Daring Time (39 page)

"I can imagine," Ryan said. "What happened then?" "I'd already determined before I returned that it would be best for those in my time period to believe that I'd died in the way you described to me from the records," Hope said. "How else to explain the fact that I'd returned only to disappear again a few days later once my father and I had made our plans?"

"Much easier for history to believe as it did," Jacob agreed. "I myself would know that she was alive ... that she was happy and where she'd chosen to be. Once I'd understood what that man— Jack Fletcher—had done to her, I vowed then and there that nothing would stop me in my aims to stop him and those like him from hurting other young women like my Hope."

Ryan's gaze flickered over to meet Hope's but he couldn't quite interpret her steady stare.

One thing was for certain, he was enormously relieved to hear that there had
never
been any time or any reality where Hope's body was found beaten and decomposing in the Chicago River.

"Didn't O'Rourke want you to identify the body?"

"Indeed, that was the purpose of his errand," Jacob said. "He was in the midst of explaining to me that although the body and face were sadly unrecognizable, there
was
one identifying feature to the corpse that might help us determine if it was my daughter or not."

"A gold tooth. Right here," Hope said pointing to her right incisor. "That's how I knew the body they found was Sadie. I remembered she had a gold tooth in that precise location."

"At the moment Mr. O'Rourke asked me if Hope had possessed a gold tooth, I was hardly listening to him. I was staring at what I thought was the ghost of my daughter standing fifteen feet behind Mr. O'Rourke. He hadn't noticed her ghostly presence. However, it quickly became very clear to me that I was seeing no specter, for Hope was acting very un-ghostly-like, frantically nodding her head and mouthing,
Yes, father. Say yes,
and pointing wildly at Mr. O'Rourke and then her tooth." Jacob chuckled at the memory.

Hope snorted wit;h laughter. Ryan looked down at her and smiled. Hope's laughter was like hearing sunshine.

"Mr. O'Rourke turned around because you had such a queer look on your face, Father. I barely had time to hide myself behind the sofa."

"That's when I knew for sure I was seeing no ghost. Spirits don't dive behind furniture in order not to be seen. So I was only too happy to mislead Mr. O'Rourke and tell him my daughter did, indeed, possess such a tooth. I think he thought grief had driven me mad when he saw that I couldn't repress a grin of delight upon being told of my daughter's heinous end."

All three of them joined in laughter. "But come, Mr. Daire. Pull up a chair," Jacob invited once his I mirth had quieted. "There are many things that I need to ask you in order to provide for Hope in the future. It's very fortunate that you're here, because there are so many details about the way things work in the year 2008 that we didn't know. Financial functioning, for instance—
"

"You seem to have figured things out admirably, Mr. Stillwater," Ryan said as he crossed the room and grabbed a chair.

"What do you mean, young man?"

Ryan set down his chair at the table and held out his hand to Hope. He seated her before he took his own place at the table.

"As strange as this whole situation is, I don't suppose it should come as too much of a shock to you that there's yet another surprise," Ryan said, looking first at Hope and then Jacob. He took a deep breath in preparation to explain what he'd learned this morning from his friend Alistair Franklin. "You see, it seems that I was given the Prairie Avenue mansion under your specific direction, Mr. Stillwater."

For a moment, Jacob just stared at him blankly. Then a smile began to curve his lips. "I had planned to provide for Hope through a trust that would pass into the guardianship of my descendants with each successive generation. Since I have no other children besides Hope, I designated the guardians for the trust to be the descendants of my sister, Mrs.

Margaret Tanser. Mr. Daire, do you by chance know a relative of mine who lives in your time period?"

Ryan looked over at Hope, who was watching him with open-mouthed incredulity.

"You never told me you knew my relative, Ryan," she exclaimed.

"Well, I didn't know he was your relative until this morning when he told me he was. The man who gifted me with the Prairie Avenue mansion is named Alistair Franklin. And yes, he is a direct descendant of your sister's family, Mr. Stillwater. You can imagine how amazed I was when he visited me this morning and showed me the document of your highly unusual last will and testament. You handled it all admirably. Hope is currently a very wealthy woman. A fortune is awaiting her in the First National Bank of Chicago. In addition to the wonders of compounded interest, it would seem your guardians have invested your inheritance very wisely, Hope."

