Sophie stopped the car a short distance away as a honey-haired head poked around the corner of a large rock.
Amara.
His heart leapt at the sight of her, standing there with her arms crossed, puzzlement evident across her features even at this distance. He thrust off his seat belt and whipped the door open, one leg already outside, when Sophie laid a hand on his arm.
He glanced at her.
“Be ... careful. Be kind.” She said nothing else, merely nodded toward the door.
Matt stared at her for a moment. He couldn’t figure her out, this wealthy British woman completely fine with an American stranger showing up and demanding to see ... who was Amara to Sophie, anyway? He jerked his head away. That wasn’t the issue at hand. Amara was. Quickly, he alighted from the car, ducking his head to address her. “Thank you. Are you staying?”
“No.” Sophie’s smile was peculiar. “Here.” She pulled out a card from the dash. “Have you got a mobile?”
He nodded.
“My number is there. Call when you’d like me to retrieve you both.”
Matt’s eyes flashed to Amara, whose face had gone pale. “Do you think it’s a good idea, leaving us alone here?” The words were almost rhetorical. Almost.
Sophie shrugged. “Probably not. On the other hand, there’s no place for her to run now.”
He tipped his head one more time before standing up and shutting the door firmly behind him. The engine roared to life, and the car backed away, but he didn’t see it. His eyes were fixed on the woman in front of him.
Neither moved for a moment, both taking in the sight of the other. At length, Matt broke into a purposeful stride, approaching the woman whose eyes were so wide, so full of fear, she looked like a cornered animal.
“Wh—what are you doing here?” The words were a whisper, ones he barely caught on the current of the wind.
“You dropped a bombshell on me,” Matt said, a weird calm lacing his voice. This was right. He was here. It would work out. Somehow. “And I admit, I did not respond as well as I should have. But you ran. You didn’t give me a chance, Amara. You didn’t give us a chance.”
“Us?” Her fingers tugged at the edge of her sweater sleeve. “There is no us. You—we—made that clear from the start. We were merely indulging in sins of the flesh.”
His jaw ticced as anger coursed through him. “Sins? You think what we did was sinful?”
She bit her lip, casting her eyes off to the left. No words came.
He took a few steps closer. “Because it wasn’t, Amara. It was the most glorious experience of my life.” What they’d shared, both in and out of bed, was greater than anything he’d ever had with anyone.
Amara’s eyes glistened, but she still refused to look at him. “Regardless, I’m paying for it now. Paying for my lustful nature. For my impulsiveness. For my reckless disregard for everything.”
Matt’s lips pressed together. “I admit,” he said, “this pregnancy was not an expected or welcome one. But, Amara.” He reached out, brushing the hair off of her cheek.
She flinched, her eyes flying to his.
“It was an accident. Not a punishment.”
A single tear trickled down her cheek and she stepped back, out of his reach. “What do you know? You don’t know me. You know nothing of me!” Her voice rose. “Scandal follows me wherever I go. I thought I’d escaped it, coming ... there. Here. But I haven’t. Not one bit.” More tears splashed down her cheeks. “I’m starting to believe I’m cursed.”
Matt uttered an expletive under his breath. Running a hand over his hair, he cocked a hip to the side, then settled his arms across his chest. “I do know you. I know you like pizza but not tomatoes. I know you think rutabagas are worth eating but mint ice cream is not—a notion in which you’re sorely mistaken, by the way. I know you’re far too hard on yourself. I know the noises you make when you sleep. I know the sounds you make when we ...” He broke off, giving her a meaningful look. “No, I don’t know everything. But I know enough. And I know I want to know more.”
“Superficial things, Matthew!” She threw her arms in the air. “And if I told you more about me, you wouldn’t believe it. You’d dismiss me as a Bedlamite. Perhaps I am.” She clutched her arm across her midsection, pacing back and forth.
“Try me,” he said, walking over to her, so close his breath moved the wisps of hair curled around her face. “If I didn’t want to know more, if I didn’t want more, I wouldn’t be here. I flew across the ocean for you, Amara.”
