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"What is it, Killian?"
He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. He could only stare at her in horror. "It's real, isn't it? Every crazy thing you've said. You really are from the future and you have a daughter waiting for you at home."
She nodded. "It's true."
He sagged forward, buried his face in his hands. "Oh, Jesus ..."
She touched his back. "Killian?" He wrenched away from her and stumbled forward blindly. It's true. It's true. The damning words circled through his mind and stabbed his heart with every breath. He'd finally found the woman of his dreams and she was only that ... a dream. She was here for a moment, a second?just long enough to wrench his heart out of his chest and slice it in half?and then she was going away.
Leaving him. He squeezed his eyes shut, remembering in a horrifying flash what his life had been for the last fifteen years. And how goddamn different it had been since Lainie stumbled into it. She'd brought a light with her, made him examine the ugliness of his soul and try to change it. But he'd changed for her, damn it, for her. And now she expected him to go back to his old life without her.
He couldn't imagine how much that would hurt. Yes, he could, he realized dully. He knew exactly how much it would hurt. He'd done it before .. . when Emily died.
He glanced back at her, saw her still sitting by the fire, her face streaked with tears, her mouth trembling and sad.
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The image of her burned through him, lodged in his soul. He would never forget this moment as long as he lived. It would be one of those memories of which she spoke, o
ne of the anchors that would mire him forever in the love he'd found too late.
Desperately he spun around, looked east.
Somewhere, not more than thirty miles away, the rock that lightning struck thrust up from the desert floor. The twisting, ragged red stone wall that would take her away from him.
Could he do it? he wondered suddenly. Should he do it?
The answer came to him on the sly voice of the wind, filling him with a wild, unreasonable hope. All he had to do was miss the Rock, or get them there too late on Sunday. Anything ...
She materialized beside him. Through a haze, he saw her hand, pale and small, against the worn blue of his shirt. Her touch was everything he'd dreamed of all his life, gentle and loving and soft.
"We should get going," she said quietly, looking up at him. "We have a long ride ahead of us."
He answered distractedly. "Yeah, sure."
"Do you mind if I ride in front today? I ... I want to feel your arms around me."
"Sure," he said, touching her chin, seeing the telltale silver tracing of her tears. He knew in that instant what he would do. There was only one thing he could do, and he didn't care if it damned his soul to hell. He wasn't meant to be a hero. "I'll hold you all day. And I won't let you go."
Lainie stared out at the desert, barely seeing anything beyond the hairy, curved tips of the horse's ears. Beyond, the world was a smear of gold and brown and
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red, floating beneath a cloudless blue sky. Hot sunlight burned her face, made the heavy sweater feel damp and scratchy against her skin. She was so tired that she imagined a small, welcoming cabin in the midst of the nothingness before them.
She closed her eyes and leaned back, letting Killian's embrace soothe her. But there was no comfort, not really, not even in his arms. There was only a crushing sense of loss.
She was leaving him. So soon . . . when she'd only just found him . ..
It was so damned unfair, and she wished she could dredge up some remnant of the anger that had always buoyed her through the bad times. If she could be mad, really, really mad, she could straighten her spine and scream at God and come out swinging.
But there was no anger in her anymore, no strength of spirit, no blacken-your-eye belligerence. There was only this sinking sense of despair, of having lost what she'd never even hoped to find.
God was asking of her the one thing she'd never imagined, asking her to make a choice no woman should ever have to make. She could have Killian or she could have her child, but she couldn't have both. And as much as she loved Killian, and she loved him with every ounce of her soul, she couldn't stay here, couldn't choose him over her baby. Jesus, it was so unfair....
Killian's hands moved slowly up her body. His fingers hooked around her sagging neckline and tugged. The sweater slid down her arms and landed across her lap in a heap of red yarn.
She shivered at the sudden change in temperature and glanced around. "Killian?"
