TWICE A HERO

by Susan Krinard

  To hell with it. No more procrastination. She tossed the pouch of coins into her backpack and hitched the pack over her shoulders. The flashlight was solid and real in her hand. Once she was home she'd learn to deal with reality again. No more mysteries. No more curses. No more crazy and debilitating emotions.

  The tunnel was very dark, just as it had been before. She knew she should be afraid. She was blundering into another great unknown; anyone in her right mind would be scared stiff. But she'd left her right mind, as well as her heart, somewhere back in San Francisco. That was a definite advantage; she was numb now, numb and almost indifferent as she made her way to the end of the stone-lined hall.

  The wall, too, was as it had been before, carved with a hundred inscrutable designs. Mac held up the flashlight to study it one final time, knowing it had nothing else to reveal. Nothing she wouldn't learn by taking the next and final step.

  So this is it. Dr Pepper, here I come. She sucked in a lungful of air and closed her eyes. "Good-bye, Liam. You gave me the adventure of my life, and I wouldn't change that for the world. Be well, and be happy." She laughed through an unanticipated onslaught of tears. "Just try not to alter history too much and undo all my work, okay?"

  She propped the flashlight against the wall. The stone chips were still cool as she looped them from her neck. They had to work, cold or not; there was no going back.

  She clutched one in each hand, squared her shoulders, and walked right into a firm, warm, masculine shape. Powerful hands caught her arms.

  "You've led me on a merry chase, MacKenzie Rose Sinclair," Liam growled, "but I can safely make that promise."

  * * *

  He wasn't too late. By the saints, he wasn't too late.

  He saw her now, in the dim lantern-light, just as he'd seen her that first time: wide-eyed, boyishly slim, her body taut with readiness to fight or run.

  She trembled in his embrace like a wild thing expecting imminent death. Which might not be too far off the mark.

  "So you thought it would be so easy to escape me, Mac?" he asked, giving her a little shake. "Make Liam O'Shea look like a fool and be on your merry way. Only it didn't quite work, did it?"

  "How did you get here?" she stammered.

  "The usual way. I chartered one of my own ships to bring me down. Strangely enough, I couldn't find Fernando in Champerico. Heard he'd gone off with a gringa. But when I got here, who did I find leaving the ruins?" He grinned. "Remarkable coincidence, eh, Mac?"

  She pulled away with a jerk. "Perry," she said. "Perry told you."

  "Yes, he told me."

  "Then—"

  "I'm not holding this conversation in a bloody tunnel. Come on." He grabbed her arm again and this time she went without resistance, stumbling and awkward, into the sunshine of the jungle afternoon. She blinked, disoriented, fists clenched at her sides.

  "If I let you go, swear you won't run," he said.

  Her head jerked up. "I'm not running from you, Liam O'Shea."

  He dropped her arm and planted his hands on his hips, gazing his fill of her. She was beautiful in her trousers and shirt and ragged hair. Beautiful the way the jungle was beautiful, the way no tame, ordinary woman could ever be.

  "You already ran," he said with a lazy drawl. "Pretty damned far. And with no intention of coming back, according to Perry. Ha." He scowled. "I told Perry to keep watch over you while I was in Napa with Chen. And he let you go."

  "You told him—"

  "Oh, he claimed to have misunderstood me, damn his English hide."

  She swallowed, though she tried to hide that little betrayal of vulnerability. "Why did you follow me?"

  He leaned against the nearest stone wall and crossed his feet. "You left something behind, Mac. You were in such an all-fired hurry to escape, you didn't give me a chance to return it."

  He dipped into the pocket of his pants and pulled out her watch. The strange, slick black surface felt alien in his hand, but when he passed it to her he touched something far warmer. Her fingers trembled as she snatched them away.

  "Thank you," she said. "But it wasn't necessary to come all the way here—"

  "I don't steal from friends."

  Her eyes revealed more than her stiff expression; they focused on his face and warmed to the color of rich coffee. "It wasn't necessary," she repeated. "I'm sorry you went to all that trouble."

