His stern expression faltered and Ramsey waited, waited for her to come to him, feeling his future with her about to crumble into dust. He gazed deeply into her green eyes, praying she saw the love he wore like a part of his skin.
Penelope swallowed thickly, her breath filling her lungs. "I was a drug addict," came in a rush and his brows lifted a fraction. "Cocaine." She edged away from the tree, turning her gaze to the horizon, offering him her profile. "I'd run away from Margaret. We'd had a huge fight and I was too stubborn to admit I was wrong." "That does not surprise me."
Her lips curved for a brief instant. "I lived on the streets, always avoiding the cops, because if they picked me up they might arrest Margaret. Her custody of me, well, wasn't legal." Memories rushed and she sank to her knees in the sand. "I stayed away so long, I couldn't go back. Too proud, too determined to do every damn thing alone."
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She picked up a twig, digging in the sand. "God, you wouldn't believe the places and things I've seen; people so drunk they slept in their own vomit, addicts shooting heroine straight into their veins, kids younger than I was turning tricks in alleyways," she cast him a side glance as he lowered to the ground, "boys and girls. I learned to pick pockets, shoplift, just about anything to get what I needed, food, money, drugs. Christ, I even rolled my friends to get money for my habit." She shook her head, damp hair shifting over her shoulders and she felt choked with shame, her words coming from a dark hollow place in her chest. "I posed naked for a photographer, Ramsey." He made no comment and she swallowed, afraid to look at him, but forcing herself to meet his dark gaze. His expression was unreadable. "I did it for money." She had to make him understand. ' 'For more goddamn drugs!''
She gasped for air, misery weighing her voice and knew she might be destroying the only happiness she'd ever had. "After the first click of that shutter, I knew I'd sunk as low as it got. Later, I stole the film and split," she said on a tired sigh.
Ramsey treaded carefully, aware of how fragile she was, unwrapping her faults and failures for him. She took the drugs to escape her loneliness, he thought, admiring her for walking away from the temptation, for he'd experimented with opium, knew the blissful oblivion it brought.
"Christ, Ramsey." She jabbed at the sand, not looking at him. "Will you say something!"
Her hidden tears clawed his heart as he pried the twig from her tight fingers, gently caressing one hand. She risked her heart for him, for them, and he would not fail her. " 'Twas when you met Antony, aye?"
She nodded sullenly, sniffling behind a curtain of hair. "A few months later. He was more of a savior than he realizes. I tried so hard to clean up." She thumped her thigh with her fist, clinging to him with the other. "I had a second chance and didn't want anyone to know what a waste of human life I'd been, a no guts lowlife who'd hurt the people around her for another ten minute high."
Sweet mercy, Ram thought, she could not have been more
then five and ten at the time. " 'Tis not as damaging as you might believe. Remind me to tell you of my occasions as a slave and all 1 did to survive."
She shifted toward him, her face a mask of regret and shame as she lifted her gaze. "I know that must have been hard, but don't you see? I lost control, of my life, my values, of my body—everything! / lost it." She poked her chest. "No one took it from me.- Good God, Ramsey, it wasn't bad enough that I did it, but there's proof!"
"Children are given to faults in order to learn," he repeated his words from the day afore.
She scoffed. "I stopped being a child the first time I snorted a line of coke." She held his gaze, needing him to know everything. "Those negatives and photos were the bait in the packet Tess stole." His look said he'd already come to that conclusion. "It gets worse."
His gaze sharpened.
She licked her dry lips.' 'I received a copy in the mail today." He scowled, annoyed she hadn't told him. "Whoever sent it said they'd give it to the newspapers if I didn't give up the stones."
Ramsey silently fumed, not wanting his woman exposed for the world to see, but 'twas a matter they'd deal with then.
"You do not impress me as a woman who'd hide for the sake of what others will think."
"Well, I did. For a long time my career was all I had. I didn't want to be famous, but acting came easy. I never imagined I'd get so much attention and it terrified me. They hounded me, made up stories, but I found that money made it easy to control my surroundings." Her lip quivered. "It's all so pointless, not when it can hurt you." She searched his eyes, soft amber-brown and gentle and prayed she wasn't imagining the emotion she saw there. "Oh Ramsey, I've made such a mess of things and I don't know how to fix it."
"Aw, love." He reached, tenderly cupping her jaw, sliding his fingers into her hair. " 'Tis all but one thing you can do." His thumb swiped the tear moving down her cheek. ' 'Tell your tale afore she can."
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She looked horrified at the idea and on his knees afore her, he held her shoulders, staring deeply into her eyes.
"Nay, do not speak and listen to me. Let them hear it from your lips, in your words. None have died from embarrassment, love." He gathered her in his arms. "Take the power away from her and you've lost naught."
A moment stretched. She swallowed. "It could get ugly." She gripped his biceps. "Will I lose you?"
Her heart lay afore him, bare and bleeding, waiting to be gathered into his tender care. And he shook his head. "Never. I have defied logic and reason and the laws of science to be with you." He smoothed the hair from her face. "Can you not feel we share the beat of one heart? Your pain is mine. Your breath, I breathe." His voice lowered. "Your passion is my blood.''
"Ramsey," she whispered, searching his handsome face, tears welling in her eyes.
"Open your heart and take, Penelope, for naught can come atween us. We are destined." She whimpered, biting her lip, and he closed his arms tightly about her, driving his hand up her spine.to cradle her head. "I have traveled two hundred years through time for you. To find you." The conviction in his voice made her insides shift, hope blossom, spread. And he took a breath. "I love you," he said fiercely. "I love you so much I will perish without you." .
A sob worked in her throat and she wet her lips. "Well, we can't have that."
He trembled. This big imposing man suddenly trembled like a frightened child.
"Do not speak the words," he warned softly, licking his lips. "If they are not in your heart."
"But they always were." She laid a hand to his chest, feeling the wild pump of his heart. "I've nothing to hide behind. You've stripped me bare." A breath and in a feathery voice, she said, "I love you, Ramsey O'Keefe." A ragged breath shuddered through his lungs and she realized he was as scared and unsure as she. "I love you."
TIMESWEPT ROGUE
He smiled, heart stopping and joyous, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "Again." He sprinkled kisses over her face.
"I love you."
He kissed her deeply, thoroughly, sinking to the ground and taking her with him.
"You love me," he marveled, pressing her into the sand.
"Yes, I really do."
Ramsey laughed, a delicious rumble of thunder as he smothered her with his love and Penny hungered for more, for the incredible freedom it gave her.
And the horse nickered, turning his big head and casting the lovers a mild glance as they rolled over each other on the pink sand.
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Chapter 33
' 'Where have you two been?'' Hank demanded like an angry father when Penelope stepped through the door, Ramsey behind her,
"Why? Is Margaret all right?"
"I'm fine," Margaret said, coming up behind him. "He's just being overprotective."
Hank looked them over, noticing the relaxed set of her shoulders, the way she held Ramsey's hand. And the h
ay in their hair.
"Lose your shoes?"
Penny looked down at her feet as if just noticing, then glanced at Ramsey. He simply smiled like a satisfied lion at his newly-won lioness.
He'll be hell to live with now, Penelope thought happily.
"And how'd you get all sandy?"
"Geez, Hank, leave 'em be," Margaret said, nudging him aside and moving to stand before Penelope. Margaret plucked a blade of straw from the girl's tangled hair and Penny blushed. "Get." She inclined her head toward the staircase.
Penny dropped a kiss to her plump cheek. "You should be resting," she said softly.
"If I laze around anymore I'll go nuts."
Penny slipped past, and Ramsey tried to follow but Margaret blocked his path.
"You aren't taken another step in this house with those boots, Ramsey O'Keefe. Shuck 'em," Margaret said and he did. She handed them over to Hank with a sour face and before she could say anything, Ramsey sprinted up the stairs.
