The Charm Stone Read online

“Except for you. And the stone.”

  “The stone and I share a joint destiny,” he explained. “I canna die.” He heaved a sigh and she didn't think she'd ever heard a sound quite so sad. “So many moons have passed now.” He was talking more to himself than to her. “And I've naught to show for my duties. I fear I'll be in disgrace for all eternity.”

  “No good luck charm can keep a ship from going down in bad weather,” she said, not sure why in the world she was humoring him, much less consoling him. “Surely they can't blame you for that.” Whoever the hell they were.

  “I suppose not,” he said, though he didn't sound all that relieved. “Once the stone is set upon its path, the gods take no further hand in where Fate takes it or us. But I've never failed before. The stone has always gone to the one chosen to bear—” He stopped and shook his head, then mustered a smile. “My woes are no’ to be yer concern. Fate has guided me here and, like Destiny, she has her own plans for things. I am no’ to judge the wisdom of who or what she chooses to put before me.” The look he gave her made it clear that while he didn't judge Fate's wisdom, he did question it some. “All things will be clear when we get you home,” he said confidently, then his expression faltered slightly. “Once we find the current laird, that is.”

  Josie wished she'd carried her cell phone. Men in white coats would be a welcome sight at the moment. Whether they'd be coming to pick up Bagan or her was a tossup at the moment. “This is my home,” she said, as if that would make any difference to him.

  “Ye wear the MacNeil charm stone, lass,” he said simply, “which means yer trothed to the laird and will bear him a son. Ye canno’ change what Fate has wrought. Only death can end it.”

  “Lucky Lady Elsinor,” Josie muttered.

  “I dinna think she'd agree with ye, lass,” he said, obviously affronted. “ Tis an honor to be chosen, no matter the circumstance of it. I'm certain the current laird will be happy with what Fate has brought him.” He didn't quite pull this last part off convincingly.

  Laughing probably wasn't the smartest thing to do in this kind of situation, but it burst right out of her. “So, let me get this straight. I'm supposed to fly off and marry some guy I've never met and bear his children. A guy, I might add, that you admit you don't even know. What if he's already married? What if he's a hundred years old? I don't think they even have clan chiefs anymore.”

  Bagan folded his arms, looking remarkably obstinate for a little person. “The MacNeil Stone has only been worn by the laird's bride. No one else. It has never failed to bring good fortune to the clan.”

  “I can see that.” He flinched a bit and she actually felt bad for chiding him.

  “I dinna know for certain why Lady Elsinor was kept from fulfilling her promise. Fate has her own mind in these things, I suppose. She'd no’ put the thing on, despite my tellin’ her that it was the way of things. She had her own mind and was wanting Connal to do the honors.” He continued a bit uncertainly. “Perhaps it was her refusal that set Fate on a new course. In all the time it has been, the stone-when heeded-has brought good things to the clan. I canno’ be held responsible for those that wouldna follow its guidance. Connal was tryin’ to do the right thing, he knew it was the only way to save—”

  “Just how long has this thing been sitting on the bottom of the ocean anyway?” Josie cut in, her head beginning to ache from more than the lump swelling on it. “When was the last time you dragged a bride back to Scotland?”

  Bagan sniffed and looked mightily injured. “Seventeen hundred and two. And I dinna drag the lass anywhere. She was well thrilled to be the chosen one. Despite the clan's recent history, she knew it to be an honor. Why, there wasna a lass in the land who wouldn't have—”

  “Well, I'm not from your land.” Or your planet, she wanted to add. Seventeen-oh-two? Was he for real? “And while there might be a few places in the world where arranged marriages still happen, America isn't one of them.”

  “Ye canna go escaping yer destiny.”

  “Watch me, old chap.” Josie tugged the chain over her neck and threw the necklace at him. It should have hit him square in the chest, but it didn't. In fact, it didn't hit him at all. Instead it landed in the sand where he should have been standing. But wasn't.

  She whirled around, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Okay, this isn't funny!” she called out. No answer. But did she really want one? Josie swore under her breath. Maybe she should go to the hospital, have her head checked. Maybe have a CAT scan. Or three.

