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their jade depths before he turned from her.
    They’d reached the automatic doors, and as the glass panels silently swung open, she walked outside. Glancing back, she watched Leith step gingerly past the doors. He’d paled, and a sheen of sweat covered his torso. Looking quickly away, she hoped he hadn’t seen her staring; she sensed he wouldn’t want a witness to his fear.
    Sympathy touched her. She’d expected the doors to open, understood the four-wheeled machines that roared up and down the street. But to Leith, they must seem liketerrifying monsters. He needed her. No matter what he said, he really needed her. She wondered at the warm glow the thought brought.
    Still basking in the glow, she looked around her. When she turned back to the rest-over, Leith was gone.
    Gone! Oh, no. Fear caught at her, cutting off all rational thought. She couldn’t lose him. No matter that dozens of men walked around her. He was the one.
    Intent on locating Leith, she stepped off the curb without noticing the traffic. Turning in every direction, she finally saw him. He was standing beside a little old woman with…blue hair? What was the old woman handing him?
    The screech of tires jerked her attention away from Leith. Too late she remembered she wasn’t in her own time, and vehicles didn’t have sensors to guide them around things in their path. Frozen, she stared at the vehicle hurtling toward her and could muster only one thought: Leith will be alone.
    If a person’s life was supposed to flash in front of them, she was denied that treat as someone flung her from harm’s way, then fell on her. The air escaped her lungs in a startled whoosh, and as she fought for breath she felt the mad pounding of her heart and heard the cat’s surprised yowl.
    Leith. She’d found him, and she was still in one piece. Life was good. Even with dignity and breath gone, her body refused to ignore the solid length of him pressed against her. Her nipples swelled in joyful reaction at the contact with real male flesh, and she didn’t even want to think about the lower half of her body’s response to a male leg lodged between her thighs. If she didn’t move fast, she’d have a revolution on her hands.
    “Get off me before I…” What had she read about ancient defenses against unwanted male advances? “Before I kick you in the groin.” Of course, the manuals hadn’tindicated what to do when said groin was pressed against her thigh.
    “Ye’re an ungrateful wench. Here I’ve just saved ye from one of yon devil’s toys and not a word of thanks do I get.”
    “Devil’s toys?” Fortune turned her head so she could peer beneath his muscled arm. She squinted at the four-wheeled vehicle marked TAXI that had pulled up to the curb beside them. There was a boxy vehicle—she thought it was called a truck—with ICE CREAM emblazoned on its side parked behind it. The singer on the truck’s loudspeaker bemoaned his stay at someplace called the Heartbreak Hotel. A sad song about love. No one sang love songs anymore. Without men, what was the use?
    Exhaust fumes engulfed her and she coughed. When she got home she’d appreciate her pollution-free hovercraft a lot more.
    When she got home. The sudden reminder of her predicament made her response harsher than she’d planned. “If you hadn’t run off with that blue-haired woman, I wouldn’t have stepped into the street. Let me up.”
    He pushed himself off her and stood. The sudden flow of cooler air across her body made her shiver. She looked up and met his equally cool gaze.
    “Dinna think because ye come from another age ye know everything. Blundering into the path of that cursed machine was foolish.” A smile touched his lips. “I helped the old woman carry her things. She gave me some pieces of paper and told me to come to her room so I could light her fire. I dinna think ’tis cold enough for a fire.” He held the pieces of paper out for her to see.
    “Light her fire?” Money. The pieces