She swallowed, though she tried to hide that little betrayal of vulnerability. “Why did you follow me?”
He leaned against the nearest stone wall and crossed his feet. “You left something behind, Mac. You were in such an all-fired hurry to escape, you didn’t give me a chance to return it.”
He dipped into the pocket of his pants and pulled out her watch. The strange, slick black surface felt alien in his hand, but when he passed it to her he touched something far warmer. Her fingers trembled as she snatched them away.
“Thank you,” she said. “But it wasn’t necessary to come all the way here—”
“I don’t steal from friends.”
Her eyes revealed more than her stiff expression; they focused on his face and warmed to the color of rich coffee. “It wasn’t necessary,” she repeated. “I’m sorry you went to all that trouble.”
Her voice held a tremor, infusing everything she said with painful uncertainty. He couldn’t tell if she were asking him an unspoken question, or expressing regret because she didn’t want him here at all.
In a few minutes he would know, one way or the other.
“You still have something of mine, Mac,” he said.
Her fingers wrapped more securely around the pendants in her hands. “I… I’m sorry, Liam,” she said. “I can’t return it. I need—” She lifted her chin a notch. “I need them both to get home. Back to my own time.”
“So you did discover the way to get back.”
“You do finally believe me. Don’t you?”
He pushed away from the wall and circled her slowly. “I see you got Perry’s pendant as well. Did you tell him the story of your remarkable travels?”
“I didn’t have to. He gave it to me without question.”
“Good old Perry. He knew you were leaving and didn’t bother to tell me until you were on the ship.”
“He wasn’t supposed to tell you anything.”
“Were you that afraid of me?” He stepped closer to her, so that she had to look up to meet his gaze. “Afraid I’d extract some terrible revenge for your revelations at my sickbed?”
“I wasn’t afraid,” she said, jaw set.
“Then why did you go?”
Mac was silent, as distant as if she’d wrapped a transparent cocoon about herself.
“Why, Mac?” He moved closer still, forcing her by sheer will to return from her inner seclusion. “Why did you leave while I was gone?”
“I… couldn’t risk tampering with history beyond what I’d already done,” she said. “And you’d made it pretty clear that you wanted me gone. There wasn’t any point to having a scene like this one, was there?”
Liam knew she was right. He’d been angry—angrier than he’d ever been in his life. He’d let her feel the full brunt of his icy rage. It had taken him a few days to realize the anger wasn’t at her.
And then a few more days to accept the real cause of his anger, overcome the shame and self-contempt that had overwhelmed him. He’d been able to think in the wilds of Napa. Think clearly for the first time since he’d met MacKenzie Rose Sinclair.
But he hadn’t recognized the truth until he returned and found Mac gone. The memory of that terrible realization still clutched at his heart.
“So you were afraid of changing the future,” he said. “What would you have done, Mac? Led a feminine revolution and become the first female mayor of San Francisco? Browbeat the entire male population into giving women the vote?” His tone dropped to an intimate near-whisper. “Become an advocate of free love, perhaps?”
She looked away. “Love is never free.”
“But you gave it willingly enough when it served your purpose.”
“I gave you my reasons for what I did. What I had to do. I can’t undo it and I wouldn’t if I could—”
“Not even if you could have stopped yourself from coming to the jungle?”
“No. I swore to Homer—my grandfather—that I’d come. I just hope he’s satisfied.”
“Promises can be terrible things, Mac.”
She understood him perfectly. “It’s hard to see,” she murmured, “when a promise shouldn’t be kept.”
“You freed me of one that would have ruined at least three lives. You also saved my life not once, but twice.” He smiled crookedly. “I won’t thank you for that, Mac. You can’t expect a man to be grateful for that kind of disgrace.”