Not sure whether to be nervous herself, Lilli sat up with a serious expression.
Connor unzipped a side pocket of the gym bag and pulled out a small, burgundy velvet box. "Lillian Davenport," he began then had to clear his throat before continuing.
Lilli held her breath, glanced at the little box and forced herself to keep her gaze on Connor's dreamy eyes.
"I love you, Lilli. I want nothing more than to be with you and make you happy for the rest of our lives, whatever it takes to make that happen. I've been offered a position at Florida International University. So I'd still be able to teach but be within boating distance of Crystal Island. So now there's only one more thing on my wish list." He cleared his throat again. "Lilli, love of my life, light of my world, would you do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Connor O'Malley? Or letting me become Mr. Lillian Davenport? Or any combination of the two?" He opened the box and held it out to her.
A shaft of moonlight caught on the solitaire marquis-shaped diamond in the simple setting of the white-gold engagement ring and she didn't waste a moment before putting it on her finger. "Yes, yes, oh my goodness, yes!"
* * *
Lilli's happiness faded quickly once she returned to reality. This time she achieved the physical satisfaction she had missed last night, but where last night reminded her of the beginning of their relationship, tonight she had relived one of her last, totally happy, carefree hours.
Having gone that far down memory lane and feeling as sad as she possibly could she opened the cabinet door of her nightstand and punched in the code that unlocked the safe inside. Under a stack of folders, envelopes and jewelry pouches was a leather covered cigar box that had belonged to her grandfather. She couldn't even remember the last time she opened it, but tonight she felt compelled to do so.
Taking her time, she looked at each souvenir from her times with Connor and recalled the moment or event connected to it. When the box was empty of everything except a small, burgundy velvet box, she opened it, removed the diamond engagement ring and placed it on her finger. Tears immediately blurred her vision. But before she completely submitted to the ache in her chest, her attention jumped to how warm her finger suddenly felt. A heartbeat later she realized the warmth was emanating from the ring. Thinking she was having some sort of allergic reaction, she tried to remove the ring, but it wouldn't budge. It had slid onto her finger easily enough and it had been cool to the touch. Now it was very warm and getting tighter.
Lilli hurried to the bar in the living room where she had a bucket of ice and dunked her whole left hand into it. The ice closest to her ring finger melted quickly. Only when numbness set in did she remove her hand. The ring was no longer radiating heat but neither was it ice cold. She gave it a tug and, though there was some resistance, she was able to remove it. She put the ring back in its box and hurriedly returned that and everything else to the safe.
By the time the safe was securely locked and Lilli was back in bed, her hand felt almost normal again. There was no lingering heat, redness or rash to suggest she'd had an allergic reaction, but her finger still felt like the ring was on it. If she had never experienced a paranormal event, she might have chalked it up to her imagination, but her experiences told her the incident meant something. Something to do with Connor.
Her thoughts automatically plummeted to the worst thing it could mean and she let the held-back tears flow.
Chapter 19
"I beg your pardon?" the maître d' asked in a voice that cracked with shock.
"Lillian Davenport," Maggie elaborated with obvious excitement. "You were in the photo with her. Lilli and Connor, February 14, 2005. There was a big pink heart behind your heads and she was wearing a red—" Noah's fingers squeezing her elbow stopped her description.
"You must be mistaken, dear," Noah said in a warning tone.
Maggie looked from Connor's dismayed expression to Noah's concerned one and closed her mouth. If she was wrong—
"You're right," Connor muttered quietly as he scanned the area around them. "And I really want to know how you know that, but we can't talk here." Returning to his normal speaking voice, he said, "Let me show you to your table and I'll try to answer your questions about the island after you order your meals."
Connor introduced them to their waiter and returned to his post.
"What was that about?" Noah asked in a lowered voice as he pretended to study the menu.
Imitating his tone and action, Maggie said, "Remember I said I'd met Lillian Davenport? The photo was on the wall in her office and the date and their names were etched into the frame. I'm sorry I blurted it out like that but I actually forgot what time we're in now. I thought he and the name on his tag seemed familiar last night in the speakeasy. It was pretty dark in there though and I forgot about it until I saw him again just now."
"Well, apparently it's true so no harm done. But if he and the current Davenport owner were a couple in the future and she's there and he's here—"
The waiter's reappearance cut off Noah's conclusion. Rather than have him leave and return a few minutes later, they hurriedly selected the chef-recommended dinner for two along with an appropriate bottle of wine. As soon as the waiter left, Connor came to their table.
In a tone audible to any passing staff, Connor said, "In answer to your question, along the southern beach, parallel to the golf course, are the long-term rental cottages. There are also some shorter-term ones along the eastern end. They're usually fully booked year-round but, sometimes there are openings for the summer months. If you're interested, the concierge can tell you more about them. It would be much appreciated if you'd tell him I told you about them. I wrote my name down for you." He set a piece of folded paper on the table in front of Noah.
"And in between the hotel and the cottages?" Maggie asked to stop Connor from leaving while Noah glanced at what was written on the paper and put it in his pocket. "Besides the golf course & tennis courts."