  She looked at the necklace. She should just leave it there for some other innocent beachcomber to stumble across. But she couldn't. She stomped over, scooped it up, and tossed it into the trunk. She'd do what she should have done from the start. Deliver it to the maritime museum and let them deal with it.

  By the time she hiked out to her Jeep she was exhausted and near tears. Well, who wouldn't be a bit freaked out after a morning like she'd had? She pulled her keys out from where she'd tucked them under the back fender, then put the towel-wrapped trunk under the passenger seat so she wouldn't have to look at it.

  A quick check in the rearview mirror showed a good-size lump along with a healthy gouge below her hairline.

  “Mother Nature: one, Josie: zero,” she muttered and gunned the engine before pulling onto the road. She looked at the dunes receding from view, half-afraid she'd spy Bagan waving to her. “There's nothing there,” she told herself. There was never anything there. If she said it enough times maybe she'd start believing it.

  Ye canna go escaping yer destiny.

  She shivered as Bagan's words echoed in her mind. Well, her destiny was to do graphic artwork on her father's famed boards. That, and hit the waves whenever possible.

  Which didn't explain why, for the first time since her father had put her on a board at the age of two, she was in no hurry to go back to the beach.

  Chapter 2

  The museum was closer than the clinic, so Josie went there first. Parker's Inlet wasn't a very big place and their maritime museum was even less impressive, but at the moment she was thankful they had one at all. Until she saw the empty parking lot. Not a good sign. She swung her Jeep around to the front of the white clapboard building and squinted at the small hand-painted sign in the front window. “Closed Monday and Tuesday,” she read. And it was Monday morning. “Lovely.”

  She was tempted to yank the trunk out and just leave it by the door. But her dad would get a kick out of seeing it-at least that's what she told herself-so she rolled back out of the lot with it still stuck under the seat.

  Big Griff had spent close to twice the number of years she had globe-trotting and had seen all sorts of strange stuff. A kilt-wearing dwarf probably wouldn't even make him blink. Not that she'd decided to tell him about that part of it.

  She was so busy trying to figure out just how to handle things that she was turning into her driveway before she remembered the clinic and getting her head looked at. Well, she wasn't going back now. She'd been banged up many a time and certainly knew how to handle a lumpy head and some blood.

  Nothing some antiseptic and a fistful of pain relievers wouldn't cure. Toss in a hot meal and a shower and she'd be good as new.

  And since she wasn't planning on going back to the beach anytime soon, the concussion she'd probably suffered wouldn't be a big setback.

  She rolled down the narrow, crushed-shell driveway, wedging the Jeep between the overgrown stands of sea grass and nosed into the carport under her stilt house. As usual, she noticed the peeling paint and the jungle she whimsically called a yard and told herself for the millionth time she needed to hire someone to come over and take care of it all. Even though she knew that for the millionth time, she'd put it off. It wasn't the money, she just didn't like strangers poking about. It was why she'd chosen this place, way at the end of the strand. The water was too calm for good surfing, but she liked the seclusion, liked looking out her workroom window, watching the surf, propping her balcony door open so she could
listen to the waves in bed at night.

  None of that soothed her at the moment. She purposely ignored the trunk under the seat, and hauled her dad's board up the stairs. She peeled out of her wet suit and flipped it over one of the plastic beach chairs on her screened-in porch, thinking she'd rinse it off later. Right now she wanted to take a closer look at her forehead. The blinking light on her answering machine got her attention first.

  “It's me, Josiecat,” her dad's voice boomed from the machine. “Got a call from an interesting woman early this morning. I'll tell you all the details later. Don't do anything foolish out there today, it's rough.” Then he chuckled. “Yes, I see you rolling your eyes. Just don't get hurt on me. If this thing plays out like I think it will, you'll be pretty busy shortly.”

