by Meg Cabot
I froze, feeling pins and needles all over—and not just because I’d been lying in such a cramped position for so long. I needed to see him. I needed to see him. Only how?
Then he moved and I turned my head, following the sound…
…and saw, through a chink in the floorboards of the loft, a spot of color. His horse. It was his horse. I saw his hands moving over the saddle, unstrapping it. It was Jesse. He was right beneath me. He was—
Why I did what I did next, I’ll never know. I didn’t want Jesse to know I was there. If Jesse found me, it could throw off everything. Who knew, he might not even be murdered that night. And then I’d never get to meet him.
But the urge to see him—alive—was so strong, that without even thinking about it, I banged my feet as hard as I could on the hayloft floor.
The hands moving over the saddle grew suddenly still. He’d heard me. I tried to call to him, but all that came out, thanks to Paul’s gag, was gnnh, gnnh.
I banged my feet harder.
“Is someone there?” I heard Jesse call.
I banged again.
This time, he didn’t call out. He started climbing the ladder to the loft. I heard the wood strain beneath his weight.
His weight. Jesse had weight.
And then I saw his hands—his large, brown, capable hands—on the top rung of the ladder, followed, a second later, by his head….
The breath froze in my lungs.
Because it was him. It was Jesse.
But not Jesse as I’d ever seen him before. Because he was alive. He was… there. He was so solidly and unquestionably there, taking up space like he owned it, like the space better get out of his way, as opposed to the other way around.
He wasn’t glowing. He was radiating. Not the spectral glow I was used to seeing around him, either, but instead an undeniable aura of health and vitality. It was like the Jesse I had known was a pale replica—a reflection—of the one I was looking at now. Never had I been so aware of the way his dark hair curled against the back of his tanned neck; the deep brown of his eyes; the whiteness of his teeth; the strength in those long legs as he knelt down beside me; the tendons in the back of his brown hands; the sinews in his bare arms….
“Miss?”
And his voice. His voice! So deep, it seemed to reverberate down my spine. It was Jesse’s voice all right, but suddenly, it was in surround sound, it was THX, it was…
“Miss? Are you all right?”
Jesse was gazing down at me, his dark eyes filled with concern. One of his hands moved to his boot, and the next thing I knew, a long and shiny blade was gleaming in his hand. I watched in fascination as the blade came nearer and nearer to my cheek.
“Don’t be afraid,” Jesse was saying. “I’m going to untie you. Who did this to you?”
Suddenly, the gag was gone. My mouth was raw from where the rope had cut into it. Then my hands were free. Sore, but free.
“Can you speak?” Jesse’s hands were on my feet now, his knife neatly slicing through the ropes Paul had tied me with. “Here.”
He laid the knife aside and lifted something else toward my face. Water. From a flask. I took it from him and sucked greedily. I’d had no idea how thirsty I’d been.
“Easy,” Jesse said in that voice—that voice! “I can get you more. Stay here and I’ll get help—”
On the word help, however, my hands, as if of their own volition, dropped the flask and flew out to seize his shirt-front instead.
It wasn’t the shirt I was used to seeing Jesse in. It was similar, the same soft, white linen. But this one was higher at the neck. He was wearing a vest, too—a waistcoat, I think they were called back then—of a sort of watered silk.
“No,” I croaked and was startled at how raspy my voice sounded. “Don’t go.”
Not, of course, because I was worried he was going to go and get Mrs. O’Neil, who’d recognize me as the strumpet she’d found wandering around her front parlor the night before. But because I couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving my sight. Not now. Not ever.
This was Jesse. This was the real Jesse. This was who I loved.
And who was going to die shortly.
“Who are you?” Jesse asked, lifting the flask I’d dropped and, finding it not quite empty, handing it back to me. “Who did this—left you here like this?”
I drank what was left of the water. I’d known Jesse long enough to see that he was outraged—outraged at whoever had left me like that.
“A… a man,” I said. Because, of course, Jesse—this Jesse—wouldn’t know who Paul was…. Didn’t know whoI was, clearly.
His eyebrows furrowed, the one with the scar in it looking particularly adorable. The scar wasn’t as obvious, I noticed, on Live Jesse as it was on Ghost Jesse.
