To live, and act, and serve
the future hour.
—William Wordsworth
LIAM O'SHEA WAS considerably more solid than the neighborhood bully Mac had supposedly trounced as a child. An explosion of pain shot through her knuckles, she cursed with feeling, and Liam staggered back with a few choice curses of his own.
She shook her throbbing hand and backed away.
"You little hellion!" he rasped. She had a second's satisfaction at his disbelief before he grabbed for her, and then she was concentrating on keeping out of his reach.
Not that it was easy to concentrate on the bizarre little dance they did there on the lakeshore, pursuer and pursued. Liam looked ready to turn her over his knee for real this time. And her lips were humming with the remembered pressure of his, the thrust of his tongue, the wholly overwhelming sensation of being in his arms and feeling the rampant evidence of his desire. However completely astonishing, unbelievable, and outrageous the entire thing was.
"What's the matter, Iggy?" she taunted.
He froze, skin flushed under its tan. "Don't call me that!"
"Can't handle a woman fighting back?"
She darted under his outstretched arm. She'd been angry with him before, but—Damn, but this was almost… fun. Her mind tripped on the word. Fun, trading insults with this arrogant jerk who thought he owned the world?
But it seemed as though her newborn twin, the reckless adventurer Mac Sinclair, had possessed her body completely. A body that was keenly aware of Liam's, so ominously close and patently dangerous. A body that had more curves and softness than she'd ever remembered, as wild as a wood nymph and as fearless.
"I can take whatever you dish out," she taunted. "Tell me, how exactly did you get that middle name?"
He choked—she couldn't think of another definition for the sound he made—and lunged toward her. This time she wasn't quite fast enough. His fingers were like clamps as they closed around her arms.
"You think it's funny, you little minx? You think you're a match for me?"
Her heart was hammering. He was close—oh, so close, his scowling mouth a finger's breadth from her own. She fluttered her lashes. "Oh, you're so big and strong. I wouldn't dream of considering myself your equal."
He was startled into laughter. "I could make you say that in earnest."
There was something about his intensity that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. "We have a name for men like you in the future," she said. "It isn't very nice."
Abruptly he released her and stepped back, the anger gone from his eyes. "And do they have a name for a woman like you?"
"Probably not what you're thinking, O'Shea."
"And what am I thinking?"
"Something insulting, I'm sure."
He turned away. "You're wrong. Unless you know I'm thinking about Peregrine Sinclair and how you happened to turn up the day after he abandoned me in the jungle."
"What?"
The motions of his body were tight and hard, but he made no move toward her. "Did he hire you, Mac? Did he send you to delay me, or to drive me out of my mind?"
A whole array of unconnected facts clicked together in Mac's mind. Good grief. He didn't really think—how could he—how paranoid could anyone—But she had the photograph. She admitted knowing who Perry was. He didn't accept her time-travel story, didn't trust her, had provoked her again and again in ways that hadn't made sense until…
She didn't laugh. "You think—you think that I, that Perry left you here and I had something to do with it?"
"Did you?" he asked.
Good grief. She didn't even know the source of the quarrel between Great-great-grandfather Perry and Liam O'Shea. And now Liam thought she might be involved in what could turn out to be something far more fatal than mere abandonment. Suddenly she was glad that she'd omitted to provide him with her last name.
"Damn you," he said softly while she floundered for words. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and the harsh twist of his own lips relaxed. "I ought to—"
A crack of violent sound slammed through the heavy air, echoing like thunder. Mac flinched, and Liam hurled himself toward her, knocking her to the ground and rolling with her to shield her body.
When they came to a stop he released her immediately but continued to crouch over her, scanning the jungle.
"What was that?" she said, catching the breath knocked from her lungs.
He uttered an expletive that almost made her blush. "Gunfire. Guerrillas. I told you there's unrest all through this country."
"Who's fighting whom?"
He was completely focused on the jungle, wary and absorbed. "Get back to camp."
"But if—"
"Go!" he shouted, rounding on her. "Get the hell back and stay there!"
"Where are you going?"
"To find out how likely we are to be caught in the middle." He grabbed her arm and began to drag her. "Get going."
"My boots!" She pulled free, snatched up her boots, and jammed her muddy, sockless feet into them. "I really don't think you should do whatever you're going to do."
He flashed her a wholly unexpected grin. "I don't need any mothering, Mac."
Before she could argue further, he started down the path at a run. Mac knotted her bootlaces with frantic fingers and pursued him at a jog, her mind circling one thought.
Was Liam O'Shea about to die? Maybe this was how it happened, Liam caught in the middle of a skirmish between warring Guatemalan factions… a stray bullet… He could have dragged himself, dying, into the ruins where she'd found his bones…
She couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand to lose him like this, no matter what the consequences of changing the course of history.
She redoubled her pace, keeping the top of Liam's fair head just barely in view. Leaves and vines caught at her arms as if to hold her back.
But her body had taken over completely, propelling her past the camp and beyond, on Liam's heels, along a trail that was barely wide enough for a deer. When Liam subsided into a cautious stalk, she did the same, keeping a layer of foliage between them.
Voices. Raised voices—a shout in Spanish. Ahead of her, at the edge of an opening in the undergrowth, Liam ducked behind a massive tree trunk and went very still. Not completely suicidal, thank God. She grabbed onto a sapling, knees not quite steady. Just don't do anything, O'Shea. Be sensible…
He chose that moment to stand. Mac caught a glimpse of figures in the clearing beyond, the glint of light on metal. Guns. Liam started forward, plainly bent on revealing himself. Mac dove through the vegetation and made a grab for his shirt.
"Don't be an idiot!" she whispered.
He gave her an incredulous glance and pushed her, none too gently, down to the muddy earth. "You little fool—"
But they weren't given time to trade further epithets. Someone shouted a challenge. Footfalls sloshed over soggy ground. Liam pulled his pistol just as a gunshot cracked and a bullet spat through the leaves overhead. He snatched a handful of Mac's shirt collar with his free hand and deposited her bodily behind him.
"Amigos!" he called out. "Soy Liam O'Shea—"
The muzzle of an ugly-looking rifle pushed into view, followed by a man whose face was half covered by a filthy bandanna. He barked a terse question, which Liam answered in even Spanish. The man hesitated, nodded, and called over his shoulder to unseen companions.
"It's all right," Liam said. "They're not concerned with us, but stay down."
Thank God. She started to get up; simultaneously a second and third gunshot sounded, so close that Mac was nearly deafened by them. The stranger swung around and darted away. Someone cried out. Liam stood with legs set wide apart, pistol raised, as if he believed himself completely immune to flying bullets.
Mac didn't know what made her move then, what hunch bypassed her rational mind. She flung out her arms, wrapped them around Liam's booted leg, and yanked with all her strength. He toppled like a felled tree, twisting wildly for b
alance, and hit the ground hard. The portion of the tree trunk directly behind where his chest had been exploded in a shower of bark.
Mac dropped beside him. He wasn't moving. An inconvenient rock had been right in the path of his skull, and blood trickled from his hairline.
"Liam!" He didn't respond. She pushed, heaved, and rolled his unresisting body beneath the broad leaves of a fern and crouched over him, waiting, sick with dread.
There was a crashing in the foliage beyond her sight, and staccato shouts, gradually receding; another gunshot, this one much farther away. The men and whoever they were fighting had taken their battle elsewhere.
She bent to Liam's still face, cradling it between her hands. His blood still beat steadily under his jaw—he couldn't be too badly injured. Unless he'd hit his head hard enough to suffer a concussion.
She pulled her shirttail from the waistband of her pants and used her teeth to tear a strip from it, pressing it against the cut on Liam's scalp and securing it in place with another strip.
"Wake up, O'Shea!" She slapped his taut cheek lightly—the same side of his face she'd slugged before. "Come on. You think I'm going to let you do this?"
He made a sound that might have been a groan.