  Josie smiled and hit the rewind button. “Early-morning call from a lady, huh, Dad?” Big shock there. Women loved Big Griff and the feeling was definitely mutual. He was a big man, but even at sixty-eight, he was still fit and good-looking, with charm to spare. He had a perpetual tan and the sun had weathered his face in that totally unfair way it did with men, making him even more attractive.

  She was mildly curious about the new client. Her dad sounded even more excited than he usually did, and there wasn't a man alive with more boundless enthusiasm than Big Griff. But he worked hard and knew he put out a good product. He deserved the attention his work got and totally enjoyed the fame that came along with the fortune. No one seemed to mind. Josie smiled. And why would they? When Big Griff was having a good time, everyone was having a good time.

  He'd instilled his pride and work ethic in his only child. Of course, he also expected her to drop everything and run off to play whenever the siren song called to him. Josie never minded. She was a chip off the old block. Too big a chip, sometimes.

  “Like today,” she muttered, groaning as she got a closer look at the mess on her forehead. She swore her way through cleaning it up, hoping her dad didn't drop by for, oh, at least a month. Maybe by then it wouldn't look like she'd been attacked with a two-by-four.

  She grabbed some ice, although it was probably too late to do much about the swelling, and headed for her workroom. Once her head stopped pounding, she'd treat herself to a steamy shower and a big breakfast. In the meantime, work was the best antidote to getting her mind off her pain… and other things.

  As always, shortly after she started moving her pencil across the long sheets of paper tacked to her drafting board, the world faded away. She even managed to forget about the stupid trunk and the three-foot-tall hallucination that accompanied it, until she went outside to get her mail. She brushed along the passenger side of the Jeep on her way back in and found herself pausing by the seat where the trunk lay tucked underneath

  “Well, hell.” She tossed her mail on the seat and dragged the thing out and unwrapped it, knowing she wouldn't stop thinking about it now. It looked even worse in the midday sun. She carried it up to her porch and looked it over as she finished her tuna sandwich, then continued to stare at it-without touching it-as she downed the rest of her iced tea. “Okay, now you're being silly,” she told herself. It was just a harmless old trunk. She was alone for God's sake, safe in her house. Not a midget in sight.

  And she really wanted to see the necklace again. She was too intrigued by it not to peek a second time. She tugged the lid up, wiped her hands off, then lifted the chain out and laid it on the corner of the towel. It was still impressive, if not aesthetically beautiful. Just how old was this thing?

  Seventeen-oh-two. A little riff of unease swept along the back of her neck as she recalled what Bagan had told her about the last time the stone had been above water. And it was older than that even, if he'd been telling the truth. “Which of course he couldn't possibly be, because Bagan doesn't really exist.” Saying it out loud did little to make her feel better.

  She lifted the necklace and studied the stone. She moved over to the shell-framed mirror hanging on the wall next to the door and held the chain up to her chest. Her yellow T-shirt made the stone look even more off-color, but she liked the heft of it in her hands. Put it back in the box, Josie. She toyed with the links. It wouldn't hurt anything to see what it looked like on, right?

  She wondered about the other women who had worn it as she slipped the heavy chain over her short, messy curls and beat-up face. “One thing's for certain,” she told her reflection, “they had to look a lot better wearing it than you do.”

  “Yer garb might be’ a wee bit strange and yer hair hacked about the head a bit, but ye look comely enough I suppose.”

  Josie's heart dropped straight to her toes. It couldn't be. She'd locked the door. She squeezed her eyes shut, but she could feel him. Could a person have periodic hallucinations? She slowly turned around. “Oh no.”

  “I believe me feelings are hurt.” Bagan sat on the short ledge that separated the lower half wall from the screened upper half of the porch. He was perched amidst the shells and the driftwood, his stubby legs dangling several feet off the floor.

  “Okay, that does it. This is private property, you just can't come barging in here—”

  Bagan merely smiled, blue eyes damnably twinkling. “I canna barge anywhere, lass. I'm rather too small for that.”

  “You're trespassing. I'm calling the police.” She held up her hand when he went to speak. “And no more of this destiny crap. My destiny is to do the only two things I'm good at. Surf and draw. And I'm perfectly happy to do both right up until the day I die.”

