He laid the knife aside and lifted something else toward my face. Water. From a flask. I took it from him and sucked greedily. I'd had no idea how thirsty I'd been.

"Easy," Jesse said in that voice - that voice! "I can get you more. Stay here and I'll get help - "

On the word help, however, my hands, as if of their own volition, dropped the flask and flew out to seize his shirt-front instead.

It wasn't the shirt I was used to seeing Jesse in. It was similar, the same soft, white linen. But this one was higher at the neck. He was wearing a vest, too - a waistcoat, I think they were called back then - of a sort of watered silk.

"No," I croaked and was startled at how raspy my voice sounded. "Don't go."

Not, of course, because I was worried he was going to go and get Mrs. O'Neil, who'd recognize me as the strumpet she'd found wandering around her front parlor the night before. But because I couldn't bear the thought of him leaving my sight. Not now. Not ever.

This was Jesse. This was the real Jesse. This was who I loved.

And who was going to die shortly.

"Who are you?" Jesse asked, lifting the flask I'd dropped and, finding it not quite empty, handing it back to me. "Who did this - left you here like this?"

I drank what was left of the water. I'd known Jesse long enough to see that he was outraged - outraged at whoever had left me like that.

"A . . . a man," I said. Because, of course, Jesse - this Jesse - wouldn't know who Paul was. . . . Didn't know who I was, clearly.

His eyebrows furrowed, the one with the scar in it looking particularly adorable. The scar wasn't as obvious, I noticed, on Live Jesse as it was on Ghost Jesse.

"And did this same man put you in these outlandish clothes?" Jesse wanted to know, looking critically at my jeans and motorcycle jacket.

Suddenly, I wanted to laugh. He seemed like a different Jesse entirely - or rather, a hundred times more real than the Jesse I had known - but his disgust with my wardrobe? That hadn't changed a bit.

"Yes," I said. I figured it would be more believable to him than the real explanation.

"I'll see him horsewhipped," Jesse said as matter-of-factly as if he had people horsewhipped for dressing girls up in odd outfits and leaving them tied up in haylofts every day of the week. "Who are you? Your family must be looking for you - "

"Um," I said. "No, they aren't. I mean . . . I doubt it. And my name is Suze."

Again the dark brow furrowed. "Soose?"

"Suze," I said with a laugh. I couldn't help it. Laughing, I mean. It was so wonderful to see him like this. "Susannah. As in 'Oh, Susannah, Don't You Cry for Me.'"

It was what I had said to him, I realized with a pang, back in my bedroom, the very first time I'd met him, the day I'd arrived in Carmel. I hadn't known then what I knew now - that that moment had been a turning point in my life - everything before it was BJ: Before Jesse. Everything afterward, AJ: After Jesse. I hadn't known then that this guy in the puffy shirt with the tight black pants would one day mean more to me than my own life. . . . Would one day be my everything.

But I knew it now, just as I knew something else:

I had it wrong. I had it all wrong.

But it wasn't, I knew, too late to fix it. Thank God.

"Susannah," Jesse said, as he sat beside me in the straw. "Susannah O'Neil, perhaps? You are related to Mr. and Mrs. O'Neil? Let me get them. I know they'll want to see that you're safe - "

"No," I said, shaking my head. "My, um, family is far away." Really far away. "You can't get them. I mean, thank you, but . . . you can't get them."

"Then this man . . ." Jesse looked excited. And why not? It probably wasn't every day the guy stumbled over a sixteen-year-old girl who'd been left bound and gagged in a hayloft. "Who is he? I'll fetch the sheriff. He must pay for what he's done."

Much as I would have liked to sic Jesse - Live Jesse - on Paul, it didn't seem like the appropriate thing to do. Not when Jesse was going to have so many problems of his own to handle very soon. Paul was my problem, not his.

"No," I said. "No, that's okay." Then, seeing his puzzled look, I said, "I mean, that's all right. Don't get the sheriff - "

"You needn't fear him anymore, Susannah," Jesse said, gently. He clearly did not know he was speaking to a girl who had kicked a lot of butt in her day. Ghost butt, mostly, but whatever. "I won't let him hurt you again."

"I'm not afraid of him, Jesse," I said.

"Then - " Jesse's face clouded suddenly. "Wait. How did you know my name?"

Ah. Well, there was the rub, wasn't it?