"That's right. You going to go down without a fight, Lucky Liam? You worked your way up out of poverty and got rich just to die in some sticky jungle? Huh?"
His lids twitched. His left hand flexed almost imperceptibly. She reached for it and laced her fingers through his, squeezing hard. "You're the most arrogant son of a bitch I've ever met, but I took a hell of a risk to save your life. You owe me, O'Shea, and I'm going to collect, one way or another."
"Señorita?"
She looked up, expecting a guerrilla or a rifle aimed at her heart. But it was Fernando, his expression anxious and his attention fixed on Liam.
"Thank God you're here, Fernando. He's been injured. Uh, el tiene—We need to get him back to camp. Campo. Can you help me?" She pantomimed lifting Liam. "Ayudeme?"
Fernando crouched beside her, touching the blood on Liam's forehead. "Vamos, señorita."
Even without a common language they understood each other. Mac positioned herself at Liam's feet to help lift him and caught a glimpse of sunlight on metal, dancing at the corner of her gaze.
Not a rifle. Not a weapon at all, but something silvery bright against the foliage, caught on a branch by a metal chain. She reached out and snagged the chain, lifting it free.
A watch. An engraved watch, finely made and definitely of Western origin. But she had no time to examine it. She stuffed it in her pants pocket and took up her place at Liam's feet again. As one, she and Fernando bent to lift him. The jungle had fallen mute again save for the occasional call of a bird or monkey. Mac hoped she'd been right about the guerrillas being gone for good.
With grunts and pants she and Fernando maneuvered Liam's considerable weight along the narrow trail. It felt like far more than a few hundred yards to camp, and Mac was soaking wet by the time they reached the tent. Fernando propped Liam awkwardly while Mac opened the tent flap. Another major effort got him onto the cot.
Mac's reward was to see Liam stirring at last, lifting his hand toward his head. He groaned again. Mac caught his hand to keep it away from the hastily bandaged cut. "Fernando, do you have, uh—medicine? Medicina?"
Fernando nodded and turned toward the pile of supplies in the corner of the tent. He came back with a length of soft cloth and a dark bottle and some kind of primitive atomizer. "Agua," he said, left the tent, and returned with a battered pan of water. It wasn't hot, but it was better than nothing.
The contents of the bottle had a very strong odor, and not one that Mac recognized. A little plastic bottle of Bactine would have come in very handy about now.
But Fernando, at least, knew what he was doing. He used a tin cup to pour out a measure of water and mixed it with a little of the contents of the bottle, then filled the atomizer. He gestured to Liam and made motions of unwrapping.
Mac followed his pantomimed instructions and removed the makeshift bandage. The bleeding had stopped. Fernando sprayed the cut and dabbed it with a piece of cloth. Some kind of antiseptic, she guessed; not something that would have been in common use in the 1800s, but damned helpful now. The cut didn't appear deep enough to need stitches, though Liam was going to have a nice goose egg in a few hours.
Liam grunted and twitched as Mac tore more cloth strips and completed bathing the wound. She made better work of the bandage the next time around.
"There," she said, grinning at Fernando. "Finished."
He nodded. "Bien hecho." He studied Liam, laying his hand on his chest. "Estará bien, solo tiene que decansar."
Mac ran the Spanish words through her mind until she thought she had the gist of them. Liam did need rest. "Someone should watch him. I mean—if he's got a concussion—"
"I'm fine."
Liam was glaring at her, steely gaze perfectly clear. Mac suppressed an urge to do a little jig of relief.
"I see the blow didn't improve your disposition," she said.
"My—" He lifted his head, winced, and subsided back to the pillow. "I told you to stay in camp. You could have been hurt!"
Mac tried to ignore the brief warmth curling around her heart at his real, if angry, concern. "I don't remember agreeing to take your orders. You just about got yourself killed—"
"I don't need a woman's protection—"
"—and if you had gotten killed, exactly what would I nave done out here alone?"
"Are you saying you actually need me, Mac?"
