Aching for Always

Praise for Gwyn Cready and her tempting time-travel novels

FLIRTING WITH FOREVER

“Entertaining and lively. . . . A compelling romance that will leave readers breathless.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“Take a wonderful jaunt through time with likable characters and some excellent humor.”

—
Romantic Times
(4½ stars)

SEDUCING MR. DARCY
Winner of the 2009 RITA
^®
Award for Best Paranormal Romance

“Sexy fun.”

—
BookPage

“Hot, adorable, and irresistible. Rip its sexy white shirt off and have your way with it.”

—DarcyWars

TUMBLING THROUGH TIME

“Tackling both time travel and the concept of authorial intent in fresh ways, this romance debut is a joy and its author is worth watching.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Ingenious! This heartwarming, laugh-filled ride through time has everything a great novel needs.”

—Romance Junkies

These titles are also available as eBooks

For Jeanne Lowther, Janet Parish, and Lee Parish.
Thank you for helping to keep the memory
of my parents alive and giving me
the gift of feeling like a daughter.

The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

Pocket Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Gwyn Cready

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department,
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First Pocket Books paperback edition October 2010

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Cover design by Lisa Litwack.
Cover illustration by Gene Mollica.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 978-1-4391-0728-7
ISBN 978-1-4391-7148-6 (ebook)

So many people have given me their support: Teri Coyne, Manuel Erviti, Wileen Dragovan, Nick Cole, Donna Neiport, Mary Parish, Mary Nell Cummings, Katie Kemper and Scott DeLaney, Bill Slivka, Joe Gitchell, Betsy Tyson, Jean McCloskey, Annie and Mitchell Kaplan, Todd DePastino, Vince Rause, Karen Rumbaugh, Jean Hilpert, Lynne Crofford, Beverly Crofford, Dick Price, Kate and Mark Zingarelli, Kathi Boyle, Mary Bockovich, Doris and Lloyd Heroff, Betty Jean Pyle, Kim and Wayne Honath, Kelly and Mike Brown, Marie Guerra (going for the hat trick!), Valli Ellis, Dawn Kosanovich, Theresa Gallick, Michele Petruccelli, Ellen Genco, Tory Ferrera, Alison and Jeremy Diamond, Ted Kyle, Mark Prus, Caroline and Richard Holme, Garen DiBartolomeo, Alan Schaefer, Jennifer Davidson, Barb Herrington, Christine Lorenz and Norm Goldberg, Julie Pastorius and Dale Hostavich, Louise Larkin, Gudrun Wells and Stuart Ferguson, Scott Cready, Sally Kay, Pam Maifeld, Cassandra Ott, and Mary Irwin-Scott and Grant Scott.

Three books provided invaluable guidance: Miles
Harvey's marvelous
Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime, How to Lie with Maps
by Mark Monmonier and H. J. de Blij, and
Maps: Finding Our Place in the World
, edited by James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow Jr.

The Dollar Bank lions are magical, though probably not in the way I've suggested. You can see them at 340 Fourth Avenue in Pittsburgh, a block or so from Rogan's house, in reality, the Burke House at 209 Fourth, Pittsburgh's oldest surviving office building, built in 1836.

The alley in question does exist, in exactly the form I've described (save the invisible dome, of course, though as with all things invisible, how does one really know?). It is Strawberry Way, and I encourage you to walk its enchanting length.

I have to thank Judy Hulick again for her inspiration and infectious joy. I hope she doesn't mind being immortalized in these pages. Thanks as well to Diane Pyle, who loves maps as much as I do and who cuts quite the literary figure as the can-do best friend.

India, the kitten, left her paw prints, literally and figuratively, on this story. She was with me every step of the way, motor running.

Joy Balentine and the folks at the Heinz History Center were very kind to let me check out the sightlines from their outdoor balcony, especially a week before the G-20 conference, when the urgency of my mission undoubtedly gave me the air of a terrorist.

A special thank-you to the Historical Center of Mt. Lebanon, especially Margaret Jackson, its go-go president, who has shared her passion for the past as well as the present with me.