“And did this same man put you in these outlandish clothes?” Jesse wanted to know, looking critically at my jeans and motorcycle jacket.
Suddenly, I wanted to laugh. He seemed like a different Jesse entirely—or rather, a hundred times more real than the Jesse I had known—but his disgust with my wardrobe? That hadn’t changed a bit.
“Yes,” I said. I figured it would be more believable to him than the real explanation.
“I’ll see him horsewhipped,” Jesse said as matter-of-factly as if he had people horsewhipped for dressing girls up in odd outfits and leaving them tied up in haylofts every day of the week. “Who are you? Your family must be looking for you—”
“Um,” I said. “No, they aren’t. I mean… I doubt it. And my name is Suze.”
Again the dark brow furrowed. “Soose?”
“Suze,” I said with a laugh. I couldn’t help it. Laughing, I mean. It was so wonderful to see him like this. “Susannah. As in ‘Oh, Susannah, Don’t You Cry for Me.’ ”
It was what I had said to him, I realized with a pang, back in my bedroom, the very first time I’d met him, the day I’d arrived in Carmel. I hadn’t known then what I knew now—that that moment had been a turning point in my life—everything before it was BJ: Before Jesse. Everything afterward, AJ: After Jesse. I hadn’t known then that this guy in the puffy shirt with the tight black pants would one day mean more to me than my own life… would one day be my everything.
But I knew it now, just as I knew something else:
I had it wrong. I had it all wrong.
But it wasn’t, I knew, too late to fix it. Thank God.
“Susannah,” Jesse said, as he sat beside me in the straw. “Susannah O’Neil, perhaps? You are related to Mr. and Mrs. O’Neil? Let me get them. I know they’ll want to see that you’re safe—”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “My, um, family is far away.” Really far away. “You can’t get them. I mean, thank you, but… you can’t get them.”
“Then this man…” Jesse looked excited. And why not? It probably wasn’t every day the guy stumbled over a sixteen-year-old girl who’d been left bound and gagged in a hayloft. “Who is he? I’ll fetch the sheriff. He must pay for what he’s done.”
Much as I would have liked to sic Jesse—Live Jesse—on Paul, it didn’t seem like the appropriate thing to do. Not when Jesse was going to have so many problems of his own to handle very soon. Paul was my problem, not his.
“No,” I said. “No, that’s okay.” Then, seeing his puzzled look, I said, “I mean, that’s all right. Don’t get the sheriff—”
“You needn’t fear him anymore, Susannah,” Jesse said gently. He clearly did not know he was speaking to a girl who had kicked a lot of butt in her day. Ghost butt, mostly, but whatever. “I won’t let him hurt you again.”
“I’m not afraid of him, Jesse,” I said.
“Then—” Jesse’s face clouded suddenly. “Wait. How did you know my name?”
Ah. Well, there was the rub, wasn’t it?
Jesse was looking at me curiously, that dark-eyed gaze raking my face. I’m sure I must have looked a picture. I mean, what girl wouldn’t after having been left for hours with her head
in the straw and her mouth gagged?
It didn’t matter, of course. What Jesse thought of me. But I felt self-conscious just the same. I reached up and shoved some hair out of my eyes, trying to tuck it back behind an ear. Just my luck, the first time I meet my boyfriend—while he’s still living—and I look like a complete train wreck.
“Do I know you?” Jesse asked, his gaze searching. “Have we met? Are you… are you one of the Anderson girls?”
I had no idea who the Anderson girls might be, but I felt a stab of envy for them, whoever they were. Because they were girls who’d gotten to know Jesse—Live Jesse. I wondered if they knew how lucky they were.
“We haven’t met,” I said. “Yet. But… I know you. I mean, I know… about you.”
“You do?” Recognition dawned at last in his gaze. “Wait …yes! Now I know. You’re friends with one of my sisters. From school? Mercedes? You know Mercedes?”
I shook my head, fumbling around in the pocket of my leather jacket.
“Josefina, then?” Jesse studied me some more. “You must be close to her age, fifteen, yes? You don’t know Josefina? You can’t know Marta, she’s too old—”
I shook my head again, then held out what I’d fished from my pocket.