  Her voice held a tremor, infusing everything she said with painful uncertainty. He couldn't tell if she were asking him an unspoken question, or expressing regret because she didn't want him here at all.

  In a few minutes he would know, one way or the other.

  "You still have something of mine, Mac," he said.

  Her fingers wrapped more securely around the pendants in her hands. "I… I'm sorry, Liam," she said. "I can't return it. I need—" She lifted her chin a notch. "I need them both to get home. Back to my own time."

  "So you did discover the way to get back."

  "You do finally believe me. Don't you?"

  He pushed away from the wall and circled her slowly. "I see you got Perry's pendant as well. Did you tell him the story of your remarkable travels?"

  "I didn't have to. He gave it to me without question."

  "Good old Perry. He knew you were leaving and didn't bother to tell me until you were on the ship."

  "He wasn't supposed to tell you anything."

  "Were you that afraid of me?" He stepped closer to her, so that she had to look up to meet his gaze. "Afraid I'd extract some terrible revenge for your revelations at my sickbed?"

  "I wasn't afraid," she said, jaw set.

  "Then why did you go?"

  Mac was silent, as distant as if she'd wrapped a transparent cocoon about herself.

  "Why, Mac?" He moved closer still, forcing her by sheer will to return from her inner seclusion. "Why did you leave while I was gone?"

  "I… couldn't risk tampering with history beyond what I'd already done," she said. "And you'd made it pretty clear that you wanted me gone. There wasn't any point to having a scene like this one, was there?"

  Liam knew she was right. He'd been angry—angrier than he'd ever been in his life. He'd let her feel the full brunt of his icy rage. It had taken him a few days to realize the anger wasn't at her.

  And then a few more days to accept the real cause of his anger, overcome the shame and self-contempt that had overwhelmed him. He'd been able to think in the wilds of Napa. Think clearly for the first time since he'd met MacKenzie Rose Sinclair.

  But he hadn't recognized the truth until he returned and found Mac gone. The memory of that terrible realization still clutched at his heart.

  "So you were afraid of changing the future," he said. "What would you have done, Mac? Led a feminine revolution and become the first female mayor of San Francisco? Browbeat the entire male population into giving women the vote?" His tone dropped to an intimate near-whisper. "Become an advocate of free love, perhaps?"

  She looked away. "Love is never free."

  "But you gave it willingly enough when it served your purpose."

  "I gave you my reasons for what I did. What I had to do. I can't undo it and I wouldn't if I could—"

  "Not even if you could have stopped yourself from coming to the jungle?"

  "No. I swore to Homer—my grandfather—that I'd come. I just hope he's satisfied."

  "Promises can be terrible things, Mac."

  She understood him perfectly. "It's hard to see," she murmured, "when a promise shouldn't be kept."

  "You freed me of one that would have ruined at least three lives. You also saved my life not once, but twice." He smiled crookedly. "I won't thank you for that, Mac. You can't expect a man to be grateful for that kind of disgrace."

  She stumbled back a step. "Why did I think for a second that you might have changed?"

  His grin widened. "I fibbed a little before, darlin'. I didn't come just to return your watch. I came to find the other thing you'd stolen from me."


  "What—"

  "All the way here I wondered if I'd ever get it back." He strolled another tight arc around her.

  Above the loose collar of her peasant shirt, the tanned column of her neck quivered. "I don't think I understand."

  "You will." He took her chin in his hand. "What I need won't take much time. You see, Mac? I'm admitting I need something from you. You should be pleased." He trailed his fingers along her arm, grazing her breast. Her nipple puckered under the shirt, and he felt his body responding.

  "Damn it!" She snapped out of her stillness and spun away, stomping across the overgrown clearing and nearly tripping over a buried stele. "No more. You're not going to win this game, O'Shea. I know what you're trying to prove, and it's not going to work. The war's over, and I'm going home—"

  A few of his longer strides made up for ten of hers.

  He caught up and grabbed one wildy flailing hand. With a sharp, swift motion he swung her around. She opened her mouth and he kissed her—a thoroughly earnest kiss befitting the situation. Her palms slammed into his chest, and the pendants fell to the ground. She pushed him violently away, but he had what he wanted.