She gave a half-laugh, half-sob. “You came because of a sense of responsibility to this baby.”
“Yes. I admit that. Openly. But that’s not the only reason. I realized—” He swallowed, his eyes not leaving hers. “I missed you. You, Amara. I missed you in my apartment. I missed hearing the odd things you say. I missed you in my bed, yes, but I missed you out of it, too. I missed your stubborn, independent nature, mixed as it is with that strange sense of fragility.”
Amara’s shoulders shook as tears poured down her cheeks.
“Please,” he said, brushing them off with his thumbs. “Give me a chance. Let’s talk. About this. Us. Our future.”
Great sobs shook her shoulders. “Oh, Matthew,” she gasped, leaning into him. “Matthew.”
He enfolded her in his arms, one hand rubbing her back, the other weaving fingers through her hair.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry ... for everything,” she mumbled against his shoulder.
He whispered soothing noises, relishing the sweet scent of her. Oh, how he’d missed her. Sure, they had a long way to go. One meeting in a circle of stones was not enough to build a future, but hope surged through his veins. “Not your fault,” he murmured into her hair. “It takes two.”
She hiccupped. “But before ... before we can talk about the future, I have to tell you about the past. My past.”
Amara’s heart pounded wildly. Matthew Goodson was here. He’d flown to England, come to Clarehaven, to find her.
Was she about to lose him again? Could a man as grounded in logic, in science, as Matthew accept the story she had to tell? She no longer had Eliza’s phone with its pictures as proof. And Eliza’s letters and photographs were in Charlottesville, not England. Amara had nothing here beyond words. Not true, that damnable voice said again. She had Clarehaven now, which had portraits of her as a child, as a young woman, on its walls.
But would Matthew believe her?
She swallowed, then tipped her head up to imbue confidence in herself. There was no way to know unless she told him. And it was time. “Come with me,” she said, as she extricated herself from his embrace.
He frowned but followed her into the stone circle. Reaching the flat stone in the middle, she sat down and patted a spot next to her. He joined her, saying nothing, his eyes questioning, expectant.
“This is where it all began,” she said, her hands tingling with nerves. “I sat here and wished ... wished to be in Eliza’s time, in the twenty-first century, so that I could have independence, get an education. So that I could escape my past.”
Matthew’s expression didn’t change. Perhaps she hadn’t been clear enough. “I sat here in 1813, Matthew.”
At that, an eyebrow tipped up, and a chuckle escaped him. When she didn’t laugh in return, his face sobered, both eyebrows arching. “Say what?”
She swallowed, hard. “I came to America from England, yes. But I came from 1813, not 2016.”
He exhaled heavily. “I don’t know what’s going on, Amara, but I don’t appreciate this kind of joke.” His lips folded into a pinched line.
She leapt up from the stone, pacing in front of him. “I’m not joking! This.” She waved an arm about. “Clarehaven. It was my home. Two hundred years ago.” Stopping for a moment, she looked at him again, the anger and doubt in his eyes piercing her. “Remember Eliza James, Cat’s friend? The one who married my brother?”
Matt raised a brow, confusion written across his face. “A little. I remember seeing her once in the bookstore before she moved.”
“Moved where?”
“To England,” he answered slowly.
“And have they heard from her since?”
His jaw tightened. “I’m hardly privy to every detail of their personal life, Amara.”
“But you’ve seen the painting above the Treasure Trove’s fireplace of the woman in the gown, bedecked with a tiara?”
“Of course.”
“You know that’s Eliza, right?”
“Cat mentioned that one day, but I figured it was one of those tourist things, like getting a sepia-toned photograph when visiting the Old West.”
“It’s not. That’s Eliza, here. After she married my brother, Deveric Mattersley. Seventh Duke of Claremont.”
Matthew clutched his temples but remained on the rock. “Okay. You’re telling me that not only did you come forward from the past, but that Cat’s friend did the reverse? That time travel is possible, and that the Coopers know about it?”
