‘I told Miranda that we changed our minds and decided not to go back to America.’
‘But really, how come you were there? How can you be here?’
‘I came back for you.’
Breakfast arrived, putting an end to our conversation. Then the doctor. And finally Miranda.
She looked tired and drawn. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore no make-up.
‘Thank God you’re OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you home.’
‘Ryan,’ I said.
‘Get some rest, OK?’ he said.
‘I don’t want any rest. I want to be with you.’
‘Eden,’ said Miranda wearily. ‘Travis is dead and I have to try to contact his relatives. I don’t know where to start. I need you.’
I looked at Ryan. I’d said goodbye for ever. I couldn’t do it again.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘Ever. Help Miranda. And come and see me tomorrow.’
‘You promise you won’t leave?’
He nodded. ‘I promise.’
Chapter 18
He was stripped to the waist, wearing nothing but a faded pair of blue jeans and a few splashes of white paint. Long ribbons of pink wallpaper were strewn all over the floor around him and one of the walls was painted white.
‘I didn’t think I’d see you until tomorrow,’ he said when he saw me standing in the doorway of the living room.
‘I couldn’t wait that long.’
‘You should have called!’
‘Am I interrupting something?’
He shrugged. ‘I would have cleaned up, rather than have you see me looking like this.’
I ran my eyes over his body. ‘You look fine.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m going to have a quick shower.’
‘Why are you doing this anyway?’
‘If I’m going to be living here long-term, the wallpaper has to go.’
I almost allowed myself a glimmer of hope. ‘Define “long-term”.’
‘The foreseeable future.’ He grinned at me. ‘Make yourself comfortable. I won’t be long.’
Five minutes later he was back downstairs in a clean white T-shirt and fresh jeans, his hair wet.
He just looked at me. ‘You’re here,’ he whispered.
I rolled my eyes. ‘My being here is not extraordinary. It’s you being here that requires an explanation. You left for the future. No going back. Goodbye for ever. And then you show up in the nick of time to save the day. You’ve got some explaining to do.’
Ryan peered through the window. ‘It’s a beautiful evening.’
‘Ryan. I don’t want a weather forecast. I want an explanation.’
‘And you’re going to get one. But we don’t have much time. Come on.’
He took me by the hand and led me into the kitchen which was beginning to look lived in again. A small stack of dirty dishes was piled up next to the sink and a half-eaten loaf of bread stood on a wooden chopping-board. Ryan opened the fridge which was jam-packed full of food. He crouched in front of it, moving things to one side until he found what he was looking for. A bottle of champagne.
‘I thought you didn’t drink?’ I said, when he placed two champagne flutes on the table next to the bottle of champagne.
‘I never said that.’
‘But I never saw you drink. I saw you accept bottles of beer occasionally. But you never took a single sip.’
‘I was working then. You don’t drink on the job. Not when the existence of the planet is at stake.’
‘So does this mean you’re not working any more?’
‘I am definitely not working.’
I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘You’re not back here to fulfil another mission?’
He grinned. ‘I have a mission. But it has absolutely nothing to do with work.’
He carried the bottle of champagne in one hand and picked up a large punnet of strawberries.
‘Can you carry these?’ he asked, passing me the two champagne flutes.
Although the sun had set an hour earlier, a deep red stained the western sky, like spilled red wine.
‘I replanted our tree and the time capsule,’ he said, as we walked across the lawn. ‘It was the tree that tipped me off something was wrong.’
‘How so?’
‘We planted the tree because you said it would last a hundred years. When I went to the house, there was no tree. I realised it could have died or been chopped down, but it set off alarm bells when there was no sign of it ever having been there. Then I dug for our time capsule. It wasn’t there. So I looked you up, the way I said I would.’
‘And?’
He reached for my hand. We walked down the gravel driveway to the lane.
‘You weren’t in any of the census returns. There was no marriage certificate. No children. It was as if you had disappeared from the Earth without a trace. Which is exactly what a cleaner would do. Eliminate you. Kill you and destroy the evidence.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that Travis killed me?’
‘Yes.’
‘He killed me.’ I whispered the words.
Ryan squeezed my hand. ‘In the first timeline. But not in this one. He’s dead.’ We had reached the lane.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Down to the cove.’
‘Why? There’s no one at the farmhouse but me and you. No adults. No Cassie. No one to interrupt us.’
‘There’s no rush. We have all the time in the world.’ He smiled. ‘Indulge me.’
I shrugged. ‘So how did you find out that it was Travis?’
‘I went through my father’s files. We changed the future, but my father still runs Westland Travel, the only four-dimensional travel company on Earth. As one of the senior members of the Guardians of Time, he still has access to confidential files on all time missions. I accessed the files on my mission and saw his name. Travis returned to 2122 forty-eight hours after I did. His mission report said that clean-up was straightforward. One female to eliminate. It had to be you. I checked the newspapers from that time and you were reported missing.’
God. I was supposed to be dead.
‘How did you get back here? You said that time travel was difficult. That almost no missions ever get approved. That fuel’s hard to come by and that travelling back to a time where you’ve been is dangerous.’
We’d reached the cove. The tide was high and the water flat and still. There was no suggestion of the storm from the night before other than the seaweed strewn along the high-water mark. I followed Ryan across the pebbles to the rock I’d once seen him sitting on while he sketched picture after picture of me.
‘I stole a ship. The one we used to get here the first time. It was supposed to be scrapped because it had sustained some damage during our portal home. I tinkered with it a bit. I got hold of some fuel.’ A shadow crossed his face. ‘But it took months to get my hands on it. They don’t just leave these things lying around.’
‘But you were only gone for a day.’
‘One day in your timeline. Nine months in mine.’
‘You were gone for nine months?’
He nodded. ‘I knew I had to get back here, but I knew there was no way an official mission would be sanctioned. My dad – the board – would have considered one life an acceptable price for the future of the planet. But it wouldn’t have been fair. You’re the one who saved the planet.’ He smiled at me. ‘You’re the one who made a fool of herself ensuring that Connor didn’t get to look through a telescope.’
‘Thanks for reminding me.’
We sat on the rock, side by side. ‘So I came back. To change history one last time.’
I frowned. In the last ten minutes Ryan had told me that he would be living in the farmhouse for the foreseeable future and that we didn’t have much time. Much as I didn’t want to know when he was leaving, the not knowing was worse. ‘When will you return to your time?’