Mac’s face was wet with Norton’s enthusiastic kisses. “I guess bringing a dog isn’t too likely to mess up history. But—” She frowned. “Isn’t there anything else you want to bring?”
“I have all I need here.” He looped his arm around her and rubbed Norton’s ears with his other hand.
“There’s still a possibility the time tunnel won’t work.”
He gave her the pendants and folded her fingers around them. “The sooner we go in, the sooner we’ll find out.”
She looked at the stones in her hand. “They’re warm,” she murmured.
“So they are.”
They gazed at each other, kissed tenderly, and plunged into the darkness of the tunnel, Norton at their heels. When they reached the wall Mac picked up her electric torch, switched it off, and stuffed it into her backpack. “Don’t want to leave this behind,” she said. “You never know who might find it.”
“God forbid,” Liam muttered.
Mac whispered a similar invocation. “Well, here goes nothing.” She took one pendant in each hand and held them before the wall. “Grab onto me and keep a good hold on Norton. And pray.” She breathed another prayer of her own, waited for Liam to take a firm grip on her waist, and touched her folded hands to the wall.
* * *
Mac knew it had worked when the nausea subsided, the numbing disorientation faded, and her first footstep forward hit something light but definitely solid.
The stones were already losing the fierce heat that had come uncomfortably close to burning her palms. She transferred them to one hand and reached down with the other. Her fingers closed on stiff fabric. The distinctive shape told her what it was: Homer’s baseball cap. She lifted it to her lips and gave the dirty bill a resounding kiss.
One thing, however, was definitely missing. Liam’s bones. Because Liam had never died and left them for her to find in 1997.
She sagged back, and Liam caught her. Norton licked her hand.
“It worked,” she said dazedly. “It worked.”
Liam was shaking a bit himself. “And did we come to the right… time?”
“I think so.” She smiled weakly, though she doubted he could see her expression in the dark. “When I went through the first time, I lost my grandfather’s cap. But I guess we can’t be sure until we get out of the tunnel completely.” She unfolded her clenched fingers from the pendants. “Here. You take one of these until we’re out, just in case.”
He took the pendant with unsteady fingers. “I confess I’ll be glad to see daylight again.”
“So will I.” She shrugged out of her pack and felt for the flashlight. “Let’s get out of here.”
Norton, who apparently liked the darkness no better than they did, had bounded ahead, and his barks echoed from an increasing distance as he ran down the tunnel. He kept up his canine communication until Mac and Liam could see the faint illumination of the entrance, and then Norton’s lanky silhouette against the brightness of day.
The jungle was not the one they had left behind. The clearing was no longer completely overgrown, there were subtle changes in the buildings, and…
There was a welcoming committee waiting for them. A small group of Maya men and women in the simple clothing of farmers and woodsmen, whose features were the same as those on the ancient steles and temples. Norton’s hackles lifted, and he growled a warning.
Liam’s hand was at the knife on his belt. “Who are they?”
Mac covered his hand with her own. “We’re home,” she said. “The young man in the front… I know him. He was the guide who brought me here.”
The guide who had led her to the ruins and then left her. His features were the same, but now they were grave and still. He turned to his companions and spoke in a language Mac didn’t recognize.
“What do they want?” Liam said. He took a step forward, shielding Mac, and called out a greeting in Spanish.
The young man’s gaze dropped to Liam’s fist—the one that still held half of the pendant—and he began to speak in Spanish too swift for Mac to follow.