  It took her all of an instant to realize that he had both the pendants in his hand.

  "Give those back!"

  He pushed the pendants deep into his pocket. "Not until I have what I came for."

  "And to think I felt sorry for you," she spat, all wild Mac again. "I thought I'd hurt you, but you're still an arrogant, impossible, reckless… If ever a man deserved a good kick in the seat, it's you!"

  Liam listened to her enumeration of his faults and felt immense pleasure. It wasn't indifference she was showing him, but something far warmer.

  "I wouldn't know what to do without you here to insult me," he said.

  "You don't know a damned thing about insults. I know a whole catalog of them that haven't even been invented yet!"

  "In that future of yours?" He backed away and set his feet wide apart on the verdant earth. "I think I'd like to hear them for myself." He made a show of thinking it over. "Yes, I think you'll take me with you to… 1997, was it?"

  "So you do believe about the tunnel!" She glared at him.

  "I'm willing to risk that you're finally telling the truth. With you gone I'd find life entirely too tame here. I'd resigned myself to a quiet life in San Francisco, and you took that away."

  "So now I'm supposed to provide you with a new life? Just because I saved your hide—"

  "Twice."

  "—doesn't mean… You were the one who said I had to stop being your guardian angel."

  "Ah, yes. My prickly angel." He cocked his head at her. "I've always wondered why the tunnel carried you back to the year and day I was in this jungle. Almost the very day I was to die. Can you tell me the reason for that, Mac?"

  The martial light went out of her eyes. "I… don't know. I've never known why."

  "It was something of a miracle, wasn't it? Sent from heaven above, perhaps."

  "You aren't the kind of man who puts faith in miracles."

  "I wasn't. I'm beginning to wonder if I was wrong."

  She folded h]er arms across her chest and turned away.

  "I think you are afraid, darlin'," he said, laying his hands on her shoulders. "Afraid of giving me power over you by admitting what you couldn't admit to me after Chinatown."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "I think you do." He rubbed her arms gently from shoulder to elbow. "I'll strike a bargain with you. Give me the truth and I'll let you go. All debts will be squared once and for all."

  She made a soft, helpless sound. He leaned close to her ear, fitting his body against hers. "It was more than wanting with you, wasn't it?" he said. "It's why you made me talk about my past. The real reason you followed me to Chinatown, not just to protect your hard work."

  "You owe me the truth. Spit it out, Mac, and I'll let you go home."

  She fought it. Her body went rigid under his hands, tensed to reject him, and he wondered if Perry had been wrong. She would refuse to answer, simply to deny him one last victory in their endless battle.

  But at last she sagged in his arms. "You stupid Irishman," she said hoarsely, "I think I've loved you from the first moment Homer gave me that blasted photograph. Now are you satisfied?"

  Liam felt his muscles turn as watery as jungle mud. It was all he could do to keep them both on their feet, but he turned her to face him.

  "You little witch. Why didn't you tell me?"

  She was crying, though she tried not to let him see. Her breathing was ragged, laced with little hiccups. "You made it abundantly evident that you didn't want any more to do with me. You said you were leaving—"

  "You're right." His quiet agreement brought her up short, made her freeze again in preparation for his worst. "I thought it would cure me if I went away. But it didn't. And then when Perry told me you'd left me, I went a little mad. I scared Perry out of his wits. He deserved it, the blackguard."

  He grinned, but Mac was in no mood for levity. She slipped free, her expression still and wary.

  Liam kicked the ground with the toe of his boot. "Ah, to the devil with it. I guess you won't be satisfied until I give you the words. Just like any woman." He gazed into her eyes. "I love you, Rose—MacKenzie—whatever the hell you want to call yourself. I may not be much good at it, and I may be all the things you said, but nothing can change that. Not even your history and your future and all your time travel. I love you."

  There. By the saints, it was done, and it hadn't even killed him. But she only stared, lips parted.

  "Why?"

