“Not only from Perry?” Mac prodded.
He rose, walked halfway across the tent, and swung around again. “From him, and from all the harshness of the world.”
There was something in his expression along with that fierce determination, something that touched on the vulnerability she’d seen in him once before.
But he hadn’t said he loved Caroline. If there was something other than love behind Liam’s relationship with his ward, it was something Mac had to understand.
“If your curiosity is satisfied,” Liam said, “I suggest you pack your things. It’ll be dark soon.”
“Pack?”
“So I can escort you back to the ruins.”
Ah, yes. Now he was willing to believe she had somewhere to go.
She clutched the pendant in her pocket. “No.”
“What?”
“No. I’m not leaving.”
“You said you knew your way back.”
“I was wrong. My theory isn’t going to work.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Here goes. “I can’t go back to my own time. Not from here. I… have to go to San Francisco to find what I need to make it possible.”
He was very, very still. “When did you discover this, Mac? After I almost had you, or after you read the letter?”
Her breath caught at the bluntness of his words. “It doesn’t matter. You owe me. And you said you’d take me anywhere I choose to go.”
His gaze could have burned through a lead wall. “Do you think I’m so easily hoodwinked? You may have saved my life, but you won’t further Perry’s schemes by going with me.”
“Even if I told you that I needed your help?” She swallowed her completely irrelevant pride. “Would you leave a lone woman out here in the jungle with nowhere to go? Because that’s exactly my situation. And without you, I probably won’t survive this place.” She held his gaze. “I need you, O’Shea.”
He stared at her, angry and perplexed. Finally, he gave her a bitter, mocking salute. “You’re right. I wouldn’t leave a woman out here alone, not even one like you. If it’s money you want, a boat to hire, I can get them for you. But going with me to San Francisco is—”
“It’s where I have to go,” she said, struggling for a remotely plausible explanation. “At least it’s a city I know better than any other. I won’t be so… lost there.” She touched his arm. “Please take me with you. I won’t cause any trouble.” Except, if I’m lucky, keep you from marrying Caroline and killing Perry, she silently amended.
“No trouble?” He snorted. “I don’t understand what you hope to accomplish, or how you mean to survive, but if it’s what you want—” He shrugged. “I’ll get you to San Francisco. I owe you that much.”
He turned to the crates of provisions in the corner of the tent. “It’s three hundred miles on bad roads, or none at all, to the port of Champerico. A hard trip for a man at any pace, and I’m going to make it a fast one. For a woman—”
“At least I won’t be alone.”
Canvas rustled as he pulled the covering from the crates and checked the contents. “You’ll sleep on the ground, in whatever shelter Fernando can devise.”
“I think I’ll survive.”
“You’ll be lucky to get a cramped cabin on a steamer, once we get to Champerico.”
“I don’t take up much space.”
“No. And you won’t complain or hold us back, because if you do, I’ll—”
“I can imagine. Don’t worry. You shouldn’t have any trouble pretending I’m not even there.”
Liam tossed the canvas over the crates again with somewhat excessive force. “You’d better get some food from Fernando, and then sleep.”
She hesitated and decided to try one more time. “You know, I wasn’t snooping through your things to spy. I was looking for my watch. The one you stole.”
“You have something of mine.”
The pendant. He knew she’d taken it.
“Does Perry want it back?” he asked with an indifference that seemed a little too marked to be convincing.
“I want it. Call it a souvenir,” she said. “If you let me keep it, you can have the watch.” She was going to need the pendant eventually—at least she hoped so.