Now and Forever (65 page)

He left the house through the French doors and lingered in the backyard long enough to see her set the alarm then trigger it with the muzzle of the gun to alert the authorities. Swiftly he headed into the woods to make certain all was well with Dakota and the others.

Their trail was easy to follow, even in the darkness. He counted the sleeping forms, reassuring himself that each was accounted for, then looked toward Dakota who was awake and sitting by the dying fire. She brushed at her cheeks as he approached.

"It was Bryant, wasn't it?" Her voice was low.

"Aye," said Andrew, squatting down by the fire.

"Is he dead?"

"I regret to say he is not. I wished to accomplish that with my own hands but failed."

"Is Shannon all right?"

"To the eye, yes, but beneath the surface, I cannot tell. Something else troubles her."

"Bryant's return is more than enough."

"Nay," said Andrew, "'tis not that alone. She wishes to speak of it later and I--" He stopped and shook his head. He would not give voice to his fears. He had failed Shannon as he had failed Elspeth, as he had failed everything and everyone in his life. Regret lay bitter on his tongue.
 
Emilie had come to his time believing him a hero who saved General Washington, only to discover it was her own husband who did so.

And now, with Shannon, when he had wished to save her with his courage and gallantry, he had instead found himself with the barrel of a pistol shoved into his mouth - as trapped and useless a figure of a man as ever he had been.

He had believed this world of the future was where he would find riches and success beyond his wildest imaginings. In truth, he was but a babe in the woods, destined to rely upon Shannon's generosity for his daily bread.

You deserve better, lass,
he thought, staring into the dying fire.

She deserved the hero he could never be.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Shannon watched as the blinking lights of the last police car disappeared down the road that led to her house. The sound of the vehicle crunching along the gravel seemed very loud in the pre-dawn stillness.

It felt strange to be alone in the house again. She stepped in through the French doors and stood in the middle of the sun room. She'd always loved the sun room with its polished oak floor and the pale yellow chaise. Now she would never look at it again without seeing Bryant.

She wrapped her arms across her chest and took a deep, calming breath.

The fact that Bryant had found her surprised her less than the way it happened. He'd known her whereabouts for weeks now and it had nothing to do with the man she'd met in Lord & Taylor.

Bryant was more clever than that. He'd put people on her trail while he was still in prison and this midnight visit had been the climax of a carefully constructed plan. He'd checked in with his parole officer that morning then boarded a friend's private jet for the flight east. If his plan had gone as he'd believed it would, Bryant would have been asleep in his west coast bed when the authorities came looking for him.

And she and Andrew would be dead.

Prison didn't seem half good enough for him.

She walked slowly into the kitchen then bent down to right the chairs, feeling the sharp edges of pain in her knee and ribcage. But that pain was nothing compared to the deep longing she felt for the life she'd been denied. They couldn't stay here any longer. Bryant had seen to that. She had to move on, find a new home, build a new life, same as she had done before. Had any place ever felt like home? She couldn't remember. Not with her parents. Not with Bryant. This house had come close to being home but that special sense of belonging hadn't happened until the moment Andrew McVie walked into her life.

How ironic that the one man on earth who had made her believe in the future was the one man she could never have. She sat down at the table and rested her head on the cool surface. She was tired of fighting the inevitable. He didn't belong here. This world didn't deserve a man like Andrew McVie.

And maybe neither did she.

Tears sprang to her eyes and she didn't try to wipe them away. She had the right to cry. Damn it, she'd earned that right. And it wasn't because her entire life had been turned inside out tonight or because her head ached or her knee throbbed. It was because there was a sorrow inside her heart, in a place so deep she hadn't known it existed until Andrew.

She'd believed it could work, that somehow she could offer him something so wonderful, so lasting, so overwhelmingly
right
that he would never again want for the things his old life could provide. She couldn't pinpoint the change, couldn't put a name to the forces that were at work, but when he risked all to save her from Bryant's rage, she knew beyond doubt that he deserved much more than a life in the shadows.

"You are more than I deserve, lass."

Her entire body was galvanized by the sound of his voice. She lifted her head and saw him standing in the doorway.

He opened his arms wide.

The distance between them vanished and she went into his arms, glorying in the touch and smell and sight of him. He was everything good and strong and decent the world had to offer and in that instant she knew she loved him enough to let him go.

He sensed the change in her immediately. Her body stiffened and he felt as if a wall of glass had been placed between their souls.

"I am not the woman you think I am, Andrew."

He considered her carefully, his own soul aching at the sight of the bruises blossoming along the side of her delicate jaw. "Aye, lass. I know that your identity is not that with which you were born."

"That is not what I mean."

Despair hovered in the shadows but he refused to acknowledge it. "Then say it plainly, Shannon, for I have no wish to guess at the meaning of your words."