He looked down at what I held in my hand.
“Nombre de Dios,” he said softly, and took it from me.
It was the miniature portrait of Jesse, the one I’d stolen from the Carmel Historical Society. I saw now how poor a portrait it actually was. Oh, the painter had gotten the shape of Jesse’s head right and his eye color and expression were close enough.
But he’d completely failed to capture what it was that made Jesse… well… Jesse. The keen intelligence in his dark brown eyes. The confident twist of his wide, sensuous mouth. The gentleness of his cool, strong hands. The power—just now leashed, but coiled so close to the surface, it might rise up at any moment—of those muscles, honed from years of working alongside his father’s ranch hands, beneath that soft linen shirt and black pants.
“Where did you get this?” Jesse demanded, his fist closing over the portrait. Sparks seem to fly from his dark eyes, he was that angry. “Only one person has a portrait like this.”
“I know,” I said. “Your fiancée, Maria. You’re here to marry her. Or at least, that’s the plan. You’re on your way to see her now, but her father’s ranch is still pretty far off, so you’re staying here for the night before you go on to her place in the morning.”
Anger turned to bewilderment as Jesse lifted his free hand and raked his fingers through his thick dark hair—a gesture I had seen him perform so many times when he was completely frustrated with me, that tears actually sprang to my eyes, it was so familiar… and so adorable.
“How do you know all this?” he asked desperately. “You’re… you’re friends with Maria? Did she… give you this?”
“Not exactly,” I said.
And took a deep breath.
“Jesse, my name is Susannah Simon,” I said all in a rush, wanting to get it out before I changed my mind. “I’m what’s called a mediator. I’m from the future. And I’m here to keep you from being murdered tonight.”
Chapter
sixteen
Because, in the end, I couldn’t do it.
I thought I could. I really did think I could sit back and let Jesse be murdered. I mean, if the alternative was never to meet him? Sure, I could do it. No problem.
But that had been before. Before I’d seen him. Before I’d spoken to him. Before he’d touched me. Before I’d known what he was, what he could have been, if he’d only lived.
I knew now I could no more stand by and let Jesse be killed than I could have… well, shoved my little step-brother David out in front of a speeding car or fed my mother poison mushroom caps. I couldn’t let Jesse die, even if meant never seeing him again. I loved him too much.
It was as simple as that.
Oh, I knew I was going to hate myself later. I knew I was going to wake up and, if I even remembered what I’d done, hate myself for the rest of my natural life.
But what else could I do? I couldn’t stand idly by while someone I loved was walking into mortal danger. Father Dominic, my dad, all of them—even Paul—were right. I had to save Jesse if I could.
It was the right thing to do.
But not, of course, the easy thing. The easy thing would have been to point a finger in his face as he stared down at me, completely disbelieving, and gone, “Ha! Fooled ya! Just kidding.”
Instead, I said, “Jesse. Did you hear me? I said I’m here from the future to save you from being—”
“I heard what you said.” Jesse smiled at me gently. “Do you know what I think would be best? If you would let me get Mrs. O’Neil. She’ll take good care of you while I go to town to get the doctor. Because I think the man who did this to you—tied you like this—might also have hit you on the head—”
“Jesse,” I said flatly. I couldn’t believe this. Here I was, making this tremendous sacrifice, saving the love of my life and knowing that I would never be with him again, and he was accusing me of being bonkers. “Paul didn’t hit me in the head. All right? I’m fine. A little thirsty still, but otherwise fine. I just need you to listen to me. Tonight Felix Diego is going to sneak into your room here at the boardinghouse and strangle you to death. Then he’s going to throw your body into a shallow grave, and no one is going to find it until a century and a half later, when my stepdad installs a hot tub on our deck.”
Jesse just looked down at me. I couldn’t be sure, but I think I saw pity in his gaze.
“Jesse, I’m serious,” I said. “You’ve got to go home. Okay? Just get back on your horse and turn around and go home, and don’t even think about marrying Maria de Silva.”