He glanced casually around before answering. "We're not supposed to say, but I heard you two are here doing research for a book, so you might find this interesting. But you've got to promise not to tell anyone who told you."
Maggie made a cross over her heart. "We promise." She nudged Noah's foot with her own.
He immediately nodded. "We're very good at keeping secrets. At least as good as you must be."
"I've had no choice. The area you're talking about is where the help lives. Not upper management of course. They're put up inside the hotel."
Maggie asked, "Why would that be something you're not supposed to talk about?"
He made a face. "I guess it would be a little like looking behind the wizard's curtain. Most guests wouldn't want to know how we have to live in order to have full-time jobs here."
Maggie frowned. "Aren't there any jobs in nice hotels on the mainland?"
He nodded. "And workers come and go from here to there and back all the time, which is one of the reasons I get shifted around."
She felt her chest tighten, but it was coming from his heart not hers. "But you can't leave," she said sympathetically.
He shook his head. "I have to stay, at least—" He stopped and met Maggie's gaze. "How is she?"
She took a moment to consider what he would want to hear. "Not nearly as happy as she was in that photo."
For a heartbeat Connor looked sad but the waiter's reappearance with a bottle of red wine had him force a polite smile. "Do be sure to ask the concierge about those cottages and I hope to see you both again before you check out."
They smiled appropriately during the waiter's bottle-opening and pouring ritual and toasted to each other's continued good health and fortune before reverting to hushed conversation.
"What's on the paper?" Maggie asked.
"He asked us to meet him by the big rock on the eastern beach at nine."
"That's the portal, and if he picked that as a meeting spot with us, he probably knows how we got here. So if he knows that, why can't he leave?"
Noah
shrugged. "Didn't Reynard say something about having to remain in this time period if we don't complete our mission?"
"Yes, but he talked about pairs, not an individual."
"Maybe their circumstances were different. I mean, this is her island after all. I guess we'll have to wait 'til nine o'clock to get the answers. That's when he gets an hour off between his duties here and his shift in the speakeasy. So we have time to enjoy our meal and pretend we aren't both dying to find out what he knows."
Maggie sighed. "I guess I can manage that. I'm still curious about the other side of this island. Just not as curious as I am about him."
Dining on the Emerald Patio was a treat for all the senses, the sound of the gently rolling ocean lapping the beach, the feel of the warm evening breeze wafting through their hair, subtly fragrant yellow and pink azaleas and flickering hurricane candles on every table. The meal itself was a gastronomic delight adapted from the newly discovered flavors of Havana, Cuba. And accompanying all of it was a very talented harpist.
By the time the waiter served their dessert of flan with warm caramel sauce, Maggie wondered if there was such a thing as sensual overload. But of all those delights, nothing was more sensually arousing than the man across the table from her. She moved her foot until she found Noah's and tapped his shoe with hers.
His mouth curved into a sly grin and she watched his eyes darken with desire. In an instant she felt her body demanding pleasure from his. Like the sweet sauce on her tongue, his heated look was warm and tantalizing and made her anxious for another taste. Silently she mouthed the words, I want you, and his sharp intake of breath assured her he liked the admission and was more than willing to accommodate, but the look he gave her immediately afterward reminded her that they had a job to do first.
For so many years she had believed she lacked the ability to enjoy sex like the heroines in her favorite romance novels. Passion and desire were abstract concepts, completely alien to her outside those books. And yet, since Noah had come back into her life, desire had become a driving force. He had called it an obsession.
Even though an obsession may sound less harmful than an addiction, it still wasn't a good thing and she truly believed everything about her and Noah being together was good. Her wanting to be as close to him as possible, all the time, could be because the feeling was so new. Or it could be the awareness that their situation was so outrageous that the intensity of their feelings could fizzle once they'd returned to the lives they had before it all began... unless they failed their mission and couldn't return at all.
She scolded herself for obsessing over any of it when there was so much around her to appreciate in the moment, including Noah.
Two hours later, they'd finished their leisurely meal and Noah signed the tab. Again, they removed their shoes and stockings to walk through the sand. They only had a short wait before Connor joined them at the geode.
"Is this where you were when you jumped?" he asked without preliminaries.
"Jumped?" Maggie repeated.
"From a future time to now. What year was it?"
"2018," Noah replied.
Connor grimaced. "And I'm not there. Damn, something must have gone wrong with the plan."
"You had a plan?" Noah asked with surprise. "We could use one of those. Maybe if we exchange stories it might help figure some things out."
"They'll have to be short stories. I can't afford to be late."
"Why don't you start. And if we run out of time, we can meet up again tomorrow."
Connor launched his tale without hesitation, as though he had gone over it many times before. Noah thought his story poured out like the synopsis of a novel.
"It happened on Valentine's Day, 2005, which was also Lilli's birthday and the night I asked her to marry me."
"Oh, that's so romantic." Maggie said sincerely but Noah's glance stopped her from saying more. "Sorry. Please go on."
"The moon and stars were so bright that night, we took a long walk on the beach before returning to her suite. We were talking about what the resort must have been like when her grandfather had his grand opening in 1924. Maybe I should mention I was an economics professor with a focus on the Roaring Twenties."
