Timeless Desire (41 page)

Jamie raised a roguish brow and she poked him. “You can look at that anytime.”

“Not as a loyal subject in the kingdom of Marie Clare. Twas good of Marie to take her for the evening. I take it Marie’s gotten over the surprise of me?”

“You she could handle. The fact that the little pouch of gems you brought with you meant I could quit my job—
that
she’s still getting over.”

“But you didn’t quit.”

“Old librarians don’t retire. They just turn the page.”

He pulled his gaze from the telescope long enough to rake her from gladiator sandals to the top of her halter dress. “You’re not old. Not by a long shot.”

She grinned. “Now you’re getting the lingo.”

A clock rang the hour.

“Ooh, it’s time,” she said.

“Time for what?”

“Look. Alan set it up for us.”

Jamie broke into a grin. “I wondered when you’d ask.”

He put his eye to the telescope’s eyepiece. “My God!” He looked at her, amazed, and looked back. “The stars from the Butcher’s Cleaver.”

She bumped him with her hip. “The Big Dipper. You’re a twenty-first-century man now, remember?”

“Twill take more than a pair of jeans and”—he grabbed the fabric at his neck and looked down—“a Paolo shirt to make me a twenty-first-century man.”

“Polo. It’s a process.” But that part of the process he was nailing. He looked like a god in those Levi’s. She gazed at him fondly. “Jamie, does it bother you that after all you’ve been through you’re still an outlander?”

He gave her an amused look. “No one with a family could ever be an outlander.”

She smiled, and he returned to the eyepiece. “To be able see the stars like this . . . oh, Panna, it’s beyond anything I could have dreamed. Truly.”

“I’m glad. Will it matter to you,” she said carefully, “that the two stars are six trillion miles apart and never get any closer?”

He’d heard the note of sadness in her voice and looked at her. “If you think for a moment that I give a whit about two lumps of burning coal and how far apart they are, you are quite mistaken. I have my own partner for the dance. And we join together
every
night.”

He took her by the waist and brought his mouth to hers.

She tasted that same warm fire that lit her body every time they touched. He backed her into an empty desk and gently pressed her onto the surface.

“I am reminded of a surveying seat in Cumbria,” she said, grinning.

“I don’t need to survey my possessions,” he said. “I own the bloody world.”

The End

Photo by Garen DiBartolomeo

G
WYN
C
READY IS THE RECIPIENT
of the 2009 RITA Award for Best Paranormal Romance and the author of
Tumbling Through Time
,
Seducing Mr. Darcy
,
Flirting with Forever
,
Aching for Always
and
A Novel Seduction
in addition to
Timeless Desire
. She has been called “the master of time travel romance.” Kilts, wedding dresses, strappy sandals, and unattended time portals leave her in a state of giddy excitement, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. She is hard at work in Pittsburgh on her first time travel romance trilogy.

Please visit her at
www.cready.com
; Gwyn Cready, Romance Novelist, on Facebook; and GwynCready on Twitter or email her directly at
[email protected]
.

Other Books by Gwyn Cready
Tumbling Through Time
Seducing Mr. Darcy
Aching for Always
Flirting with Forever
A Novel Seduction

Also available as ebooks.

T
HIS BOOK OWES ITS EXISTENCE TO SO MANY
: K
ARL
O’J
ANPA
,
FOR
his design excellence; David Chesanow for his impeccable copy editing; fans and first readers, especially Susan Aitel and Karin Tillotson, for their sharp eyes and undaunted support; Marie Guerra, for her friendship and editorial prowess; Megan McKeever, for her sage and thoughtful feedback; Manuel Erviti and Donna Neiport, for revealing the hidden secrets of libraries and librarians; Meredith Mileti, Teri Coyne, Mitchell James Kaplan, Vince Rause, M.A. Jackson, and Todd De- Pastino, writers extraordinaire, for sharing the adventure with me; Mary Irwin-Scott, Kim Koslowski, Wileen Dragovan, Diane Pyle, Mary Nell Cummings, Dawn Kosanovich, Karen Schade, Valli Ellis and Judy Hulick for reviving me with lunch or a drink or a text whenever I most needed it; Andrew Carnegie, for changing the world with his 2,509 gifts and reminding us that the man who dies rich dies disgraced; the folks at Allegheny Observatory, for a fascinating look at star gazing. I am in debt to the Andrew Carnegie Library in Carnegie, Pennsylvania for possessing enough magical details to inspire this story and to the amazing Morgan Library and Museum in New York for giving me a pretty darned good idea what the library of a wealthy, book-obsessed man might look like. Thanks as well to Robert Astle and Tony Viardo at Astor+Blue for pursuing me and this project, and to Jita Fumich at FolioLit, who made the transition easy. A hearty shout-out goes to the production team at Bookmasters as well as Danielle Fiorella, whom you have to thank for this über-sexy cover. Claudia, even a book wouldn’t be enough to dedicate to you. It would have to be a library or a planet or something equally epic. Thank you for always pulling me through. Cameron, Wyatt, Jean, and Lester, you fill my days with joy and laughter.