“Maria did send you,” Jesse said, finally. His face darkened with a sudden anger. “This is her way of trying to save face, is it? Well, you can go back to your mistress and tell her it won’t work. I won’t have her family thinking I wasn’t gentleman enough to break it off in person—no matter who she sends with strange tales to frighten me off. I’m going to see her tomorrow whether she likes it or not.”
I blinked up at him, completely dumbfounded. What was he talking about?
Then, too late, I remembered the secret Jesse had once confided in me, the secret only I knew… that he had been on his way to the de Silva ranch all those years ago not to marry Maria, but to break things off with her…
…Which explained why all of her letters to him had been discovered alongside his remains last summer, when my stepbrother accidentally dug them up. Nineteenth-century manners demanded that couples breaking off their engagements returned the letters each had written the other. Diego had murdered Jesse before such an exchange could take place in order to prevent Maria’s father from asking any uncomfortable questions concerning the break-up—like what Jesse had heard about his fiancée that had made him want to end their engagement.
“Wait,” I said. “Hold on. Jesse, Maria didn’t send me. I don’t even know Maria. Well, I mean, we’ve met, but—”
“You have to know her.” Jesse looked down at the framed portrait in his hand. “She gave this to you. She must have. How else could you have gotten it?”
“Um,” I said, with a shrug. “Actually, I stole it.” Then I saw his face change, and knew I’d made a mistake.
“Oh, no,” I said, holding up both hands, palms toward him. “Down, boy. I didn’t steal it from your precious Maria, believe me. I stole it from the Carmel Historical Society, okay? A museum, where it had been sitting for God knows how long. In fact, I bet if you check with good old Maria, she still has hers. Her portrait of you, I mean.”
“There were no duplicates made,” Jesse said, in a hard voice.
“I know that.” God, this was hard. “But look at the one you’re holding, Jesse. Look how old it looks, how cracked the paint is, how tarnished that frame’s gotten. That’s because it’s nearly two hundred years old.
I stole it in the future, Jesse. I used it to help me get back here, to the past, so I could warn you…” This wasn’t strictly true, of course, but close enough. “You’ve got to believe me, Jesse. Paul— the guy who tied me up—will back me up on this. He’s out looking for Felix Diego right now to try to stop him before he can get to you—”
Jesse shook his head.
“I don’t know who you are,” he said in a low, even tone unlike any he’d ever used with me before. “But I’m returning this—” He dangled his portrait in my face. “—to its rightful owner. Whatever game you’re playing, it ends now. Do you understand?
Game? I couldn’t believe this. Here I was, risking my neck for him, and he was mad at me for stealing a stupid portrait of him? “There’s no game, Jesse, okay? If this were just a game—if Maria really did send me—how would I know the stuff I know? How would I know that Maria and Diego are secretly in love? How would I know that your girlfriend—who is quite the skank, by the way—doesn’t want to marry you at all? And that her dad doesn’t approve of Diego and thinks if she marries you she’ll forget about him eventually? How do I know that the two of them have cooked up a scheme to kill you tonight and hide your body so it looks as though you skipped out on the engagement—”
“Nombre de Dios.” Jesse was on his feet and swearing. I couldn’t help noticing how the loft shook a little under his footsteps. This was not something that would have happened with Ghost Jesse, and was just more proof of how very far I’d come from the world I knew.
But that wasn’t the only thing that wouldn’t have happened with Ghost Jesse. I realized this a second later when Alive Jesse bent down and siezed me by my arms, and gave me a frustrated shake.
“You know all this because Maria told you!” he said, from between gritted teeth. “Admit it! She told you!” As quickly as he’d snatched me up, he let go and turned away. Uttering a groan of pent-up annoyance, Jesse dragged a hand through his hair.
My arms, where he’d touched me, tingled.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. I knew how he felt, after all. His wasn’t the only heart in that barn that was breaking. “I mean, about your girlfriend wanting to kill you and all. Even if you were going to, you know, break up and all. But if it’s any consolation, I do think you’re a lot better off without her. I mean, the only times I ever met her, she was trying to kill me, too, but still. Better you find out she’s a skank now, you know, and break it off cleanly, than find out after you’re married. Because I don’t even know if they let people get divorced in, you know, your time.”