"Excellent! Excellent, I'm so glad to hear of it," said Jacob with glee as he struck the table briskly.

"And of course this," Ryan glanced around the elegant ballroom, "is yours, Hope. Your father just directed for it to be given to me by the guardian living in my time period."

"I did? How brilliant on my part!"

Hope just stared at him fixedly, her dark pink lips parted in wonder.

"But it's
your
house, Ryan," she whispered.

He smiled and reached for her hand. Jacob Stillwater had arranged things so perfectly that the deep divide between Hope's and his culture had just narrowed to something Ryan would dare to leap in a second.

Because of Jacob's plans, Hope now was independent and could do what she pleased. He didn't have to feel guilty about the fact that he was forcing her to live with him. Hope believed herself to be a progressive thinker, and she was for her time period—no doubt about it. But no amount of education and insight could have prepared her enough to leap into living permanently with a man outside of marriage. Ryan would have offered to move back to his loft and give her use of the house, but he knew Hope well enough to know she wouldn't have abided him supporting her.

Sure, she could find work, but what were the chances that she'd make enough to continue to maintain the house? Ryan would have gifted it to her in a second, just as Alistair had gifted it to him. He doubted, however, that he'd be able to keep the truth from her about the enormous amount of money Ryan would have to take from the trust from his father in order to pay the taxes on the mansion.

Now Hope could maintain the dignity that she deserved, given her background and culture, while he could behave in the manner of any other guy from the twenty-first century that had fallen flat on his ass in love.

Maybe the difference between the two situations didn't look huge on paper. Hell, he doubted he'd be able to spend too many nights without her in his arms. But Ryan knew how important it was that neither of them be forced into behaving in a manner that clashed
too
drastically with their culture and backgrounds. Jacob Stillwater's arrangements had allowed that to happen. He already knew that Hope was the woman for him and that nothing was going to change that.

Still ... it would be nice to have things evolve in their own time.

He leaned forward and spoke to Hope quietly. "I only belong in the mansion if and when you want me there, honey. I have my own condo, you know."

A small smile tugged at her lush lips even though she still looked flabbergasted. "Ryan,"

she chastised with a smile. "Of course I want you there."

He suspected from the gleam in her midnight eyes and the brilliance of her smile that the advantages of the situation weren't lost on her, though.

"It's amazing, isn't it? All of it.. . it's just amazing," she murmured.

Ryan squeezed her hand tightly. It was amazing all right. In fact, there was one other awe-inspiring fact that he hadn't yet told her. He glanced over to an ebullient-looking Jacob Stillwater and back to Hope. But she'd find out the truth for herself when she was back in the year 2008. With him. Where she belonged.

THIRTY

Ryan stalked back and forth nervously in the entry hall clutching his cell phone in his hand. He'd told Hope to call him from the car on her way home from Alistair's. "Warren, Alistair's driver, had assured them she could use his phone on the drive back from Alistair's Morgan Park estate.

She hadn't quite mastered the cell phone yet, however. She either disconnected after shouting in his ear, "Ryan, are you there? Ryan, can you
hear
me?" or else remained connected for extended periods while she bemoaned the fact to Warren that the cell phone didn't seem to work for her, and Warren—jovial and infinitely patient as he was—saying at one point, "No, no, stop pushing down on that button," and Hope replying, "Well, you said to
press
it, Warren!"

So other than knowing that Hope was on her way home and that cell phone tutorials were high on his to-do list, he had no idea how things went between Hope and Alistair.

They'd returned to Ryan's time following a special evening spent with Jacob Stillwater.

Hope had played the piano and to Ryan's untrained ear, she'd done so with the skill of a concert pianist. Who knew how many talents and skills she possessed that he'd never considered?

Nice, though, to think of discovering each new treasure of Hope's personality and history one by one.

