“If your wife has spent seventeen years here, you better prepare for belligerence by the handful.”
Despite the sunset’s deep golden light, she caught his smile as he looked away.
Like a blanket of gloom covering her, she remembered this man’s wish for his son. Now that he was alive, he would, no doubt, enforce it. She shouldn’t help him, but he was the only way back to Ben. Her stomach dropped. Why would he bring her back to his son when he didn’t approve of her? She had begged for money in front of him, she’d shopped for thrift shop clothes, she slept with other homeless people without fear. She didn’t want to know what he thought of her.
“Eat.” He handed her half of his burger. “You must keep up your strength.”
She took his offering when he shoved it at her. He watched, waiting for her to eat.
She took a small bite and then another.
There. She was sure of it. He smiled at her with the fading sunlight in her eyes.
“What are you called, little one?”
“Fable.” She decided not to tell him her last name since Lady Prudence had thought her a Jacobite because of it.
The lieutenant-colonel studied her with his smile deepening with amusement. “Fable, I can see why my son has been enchanted by you.”
Funny, his daughter had said the same thing to her. Was that all it was? Ben was charmed by her? It would fade. Lovelasted. It lasted seventeen years without a shred of evidence that Dorothea West even lived.
She could give up, jump over the wall and disappear inside the park. Let the Lt. Colonel and his wife return to Ben without her. But she didn’t believe she was no good for Ben. She didn’t believe he’d be happy if she left him and stayed here. Alone. To die alone.
Giving up was not an option.
Chapter 16
Ben didn’t sleep. He walked as night and semi darkness fell over Manhattan. He walked the perimeter of Central Park and wove through Fifth and Madison Avenues. He tried to cover as much ground as he could, but how big was the city? He didn’t check inside the park. Fable had told him she slept in alleyways and on the streets. She hadn’t mentioned the park. He guessed the park was more dangerous at night. He checked every alley, every alcove. He thought of what the server at the diner had told him. The man she described had to be the one who’d been chasing Fable and pulled her back to the future. The redhead had to be Fable. She’d been close. So close. Why was she still with the traveler? Was she his captive? He should have asked Bernadette if Fable seemed nervous, afraid. Was there anything else? Bernadette had said the man was asking something. Ben hadn’t stayed around to hear the rest.
He pulled at his hair as he hurried through the streets, looking, searching. He wouldn’t give up. She was here, somewhere. He was grateful that he’d reached her in time andtraveled through time with her–else she would have been lost to him forever, and terrified that her captor would harm her before he could find her.
As morning drew near without finding her, he called out her name, but to no avail. He walked until he came to 84th and Madison. Able’s Best Jewelry wasn’t open yet so he sat on the ground. He’d sell his gold for twenty-first century money and get some breakfast at Tess’ Diner. He wanted another chance to speak with Bernadette.
He was surprised and thankful when Able finally appeared and opened his store. When he saw Ben’s mint, gold guineas he brought Ben upstairs to his private office and offered him fifteen hundred dollars in cash for both. According to Able, he had enough for breakfast, dinner, and a bed for one night or more, depending on where he stayed.
Ben would eat breakfast and save dinner and the bed for Fable. He intended on finding her before then.
He walked to 96th street and was glad to see the diner open for business. He looked to the street light and was about to hurry over to the other side when a flash of burnt orange and glistening gold caught his eye.
His heart thumped hard in his chest and tears blurred his vision. He swiped his hands across his eyes and took a better look. “Fable,” he barely breathed out.
She was walking with the culprit, heading his way.
He took a step forward, and then ran to her, past people rushing to and fro. He never took his eyes off her.
“Fable!”
She saw him and covered her mouth, then took off toward him.
When they reached each other, they didn’t slow, but crashed into each other’s arms. Ben held her, afraid to ever let her go again. “Fable. Fable, my love, are you hurt?” He held herat arm’s length to examine her better. He ran his hands down her cheeks while his eyes roved over her.
“Ben. Ben, how–”
He looked up at the man bold enough to step toward them. The bastard who had chased her and dragged her back here. “You!” Ben leaped for him and grabbed him by the collar.
Fable screamed out his name. “Don’t hurt him!”
Ben wanted to kill him but—but he took a better look into the culprit’s eyes. For a moment, all he could hear was his own breath. His heart was still as the culprit’s face grew more familiar. Was it the face of …his father?