She pulled away from his embrace. "Come with me," she said. "There is something you need to know."

He followed her through the hallway and into the library. She pointed to the top shelf of one of the middle bookcase. "Behind
Plutarch's Lives,"
she said, her voice taut. "There's a book that I want you to have."

He reached up, pushed Plutarch aside, then removed a slim volume from the shelf.

"
Forgotten Heroes
," he said, reading the title on the spine. The irony was not lost on him.

"Page 127," said Shannon quietly.

"There is nothing for me in this book." He pushed it toward her.

"Page 127," she repeated.

He found the page in question. "'Tis half torn," he observed, scanning the paragraphs. "What value can this--" He stopped abruptly. Blood pounded in his ears like the roar of the ocean as the words seemed to leap up at him from the printed page.

In an act of courage unequalled at that time in the War for Independence, Boston lawyer-turned-spy Andrew McVie staged a daring raid on British troops near Jockey Hollow during the winter of 1779-1780 and singlehandedly saved two of the most important members of the Spy Ring from certain death--

"I lived," he said, dumbstruck. "I do not know how it is possible, but my life was lived out in my own time."

"I know," she whispered. "It's your destiny."

High color darkened his craggy face and he began to pace the room. "This cannot be. This is not what Emilie told me of my fate."

"Emilie was wrong."

"You cannot say that with certainty. That page was torn."

"Yes," she said sadly. "I can say it with certainty."

He ignored her. "Where did this bloody book come from?"

"The library."

"Dakota's library?"

"Yes."

"The woman does not hold me in esteem." He glared at the book as if it were a viper, coiled and ready to strike. "'Tis a joke of some kind, made to tear us apart. You should have burned it in the hearth."

"And what if I had? That wouldn't change anything, Andrew. Your fate is there in black and white."

"How did it come to be hidden on your library shelf?"

"I put it there."

"You kept it from me?"

"I didn't want to lose you." She met his eyes. "You gave me back my heart, Andrew. I'll never forget you--" Her voice broke and she could say no more.

"Do you think so little of me, lass, that you believe words in a book could make me turn from you? Magic brought me here and I see no magic awaiting to take me back." He reached for her hand and headed for the sunroom and the French doors. "I will prove it to you."

The sky was growing light as she followed him across the backyard and into the garage where the balloon rested.

"See this," he said, pulling the cover from the balloon and gondola. "The fabric turns to dust while the basket could no longer carry a child." He grabbed the lip of the gondola and began to drag it from the garage, not stopping until it rested in the middle of her curving driveway. "No magic fire, Shannon. No strange clouds come to carry me back. 'Tis a lie, that book, and nothing more."

"There is something more," she said.

"I do not wish to see it."

"You must."

He gripped her hands tightly in his. "Why is it you push me away, lass, when I have no wish to leave?"

"It is not up to either of us, Andrew. It was decided a long time ago."

"Aye, and this country is the proof of that. My existence played no part in her growth."

"What of the men you saved?"

He looked away. She saw a muscle in his jaw twitch. "They have no meaning to me when compared to all that I have found with you."

"Oh, Andrew," she whispered. "There is so much you don't know." She reached into the pocket of her robe and withdrew a folded sheaf of papers.

"Dakota again," he said with an impatient shake of his head. "I grow tired of the woman's nonsense."

She pushed the papers toward him. "I did my best to piece them together."

"There is no purpose to this, lass. It changes naught."

"The spies you saved--"

"I do not want to hear this."

"Andrew, listen to me! You saved Zane Rutledge and Josiah Blakelee."

"That cannot be."

She fanned the patched pages out and waved them beneath his nose. "Three separate sources and each says the same thing. You saved their lives, Andrew. The children we read about, the farms, the families they founded--none of it will happen unless you return."

"You are my destiny," he said to Shannon. "You are all that I want."

"You must go."

"There is nothing else in life beyond you."

"You would never be happy. You need so much more than that. You
deserve
so much more."

"No," he said, his voice fierce. "You are all that I need."

He kissed her with hunger that left her breathless.
 
"Andrew, look!" She pointed toward the sky. "Those clouds! I've seen them before."

He said nothing but made to kiss her again.

"Last week," she said in a voice of wonder. "When you landed in the woods."

"Aye," he said, "and twice since." He turned away from the balloon and he had no need to see the clouds.

"That's it, isn't it? That's how it happened."

"Still, it cannot be," Andrew said forcefully. "There was a magic fire propelling the balloon and that fire does not exist any longer."

"What if the fire appeared," she pressed, her aqua eyes alight with a dangerous glow. "What would you do?"

"I would turn away," he said, "for I have no wish to leave you--not in this life or any other."

She rose on tiptoe and peered over his shoulder. "Oh God! Andrew, look!"

"Nay," he said. "I will not."

"It's happening!"