Jesse was looking at me curiously, that dark-eyed gaze raking my face. I'm sure I must have looked a picture. I mean, what girl wouldn't after having been left for hours with her head in the straw and her mouth gagged?

It didn't matter, of course. What Jesse thought of me. But I felt self-conscious just the same. I reached up and shoved some hair out of my eyes, trying to tuck it back behind an ear. Just my luck, the first time I meet my boyfriend - while he's still living - and I look like a complete train wreck.

"Do I know you?" Jesse asked, his gaze searching. "Have we met? Are you . . . are you one of the Anderson girls?"

I had no idea who the Anderson girls might be, but I felt a stab of envy for them, whoever they were. Because they were girls who'd gotten to know Jesse - Live Jesse. I wondered if they knew how lucky they were.

"We haven't met," I said. "Yet. But . . . I know you. I mean, I know . . . about you."

"You do?" Recognition dawned at last in his gaze. "Wait . . . yes! Now I know. You're friends with one of my sisters From school? Mercedes? You know Mercedes?"

I shook my head, fumbling around in the pocket of my leather jacket.

"Josefina, then?" Jesse studied me some more. "You must be close to her age, fifteen, yes? You don't know Josefina? You can't know Marta, she's too old - "

I shook my head again, then held out what I'd fished from my pocket.

He looked down at what I held in my hand.

"Nombre de dios," he said softly, and took it from me.

It was the miniature portrait of Jesse, the one I'd stolen from the Carmel Historical Society. I saw now how poor a portrait it actually was. Oh, the painter had gotten the shape of Jesse's head right and his eye color and expression were close enough.

But he'd completely failed to capture what it was that made Jesse . . . well . . . Jesse. The keen intelligence in his dark brown eyes. The confident twist of his wide, sensuous mouth. The gentleness of his cool, strong hands. The power - just now leashed, but coiled so close to the surface, it might rise up at any moment - of those muscles, honed from years of working alongside his father's ranch hands, beneath that soft linen shirt and black pants.

"Where did you get this?" Jesse demanded, his fist closing over the portrait. Sparks seem to fly from his dark eyes, he was that angry. "Only one person has a portrait like this."

"I know," I said. "Your fiancée, Maria. You're here to marry her. Or at least, that's the plan. You're on your way to see her now, but her father's ranch is still pretty far off, so you're staying here for the night before you go on to her place in the morning."

Anger turned to bewilderment as Jesse lifted his free hand and raked his fingers through his thick dark hair - a gesture I had seen him perform so many times when he was completely frustrated with me, that tears actually sprang to my eyes, it was so familiar . . . and so adorable.

"How do you know all this?" he asked desperately. "You're . . . you're friends with Maria? Did she . . . give you this?"

"Not exactly," I said.

And took a deep breath.

"Jesse, my name is Susannah Simon," I said all in a rush, wanting to get it out before I changed my mind. "I'm what's called a mediator. I'm from the future. And I'm here to keep you from being murdered tonight."

Chapter sixteen

Because, in the end, I couldn't do it.

I thought I could. I really did think I could sit back and let Jesse be murdered. I mean, if the alternative was never to meet him? Sure, I could do it. No problem.

But that had been before. Before I'd seen him. Before I'd spoken to him. Before he'd touched me. Before I'd known what he was, what he could have been, if he'd only lived.

I knew now I could no more stand by and let Jesse be killed than I could have . . . well, shoved my little stepbrother David out in front of a speeding car or fed my mother poison mushroom caps. I couldn't let Jesse die, even if meant never seeing him again. I loved him too much.

It was as simple as that.

Oh, I knew I was going to hate myself later. I knew I was going to wake up and, if I even remembered what I'd done, hate myself for the rest of my natural life.

But what else could I do? I couldn't stand idly by while someone I loved was walking into mortal danger. Father Dominic, my dad, all of them - even Paul - were right. I had to save Jesse, if I could.

It was the right thing to do.

But not, of course, the easy thing The easy thing would have been to point a finger in his face as he stared down at me, completely disbelieving, and gone, "Ha! Fooled ya! Just kidding."

Instead, I said, "Jesse. Did you hear me? I said I'm here from the future to save you from being - "

"I heard what you said." Jesse smiled at me gently. "Do you know what I think would be best? If you would let me get Mrs. O'Neil. She'll take good care of you while I go to town to get the doctor. Because I think the man who did this to you - tied you like this - might also have hit you on the head - "