“Hewasa time-crosser.” My words came out on a whisper. Then I remembered the man standing in Bess’s hotel room. “I think I saw him with Bess,” I said softly. “The day I talked to her at the Barclay Hotel in Los Angeles. I only had a glimpse of him, and I thought he looked familiar, but without the paralyzed face it was hard to tell.” The man in Bess’s room had been handsome and full of life, but there were enough similarities that I was certain it had been him.
Sam rolled Paddy onto his back again and sat on his heels. “I can’t believe I didn’t know. I asked Bess how she met Paddy years ago, when I came upon them that night Alfred died. Paddy was an Irish immigrant living in New York City, but he had traveled to London to help her. It never made sense.”
“They must have known each other from their future paths in the 1920s.”
“And Paddy sailed to England in 1845 to help her get away from Alfred.” He stared at Paddy in amazement. “She told me she was a time-crosser to try to make me understand, but I really had no idea. Everything happened because she and Paddy knew each other from a different time.”
“And when he showed up to help her in 1845, Alfred almost killed him and left him unable to speak in this path, but he would have been normal in the other one.”
“They must have planned this.”
“That’s why Bess told me to trust her and wouldn’t let me look atThe Annals of San Francisco,” I said. “She and Paddy knew he would change history here and we wouldn’t die, but the book wouldn’t have changed yet when I saw her at the hotel.”
“And we would have tried to change history before Paddy could.” Sam slowly rose to his feet. “I wish we could thank them.”
“They know we’re thankful.” I joined Sam, wrapping my arm around his waist as we looked at Paddy. “The best thing we can do for them is raise Johnnie well.”
With a nod, Sam let out a sigh. “I’ll miss him.”
“I will, too.”
“It gives me a little comfort to know that they’re happy together in 1929.”
The reminder of my other path gave me a fresh pang of grief. But I smiled. “Bess said they were married. I hope they have a long life together.”
We left Paddy’s room as Father and the children entered the kitchen from the backyard, their faces bright with laughter and sunshine.
“We saw seals!” Hazel said as she went to the crate in the corner of the room, where Snowball had been napping while they were away.
“They bark like dogs,” Johnnie added with a giggle.
“The elephant seals are migrating,” Father explained. “It was quite the loud party at the dock.”
“Next time, I want to take Snowball,” Hazel said as she lifted the kitty into her hands. “She would have liked the seals.”
I shared a look with Sam, and I suspected that he was thinking the same thing I was thinking.
We would wait a little while to tell them about Paddy. It didn’t pay to spoil their joy.
There would be time enough for that later.
As we listened to the children tell us about their outing, I marveled at all that had changed.
I used to think that I was running out of time. The truth was that I would never have enough of it with the people I loved.
Sam’s hand found mine, and we shared a smile.
As long as we were together, I would savor every moment.
Epilogue
September 5, 1869
Penn Valley, California
The little log cabin we had built on the South Yuba River two decades ago had grown and changed with our family. For twenty years, we had come to this place to escape the busyness of our lives in San Francisco as we built a small empire of hotels along the California coast. First, we brought Father, Hazel, and Johnnie, and then we had added our firstborn son, Benjamin, in 1851, and our daughter, Lucy, three years later. Neither was a time-crosser, and my relief had been profound.
The screen door creaked open, and Sam stepped onto the porch, where I was enjoying the fading rays of sunshine. I was so proud of how he had used our first hotel to build another, and another, and another. We were in the process of erecting the first health resort of its kind in California at the Harbin Hot Springs, about a hundred miles north of San Francisco. Building it would occupy much of the coming winter and spring, and Sam had wanted to visit the cabin to enjoy a few days of rest before it all started.
