TWICE A HERO By Susan Krinard

“Don’t you?” Liam interrupted. “She was the one who found this.”

He pushed his hand into his coat pocket and brought it up holding something round and silver and trailing a broken chain. Perry’s watch, which Mac had last seen lying in the dust in Liam’s tent. He hadn’t forgotten it.

Liam stared at Perry; Perry gazed at the watch, and glanced from Mac to Liam with drawn brows.

“I’d wondered where I lost that,” he said.

“Lost it. Careless of you—old friend.” Liam dangled the watch from its chain, swinging it back and forth like a hypnotist’s prop. He spoke to Mac without taking his eyes from Perry’s face. “I never told you the history of this watch. I gave it to Perry years ago, when we returned from our first expedition together. It was in the Himalayas, and he was wounded pushing me out of the path of a boulder.” He smiled. “It was always an unlikely friendship. I was the American provincial with no taste and money to burn, and he was the fine Englishman with little more than an excellent education and a long list of blue-blooded ancestors behind him. Can you imagine it, Mac?”

“I regret the loss of that friendship far more than any watch,” Perry said. “It was never my intention, Liam, no matter what you—”

Liam turned and hurled the watch across the room, striking the overstuffed chair by the fireplace with deadly accuracy. “No,” he said softly. “It was only your intention to kill me.”

Mac held her breath. Perry’s face went white, and then he choked out a laugh.

“What?”

“It didn’t work, Perry,” Liam said, his voice a rasp. “Your guerrillas didn’t do their job. And whatever hold you had on Mac wasn’t enough. She saved my life, and she brought me the proof I needed.”

“Proof?” Perry stabbed the tip of his cane into the carpet. “What in God’s name are you saying?”

“All’s fair in love and war, isn’t it, Perry?” Liam said. “It wasn’t enough to abandon me. You had to make certain I never returned, so you’d have Caroline’s fortune uncontested.”

Perry’s face lost its shock. “My God,” he said. “You Irish bastard—”

The tension in the air stretched to the breaking point, and suddenly Mac knew she was the only rational being in the room. God knew someone had to be. Her body felt like a fragile barrier between two angry men, but it was the only weapon she had. Along with simple desperation.

“Listen to me,” she said. “I’m just as interested in getting to the bottom of this as either of you—”

“Stay out of it, Mac,” Liam growled.

“It’s a little late for that.” She met Liam’s glower and turned to Perry. “Let me lay it out for you, Mr. Sinclair. Liam thinks you used the watch to pay guerrillas to attack him in the jungle, and that I was working for you as well. He brought me here as a trap for you, expecting us to betray each other.”

“She turned up in the jungle, alone, just after you disappeared with the bearers and supplies,” Liam added. “And she had the photograph.”

Perry either thought Liam had gone mad, or he was doing an excellent approximation of confounded disbelief. “What photograph?”

“You know bloody well. Were the crazy stories of traveling through time her idea, or yours? Did you expect me to swallow such blarney? Oh, she played the damsel in distress well enough, but I didn’t think even you could stoop so low as to put a woman in danger to serve your ends.”

Perry’s lean frame was as taut as a strung bow. “This is preposterous,” he said. “Trust me, old man. If I wanted you dead, I’d go about it in a much more efficient fashion.”

The bluntness of his speech was as effective as a bucket of cold water. Perry straightened his waistcoat and stroked the tips of his mustache with precise, deliberate motions. “Let me make myself clear. I do not know Miss MacKenzie, and I did not hire anyone to kill you.” He held Liam’s gaze. “Yes, I left you in the jungle, knowing you’d be delayed in returning. I wanted to get to Caroline before you. You simply wouldn’t listen to reason—”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *