"You missed your calling, Perry. You should have been a philosopher."

"Perhaps it's not too late."

But Liam didn't answer, didn't speak again until Perry had reached the door and was on his way out of the room.

"Perry."

He paused without looking back.

"You left something here that belongs to you. In the left upper drawer of the desk."

Perry went on his guard. He walked back to the desk and opened the indicated drawer.

His pocket watch lay inside. Battered, scratched, the chain broken in one place, it was both familiar and strange. The hands were frozen in a perpetual announcement of four o'clock.

"Take it," Liam said.

Perry did, knowing well what this meant. His throat was oddly taut. He held the watch in his palm, rereading the inscription, and then began to wind it, slowly and deliberately, until it hummed with life again.

"Go to Caroline," Liam said. "Make sure she's all right."

The tightness in Perry's throat made it d.a.m.nablya"and ridiculouslya"difficult to speak. "And Miss MacKenzie? Do you wish toa""

"The doctor told me she was well," Liam interrupted. "She can more than take care of herself."

So that was the way the wind blew.

Perry tucked the watch in his waistcoat pocket. He left the room, closed the door, and went to summon Rose.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Why meet we on the bridge of Time to change one greeting and to part?

a"Sir Richard Francis Burton MAC WALKED UP the stairs with feet that dragged and legs that felt heavy as lead. Talking things out with Caroline during the past half-hour had been difficult, but she would have gone through it a thousand times rather than do what had to be done now. At least Caroline was young enough to be flexible, to change, to listen. And to bare her own heart.

Mac felt old. Too old to risk pouring out her soul to the man who waited upstairs. Too much aware of how little good it would do when she'd be here a matter of days. Or hours. She had only to ask Perry for his pendant, and thena She didn't knock on the door. Norton lay sprawled at the foot of the bed; his head and ears came up, and he was on top of Mac almost before she could prepare herself for his affectionate onslaught.

As she accepted the dog's enthusiastic greeting she watched Liam become aware of her, returning from some faraway place within his own mind. He straightened on the bed, suppressing a wince of pain. He was well bandaged, and her own eyes told her he was going to be all right. Thank G.o.d and every deity that had ever existed in the history of time.

"Don't even think of standing up," she ordered.

Oh, yes. She'd read him right. The hard set of his shadowed jaw and the bleakness in his gaze told her how much he hated to be helpless this way in front of her. It reminded him of Chinatown, and the failure he saw within himselfa"the self-contempt, the terror she'd seen so vividly when they'd both been close to death.

"Well, Mac?" His breathing was harsh. "Are you here to play nursemaid to the invalid?"

The attack wasn't aimed at her. It was all for himself. "You're too cantankerous to need nursing, O'Shea. I felt more sorry for the doctor."

"It seems I'm to be talked to death instead."

Mac dragged a chair close to the bedside. "There are things I need to explaina""

"Like Perry?"

"Youa know he didn't try to kill you."

His muscles bunched, and she knew he wanted very badly to rise and pace the room like a caged jaguar. "If you've only come to talk about Perrya"" he rasped.

"No." She reached out to him, unable to help herself. "What I need to tell you Perry doesn't even know. Ia""

Her hand was seized in a firm but remarkably careful grip. "Good G.o.d," Liam said. "You are hurt."

She followed his anxious look. The modest bandage around her hand was hardly like Liam's; she'd almost forgotten the cut was there. "Just a scratch," she said, giving him a lopsided grin. "I'm not too handy with a knifea"not fighting with it, anyway. It's nothing, really. I've had worse mosquito bites in the junglea""

"You little idiot. Did you mean to get both yourself and Caroline killed?"

Gently she worked her hand from his grasp. "I can't take credit for bringing Caroline along. She came on her own. And it so happened I heard your conversation with the messenger at the Palace." She chuckled thickly. "Couldn't let you go and get yourself killed, considering the trouble I took to save your life in the jungle."

The corner of his lips twitched. "You'll never let me forget that, will you?"

