia and Fletch exchanged quick grins.

“Oh, all right.” Lucinda blew a kiss to Ike, who tipped his hat
and slammed the door behind him. They all heard his heavy footsteps tramp down
the porch stairs.

“I should go see if Gabriel needs my help,” Delaney said, as she
turned and strode to the door herself.

“You haven’t even eaten breakfast yet,” Charlotte protested.

“I’ll grab something at Donovan’s café. But thank you for
offering. I’ll see you all later.” With that, she hurried out the front door
and was surprised to see Ike had disappeared already. She walked to town as
fast as she could, all the while thinking about the poor sheriff. Both he and
his son had been hurt on the same day. What a bit of bad luck that was.

As she neared the telegraph office, she saw the tail ends of a
dozen horses and riders galloping out of town. She hoped the posse would find
Hooper and his partner in crime. They’d probably split town in the dead of
night. If they were smart, they would have ridden out never to return.

She reached the clinic and turned the knob on the door. It was
locked.
That’s strange.
She figured Gabriel would be up at this hour,
but maybe he was still asleep. Probably so, if he’d been up late tending to the
sheriff. She stepped next door and entered the café. As usual, there was a
crowd inside. People were gathered around the small round tables chatting as
they ate breakfast. The strong aroma of coffee and fried eggs and bacon
permeated the air. She spied an empty table near the window and made herself  comfortable.

“Good mornin’,” Hannah said, slapping a menu on the table top in
front of her.

“Morning, Hannah. I’ll save you some time. I know what I want
already.”

The waitress wrote Delaney’s order down on her pad of paper and
repeated it back. “A cup of coffee, some toast, and a scrambled egg.”

“And some fruit if you have it,” Delaney added. “I’m famished.”

“Will an apple do?”

“That’ll be fine. Thank you.” She handed the menu back to Hannah,
who scurried off to the kitchen. While she waited, Delaney listened in on the conversations
going on around her. The talk was all about the prisoner’s escape and the posse
that went after him and his partner. When Hannah delivered her meal, Delaney dug
in, ravenous with hunger. She was halfway through it when Donovan walked in the
door.

“Good mornin’ to y’all!” he called out to his customers. A wide
smile was plastered on his face. He spotted Delaney sitting alone. “May I join
ye, miss?” he asked, sliding out a chair.

She nodded and swallowed a bite of toast. “It’d be my pleasure,
Mr. McKinney.”

He flopped onto the chair and waved at Hannah. She approached and
poured him a cup of coffee. “Thank ye, lass.”

“You want the usual this morning, Mr. Donovan?” she asked.

“Ye know me well, girl.” He flashed a toothy grin and told
Delaney, “I don’t know what I’d do without this woman.”

Hannah rolled her eyes playfully and rushed toward the kitchen, stopping
to pour coffee for a few other customers along the way.

“So, I guess ye heard the big news?” he asked as he tucked a white
napkin into the collar of his shirt.

“Yes. Do you know if Sheriff Bowman’s all right? Ike told us he
was struck in the head.”

“From what I understand he’s at home recuperatin’. I would imagine
his pride is hurt worse than that thick head of his.”

“Good. I was worried. His wife must be busy nursing both him and
their son. Have you seen Gabriel this morning?”

Donovan said he hadn’t. “Maybe he’s sleepin’. All this ruckus
happened late last night.”

“I was thinking the same thing. The clinic door’s locked. I didn’t
want to knock and wake him.”

Hannah put Donovan’s steaming plate before him in short order.
Being the owner of the place reaped obvious benefits. The plate was piled high
with steak, eggs and potatoes. He cut into the steak and red juice oozed from
the meat.

“Did the cook just slaughter that cow for you?” Delaney joked.

“Rare meat keeps me blood circulatin’,” he replied, savoring a big
chunk as his jaws ground about.

Delaney finished her breakfast and watched the Irishman eat as she
sipped her coffee. She let him enjoy his meal in peace for about five minutes
before she started in. “Okay. It’s time to talk, Donovan.”

“What about, lass?” He slid an egg down his throat.

She shook her head and lowered her voice. “You know what. I need
information, and I need it now. I’m tired of waiting. What has Sam McKinney got
to do with my time traveling? And what part do you and the deceased Fiona O’Reilly
play in it?”

He fastened his gaze on her and pointed his fork in her face. “Yer
a smart one, ain’t ye, lass? I knew it from the moment I met ye. I knew we
wouldn’t be able to pull the wool over those pretty blue eyes for long.”