  Die. Probably not a good word to use when the person stalking you was sitting right in front of you. So what if he'd need a booster seat at McDonald's?

  “No marrying some Scottish laird,” she went on adamantly. “No bearing some strange man's children. And no being stalked by—” She waved her hand at him, frustrated. “Whatever you are.” Slow down, stay calm. She drew in a deep breath. “Now, we can avoid any unpleasantness if you'll just get down from there and see yourself out.”

  Completely unmoved by her edict, Bagan sniffed at the air instead. “I do believe I smell something burning.”

  “Don't change the sub- Oh, no.” Josie smelled it then, too. Dammit, she'd forgotten all about the soup she'd put on to have with her sandwich. She pointed a finger at him. “I'm going in to turn my stove off before I burn the house down. When I get back, you'd better be gone.”

  She didn't wait for an answer, she was already dashing inside. The pan and its contents were scorched black and the small kitchen rapidly filling with smoke. She shoved the pan off the burner just as the smoke alarm went off. Swearing, she yanked a kitchen chair over so she could disarm the stupid thing, but when she went to stand on it, her foot went right through the wicker, leaving nice scratches along her calf. The alarm still screaming overhead, she pulled her leg free and looked around for something sturdier to stand on, finally stalking back to the porch.

  Bagan had hopped off the sill and was looking at her bicycle with great consternation. “Is it possible you could make that horrible noise desist?” he asked, poking at the chain and squeezing the hand brake.

  “You,” she said, her voice shaking. “Leave. Now.” She grabbed the plastic deck chair and dragged it through the door, but not before it caught on the screen, tearing a nice long slit in it. Swearing and not bothering to keep her voice down, she climbed on the chair and all but ripped the cover off the alarm.

  She opened the window over the sink and turned the stove fan on to get the rest of the smoke out of her kitchen, then stalked back to the porch.

  He was still there, sifting through some of her surf gear.

  “What part of ‘leave now’ did you not understand?” She should have called the cops before coming back out here. A vision of police officers rushing in to save her from a dwarf swam through her mind. Maybe she'd just run out, get in the Jeep, and leave. And then what? Never come home?

  Bagan sighed wearily. “Everything isna so difficult as yer makin’ it, lass,” he said. “And I thought
being buried alive was the worst thing that could happen to me,” he muttered to himself.

  But she heard him. “Right now I'm thinking that wouldn't be such a bad place for you.”

  Undaunted, he crossed his arms. “If you tire of my company so easily, you've but to remove the necklace and I'll disappear.” He raised a stubby finger as her hands went immediately to the necklace. “But no matter if I'm here or no’, you canna avoid your fate.”

  “My fate.” Now it was her turn to sigh wearily. “That would be marrying the clan chief, right?” She snorted. “Right. Bye-bye.” She pulled the necklace off and where there had been a three-foot man standing indignantly before her, there was now an empty space.

  She hadn't really expected it to work. Because that meant… she didn't even want to think about what that meant. She looked from the empty space to the stone and back again, then started to tremble. Just put it in the trunk and take it back to the beach and toss it in the ocean.

  But the few remaining rational brain cells insisted this simply couldn't be real, no matter the alarming evidence to the contrary. So she slowly draped the necklace around her neck once again. No midget. Ha! She breathed a sigh of relief. Although why she should be relieved she had no idea. Didn't this just prove she'd actually suffered some severe head damage and was losing her mind?

  “Are ye ready to heed me now, lass?”

  She swung around to find Bagan leaning against the doorframe that led to her kitchen. He wiggled his fingers in a brief wave. “Shall we make our plans?”

  “Jesus Christ,” she breathed. She stared from the necklace to Bagan. “What the hell is happening to me?”

  He waddled closer to her and took her trembling hands in his smaller, but surprisingly warm and strong ones. “Destiny, lass. Destiny.”

  She sank into a chair as the fight left her and dread filled her instead. Along with a healthy dose of fear. “I don't like this destiny. According to you, the last person who had my destiny drowned.”