“Then you came knowing I might really go back to my own time,” she said.
“You did have those strange inventions. But it suited me to think you were merely crazy. Until I learned that Perry’s photograph was still in his rooms, undisturbed. It didn’t take much more to convince me when I was already losing the battle.” He kissed her nose. “You and I, Mac—you and I—we’re like the two halves of that Maya stone. This was meant to happen. There isn’t any other explanation.”
“You’re turning into a poet, Liam. I don’t know if I can handle it.”
“You’ll learn, darlin’.”
She was quiet for a long time, and when she broke the silence she broke away from him as well.
“There’s only one problem,” she said huskily. “I can’t go back with you, Liam. I don’t belong here, and I could change—”
“Who said anything about going back?” He got to his feet and folded his arms, readying for another argument with the little termagant. “I thought we’d established that I was going forward with you.”
A chain of emotions crossed her face, settling on cautious hope. “But… It’s not that simple… Do you have any idea what you’d be getting into, Liam?”
He shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll explain it to me.”
“Do you realize what it will mean to you? A world you know nothing about, completely different from your own?”
“I doubt,” he said dryly, “that it could be more of a challenge than loving you.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know. The future is a scary place. You can’t possibly be prepared…”
He advanced on her, swinging the confiscated pendants from his hand. “Look at it this way, darlin’. I won’t give you back your pendants unless you take me with you.”
She gaped at him, and then her lips curved and her eyes narrowed and the laughter returned. “Blackmail, O’Shea?”
“It has its uses.”
“If you do go with me, there are some things you aren’t going to like. You’ll have to let me be your guide, Liam. Me, a woman. And you’ll have to listen to me.”
“When have I ever had any other choice?”
She snorted. “You won’t be anybody in the future. You won’t even exist, not until we make you a new identity. You won’t have a job, and my job doesn’t pay much. I have a little apartment in Berkeley, not a mansion. No one will know how far you’ve come. You won’t be rich—”
“There you’re wrong, darlin’. I arranged a few matters before I left San Francisco. Perry is going to see that most of my fortune and property is held in trust for a certain MacKenzie Rose Sinclair, in perpetuity, until she claims it. I assume it’ll only increase in value over the years?”
“Oh, my God.” She sat down hard on the ground, not even bothering to find a rock. “Then you worked things out with Perry—”
“We came to an understanding,” he said. “He was quite a schemer, but he does love Caroline. I’ll… miss him.”
“So will I. And Caroline?”
“Caroline,” he said slowly, “will be happy with Perry. He loves her, and she’ll come to love him.”
“Yes,” Mac said. “And she’s found a cause for herself. I never told you she was destined to be a reformer and suffragette, did I?”
He rolled his eyes. “Why am I not surprised?” He offered his hands and pulled her to her feet. “If all that’s settled, let’s be on our way. I don’t want you saving the life of any other rogues who happen by.”
“Believe me,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist, “I have all the rogue I can handle.”
“Ah—I did forget to tell you that there’s someone else coming with us.”
Her smile faltered. “Someone else?”
He whistled. A great gray shape hurled out of the foliage, swift and strong. With a joyful bark Norton flung himself on Mac.
“Norton!” she cried. “You brought Norton to the jungle?”
“He wouldn’t be parted from me, the galoot, and I think he was pining for you. Bummer is staying with Mei Ling and Chen. He’s got a new home in the Napa Valley and plenty of mischief to get into, I’m sure.”