Amara nodded vigorously. “I don’t blame you for your skepticism. I was highly skeptical, too, until Eliza showed me her telephone, with pictures of things I’d never even imagined.”
Matthew cleared his throat but said nothing, even as Amara continued to walk back and forth in front of him. She stopped, crossing her arms over her chest. “Do you believe me?”
He stared at her, those ice-blue eyes sending waves of both heat and cold through her. At length, he stood up, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. “I think I’d like to return to the house.”
Amara raced to him, grabbing at his arm. “I know it’s a lot to take in, Matthew. But it’s the truth. My truth. And ... there’s more.”
He sighed, his fingers pausing on the phone. “More? What more could there possibly be beyond time travel?”
“You should know, need to know, Cat has a manuscript, one with powers that lets her match people. Create love stories. It’s how it works. For me to come forward, I had to come forward ... for love.” She brushed the hair back from her face. “Not that it’s predestined, or one doesn’t have a choice. Both people can choose, have to choose, if they want it to work. But it sparks the attraction. It’s why you’re attracted to me. This—us. It’s not real. It’s created. So it’s fine if you walk away. It’s not your fault. It’s mine, for asking for it.”
Matthew ran his fingers over his hair, incredulity written across his face. “Now you’re claiming I’m under some sort of love spell connecting me to a woman from two hundred years ago?”
Amara nodded.
“Are you high? What are you on?” He pressed numbers on the phone, fury radiating from him as he yanked it up to his ear. “Sophie? Yeah, ready. As soon as possible.”
He jammed the phone back into his pocket, turning away from Amara.
She hesitated. Should she go to him? What purpose would it serve? She’d told him the truth. It was up to him to determine what he was going to do with it. If he accepted it. Which, given the hostility emanating from him, seemed highly unlikely.
“God damn it, Amara.” His voice was half a yell as he whirled to her. “You think you have to come up with something as ridiculous as this to tell me you don’t want to be with me? What in the hell?” He stalked toward her, eyes blazing, tension across every muscle.
He stopped mere inches away, the heat of his skin lashing against her. “You’re telling me that you and I, that the connection we had—have—isn’t real?” His mouth was a hair’s breadth from hers, but he didn’t touch her, didn’t connect. “You’re telling me any feelings between us are fake, conjured?”
She leaned into him. She couldn’t help it. She wanted so badly to feel his arms around her. She knew it was a spell, a created connection, and yet she wanted it to be real. It was real between Deveric and Eliza. The thought emblazoned itself across her brain. Cat had created the possibility, the attraction, but Eliza and Deveric had chosen to follow it—to a marvelous end, a love the likes of which Amara had never seen.
But that didn’t mean it would work that way for Amara and Matthew. You didn’t want it to, remember? She’d used Cat’s magic to get here, but she’d had no intention of actually falling for this man standing before her, so close it was if their breath was one. If she just moved a fraction of an inch.
And she did, touching her lips tentatively to his, wanting to feel him, to see if their connection was genuine, if it was more than a magical story Cat had written. He exploded against her, his lips crushing hers as his hands pressed against her back, holding her to him. They tasted each other, savored each other, sounds of pleasure and pain and longing and hurt issuing back and forth between them. He ran a hand up into her hair, practically growling as his mouth dueled with hers. His other hand pulled her hips in against him, and she could feel his hard length against her.
He broke off, chest heaving against hers, eyes pulsating with desire ... and rage.
“You’re telling me that isn’t real?”
Matt’s head spun. He wanted to forget everything, let it all go, and simply sink into the deliciousness of Amara Mattersley. But even as she’d gasped and moaned beneath him, thoughts of everything she’d just told him intruded, and he’d suddenly released her, backing up a step.
“Well?” he demanded now, his voice rough, angry, his body tense.
“I—” Amara looked down at the ground, her whole frame shaking.
He spun away from her, staring out at the stones lining the circle in which they stood. What Taylor wouldn’t give to be here. His sister was obsessed with Stonehenge; seeing it in person was number one on her bucket list.
He growled. Why was he thinking of his sister?
