Forever His(103)

As the pieces started fitting together, her heart soared.

“But I dropped it after the light hit me! I was falling backward, and it fell from my hand—and it must have come back in time with me. I ended up in the bed and this ended up in that trunk!” She spun around, clutching the purse like a priceless treasure. “That stupid, wonderful trunk!”

She felt like dancing. Relief and joy and hope all whirled inside her, so overwhelming that she didn’t give Gaston a chance to get a word in edgewise.

“This is it!” she cried. “This has to be why the eclipse a few weeks ago didn’t work! I pushed that trunk out of the way so I could stand in front of the window—oh, God, if only I had left it where it was!” She turned to him, waving the purse. “I didn’t have this before, so I couldn’t go back through time. But I’ve got it now. Don’t you understand? This is the key that’ll open the door! I can go home!”

Not waiting for a reply, she ran to the bed, unzipping her purse and spilling the contents. “You’ll have to believe me now!” she said triumphantly. “You want proof that I am who I say I am, Sir Suspicious? Well, you’ve got it! Absolute proof. I’ve been telling you the truth all along!”

She started tossing things onto the covers. “Checkbook. Wallet. Look at this—credit cards. My driver’s license! How about a calculator? Or my camera? Or a chocolate bar?” She was tempted to take a bite, but didn’t dare. She had to keep everything exactly as it was to get home. “Passport. Sunglasses. Plane tickets—God, I couldn’t even begin to explain to you what those are for. My keys.” She held them up and jangled them. “This one’s to my condo. This one’s for my Mercedes—boy, talk about losing your car keys big time.” She tossed them into the growing pile, laughing, and pulled out her Chicago Cubs baseball cap. “You think my other hats are weird, how about this one?”

She put the hat on and faced him with an ecstatic grin. “See? Fits perfectly. My name is Celine Fontaine, buster, and I’m from 1993!”

He didn’t smile. He was still standing near the door, unmoving, looking at her with that dazed expression. Like someone who had just been run over by a car.

“Gaston?” Celine’s smile faded. She hadn’t realized, until that very second, what finding her purse really meant. She would be all right. She would be going home.

But she would also be leaving Gaston.

And he wasn’t saying a word. No emotion. No regrets about her leaving, or the way he had doubted her for so long. Nothing.

“Gaston ... you do believe me, don’t you?”

“I believe you,” he said quietly, still looking at her in a way someone might look at a three-eyed, green alien that had just landed in a flying saucer. “I ... examined the contents of the strange pouch before I brought it to you. There is no other explanation but that you ... are from the future.”

His voice was hollow, almost wooden. She had never heard him talk that way before. She left her purse where it was and moved toward him. “Are you all right?”

“We have to leave here,” he said abruptly, walking away before she could reach him. “I will ... take you back to my chateau. That is what you wish, is it not? That is the only way you can return ... home?”

“Yes.” She stopped in the middle of the chamber, still wearing her Cubs hat. “Yes, everything I told you was true. I’ve got a bullet fragment in my back. I have to have surgery to remove it, so I’ve got to return to my time. The next eclipse is in just a few weeks. And it’ll work this time. I’m going to be all right. I ... I can go home.” The confusing mix of relief and regret and sadness she felt left her shaking.

“Then we shall leave at once.” He stopped before the hearth, looking down at the crackling flames. “But I must warn you that the journey will be dangerous. Tourelle will be searching for us—and I do not wish to take my men with us. I would leave them here, to protect Avril.”

“Yes,” she agreed dazedly. “Yes, of course. I’m sure we’ll be fine on our own. I’m ...” She spun around and looked at the small pile of things she had dumped on the bed. One was a new travel guidebook, Chateaux of the Artois Region, that she had picked up while shopping with her sister, Jackie, a few days before New Year’s Eve. “In fact, we might not have to wonder. I might be able to tell you right now what happens.”

He shot her an annoyed glance. “If you know what will happen in the future between me and Tourelle, why did you not tell me before?”