Okay. Swallow your pride if it'll make him feel better. "I admit it. At least until I find a way back through the tunnel."
"Oh, yes. Back to the future." He made a sharp movement and froze, the breath hissing through his teeth. "I had everything under control until you came along to distract me."
She bent over him, arms folded. "It's just possible, Lucky Liam, that your luck was about to run out."
"And you improved it? I think it ran out when I met you." Once again he tried to wedge himself up on his elbows; this time he could barely suppress a groan. His face drained of color.
Mac forgot her annoyance. "What's wrong? Are you wounded somewhere else? Is your head—"
"My head's fine," he snapped. "It's my bloody back and shoulder."
She remembered how he'd twisted so awkwardly when she'd pulled him down, in such a way that he'd probably wrenched more than a few ligaments and muscles. Having done the same thing while lifting moving boxes less than six months ago, Mac knew how painful such ostensibly minor injuries could be. Had she even managed to screw up saving his life?
"I guess you'll have to rest, then," she said. "Give the muscles a chance to heal."
"And who's going to run things in camp? You?"
"Fernando seems more than competent."
Liam turned his head with utmost caution and spat a rapid string of words at Fernando. The Maya glanced at Mac and smiled knowingly.
Liam grunted. "I'll be damned if I'm going to lie here like an invalid." He clenched his jaw and heaved himself from the bed in one jerky motion.
He lasted about ten seconds before he sat back on the cot, grimacing in pain. Mac pushed him down the rest of the way with a well-placed hand on his chest. His heart pounded under her palm.
"Now do you get it?" she said. "I know. I've been there. You might as well accept that you're going to be here for a while."
"To hell with that. I have to get to Champerico."
Mac was suddenly exhausted. She felt behind her for the folding camp chair and sat down. "If you're in this much pain, you're not going to make it far in the jungle. You are talking about a pretty rough trip, aren't you?"
"Very rough. No roads, endless walking, steep muddy trails, obstinate mules, scant food, no amenities, insects by the thousands…"
"And you're going alone."
"I'll have Fernando." All at once he seemed to dismiss her completely, tu
rning gingerly to his muleteer. He gave a sharp command in Spanish. Fernando pursed his lips and shrugged.
"What did you ask him?" she demanded of Liam.
"Do me a favor, Mac, and leave me in peace." He closed his eyes. "Hagalo, Fernando."
Fernando touched Mac's arm. His meaning was clear. Mac let herself be steered as far as the tent flap and dug in her feet.
"You know there's… something I might be able to give you for the pain," she offered.
"I said I don't need your help."
She almost left him to his own devices. It was tempting. But for all his high-handed behavior, he didn't deserve to suffer like this. She marched from the tent and went for her backpack, still under the palmetto shelter.
The bottle of muscle relaxant was still at the very bottom of the pack, though her need for the medication had long passed. For once she had reason to be glad of her pack-rat tendencies—inherited from Homer, no doubt.
She nodded in satisfaction and went back to the tent, tossing the plastic bottle in her hand. She waved reassuringly at Fernando, who waited outside the tent, and went inside.
"This should do the trick," she told Liam.
He opened one eye and then the other, looking none too welcoming. She pulled the chair up beside the bed and dropped two pills into the palm of her hand. Not too much, in case he'd really gotten some sort of minor concussion. "Take these, and you're not going to feel much pain for a while, at least."
"What are they?"
"Medication. Muscle relaxants."
"From… the future?"
She ignored his barb. "Yes."
"And why should I trust you?"
"You think I plan to drug you or something? That maybe I have evil designs on your body?"
"It depends on what evil designs you mean."
"You're a very sick man, O'Shea. You'd better take these pills."
He hesitated, but only for a moment. And as he took the pills—dry, she noted—he held her gaze without blinking. A challenge and a question. She didn't even know the answers herself.
She rose and pushed the chair back against the desk. "Maybe I can give Fernando a hand. He and I do pretty well, together, all things considered."
TWICE A HERO Page 11