Because it was easier than dealing with the woman behind him.
Time travel? What kind of idiot did she think he was?
An unexpected image of Amara that first evening struck him—in that unusual dress, a bonnet on her head. Her peculiarities of speech and mannerisms. The lack of technological experience he’d dismissed with Amish jokes ...
Could it be?
He shook his head. Dr. Matthew Goodson dealt in what was rational, in black and white, in what was tangibly before him. It’s what worked, it’s what made sense, and it’s what he was going to hold onto now. He didn’t know what the true story was, but time travel wasn’t part of it.
His eyes swept over the stones. It was admittedly a beautiful spot. Purple flowers wound themselves around the base of the rocks, and a gentle breeze tickled his skin as the sun warmed him. In spite of his anger, his confusion, the space conveyed a palpable sense of peace. Of hope.
His shoulders stiffened at the unmistakable sound of a car approaching. Amara hadn’t said anything in the last few minutes. What was she doing? He turned, his heart still pounding—and then cracking ever so slightly at her tear-streaked face. She looked so wretched, so miserable. He wanted nothing more than to take her back into his arms. But first, he needed answers.
Sophie pulled up before them in a silver SUV, remaining in the driver’s seat a moment before gracefully exiting the vehicle. She cocked her head at Amara. “I take it, it didn’t go well?”
Amara cast a glance at Matt before shaking her head in response. “I told him my ... history. He doesn’t believe me.”
Matt whirled to stare at Sophie, though he addressed his words to Amara. “Wait. You’re telling me Sophie knows your claims? That she believes them?”
Sophie nodded. “I understand it’s a lot to take in, Mr. Goodson. Why don’t you come back to Clarehaven? We can sit for a cup of tea and talk things over. I’m sure you have many questions.”
Matt ran his hand over his hair again. Damn it, what was happening? Had the whole world gone mad? Or just he?
The image of the painting he’d seen online last night flashed through his head. He’d thought then the girl in the portrait—the portrait hanging on Clarehaven’s walls—was Amara. Just for a moment. Could it be?
Shaking his head, he stalked toward the automobile without looking at Amara. He’d go with them—what choice did he have?—but he’d be damned if he made this easy on either of them. Plus, his mind was a whirl of confusion.
He settled into the rear seat as best he could, surprised when Amara crawled in next to him, rather than taking the front next to Sophie. He shot her a harsh glare, then looked away out the window. Even so, the nervousness radiating from her was unmistakable, and after a moment he let his leg loll to the side on the pretense of not having enough room—which was, in fact, the truth; stuffing 6’3” of a man into the back of a car was never easy, even in a large SUV. His knee touched Amara’s, and she gasped softly. He didn’t meet her gaze, his own eyes fixed on the scenery flashing by.
But he didn’t remove his leg, either.
Misery welled up in Amara. It’d all gone so wrong, but what had she expected? What had she wanted? Seeing Matthew standing there before her on Clarehaven’s grounds, her first impulse had been to launch herself into his arms—a desire she’d immediately squashed. She’d come here to deal with her mistakes, not entrap a man with them, a man already entrapped by a manuscript, a spell, about which he knew nothing.
She needed to be independent, not look to a man for salvation. But as Matthew’s thigh rubbed against hers, it was hard not to wish to be saved.
It’d be so much easier to give over to the attraction, to the feelings she must acknowledge had long been growing for him. But attraction faded. And how could she ever trust, ever believe he wanted her for her, between the manuscript and ... and the baby?
Her abdomen cramped, a sharp pain, and she settled an arm over it as they pulled into Clarehaven’s garage. She groaned as a second pain hit, and Matthew looked over, concern creasing his face. “Are you okay?” His voice was distant, polite, but his eyes betrayed him.
“Yes, fine,” she answered in a similar, reserved voice. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Both exited the car and followed silently after Sophie. As they neared the door, a third pain struck Amara, so intense she doubled over.
“What the? Sophie!” Matthew’s panicked voice hit her ear as his arms went around her, lifting her against his chest. “Something’s wrong!”