Mega thanks to Lisa Litwack at Pocket Books, who envisioned the scrumptious cover, and to photographer Gene Mollica and dress designers Shirley and Victor Forster, who brought the vision to life.

I've raved about my copyeditor, Judy Steer, before and I'll do it again (I wonder if I should have put a comma before the “and”?). Without her amazing work, my readers would be considerably less happy.

A special shout-out to the all-powerful Megan McKeever, whose unflinching support and expert direction is very much appreciated.

Thanks as well to Claudia Cross, who is the Sacajawea to my Meriwether Lewis (apologies to Meriwether Lewis) on this intriguing expedition.

Finally, I am surrounded by three wonderful people who give me many, many reasons to be grateful every day. Lester, Wyatt, and Cameron—I love you so much, it hurts.

P
ROLOGUE
 

T
HE
N
ORTH
A
TLANTIC
, T
HREE
H
UNDRED
M
ILES OFF
THE
C
OAST OF
S
COTLAND
, 1684

“Captain,” Mr. Fallon said, “the island's in sight.”

Young Monk, stealing a glance from the smudged columns of numbers that served as his punishment for larking in the sheets when he should have been scanning the horizon for sails, watched as the captain—a man privately nicknamed Granite by his crew—actually laughed. And though Monk dared not look out the gunport while disgraced, he thought he knew the reason for this surprising outburst. The island, as Fallon had called it, was no more than a rock, a barren rock with sheer, slippery sides, looming like the gray tower of Newgate Prison above the wild, crashing sea. No man could climb it, and Monk was certain Granite would allow no man in his care to try. What could the men who'd chartered this beleaguered voyage have been thinking?

“Thank you, Mr. Fallon,” Granite said. “I spotted her a moment ago myself. Keep her dyce. I'll be up when I finish here.”

“Aye, sir.”

Fallon closed the door to the captain's quarters, but it opened again a moment later. Alfred Brand, the leader of the men who'd hired Granite out of his unemployed naval captain's existence to find this isolated rock, stepped inside.

“How soon until we can make our approach?”

“I beg your pardon,” Granite said. “I didn't hear your knock.”

Monk felt a shiver go down his back. But Brand, a rat-faced man with long pink nose, dark eyes and shining teeth, had no experience of Granite at his most polite, the becalmed sea before the earthshaking fury of a North Atlantic squall.

“I suggest we hurry,” Brand said, “while there's still light.”

Granite cut his gaze toward the table with a look of such modulated benevolence, Monk's mouth went dry. Granite was a handsome man, with dark hair like Monk's, but he was capable of silencing an entire watch without a word.

“Monk?” Granite said.

“Aye, sir?”

“Step up to the deck to see if the ship's master can use you.”

Monk jumped to his feet, relieved to be released from both his unhappy task and the budding storm, but as he scurried out, he heard Granite's chill tones.

“Mr. Brand, I believe I made it clear when I accepted this assignment that the safety of this ship and my men would be paramount. Your objective, whatever that may be, can wait until the weather lifts.”

“I have paid well over—”

“I am aware of what you have paid. Crowns can buy a voyage, but they cannot induce me to smash my ship upon the rocks. We shall wait.”

Monk finished the last of the splicing. The rough work seemed all he was good for, and even for that he was slow and of unremarkable ability. He would never make a sailor, and for a long moment he wondered if the path laid out for him was the one he should be on. With a sigh, he slipped his hands under his arms. They were bleeding and nearly numb from the cold. The rain had stopped half a watch ago, and now the immense darkness of the clouded night seemed ready to consume the ship in one easy swallow.

He gazed at the island, an inky blackness against the sky. It was nearly as high as the main mast, with sheer sides that ended in a blunt top from which another, smaller peak rose. He'd heard Brand and his two traveling companions talk when they thought they were alone, though the words they used—“through hole” and “unbound event”—made no sense to Monk. There was a secret there. One that involved the map Brand kept locked away.