"Very unique and lovely. You were always as graceful as your mother on the dance floor." Jacob stood as she approached. "You know, I was thinking a good part of the night about something you told me about the future, dear. How is it that, do you suppose, these airplanes don't crash into those towering skyscrapers?"
"I'm not sure how they contrive it," Hope admitted after she'd puzzled on it a moment.
Her father moved to seat her and Hope put up her hand. "Wait. I have a special gift for you. Sit back down, Father."
She started over toward the piano, pausing when the light level in the ballroom seemed to magnify for a second and then return to normal. She experienced a prickling feeling on her neck and twisted around.
Her eyes widened in amazement. For a second she thought she'd been imagining the dance she'd never gotten with Ryan at the Field Museum so perfectly that she'd magically conjured him. He even wore his tuxedo. His greenish-blue eyes were trained on her but he didn't move or speak. Suddenly his dark brows rose as if in silent query.
"Ryan," she gasped.
"Hello." He glanced over at her father and nodded. Her father looked every bit as stunned as Hope felt. "I'm sorry for interrupting."
Jacob used his cane to stand slowly, his eyes never leaving Ryan's face. "Why .. . you're Ryan Daire, aren't you?"
Ryan glanced over at Hope. She didn't understand the trace of unease in his expression.
"Yes, sir. I am."
Hope's shock faded enough for her temporary paralysis to fade.
"What are you doing here?" she blurted out.
Ryan inhaled slowly. "I came to see you, of course." He glanced out the La Farge windows and his brow furrowed. "It's nighttime here. How long have you been back, Hope?"
"I've been back two days. This is my second evening," she answered as she came toward him. "How long ago did I—"
"Leave without a word?" Ryan finished the sentence for her. She couldn't interpret his expression, however. As she knew by this time, he could be impenetrable when he chose to be.
Even so, the sight of him literally stole her breath. It felt like an eternity since she'd looked into his singular eyes. He gave a small smile suddenly and she found herself relaxing.
"Since I'm not sure at what point you left, I can't say for certain. But it couldn't have been much more than three hours ago, by my time, anyway."
"Amazing!" Jacob declared. "Hope told me about this slight discrepancy between dates when one travels through time, Mr. Daire. Have you formulated a theory on why this occurs?"
Ryan shook his head. "I have no idea, Mr. Stillwater. I'm woefully ignorant on the mechanics of the whole thing. I am starting to realize it's not as much of a cut-and-dry situation as I thought." He met Hope's eyes. "Our being able to meet isn't just about the mirror. It's about this house ... or something."
Her father snorted. "My daughter had already figured that out, Mr. Daire. She realized the two of you had communicated in ways other than the mirror, and that while the mirror was a handy object on which the imagination could grasp, it wasn't the source of the magic. The true magic relates to the two of you."
Hope's cheeks flamed. She loved her father like mad, but his outspokenness could mortify upon occasion. She sensed Ryan's steady gaze on her and met it with difficulty.
"You didn't use the mirror to get here?"
He shook his head.
"How did you do it, then?"
He opened his mouth as if to speak and then glanced uneasily over at her father. "I just pictured you in my mind . . . Imagined you here, moving about a house that was filled with all the things I'd seen before, held your face in my mind, heard your laughter, thought of the way you walk ..."
His voice faded but he continued to hold her stare. She remembered what he'd said while they'd been in the elevator of the Sears Tower about her father. You can picture him with the clarity that only intense emotion can bring. That's how she'd known how to return.
"Love."
Both Ryan and she started out of their mutual stare and glanced over at her father when he uttered the single word.
"That's the driving force behind the phenomenon. Oh, maybe that strange man, Mortimer R Chase, built some of his magic into this house," Jacob said with a wave of his hand,
"but clearly it takes something very special to mix with that magic in order to create the miracle of time travel."