I hope in time we're both able to forget. She shook her head. "I have something to tell you about that. If you're ready to listen. If you can accept the truth this time, I'll give to you. I told you part of it before, when you couldn't accept it. Maybe enough's happened that now you can."

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back. "Go ahead. I'm entirely at your mercy."

"The day I pushed you out of the way of that bullet in the jungle, I changed the course of history. Youa you were supposed to die, Liam O'Shea, in the Petn in August of 1884."

That p.r.o.nouncement caught his full attention. "Of course," he drawled. "Your time travel again. That's why you refused to tell me my future."

So he remembered that conversation. "Yes," she admitted. "I knew it could happen any time."

"And you just happened to be there, my savior, when my fate came upon me."

"You were the reason I came to the jungle in the first place, in my own time. That was why I had the photograph, why I recognized you." She braced herself. "You see, I was in the ruins toa make amends for something one of my own ancestors was supposed to have done. To apologize to thea spirit of the man he was supposed to have murdered."

She could see the progression of thoughts behind Liam's mask of indifference, the gradual realization as he began to catch on.

"I don't expect you to understand theories even I can't make sense of," she said. "When I found myself in the pasta"when I saved your lifea"everything changed. Because you were alive when you were supposed to be dead, you could go back to San Franciso and marry Caroline. I couldn't let that happen."

He stared at her with eyes as opaque as silver coins. "Why couldn't you, Mac?"

Her heart thumped painfully against the wall of her ribs. "Because my name isn't Rose MacKenzie. It's MacKenzie Rose Sinclair. Perry is my great-greatgrandfather, Caroline is my great-great-grandmother, and if they didn't marry, my family and everything they'd ever done would cease to exist."

It took a moment for her to realize that the sound Liam was making was a laugha"deep, low, wrenched from his gut. "So everything you did was to save the future of the Sinclairs. But there's one thing I still don't understand. It would have been so much easier to let me die as I was meant to." He leaned forward, ignoring his wounds and the pain they must have caused. "Why did you save my life?"

"Because d.a.m.n it, Ia"" She lifted her chin. "I couldn't just stand there knowing a man was about to die and not try to stop it."

Liam settled back slowly. His eyes closeda"in pain, she thought. She'd pushed him too hard.

But he smiled. "The Sinclairs are such a n.o.ble breed. Where would the world be without them? It seems I have only to thank you for your devoted care. I couldn't have survived without it, let alone ordered my own life, which you tell me shouldn't have continued beyond that day in the jungle." He snorted. "How heavy a responsibility I must have been for you, Mac. You sacrificed even yourself in the pursuit of it. My apologies."

She curled her fingers around the arms of the chair until her knuckles hurt. "It wasn't a sacrifice, Liam," she whispered.

"You did get some pleasure out of oura friendship," he said. "A pity I'm flat on my back, or we could give it a go one last time. For old times' sake, eh, Mac?"

They stared at each other. Liam's breathing was ragged. She stood, pushing the chair back. "You need to rest now, Liam. I'ma sorrya""

"You gave me my life. I told you I always pay my debts. Have I paid this one sufficiently, Mac?"

"More thana sufficiently."

"I'm relieved to hear it. I wouldn't want to leave anything undone. I'll be going out of town as soon as I can get out of this b.l.o.o.d.y bed."

It didn't matter that she was going away herself; his announcement made her blood ice over like water in the Arctic. "You're leaving?"

"The tongs have made San Francisco too hot for Chen and his niece. I can't be sure of protecting them any longer. But I have property in Napa, and I'm taking Chen to look it over."

"You're giving them a new place to live?"

"Land that's lying fallow. Maybe they can make use of it."

"That's very kind of you." She meant it with all her heart.

"I'm the very soul of kindness."

"What will you doa after that?"

His muscles tensed under their bandages and covering of sheets and blankets. "Sooner or later you'll have to give up your position as my guardian angel, Mac," he said. "It might as well be now." He turned his head away, dismissing her. "Do me one last service when you go downstairs and ask Chen to bring me a whiskey. My happiness will be complete."

