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I sit up, surprised he’s insinuating what I think he is, considering the roller coaster we’ve both lived through since meeting. Even if Quint hadn’t been part of the picture, our relationship is brand new. “What does that mean?”

His lips curve in a sexy smile, and he doesn’t answer, his expression saying, You know.

“You’re kidding. You have to be kidding. We’ve only known each other a few weeks. You know it’s crazy to think of us in any permanent relationship like—” I wave my hands around, unable to say “marriage.” Time-traveling really does mess with mental capacities, and Ben’s lost it. “Like that,” I finish in a weak tone.

“I’ve known you since 1901. That’s over a hundred years.” He tilts his head and grins at me.

“Be serious.” But he’s making me laugh, and that feels good. Like listening to William play “The Grand Waltz” for the first time. “After … everything? You still want to even pursue a relationship at all?” I ask, since I still can’t bear to say any more of what happened with Quint out loud to Ben.

“Yes.” He wraps his arm around my waist to hold me close. He sounds sure of himself, and he doesn’t follow it with any more argument than that.

I keep shaking my head at him, although his surety and the fact that he still wants to see where things go—his grace with me, his belief in what could be—is attractive. “People don’t decide that sort of thing in a few weeks.”

“Some people actually do.” He shrugs in an I’m hopeless sort of way.

I arch an eyebrow. “Some people are actually crazy.”

He laughs, then cups his other hand around my neck, drawing me even closer and resting his forehead against mine for a long moment, as though he knows I’m not ready for more yet. “I’m not saying we have to decide anything now. I’m not saying that I’m actually asking anything.” He waves his hand around in an imitation of my earlier lack of words. “I’m saying I know. The last few weeks feel like a hundred years. No one will ever know me better. I have no hope of finding anyone better, ever.” He lets his smile return, and I guess saying so much has been his limit. Still, it gives me hope that he’ll finally let me really know him. “Besides,” he goes on, “I’m still a very rich man. As you can see, I have a lot to recommend me,” he teases.

I burst into laughter. “We’re living in the twenty-first century now, Mr. Mitchell. You need a lot more than your money to recommend you to me.”

He chuckles, then laces his fingers through mine. “I’ll work on that.”

I relax back against him. “You’re still crazy.”

He rests his head on mine and turns back to the movie. “I can live with that.” After several quiet moments, he goes on. “There’s a home nearby The Villa—I think it may have been a private vacation home—with nearly as much history. It’s in terrible shape, but I think I’ll buy it and fix it up.”

I smile. “So much history.”

“Mmmm-hmmm,” he murmurs. “Help me decorate it?”

“Of course.”

At the very least, I can’t deny the steadiness his friendship has provided to me from the first moment we met. That’s an excellent foundation. I finger his shirt, a soft, plain T-shirt I grabbed from a general store near The Villa after we returned from 1901, and warm at the thought of him wearing it. For the first time in a long time, I think about the future instead of the past.

Chapter Seventeen

Three weeks after we returned from 1928, we go back home. I explain my still sometimes achy shoulder to Morgan as an accident, tripping and falling while we were sightseeing in New York. I throw myself into catching up on the shows I’ve missed and failed to blog about. That side of my income is taking a hit. As has the second half of my income working at the library—but they’re happy to welcome me back. The overworked and understaffed library could never turn me down. Miraculously, Ben also still has a job, despite not actually going on a research trip for the college—but I’m only mildly surprised. Ben’s always had a way of getting out of tricky situations.

Dr. Cooper insists we both spend a significant amount of time each week doing private training—just in case. There’s still Gibbons to worry about. And I have an idea—what if one of our missions takes me to a time when I can get answers about my parents? Burke and Cooper can’t monitor our every move in the past. I cross my fingers that whatever Gibbons is up to takes us back to 1911.

Ben and I start planning an actual trip to Europe for next summer so Ben can spend at least a month. With every normal day I spend with him—every movie night cuddled on the couch in my apartment, every Friday night dinner at his not-too-big-but-still-quite-amazing townhome, every Sunday afternoon with his family—I begin to believe what he claimed to have known from the moment he saw me, that we would make our future amazing together.

“Oh, thank heavens,” Mrs. Mitchell says as I walk into the kitchen at Ben’s house one Sunday. I hand over the pitchers I picked up at Target on the way to join his family for dinner. We trade off doing it there and at his parents’, since Ben claims the nice dining room at his home needs use once in a while. He bought the old home he’d told me about, but it does need extensive remodeling, and working together to restore it to its old glory while making it a comfortable, modern living space is something I really enjoy doing with him.

“I don’t know how he functions in this kitchen.” Mrs. Mitchell grabs the pitchers and then gestures to the beautiful kitchen, with its pristine white cabinets, stainless steel appliances—a high-end gas stove to drool over, not to mention the extra-wide French door refrigerator—dark hardwood floors, and white marble countertops. “He’s wasting it. It’s absolutely amazing.” She sighs and turns on the faucet in the apron-style sink.

“It came with the house,” Ben says dryly from where he sits at the island. I come to stand beside him, and he wraps an arm around my waist. We’re definitely in a relationship now, though we’ve taken everything slow.

Well, Ben has taken things slow because he knows I need it.

“You eat here, don’t you?” Mrs. Mitchell asks with raised brows as she fills one of the pitchers with water.

“Takeout,” I tease.

Mrs. Mitchell makes a face of mock horror. “Takeout. In this masterpiece?”

“It’s amazing the work that piles up when you take extended vacations.” Ben puts his other arm around me and rests his head against the side of my arm. I love the normalcy of this part of our relationship—easy boyfriend/girlfriend stuff. Burke and Dr. Cooper haven’t called us back in on the Gibbons case because he’s still a ghost.