Chapter 28
San Francisco, California
I woke up in our large bed the next morning, a little disoriented as to how I got there. Blinking several times, my eyesight came into focus, and I saw Sam standing at the window, looking down at Portsmouth Square.
The sky was filled with morning light, and we had a beautiful view of San Francisco Bay, with the dozens of ships anchored in the water if we looked past the hill with all the ramshackle buildings in between.
“Good morning.” I sat up and yawned, stretching my arms above my head. “How did I get in bed?”
“You fell asleep on my shoulder an hour ago in the dining room, so I brought you up to bed.” He moved away from the window and sat next to me. “I had hoped you’d sleep a little longer.”
“There’s too much to do today if we want to open the hotel.”
“Do you know what day it is?”
Frowning, I nodded. “November 4th.”
“And we’re both still here, Ally.” He took my hand and lifted it to his lips. “We made it.”
I smiled wide. “I still don’t know how. Perhaps the history book was wrong.”
Sam shrugged as he yawned.
“You should try to get some sleep.”
“I can’t. Too much to do.” He smiled at me. “We have a life to build, Ally.”
I returned his smile, allowing him to take me into his arms again, something that would never lose its wonder to me.
We couldn’t stay in our room all day, so we freshened up and then checked on the children, who were peacefully sleeping with the kitten between them, before we went downstairs.
There were still shards of glass on the kitchen floor, so Sam went to work cleaning up while I lit the fire in the stove. The room was cold, but the sun was bright, and it wouldn’t be chilly for long.
Soon, the coffee was boiling, and I started to make breakfast. Sam helped as Father appeared, followed by the children. There was a lot of explaining to do about the window, but no one seemed too concerned. Sam downplayed the whole thing.
“But,” Sam added, “if it wasn’t for Paddy, we might have lost another hotel.”
“Where is Paddy?” Father asked as he filled a coffee cup.
“Probably sleeping.” I laid several rashers of bacon onto the griddle. “I’m sure he’s tired from all the hard work he did last night.” I didn’t mention that he had gone to watch the executions.
We continued to prepare breakfast, but Paddy still didn’t come out of his room.
“Perhaps he left before we got up,” Sam said as he walked to the bedroom door and opened it. “He’s not in his bed.”
We planned to open that evening for supper.
After we finished breakfast, Father took the children out for the morning, so they wouldn’t be underfoot.
As I dusted the tables in the dining room, a man entered the hotel, and I immediately recognized him as the businessman from Clay Street who had been part of the vigilante committee the night before.
He removed his hat, his face serious. “Mrs. Kendal?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Preston Ayres.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Ayres. Unfortunately, we’re not open quite yet.”
“I’m not here as a customer. I’d like to speak to Mr. Kendal, if I may.”
Sam must have heard his arrival because he came out of the kitchen, where he was patching the window until we could get a replacement.
“Mr. Ayres,” Sam said, a slight frown on his face. “What can I do for you?”
Mr. Ayres glanced between us, concern in his brow. “I came about Paddy.”
“What about Paddy?” Sam asked as he came to my side.
“I don’t know how to say this. He was found this morning, not too far away from where we hanged the Ducks last night.”
“Found?”
“Dead, I’m afraid.”
My lips parted as shock passed through me.
“What?” Sam frowned. “How?”
“People thought he drank too much and that he was passed out next to one of the buildings facing the bay.” Mr. Ayres gripped his hat. “But when someone tried to rouse him this morning, there was no scent of alcohol on him. No evidence of foul play, either.” He shrugged. “He just died in his sleep.”
My gaze collided with Sam’s, and my breath caught.
“We brought his body here. Didn’t know where else to take him. The men brought him to the back.”
“You did the right thing.” Sam nodded. “If you could take him to his room next to the kitchen, we’d be obliged.”
“Sure.” Mr. Ayres put his hat back on and tipped it to me. “Mrs. Kendal.”
I tried to smile my thanks, but I couldn’t think straight.
Was Paddy a time-crosser?
Several men brought Paddy’s body into the hotel and laid him on the bed, then they left silently.
Without a word, Sam rolled Paddy onto his front and moved aside his hair.
And there was a time-crossing mark.
“He was a 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 at The 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.