There was nothing more to be said. He shut her out completely, as once he'd rejected her in a tent in the steaming jungles of the Petn. Mac fled, trying desperately not to think or feel. She realized halfway down the stairs that Norton had remained at her side, as if sensing her distress; she buried her fingers in the wiry fur of his back as if it were a lifeline to sanity.

Sanity was what she needed now. Sanity to carry out the very practical steps she needed to get home. Talk to Perry, get his pendant from him, arrange transportation back to Guatemala.

Mac touched her jacket over the place where Liam's pendant rested between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The stone was always cold, not warm as hers had been in the jungle, just before the tunnel through time had sucked her through.

If things went as she hoped, the pendant would warm again when she walked back into the tunnel. Once she had Perry's pendant, she'd have the tools she needed to make it work. If Fernando had told the truth. If the pendants were what had made the tunnel function. If it took her back to her own time.

It had to. Once she left San Francisco for Guatemala, she couldn't look back. On the other side from Liam O'Shea she might have some hope of forgetting.

Anything rather than stay here one instant longer than necessary.

Norton trotted along beside her as she walked into the library where she'd left Perry and Caroline. Caroline was gone; Perry was absorbed in a book, a gla.s.s of b.u.t.terscotch-colored liquid in one hand. He set down his drink as she entered.

"Rose," he said. "Whata""

He jumped up and caught her by the arms as she lost her balance, leading her to the heavy high-backed chair nearest the fireplace. "Are you ill?"

"No." Good grief, what a time to learn to swoon in grand old Victorian fashion. "I'm fine, really."

"Indeed?" He hovered over her until she convinced him by sitting up and meeting his eyes.

Dark Sinclair eyes. Not the eyes of a killer. That at least was resolved. Homer could rest in peace.

"Yes," she a.s.sured Homer's grandfather, smiling wryly. "Let's just say it's been a very interesting day. I know it's a little early for a nightcap, but whatever you're drinking, I wouldn't mind having a sip of it myself."

He was long past any surprise at her bluntness. He walked to a sideboard laden with gla.s.ses and bottles, poured her a small measure of amber liquid, and refilled his own gla.s.s.

"Thank you." She took the gla.s.s, sniffed it, wrinkled her nose, and took a sip. When her fit of coughing had subsided, she cradled the gla.s.s between her hands, resolved not to try again but needing something to hold on to.

"It's just not the same as a Dr Pepper," she said. "I have something to tell you. And something to ask." She glanced around the room. "Is Caroline all right?"

"She's in the guest bedroom with Mei Ling." Perry settled back in his chair, crossing his legs. "She's found a cause of her own."

"I have a feeling that she'll be good at whatever she decides to do with her life. And youa"You'll let her make those decisions, won't you?"

He laid his hand over his heart. "Your concern for Caroline touches me." There was not irony but warmth in his tone. "I swear to you that Caroline will have all the freedom I can grant her once we're married."

Mac rubbed her foot along an intricate pattern in the carpet with great concentration. "You've talked to Liam."

"There seems hope for a renewal of our friendship," he said. He reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a watch. A silver watch, battered and dented, that Mac recognized at once. "He insisted I take this back."

The lump that hadn't left her throat for the past several hours made it difficult to speak. "I'm so glad. Ia wish I had time to get to know you and Caroline better. I wish I could stick around for your wedding, just to see it all through to the end."

He stilled with his gla.s.s to his lips. "Are you leaving us?"

"Yes. I have to."

"Why?"

"I'vea come to see that I don't belong here," she said. "This is not my world, Perry. It never was. I can't tell you more than that."

Perry got up and strode to the sideboard. "It's Liam, isn't it? He blames you for all that's happened. The fool. I'll speak to hima""

"No. Please. There's nothing you can do."

His gaze was fixed on the row of bottles and gla.s.ses. "Then I was wrong to believe you loved him."

So smooth and aristocratic, his voice, and so devastating his words.

"I told you it wasn't something I can explain."

He muttered something about d.a.m.nable pride and idiocy. "I see. And what will become of Liam?"