TWICE A HERO By Susan Krinard

It took a moment for her to realize that the sound Liam was making was a laugh—deep, low, wrenched from his gut. “So everything you did was to save the future of the Sinclairs. But there’s one thing I still don’t understand. It would have been so much easier to let me die as I was meant to.” He leaned forward, ignoring his wounds and the pain they must have caused. “Why did you save my life?”

“Because damn it, I—” She lifted her chin. “I couldn’t just stand there knowing a man was about to die and not try to stop it.”

Liam settled back slowly. His eyes closed—in pain, she thought. She’d pushed him too hard.

But he smiled. “The Sinclairs are such a noble breed. Where would the world be without them? It seems I have only to thank you for your devoted care. I couldn’t have survived without it, let alone ordered my own life, which you tell me shouldn’t have continued beyond that day in the jungle.” He snorted. “How heavy a responsibility I must have been for you, Mac. You sacrificed even yourself in the pursuit of it. My apologies.”

She curled her fingers around the arms of the chair until her knuckles hurt. “It wasn’t a sacrifice, Liam,” she whispered.

“You did get some pleasure out of our… friendship,” he said. “A pity I’m flat on my back, or we could give it a go one last time. For old times’ sake, eh, Mac?”

They stared at each other. Liam’s breathing was ragged. She stood, pushing the chair back. “You need to rest now, Liam. I’m… sorry—”

“You gave me my life. I told you I always pay my debts. Have I paid this one sufficiently, Mac?”

“More than… sufficiently.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. I wouldn’t want to leave anything undone. I’ll be going out of town as soon as I can get out of this bloody bed.”

It didn’t matter that she was going away herself; his announcement made her blood ice over like water in the Arctic. “You’re leaving?”

“The tongs have made San Francisco too hot for Chen and his niece. I can’t be sure of protecting them any longer. But I have property in Napa, and I’m taking Chen to look it over.”

“You’re giving them a new place to live?”

“Land that’s lying fallow. Maybe they can make use of it.”

“That’s very kind of you.” She meant it with all her heart.

“I’m the very soul of kindness.”

“What will you do… after that?”

His muscles tensed under their bandages and covering of sheets and blankets. “Sooner or later you’ll have to give up your position as my guardian angel, Mac,” he said. “It might as well be now.” He turned his head away, dismissing her. “Do me one last service when you go downstairs and ask Chen to bring me a whiskey. My happiness will be complete.”

There was nothing more to be said. He shut her out completely, as once he’d rejected her in a tent in the steaming jungles of the Petén. Mac fled, trying desperately not to think or feel. She realized halfway down the stairs that Norton had remained at her side, as if sensing her distress; she buried her fingers in the wiry fur of his back as if it were a lifeline to sanity.

Sanity was what she needed now. Sanity to carry out the very practical steps she needed to get home. Talk to Perry, get his pendant from him, arrange transportation back to Guatemala.

Mac touched her jacket over the place where Liam’s pendant rested between her breasts. The stone was always cold, not warm as hers had been in the jungle, just before the tunnel through time had sucked her through.

If things went as she hoped, the pendant would warm again when she walked back into the tunnel. Once she had Perry’s pendant, she’d have the tools she needed to make it work. If Fernando had told the truth. If the pendants were what had made the tunnel function. If it took her back to her own time.

It had to. Once she left San Francisco for Guatemala, she couldn’t look back. On the other side from Liam O’Shea she might have some hope of forgetting.

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