"Mayhaps I'll keep these," Ram said from her doorway and she looked up from her position on the edge of the bed, smiling widely. Til her gaze dropped to the article dangling from his fingertip. It was her panties, black and stringy.
Her skin fused cherry red. "A trophy of the day?"
He stuffed the delicate scrap in his pocket, advancing, kicking the door shut, then pushing her down on the bed and covering her slim body with his own.
"Tell me again. Tell me."
"I love you."
"Why?"
"Because you're just so damn ugly."
He grinned. "Tell me again."
"Because you have to have the biggest feet I've ever seen on a man."
He chuckled, then kissed her thickly, hotly. "Again."
"I love you because you have an appetite—for food," she amended quickly, "that rivals the entire NHL hockey league and 'cause you don't know what that means."
He buried his face in the flesh of her throat. "But I'm sure you'll enlighten me."
"Of course," came breathlessly. "I love you . .. because . . ." She looked to the ceiling, thinking, and he dug his fingers into her ribs. She squealed and arched, then settled warmly against him. "Because you're strong and gentle and patient and forgiving and gallant." Her voice softened with each word, her fingertips brushing adoringly over his cheek, his lips. "I love you, Ramsey O'Keefe, because you see beyond everything and you never give up."
"Never, my love." His hand slid up her bare thigh, beneath
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the skirt and she pushed into his touch. "You've sand all over you."
"Not everywhere."
He blinked. She arched a tapered brow, daring.
A moment later, he discovered she was right.
Tess's journals spread across the kitchen table afore him, Ramsey peered over the one he was reading, watching Penelope forage in the cupboards.
"Oh good," she said, removing one tall slim box after another and setting them on the counter. She studied her selections and Ramsey set aside the journal, tilting his head to read the brightly-printed words as he stood and came to her.
"It's cereal, normally for breakfast."
"That shouldn't matter to you," he commented dryly. Loving always seemed to give her the ferocious appetite to rival the teams of ice skaters.
"Here's one you'd like." She smirked a smile, setting a box before him. "Captain Crunch."
He chuckled, working open the package.
' 'With crunch berries,'' she added with zeal as he popped a handful into his mouth.
"Dewishous," he mumbled around the food and she shook some into a bowl and poured on the milk, shoving a spoon into the cereal before handing it to him. "Go, sit, eat."
"Aye-aye, Capt'n." He saluted her with the spoon and he took his seat, enjoying the crunchy cereal as she prepared herself a bowl of Lucky Charms
"I've a likin' for the wee marshmallows,' she said with an Irish accent that was intolerable, then joined him at the table. They crunched and munched, each taking up a journal, reading and relaying a passage aloud. "Listen to this," she said and read. "I can't seem to have anything but boys, little black haired ruffians with a penchant for trouble." She looked up, frowning. "Now does that sound like Tess?"
"Nay," he said, finishing off the cereal and pushing the bowl aside. "But she has been in my century long though."
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He checked the date; eight years. "Mayhaps she's merely adapting."
She had to agree. "I hope you don't lose it, the way you talk, T mean." She tilted her head. "I can't imagine you walking around saying totally awesome dude, with any ease."
"I sham think so." He looked appalled at the idea and Penny grinned, returning her attention to the books.
She shitted uncomfortably, then stretched out her legs and he hoisted them onto his lap, rubbing her soles as he read a disturbing passage.
/ know this will seem bizarre to you, Penn, but I am happy for you, for today I discovered you lost your heart to the biggest chauvinist on the face of the earth.
He closed the book, confused, casting it off as a secret atween the two women, then picked up another journal.
"I don't think Tess would have used the diamonds," she said into the silence and he looked up. "You know, for money, I know her. If they weren't hers, she wouldn't have turned them into cash. And they can't be legit if Phalon hasn't had me arrested, yet." "He has no proof."
