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"After nearly hitting you with his car?" He chuckled, seemingly unconvinced. It was another truth. Things were getting out of hand, everything sounded crazier by the moment.
“We better go,” Liam whispered to Isabella as he pulled her by the hand and hurried out toward the front door.
“Yeah. That's right, run! Before I call the cops,” Jesse yelled after them.
Liam busted out from the front door, Isabella right behind him. They continued to stumble their way back into the streets, Jesse's yelling from behind them, barely audible, drowned out by the sound of moving cars across the road.
“We have to get out of here,” Liam said hastening back to the car with an out-of-breath Isabella right behind him. Neither turned to look back; they kept moving forward.
Inside the car, Liam backed out from the driveway, hitting the gas pedal like he’d just fled a crime scene. Their hearts were still racing, in sync with the speed of the car driving down the road, until they finally calmed down with the car cruising through the street.
Liam pulled into the relatively empty parking lot of a grocery store and put the car in park. Both of them sat there for a while, staring out the window. “What the hell just happened…?” he wondered, unable to comprehend any of this. How did he get here? He was so certain that today would be the day Isabella would make progress in her recovery. But instead today only served to testify her story. It was totally nuts. Thewhat ifsomehow turned out to be true. He threw his hand to his head. “How? I meanhow?” He sounded like he was desperately looking for an answer.
“I really do not know,” she answered, sounding just as desperate as he did. “I already told you the truth last night.”
Liam now looked at her with his brows closely drawn together. “Please tell me again. Don’t leave anything out.” She slightly nodded. “I was at the opera with my mother. We had a disagreement over my— engagement.”
Liam swallowed the lump in his throat. “You’re engaged?” he asked, feeling a sharp pain in his chest.
“No, it’s not like that. I misspoke. To be more precise… My mother insisted I get engaged to the most despicable man on this planet. And I refused.”
“Oh…” A huge sensation of relief spread through his whole body. “Why the hell would she do that? That’s terrible!” Her face saddened.
“Indeed, it is. But my time is very different from yours, Liam. Money and status mean everything. Most women cannot choose freely whom they wish to marry. My mother had managed to spend our family's fortune into ruin. I was her last hope of maintaining her social standing and financial freedom.” It sounded absolutely awful saying it out loud.
“So, she tried to marry you off to some rich, nasty asshole?”
Isabella confirmed with a soft nod. The familiar burning sensation of anger coursed through his veins.
“And he knew that you didn’t want to marry him?” Isabella nodded again. “Oh, how I wish I could have been there. I would have straightened that worthless worm out. You don’t force women into marriage. How pathetic!”
The thought of somebody forcing himself on Isabella filled his heart with rage. His fingers clenched into stone-like knuckles. Isabella placed a hand on his arm, which instantly calmed him down. It was incredible how she was able to get him from a hundred degrees to zero with a single touch. “Don’t worry. I gave him a good slap across the face in front of hundreds of people right before I ran away from him.” Isabella chuckled.
Liam felt a bit of satisfaction hearing that. “Good girl,” he growled, which made Isabella smile. It cheered him up a bit to see her smile again, even just for a brief moment.
“I don’t think my mother would agree with you on that. However, it felt pretty good, to be honest.” She stared at her hand, remembering the day she finally made a decision for herself.
“So how did you get from the opera to here?”
Her smile disappeared. “Well, after slapping that fopdoodle, I fled the opera. I just had to get away from it all. My mother followed me to confront me about my behavior. It turned rather ugly.” She pulled the coin out of her pocket and stared down at it with wide, glossy eyes. “She threw this coin at me as a stern warning not to defy her. When I tried to pick it up, a carriage hit me. That’s the last thing I remember happening in 1881. Then I woke up here, with you.”
Liam’s heart felt like someone had just squeezed it like a lemon. To hear her story, to hear her suffer like that, it was more than he could bear. He leaned over and gently placed a hand on hers. “It’s all over now. They can’t hurt you any longer. You don’t have to go back there. You can stay here with me.” She looked up at him with big, sad eyes.
You fool. Why would she want to stay here with a poor veteran if she can live in a castle made of gold?“I’m sorry. Of course, you want to go back to your own time. I didn’t mean—”
“I don’t want to go back,” she interrupted. “I want to stay here. This world is full of the most marvellous wonders. Women are free here. They don’t have to marry old, despicable men for money just to be treated like a slave.” He grabbed her hand and pulled it close to his chest.
“Then don’t. Stay here, with me.” She turned away, looking out the window as if she couldn’t bear to look at him any longer.
“I can’t.”
“Why not? You don’t have to stay with me if you don’t want to. I could pay for an apartment for you.”
She gently freed her hand from his. “That’s not it. It’s about my brother. I can’t do that to him. He must be worried sick about me.” Liam leaned back into his seat, throwing his head backwards. This whole situation was a tragic mess. Next to him was a woman as fine as they come. A good person through and through. A fighter. Selfless, strong, and decent. And how did life treat her? It forced her into a marriage with some old bastard, then took her out of her misery like some unknown magical wish to show her what real life could be, just to throw her back into her torturous existence again.
“I really don’t think you should go back. I doubt your brother would want you to.”
Isabella bit her lip. For a moment it looked like she was seriously considering staying. But then shook her head. “No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to him. He is risking his life in the Wild West mining for some gold just to save me from that horrible marriage. I could not live with myself knowing he is looking for me, never knowing what had happened. He would try to find me until his last breath.”