It was Noah's turn to interrupt. "And you're waiting tables?"
Connor shrugged. "Not much choice about that. But at least knowing the ways of the time period helped me blend in immediately."
"Did Reynard help you also?" Maggie asked.
He frowned. "I don't know anyone named Reynard."
"So you were walking along the beach..." prompted Noah.
"When we got to this rock, Lilli saw a falling star and made a wish about our always being as much in love as we were that night. My wish was a fantasy of my own. I wished we could actually attend her grandfather's big celebration."
"Oh no," muttered Maggie.
Noah made a groaning sound. They hadn't even made a wish when they got sent back.
"Anyway, the moonlight made something glow inside the rock, the ground quaked for several seconds and, the next thing we knew, we heard a band playing down the beach. It didn't take long to realize we weren't having a joint dream and that I had somehow gotten my wish. And from what you said about Lilli, it sounds like her wish came true too. Unfortunately, being in love with someone you can't be with isn't as romantic as the poets make it out to be."
Connor paused for a moment before changing topics. "We thought about making another wish to go right home, but neither of us could resist taking a look around first. Luckily, the clothes we had on were appropriate enough to keep us from standing out. You mentioned having help?"
Maggie nodded and told him a short version of how the bellman from their time showed up to help them when they got to 1927.
"Obviously, he was no ordinary bellman," Noah added. "His real bosses are apparently responsible for our time traveling."
Connor shook his head. "At least you had help. We were on our own. Well, that's not entirely true. We told a friendly waiter a story about being stranded. He took pity on us and pointed us in the direction of the workers' barracks so we'd have a place to sleep that night if we needed one."
Noah decided not to tell him about the advantages he and Maggie had been given. "Did that waiter say anything about your having some sort of task to complete, like saving someone, in order to get back home?"
"A task?" Connor asked with a confused expression. "No. Are you saying you were told you had to do something specific?"
"Something, yes. Specific, not in the least." Noah gave him an overview of the minimal information they'd been given by Reynard.
"That sounds crazy," Connor said. "And not at all believable."
"We thought that too," Maggie replied. "But I never believed time travel was possible either. We still don't know why we were chosen to complete a mysterious task, but they seem very serious about it... whoever they are."
"Well, maybe no one had to tell us we had someone to save because it was already fixed in Lilli's head to save her grandfather. Lilli's family never believed it was suicide but she was very intent on erasing what she considered a stain on her family's history. She was convinced my wish was granted so she could warn Robert about what would happen to him if he didn't take steps to prevent it."
Connor checked his watch then continued speaking a little faster. "It wasn't hard to find him and his wife, Patricia, and, without explaining who we were or how we got there, Lilli told him a story about having a dream the night before about his being murdered in 1930. He listened to her politely, but Lilli's grandmother was furious and made sure we were immediately escorted away from the party.
"That's when we came up with the plan I mentioned. Well, to be perfectly honest, I came up with a plan and she reluctantly went along with it. I told her I wanted to give her the one thing she couldn't buy for herself—a change in the historic record. She would go back and I would stay as long as it took for me to prevent her grandfather's death, whether by his own hand or so
meone else's. I promised to return to her in six years, which would be 1930 here, after I spared her grandfather. I assumed that meant I would return to her by 2011, at the very latest."
Connor paused a moment then asked, "What do you know about her grandfather?"
Maggie answered before Noah could speak. "History says he committed suicide in 1930. There are statements that the family never accepted that as truth but it still stands."
Connor's shoulders slumped. "In that case, along with you saying I hadn't returned to Lilli by 2018, something must happen to me before I'm able to save Robert."
"A lot of things could have gone wrong," Noah said. "But we were shown firsthand how catastrophic interfering in Robert's fate would be."
Connor's expression went from confusion to shock. "Catastrophic?"
Noah did his best to summarize how history had changed after they warned Robert Davenport of his impending murder.
"And Lilli?" Connor asked quietly, as though he'd already guessed the answer.
"Never born," answered Maggie. "And neither was I. We were told a lot of people never came to exist because of one conversation we had with Robert Davenport in 1927. It reminded him of the warning he'd received from a young woman—who we now know was Lilli—and the two warnings together made him change his life... in a bad way."
"Wait. You spoke to him in 1927? But that's this year. Where... when did a catastrophe take place?" Connor shook his head. "I'm confused."
Noah snorted. "Welcome to the club. Apparently, after we triggered the catastrophe, the mysterious they rewound time to before we spoke with Robert. Then they gave us another chance to save the person we were sent here for."
"Maybe it's me," Connor said with hope in his voice. "If Robert's death is not supposed to be prevented, I don't need to stay here."
Maggie gave Noah a questioning look.
He frowned. "That doesn't make sense. Remember, Reynard said the pair usually has an idea of what the task is, based on something they were already discussing."
"We may not have been discussing it," Maggie countered. "But I had seen the photo and wondered about him earlier that day. That's not as strong as our discussing Robert Davenport or the pregnant maid's suicide, but we have more information about him than we did about The Weeping Woman or the male suicide."
Some Time Away (Lovers in Time Series, Book 3): Time Travel Romance Page 19