“
We
? Pull the wool over my eyes? Translate please.” She
leaned forward and her body began to tremble with anticipation.

Donovan laid down his fork and leaned in as well. He glanced
around the café to make sure no one was listening and then whispered, “I
suppose I can’t keep stallin’. Besides, you’ve worn me down. Hang on to yer
knickers. What I’m about to tell ye may shock ye.”

“Get on with it.”

“Aye.” His eyes narrowed. “Whether you choose to believe me or
not, Samuel McKinney
is
three hundred years old, just as I told ye
before. And he and I have our own special way of communicatin’. It would be too
hard to explain to a mortal, but suffice it to say that I’m a sort of a conduit
through which Samuel makes things happen.” He stopped there, as if that had
explained everything.

She stared, dumbfounded. “You could have just recited the alphabet
in Greek for all I know. I didn’t understand a word of it.”

“I didn’t think ye would,” he replied, rolling his eyes. He picked
up his fork again and stuffed a hefty serving of potatoes into his mouth.

“Don’t leave me hanging, Donovan. Conduit? What the heck does that
mean?”

“Think of it this way,” he answered, laying down his fork once
more. “Imagine me as the middle man and Sam as the miracle
man. ’Twas
not his idea, nor any of his own doing, I’ll have ye know. But I must say he’s
appreciating the job more and more as the years go by.”

Delaney slammed her palm on the table and then threw her hands into
the air. “You’re not making a lick of sense.”

“Shhh.” Donovan’s brow furrowed. “Don’t make a scene in me café,
Miss Marshall.”

She glanced around at the patrons staring. “Sorry.”

“Now,” he continued, “don’t ye remember what I told ye about the
curse?”

She leaned forward again. “Yes, but what did Fiona O’Reilly have
to do with all this?”

His green eyes blinked several times. “Fiona was a member of the
O’Reilly clan. They go way back, hundreds of years. They came from the Old
World.”

“Okay,” she said, remembering the tall tale he’d recounted
earlier. “Now we’re starting to get somewhere. Was my mother, Tara, also a
member of that clan?” Her heart started to leap and dance within her chest.

“Aye, she was.”

Delaney inhaled slowly. “So, my mother and Fiona O’Reilly were
related. By blood.”

“Aye.”

Delaney nibbled at her bottom lip. Her hands began to sweat. Her
heart flew into her throat. “If my mother and Fiona were related, that means
I’m also related to Fiona—the woman who just passed away in Charlotte’s
boarding house, here in Phoenix 1888.”

“Aye.” Donovan grinned. “She was your great, great, great
grandmother. Yer catching on, lass!”

“Catching on to what?” she asked, still baffled. “This is as clear
as mud. If Fiona was my great, great, great grandmother, how come I’ve never
heard of her? Why doesn’t my family have any photos of her? Why didn’t my mother
ever speak of her or any of her relatives from the Old World?”

Donovan shrugged. “I don’t know anything about yer ma, to be
honest with ye. I perform the job I was destined to do, but some of the details
are not always clear.”

“What is the job you’ve been destined to do?” Delaney asked. Her
question hung in the air unanswered.  Suddenly, a fight erupted from the back
of the café near the kitchen. When she twisted around to see what the commotion
was, she saw a cowboy’s fist slam into the jaw of a scrawny man wearing a dirty
apron.

“That’s me cook!” Donovan cried.

The cook flew through the air and landed on his back on a table.
Plates slid off and crashed to the floor as the table toppled over. Food and
coffee spilled onto the laps of the two men who’d been seated at the table—men
who were now sprawled out on the floor next to the cook. Some women screamed
and some children laughed. The cook stumbled to his feet and ran at the cowboy
with his fists punching the air.

Donovan jumped up. “That cowboy must have criticized the food.
Excuse me, Delaney,” he hollered as he took off.

She watched the Irishman and a couple of customers break up the
brawl. For a whipstitch of a man, Donovan’s cook was a mean fighting machine.
He got one final punch in and splintered the nose of his much larger opponent
before they were dragged apart.

As Donovan grabbed his cook by the collar and hauled him back to
the kitchen, Delaney realized she wasn’t going to get more out of him right
then. She placed money on the table for her breakfast and left. She was more
confused than ever, but at least she’d gotten him to start opening up. That was
one move in the right direction. Her head swam with the information he’d just
offered. Most of it, however, was like cryptic code for something that didn’t
make sense.