  "Why? Isn't that just like a woman." He found himself as tongue-tied as a schoolboy. There was only one way to answer her. "I see you need more proof, darlin'."

  And he proceeded to give that proof, pulling her close, kissing her for everything he was worth, until she wasn't stiff in his arms but soft and flowing against him, her arms locked at his waist, her lips urgent under his. Giving and taking equally.

  "Satisfied?" he asked when they were finished, kissing her hair and temple and chin.

  "I guess I'll have to be," she sniffled. "For now."

  "That has an ominous ring to it." He pulled her down beside him on a convenient block of stone and held her close, stroking her cropped hair and taking in the clean, healthy scent of her. No perfumes or pretensions. Not his Mac. She was just the way he wanted her.

  She curled up to his chest, her head against his heart. "This doesn't feel quite real," she said.

  "I can't say I blame you. I was a fool." He lifted her chin on his fist. "You scared the devil out of me. You were too bloody competent. You didn't need me. And on those rare occasions that you did, I wasn't able to protect you."

  "Liam—"

  "Hear me out. It's hard enough saying it as it is." He gave her a lopsided smile. "I think I already loved you the first time I met you, here in the jungle. Maybe it happened when you slugged me down by the lake—"

  She chuckled. "I did make your life a living hell, didn't I?"

  "And after Chinatown," he said softly, "I knew I wasn't worthy of you. You'd seen the worst in me. You said you'd done everything to save history and the Sinclairs—"

  She jerked up. "It wasn't only that—"

  "I know." He pulled her back down. "But you ran before I came to my senses, and if Perry hadn't told me I'd have never found you before—" His voice was in deep danger of turning wobbly, so he shut his mouth. Mac was gazing at him with such warmth that he wondered if he could ever speak again.

  "Then you came knowing I might really go back to my own time," she said.

  "You did have those strange inventions. But it suited me to think you were merely crazy. Until I learned that Perry's photograph was still in his rooms, undisturbed. It didn't take much more to convince me when I was already losing the battle." He kissed her nose. "You and I, Mac—you and I—we're like the two halves of that Maya stone. This was meant to happen. There
isn't any other explanation."

  "You're turning into a poet, Liam. I don't know if I can handle it."

  "You'll learn, darlin'."

  She was quiet for a long time, and when she broke the silence she broke away from him as well.

  "There's only one problem," she said huskily. "I can't go back with you, Liam. I don't belong here, and I could change—"

  "Who said anything about going back?" He got to his feet and folded his arms, readying for another argument with the little termagant. "I thought we'd established that I was going forward with you."

  A chain of emotions crossed her face, settling on cautious hope. "But… It's not that simple… Do you have any idea what you'd be getting into, Liam?"

  He shrugged. "I'm sure you'll explain it to me."

  "Do you realize what it will mean to you? A world you know nothing about, completely different from your own?"

  "I doubt," he said dryly, "that it could be more of a challenge than loving you."

  She shook her head. "You don't know. The future is a scary place. You can't possibly be prepared…"

  He advanced on her, swinging the confiscated pendants from his hand. "Look at it this way, darlin'. I won't give you back your pendants unless you take me with you."

  She gaped at him, and then her lips curved and her eyes narrowed and the laughter returned. "Blackmail, O'Shea?"

  "It has its uses."

  "If you do go with me, there are some things you aren't going to like. You'll have to let me be your guide, Liam. Me, a woman. And you'll have to listen to me."

  "When have I ever had any other choice?"

  She snorted. "You won't be anybody in the future. You won't even exist, not until we make you a new identity. You won't have a job, and my job doesn't pay much. I have a little apartment in Berkeley, not a mansion. No one will know how far you've come. You won't be rich—"

  "There you're wrong, darlin'. I arranged a few matters before I left San Francisco. Perry is going to see that most of my fortune and property is held in trust for a certain MacKenzie Rose Sinclair, in perpetuity, until she claims it. I assume it'll only increase in value over the years?"

  "Oh, my God." She sat down hard on the ground, not even bothering to find a rock. "Then you worked things out with Perry—"