Part 8 (1/2)
She'd just finished showing Liam things that wouldn't be invented until well into the next century. She knew very little about him, yet Homer had said he was a self-made man who'd worked his way up from poverty. Just the kind of man who might take an unknown and potentially useful object apart to see if it could be reproduceda If he survived.
”So you won't predict my fate,” he said. She looked up to see him on his feet again, arms crossed. ”I must be very important in this future of yours if you're afraid my knowledge of my own destiny will change it.” He leaned over her. ”Well, Mac? Am I a great man in your history books?”
She swallowed, hastily gathering up the things she'd laid out on the mosquito netting and shoving them back into her pack.
”I'm not much good at this time-travel business” she said. ”I don't know what would happen if I interfered with the way things werea”are supposed to go. I shouldn't be here.”
Babbling, Mac. But she forgot the clumsiness of her rationalizations when she realized her watch wasn't where she'd left it. She felt around, scooting in a circle.
”You promised me the flashlight, but I prefer a different souvenir.”
She jumped up. Liam held the watch quite brazenly in one large hand. He was visibly pleaseda and triumphant and infuriating.
”Give it back,” she demanded.
”I don't think so, Mac. This seems more appropriate. I'll keep it asa proof of your little story.”
”Then you believe me?”
He didn't answer but pocketed the watch, easily avoiding her swipe at his hand.
”d.a.m.n it, you can't keep that!”
”How do you propose to get it back?”
She eyed his pocket. There was little chance of distracting him, and none of overpowering him. And he knew it.
”Don't worry,” he said. ”I won't change your history. My future is very clear to me.”
Oh, yeah. She'd never been one for crying, but she felt absurdly like bursting into tears. Just great. ”You don't know what you're talking about,” she snapped.
All at once he was directly in front of her. ”Then we do have something in common.”
Mac contemplated the pulse beating at the base of his throat, noted the way the crisp curling hairs of his chest nestled in the open neck of his sweat-darkened s.h.i.+rt. He didn't smell the way she'd expect a man in his condition to smell. He smelleda nice. No, that was definitely the wrong word. ”Nice” implied something tame. This was not a tame smell, or a tame kind of man. Her own heartbeat picked up speed, and she took a quick step backward.
”I doubt it,” she said. For a moment she thought he'd say or do something she wasn't going to like, but he only barked a laugh, turned on his heel, and began to walk away.
She grabbed her pack, s.n.a.t.c.hed up Liam's mosquito netting, and followed. Now what? He had her watch, and she should make an effort to retrieve it. She should try to go back through the tunnel to her own time, but she'd already done that; it emphatically hadn't worked. She was just beginning to realize the full, and frightening, implications of what she had done.
Just by somehow coming back to the past I may have changed the future already. How can I possibly be sure? The longer I'm here, the more risk that I'll mess something up. No one knows the consequences of something like this, and Liam O'Shea definitely isn't the one to share the burden with.
Oh, h.e.l.l.
”Are you coming?” Liam called. He'd stopped at the opposite border of the ruins, where the real jungle began. Hands on hips, he glared at her as if he'd like nothing better than to charge off without her. He certainly hadn't issued her a formal invitation to accompany him back to his camp. But he was waiting, and it was nearly dusk, and he had her watch, and she didn't know what else to doa ”I think I'd rather stay here,” she blurted.
He gave an eloquent shrug. ”Suit yourself. I don't doubt that you can repel scorpions, poisonous serpents, jaguars, and hostile guerrillas bare-handed.” He tossed his sack over his shoulder and turned on his heel, disappearing among the trees and heavy foliage.
Oh, that was bright, Mac. Reject the only connection you have to reality. And your only protection in this jungle.
She scowled at the cowardly thought. Protection, my foot. I'm not some sheltered little Victorian female who can't take care of herself. I don't need him. She threw the mosquito net in a heap beside the temple wall and flung herself down on it, slapping at bugs with more energy than accuracy. Her repellant had decided to give up the ghost.
And it was definitely getting darker. The sun had all but vanished behind the horizon of trees. She looked skyward, listening to the voice of the wilderness. The monkeys and birds were setting up their daily dusk symphony of screeches, howls, and roars. They weren't dangerous, but there were the scorpions, snakes, and jaguars Liam had mentioned. None, in all probability, as much of a threat as the man himself.
What was she thinking? He wasn't a threat. If there was a threat, it wasn't to her. It was to Liam himself. She wasn't even sure when it was, or where, or how it would happen. Only that he was going to die, and she was sitting here feeling sorry for herself.
Mac dropped her head into her hands. If Homer'd been right and Great-great-grandfather Sinclair had murdered his partner, and she was here where it happened, shouldn't she be doing something about it?
Like what, Mac? Play bodyguard? Wait around until Perry shows up, if he does show up, and fling myself between them? Change history completely without understanding the consequencesa”if I could do it at all?
Or let it all occur the way it was supposed to, knowing she could have prevented an act of murder.
Her head had begun to ache in earnest. This must be some kind of cosmic joke. Was Homer somewhere up there masterminding the whole thing?
You overestimate me, Homer. I'm not cut out for playing G.o.d.
With an explosive breath Mac jumped to her feet. She couldn't just sit here thinking in circlesa”
”Change your mind yet?”
Mac thought she'd never been so grateful to hear an irksome voice in all her life. Liam sauntered into the dim aura of light, c.o.c.king a supercilious brow. ”I have a fire going,” he said. ”You might as well join me. There isn't much food, but you won't starve.”
Starve. Mac tried to remember the last time she'd eaten. Her stomach chose that juncture to loudly second Liam's suggestion. She slapped her hand under her ribs to silence it.
”I suggest you make up your mind quickly,” he said. ”It'll be pitch dark in a few minutes.”
Mac glanced at her wrist, remembering belatedly that Liam had commandeered her watch.
Still she hesitated. You're not afraid of him, are you?
She didn't like the answer she came up with. The only men she'd been around for the past ten years had been academics and students, most of them buried in studies of one kind or another. Liam O'Shea was utterly different. She'd known that from the photograph. She'd been attracted to that quality while it was safely confined to a printed image.
Now it was almost overwhelming. Just because he's handsome and sarcastic and thinks you're a female joke . . .
Forget that. She wasn't going to let any man, from any era, determine her actions. Whatever his motive for offering help, be it curiosity or self-interest or something else entirely, she didn't have a whole lot of choice. The sensible thing to do was follow his advicea”for now. Go back to his camp, eat, rest. Tomorrow she could tackle the tunnel again.
She lifted her chin and met Liam's hooded gaze. ”All right. I'll, uha be glad of your hospitality. Thanks.”
He gave an ironic bow and turned back for the jungle.
She pulled on her backpack and followed him. Sure enough, the last of the sun had vanished save for a faint patina to the west. Even the birds and monkeys were winding down. The mosquitoes, however, had not yet retired for the evening.
”Some things never change,” she said.
Liam slowed his pace to match hers, lifting a brow in an unspoken question.
”Mosquitoes,” she clarified. ”We still haven't figured out how to get rid of them.”
He slapped idly at several specimens perched on his bare forearm. ”They're nothing to botflies and scorpions. But perhaps you haven't met our other eight-legged neighbors? It should be an interesting introduction.”
Mac made a firm resolution not to let him witness her discomfort by so much as a single scratch, and vowed to douse herself with repellant at the first opportunity.