As it'd grown late Hope became more and more subdued, letting Jacob and Ryan hash out many of the details of his will and the transference of Hope's estate through history.

When Jacob finally said it was time for them to go, Ryan had told Hope he would wait for her in the hallway and left father and daughter to say their good-byes. A short while later Jacob had come out of the ballroom and softly closed the door. His eyes found Ryan's shadow in the dim hallway and he'd approached.

"You will take good care of my daughter," Jacob had declared instead of asked.

"I will."

Ryan needed no interpretation for Jacob Stillwater's searching, anxious stare.

Jacob nodded. "I sense the truth of this but it's still difficult for an old man to accept."

"What you said, sir ... about what caused the connection between Hope's time and my own: You were right. It was love. I don't know how. I don't know why. But it was," Ryan assured quietly.

A warm smile had spread over Jacob's face, even as his tall, thin body seemed to wilt slightly with his outgoing breath. "Hard to let her go. Very hard. But it must be so for all parents when their child leaves the roost."

"She'll be right here. She'll never be far from you."

Jacob had nodded. "Yes. I sense that's true. And I also sense she'll be happy there in your time. She always wanted a grand adventure. I'm envious of her, actually. It's quite a daring feat for her, but my daughter has never been short on courage or determination. Can be a bit headstrong at times, however."

Ryan had smiled. "I've noticed that about her."

After Jacob had departed, Ryan had found Hope standing alone in the ballroom, trying bravely to appear as though she hadn't been crying. They'd been able to return to the twenty-first century without incident merely by closing their eyes and imagining being there in the house together. It had been five o'clock in the morning when they'd returned.

Ryan was careful this time to check his cell phone date, and indeed, they'd lost not only several hours but also a day and night on top of it. He'd grimaced when he realized he had to get up for work in the morning.

One look at Hope's pale face and he'd insisted she get ready for bed. It'd been so hard on her to leave her father.

Hopefully this final piece of the puzzle would help her to feel more comfortable here in the year 2008, Ryan thought presently as he glanced out a window and saw a car pulling up to the curb.

He felt wired even though he'd only slept two or three hours before he'd gotten up and gone into work. While at the station, Ryan had learned from an irritated Ramiro that Jim Donahue was still at Cook County Hospital. Apparently the gunshot wound itself was fairly superficial but had triggered other complications.

"Apparently he's got unmanaged diabetes," Ramiro had explained with a scowl. "Makes it hard for him to heal. With our luck, the jerk'll finagle his way into staying forever in the hospital and never see the interior of a jail cell."

"You know," Ryan had said slowly, "you might be a hundred percent right about that."

"What do you mean?"

Ryan had just shaken his head, but he'd been thinking about Diamond Jack Fletcher. He'd also weakened after a gunshot wound that
shouldn't have
been mortal, but inevitably had been. It was possible Jim Donahue would suffer a parallel fate.

Ryan couldn't say he was sorry.

He waved at Warren from the open doorway. The driver returned the wave before he opened the sedan and Hope's dark brown boots appeared from the backseat. One of the many fascinating paradoxes about Hope was that she had no compunction about displaying her gorgeous breasts in low-cut gowns, but the idea of showing her bare legs in public absolutely scandalized her. Eve's gift of a pair of boots and several calf-length skirts quieted Hope's concerns, but Ryan still thought she might have felt more comfortable in the sexy rose-colored gown than she did wearing a "short" skirt.

He couldn't read her expression from a distance but as she neared the limestone front steps Ryan saw the exultant, blazing look in her dark eyes. She flew up the stairs and into his arms. He lifted her instinctively, laughing when she dropped several enthusiastic kisses along his neck, jaw and cheeks.

"What did I do to deserve this?" he asked.

"You're just you." Her eyes radiated joy when he set her back down on the ground. "I'm so happy, Ryan. He's so wonderful. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me that my father's spirit exists here in this time in the body of Alistair Franklin?"

"I wanted you to be the one to decide if that were the case or not, honey. I suspected it was true, but only someone who loves him as much as you do could ever be really sure."