Page 2 of Borrowed Time

A corner of Jeremiah’s mouth quirked. His lips were thin, but expressive for all that. “Brandy, my boy. Do they not have it where you come from?”

Although Seth wanted to bristle at the way Jeremiah had called him “boy” — a decade might have separated them, but he was still a grown man with a job and his own house — he knew that getting into an argument with the Wilcox warlock was certainly not the best way to handle the situation.

“We have it, I suppose,” he replied. “But it’s been illegal for years.”

Heavy black brows lifted. “Indeed? How peculiar.” Before Seth could comment, Jeremiah went on, “It is certainly not illegal here, and I think you might find it will steady your nerves.”

Nerve steadying was definitely what Seth needed right then. He couldn’t stop thinking of Deborah lying on that settee down the hall, of how pale she was, how the blood wouldn’t stop flowing from that awful wound in her stomach.

How that same blood stained the white linen shirt he wore now.

His hand lifted the glass to his lips almost of its own volition. A large swallow, oddly aromatic, and then the burn started asit hit the back of his throat and continued its way down to his stomach.

He coughed.

Another quirk of Jeremiah’s mouth. “I suppose brandy might be a bit much if you aren’t used to alcohol,” he observed.

That was one way of putting it. As unpleasant as the initial sensations had been, however, Seth realized the burning heat had somehow transformed into a welcome warmth in his belly, one that made him want to stand up a little taller.

“It’s…interesting,” he said.

“But welcome in a crisis, I believe.” Jeremiah paused there, and the hint of a smile that had been playing around his lips vanished as if it had never been. “So, do you want to tell me what happened to you and your friend? You are clearly a McAllister, but she….”

The words trailed off, and the other warlock raised his brows.

Was that a hint of confusion in his expression? Seth couldn’t say for sure; he’d just met the man, but he could already tell that Jeremiah Wilcox was not the sort of person who generally found himself puzzled by much of anything.

“Deborah isn’t from my clan,” Seth said. He’d allowed himself a moment of inner struggle, one where he’d debated how much he should say to the Wilcoxprimus,but he’d realized soon enough that trying to hide anything from the man would be an exercise in futility. Perhaps the stories about his powers and his ruthless control of magic had grown over the years to become the stuff of legends that had very little to do with reality…but Seth couldn’t ignore the way he’d been able to sense the enormous power that had emanated from the man when he first encountered him.

Lying to such a strong warlock didn’t seem like a very good idea.

“No,” Jeremiah responded. “She has a look to her that reminds me of someone…but surely that must be impossible.”

Seth wasn’t sure what to make of that remark. There was no way in the world Deborah’s path could have ever crossed Jeremiah’s, even if she’d come through Flagstaff on her way to Jerome.

The man standing before him would have been dead for more than a decade by that point.

“Her name is Deborah Rowe,” he said. “She told me she’s from the Winfield clan in Massachusetts.”

Those words made Jeremiah go utterly still. His black eyes might have been augers, boring through to Seth’s very soul.

“‘Rowe’?” he echoed.

“Yes,” Seth said, even as he wondered what it was about Deborah’s name that would have made the Wilcoxprimusreact in such a way. “I don’t know much more than that, though. She only confessed to me the day before that she was a witch at all. Somehow, she’d been hiding it before then.”

Now comprehension flitted across Jeremiah’s face, and he nodded.

“That makes sense,” he said softly. “Her father had the same gift.”

“‘Her father’?” Seth repeated, knowing how incredulous he sounded. “You knew Deborah’s father?”

“I did,” Jeremiah said. “But,” he went on, “I believe that is a tale she should tell you when she awakes.”

His head fairly spun, although Seth couldn’t say for sure whether that was the effect of the swallow of brandy he’d consumed a moment earlier, or merely his reaction to such an astonishing revelation.

He didn’t know how or why, but Deborah’s father had once been in Flagstaff, had met Jeremiah Wilcox.

Did Mr. Rowe have the same talent for time travel that his daughter did?

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