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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