TWICE A HERO By Susan Krinard

She stumbled back a step. “Why did I think for a second that you might have changed?”

His grin widened. “I fibbed a little before, darlin’. I didn’t come just to return your watch. I came to find the other thing you’d stolen from me.”

“What—”

“All the way here I wondered if I’d ever get it back.” He strolled another tight arc around her.

Above the loose collar of her peasant shirt, the tanned column of her neck quivered. “I don’t think I understand.”

“You will.” He took her chin in his hand. “What I need won’t take much time. You see, Mac? I’m admitting I need something from you. You should be pleased.” He trailed his fingers along her arm, grazing her breast. Her nipple puckered under the shirt, and he felt his body responding.

“Damn it!” She snapped out of her stillness and spun away, stomping across the overgrown clearing and nearly tripping over a buried stele. “No more. You’re not going to win this game, O’Shea. I know what you’re trying to prove, and it’s not going to work. The war’s over, and I’m going home—”

A few of his longer strides made up for ten of hers.

He caught up and grabbed one wildy flailing hand. With a sharp, swift motion he swung her around. She opened her mouth and he kissed her—a thoroughly earnest kiss befitting the situation. Her palms slammed into his chest, and the pendants fell to the ground. She pushed him violently away, but he had what he wanted.

It took her all of an instant to realize that he had both the pendants in his hand.

“Give those back!”

He pushed the pendants deep into his pocket. “Not until I have what I came for.”

“And to think I felt sorry for you,” she spat, all wild Mac again. “I thought I’d hurt you, but you’re still an arrogant, impossible, reckless… If ever a man deserved a good kick in the seat, it’s you!”

Liam listened to her enumeration of his faults and felt immense pleasure. It wasn’t indifference she was showing him, but something far warmer.

“I wouldn’t know what to do without you here to insult me,” he said.

“You don’t know a damned thing about insults. I know a whole catalog of them that haven’t even been invented yet!”

“In that future of yours?” He backed away and set his feet wide apart on the verdant earth. “I think I’d like to hear them for myself.” He made a show of thinking it over. “Yes, I think you’ll take me with you to… 1997, was it?”

“So you do believe about the tunnel!” She glared at him.

“I’m willing to risk that you’re finally telling the truth. With you gone I’d find life entirely too tame here. I’d resigned myself to a quiet life in San Francisco, and you took that away.”

“So now I’m supposed to provide you with a new life? Just because I saved your hide—”

“Twice.”

“—doesn’t mean… You were the one who said I had to stop being your guardian angel.”

“Ah, yes. My prickly angel.” He cocked his head at her. “I’ve always wondered why the tunnel carried you back to the year and day I was in this jungle. Almost the very day I was to die. Can you tell me the reason for that, Mac?”

The martial light went out of her eyes. “I… don’t know. I’ve never known why.”

“It was something of a miracle, wasn’t it? Sent from heaven above, perhaps.”

“You aren’t the kind of man who puts faith in miracles.”

“I wasn’t. I’m beginning to wonder if I was wrong.”

She folded h]er arms across her chest and turned away.

“I think you are afraid, darlin’,” he said, laying his hands on her shoulders. “Afraid of giving me power over you by admitting what you couldn’t admit to me after Chinatown.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.” He rubbed her arms gently from shoulder to elbow. “I’ll strike a bargain with you. Give me the truth and I’ll let you go. All debts will be squared once and for all.”

She made a soft, helpless sound. He leaned close to her ear, fitting his body against hers. “It was more than wanting with you, wasn’t it?” he said. “It’s why you made me talk about my past. The real reason you followed me to Chinatown, not just to protect your hard work.”

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