"How 'bout the stone you had appraised?" she countered, and he realized his mistake again. "Diamonds can be traced, Ramsey, like fingerprints." He leaned forward, interested. "They have flaws and dark spots that mark their quality and even if they are cut again, they can be identified. They're graded in their value, by the carat. Colored diamonds, blue, yellow, even pinks are rare. Pinks are especially valuable and the deeper the color, the rarer it is."
"The stone she left me is as red as your blushes." Only he would make a comparison like that, she thought, her heart catching. "Except that if we don't know where they came from in the first place, I think it will be like fishing in a pond to find out. We have nothing to start from." "If that is the case. Mayhaps Noal can discover—" "No," she cut in sharply and he frowned. "I don't trust him that much."
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"I'd assumed you knew the man." There was hitch in his voice he hated.
"I did, a few years ago, but—" She chewed her lip.
"What troubles you?"
She faid the journal on her lap. "If he's so good at his job how did those guys get close enough to whack Margaret and get to me?"
"You left the estate without permission," he reminded with a scowl, "and Meggie was not guarded. *Twas my fault in not realizing anyone could have been a target." She conceded the point, contrite over her part. "Why do you not trust him?"
"He knows too much. He investigated my past for me. Tried to find out where I came from." A dull red crept up his neck and she sat back. "You had him do it, too," she accused.
"I saw that the dreams caused you such pain, love, and only tried to seek the source."
She stared at him, wondering why she wasn't as upset as she ought to be, then realized that Ramsey would never do anything to deliberately hurt her, or hurt anyone.
"Well, eyen a hypnotist couldn't help me. It doesn't really matter anymore." Her shoulders lifted and fell negligently. "I'm satisfied with my only link." She held up the locket and he examined it closely. "I didn't know my name, so I took it from this." He squinted, trying to see past the teeth marks. "P. H." she told him.
"Nay, love." His gaze shifted to hers. "The second letter, 'tis either an r or a b."
She blinked, her features gone slack and she gaped at the locket. "You really think so?"
"Aye." He rubbed the ink from a pen Scross his thumb, then squeezed the locket afore stamping his thumb on a pad of paper laying on the table atween them. Penny
hovered over the paper, noting the slight curve in the engraving, then looked up, her face a portrait of disappointment.
4 'Gee. I'm not even a real fabrication,'' she whispered unhappily, comparing the dented locket to print. "Margaret will be surprised.''
Ramsey tipped her chin, gazing into her eyes and wishing he could give her the heritage she so desperately wanted.
"I love Penelope Hamilton, and I'll fight to the death any soul who says otherwise."
The corners of her eyes crinkled, tears brimming. * 'I just bet
you would."
She squeezed his hand, sniffled, then as if dismissing the incident, picked up the journal and continued to read. But Ramsey wasn't fooled. She was as he'd been when he first arrived, without connection, except she'd lived with it all her life. Her loneliness was not so much her own making, for 'twas in the wounding dreams she rediscovered her abandoning pain. And it pushed her into privacy, protecting herself from being hurt. The shadows of the night are the paths to our own hell, he thought and his heart wrenched for the child she was, for the woman he'd first met and the one he knew now. She was changing. He could see it, every moment he spent with her and he was arrogant enough to feel 'twas his love that gave her this glorious radiance. But he knew, 'twas just her time.
"Ramsey, look." He did and she showed him where the journal was coming apart at the back. "Oh, this is awful." He leaned close, prying up the edge, studying the binding. He picked up another, examining it closely, then handled hers
again.
" 'Tis thicker, this side," he said and pressed the leaf page. It felt spongy, a crackle deepening his frown. He pried the edge further. " 'Tis false." He tugged and the leaf gave easily, only the comers tacked and Penny gasped as he slipped a piece of heavy paper from the back of the journal.
"Why would she do a thing like that? I would have never noticed it. It was one of the last ones, Ramsey." She might never have gathered the nerve to open the book if he weren't with her. Ramsey unfolded the parchment slowly and she leaned closer. "God, I can't even read that."
" 'Tis the words of my time. See the way the spelling is different and some letters are reversed. 'Twas a difficult feat for me, learning to read in this century."
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