She turned her back with a soft curse. She had absolutely no interest in watching his unsuspecting striptease. There wasn’t any question of changing her own damp, none-too-fragrant clothing; she had no spares, and hadn’t thought to ask Liam for any. Not that she’d have wanted to set herself up for his inevitable comments.
There was nothing else to do but try to sleep. Mac spent the next ten minutes making sense of the hammock and getting into it. Twice it nearly dumped her—undoubtedly in league with Liam O’Shea. In the end she defeated it, worked herself and her backpack into a semblance of stability, and closed the mosquito netting as best she could, flashlight in hand.
Something rustled in the palmetto fronds above the hammock. She aimed the beam at the source of the noise; a large white cockroachlike bug with long feelers froze in the light. Mac shut off the flashlight and scrunched deep into the hammock.
Damn Liam O’Shea.
No. That wasn’t completely fair. It was Peregrine Sinclair who had set this whole thing in motion.
She brooded silently, trying to ignore the forbidding movements in the vegetation of the roof, until she recognized the absurdity of her anger. In her imagination she could see Homer looking down at her from wherever he was, shaking his head.
For God’s sake, Brat. Look what’s happened to you.
He felt so real that she opened her eyes. The darkness was absolute now, and Homer might have been right there beside her.
“It should have been you here, Homer, not me,” she whispered. “I can’t even figure out which end is up.”
What Homer wouldn’t have given for this opportunity. A chance to actually see the living past, as it happened. To learn a thousand details no historical account could pass on. To return to the twentieth century with knowledge no living person possessed…
Bull, Homer’s imaginary voice interrupted. This is your adventure, Brat—yours and no one else’s. You were sent here for a reason.
Mac pinched the skin between her brows. Sent here? That was a very scary idea, and not the first time it had occurred to her, strange as it was. There were patterns here she couldn’t begin to understand.
“So what am I supposed to do, Homer?” What happens if I really do something to alter the course of events? What if my even being here is a temporal disaster? No one ever came up with a guidebook for time travel.
No guidebook, maybe, but there had to be rules. Some way to open the wall again.
And when she found it, she’d have one hell of a choice to make.
The last of her anger drained away. Liam, undoubtedly certain that he had a brilliant future ahead of him. So vibrant, so arrogantly alive.
Stop it, Mac. Just stop it.
But the thought would not go away—no more than the memories of his strong arms lifting her, the handsome and cynical planes of his face, the silhouette of his half-naked body against the tent.
She tossed over in the hammock so hard that it almost capsized. It was a damned good thing that Liam O’Shea was so easy to dislike.
Somehow that thought didn’t help.
Chapter Six
The time and my intents
are savage-wild,
More fierce and more
inexorable by far
Than empty tigers or
the roaring sea.
—William Shakespeare
IT WAS ALL her fault.
Liam tossed in the cartaret, trying for a more comfortable position. There didn’t seem to be one. Thanks to Miss Bloody-annoying-crazy MacKenzie, he was being robbed of a good night’s rest.
By this time he’d expected her to come creeping to his tent, begging for decent shelter from the jungle’s nocturnal terrors. He’d been looking forward to seeing her humbled, even if she spit in his eye while making the request.
But she hadn’t come, and he wasn’t sleeping, and he couldn’t think of a single imprecation sufficient to the situation.
He sat up on the cot, scowling into the darkness. Damn the baggage. Ever since he’d found her in the tunnel—whether by accident or design—she’d proven to be the most relentlessly annoying female he’d ever encountered, and the most perplexing.