"Father," Hope said excitedly as she neared him. "Perhaps this means you will be able to visit me in the year 2008?"
"Excuse me?" Ryan asked sharply.
Hope turned toward him. He didn't look impassive at all at the moment. He looked like he'd just been unexpectedly punched.
"Oh, I didn't get a chance to tell you, Ryan. There's so much that I have to explain."
But Ryan didn't seem concerned with all the other details. "You were planning on coming back to me in my time? Even after—" He drew up short and glanced uncomfortably at her father.
Hope stirred restlessly on her feet. She hadn't meant for Ryan to find out this way. She'd rather have prepared him first by explaining about the plans she'd made—the plans that hopefully would help him not to feel trapped by her presence in the year 2008.
"You know," Jacob began, clearly following his own line of thought versus the exchange between Ryan and his daughter, "I don't think it's best that I breach the barrier of time, dear. You know I'll always be with you in spirit. But some things just weren't meant to be. I'm afraid my existence in the year 2008 just doesn't seem .. . right."
"And it does seem right to you, Hope?" Ryan asked her intently.
She nodded her head solemnly. "That's what I was going to tell you when I returned later on tonight. My father and I have made plans, Ryan. You won't have to look out for me. I won't be a burden to you—"
"You weren't going to be a burden to me," Ryan interrupted, scowling. "I was worried that you might feel uncomfortable with the way we do things in my time." Once again he glanced at her father, clearly uncomfortable. "I didn't want to take advantage of you, Hope."
Hope's heart stopped and then resumed beating again in an ecstatic dance. "That was very kind of you to be concerned about me, Ryan. But I'd already decided to go back. I mean forward. Besides, I don't belong here anymore. They found my dead body yesterday, you know."
*
**
Ryan had experienced shock so many times in the past week that he would have thought the experience would lose some of its power. That was definitely not the case, however.
"What do you mean they found your dead body?" he demanded, feeling rattled.
"Well, it wasn't really her dead body, obviously," Jacob said.
"It was Sadie Holcrum's body they found in the river, Ryan. Remember the woman Jack killed in the Sweet Lash? The woman who helped kidnap me?"
Ryan came nearer to her and put his hand on her back, needing to touch her. The news that she'd been planning on returning to the year 2008 ... to him, had left him stunned.
He'd already known what he was going to do when he came back to find her, but the fact that she wasn't furious at him after finding those incendiary photographs, the fact that she'd decided to return to his time moved him deeply.
His fingers skimmed over the satiny smooth skin of her exposed back. She looked absolutely gorgeous wearing a formal blue satin gown with an ebony ermine border around the hem and over the shoulders. Once again he had to admit he'd been wrong about so many of his ideas concerning the culture of the 1900s, because the neckline of the dress was downright racy, displaying the creamy curves of Hope's beautiful breasts to jaw-dropping effect. The silver locket glittered on the flawless skin of her chest.
He blinked in shock, recognizing for the first time that she was dressed precisely in the manner he'd seen her on that first day he entered the mansion with Ramiro here in this very room . ..
"Ryan?" Hope interrupted his thoughts.
Ryan cleared his throat, forcing himself back to the present. "How do you know it was Sadie Holcrum they found?"
"Her face and body were damaged by being in the river for days," Hope explained sadly,
"And she appeared to have been badly beaten, which is just awful, because ..."
"It must have been done after she was dead," Ryan finished grimly. He suddenly recalled what Jack had said on their first meeting in the Sweet Lash when Ryan had asked him where Mario was.
He's taking care of some business for me. He'll be along. Undoubtedly the business to which Jack had been referring was to beat Sadie's body until it was unrecognizable so that no one could trace her back to the Sweet Lash and Jack himself.
"When I arrived home the other day, I was surprised to find myself in my father's suite. I suppose since I was concentrating on him so greatly it makes sense that was where I would appear. When I ar-rived, my father was having a meeting with the detective—Connor O'Rourke."
"You can imagine my shock, Mr. Daire," Jacob spoke up, a wry smile tilting his lips,
"when I glanced up while in the midst of Mr. O'Rourke telling me they'd found a woman's dead body that generally matched Hope's physical description .. . only to look up and see my daughter standing on the far side of the room. I thought I was seeing a ghost."