Jesse just looked down at me. I couldn’t be sure, but I think I saw pity in his gaze.

“Jesse, I’m serious,” I said. “You’ve got to go home. Okay? Just get back on your horse and turn around and go home, and don’t even think about marrying Maria de Silva.”

“Maria did send you,” Jesse said, finally. His face darkened with a sudden anger. “This is her way of trying to save face, is it? Well, you can go back to your mistress and tell her it won’t work. I won’t have her family thinking I wasn’t gentleman enough to break it off in person—no matter who she sends with strange tales to frighten me off. I’m going to see her tomorrow whether she likes it or not.”

I blinked up at him, completely dumbfounded. What was he talking about?

Then, too late, I remembered the secret Jesse had once confided in me, the secret only I knew… that he had been on his way to the de Silva ranch all those years ago not to marry Maria, but to break things off with her…

…Which explained why all of her letters to him had been discovered alongside his remains last summer, when my stepbrother accidentally dug them up. Nineteenth-century manners demanded that couples breaking off their engagements returned the letters each had written the other. Diego had murdered Jesse before such an exchange could take place in order to prevent Maria’s father from asking any uncomfortable questions concerning the break-up—like what Jesse had heard about his fiancée that had made him want to end their engagement.

“Wait,” I said. “Hold on. Jesse, Maria didn’t send me. I don’t even know Maria. Well, I mean, we’ve met, but—”

“You have to know her.” Jesse looked down at the framed portrait in his hand. “She gave this to you. She must have. How else could you have gotten it?”

“Um,” I said, with a shrug. “Actually, I stole it.” Then I saw his face change, and knew I’d made a mistake.

“Oh, no,” I said, holding up both hands, palms toward him. “Down, boy. I didn’t steal it from your precious Maria, believe me. I stole it from the Carmel Historical Society, okay? A museum, where it had been sitting for God knows how long. In fact, I bet if you check with good old Maria, she still has hers. Her portrait of you, I mean.”

“There were no duplicates made,” Jesse said, in a hard voice.

“I know that.” God, this was hard. “But look at the one you’re holding, Jesse. Look how old it looks, how cracked the paint is, how tarnished that frame’s gotten. That’s because it’s nearly two hundred years old. I stole it in the future, Jesse. I used it to help me get back here, to the past, so I could warn you…” This wasn’t strictly true, of course, but close enough. “You’ve got to believe me, Jesse. Paul— the guy who tied me up—will back me up on this. He’s out looking for Felix Diego right now to try to stop him before he can get to you—”

Jesse shook his head.

“I don’t know who you are,” he said in a low, even tone unlike any he’d ever used with me before. “But I’m returning this—” He dangled his portrait in my face. “—to its rightful owner. Whatever game you’re playing, it ends now. Do you understand?

Game? I couldn’t believe this. Here I was, risking my neck for him, and he was mad at me for stealing a stupid portrait of him? “There’s no game, Jesse, okay? If this were just a game—if Maria really did send me—how would I know the stuff I know? How would I know that Maria and Diego are secretly in love? How would I know that your girl-friend—who is quite the skank, by the way—doesn’t want to marry you at all? And that her dad doesn’t approve of Diego and thinks if she marries you she’ll forget about him eventually? How do I know that the two of them have cooked up a scheme to kill you tonight and hide your body so it looks as though you skipped out on the engagement—”

“Nombre de Dios.” Jesse was on his feet and swearing. I couldn’t help noticing how the loft shook a little under his footsteps. This was not something that would have happened with Ghost Jesse, and was just more proof of how very far I’d come from the world I knew.

But that wasn’t the only thing that wouldn’t have happened with Ghost Jesse. I realized this a second later when Alive Jesse bent down and siezed me by my arms, and gave me a frustrated shake.

“You know all this because Maria told you!” he said, from between gritted teeth. “Admit it! She told you!” As quickly as he’d snatched me up, he let go and turned away. Uttering a groan of pent-up annoyance, Jesse dragged a hand through his hair.

My arms, where he’d touched me, tingled.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. I knew how he felt, after all. His wasn’t the only heart in that barn that was breaking. “I mean, about your girlfriend wanting to kill you and all. Even if you were going to, you know, break up and all. But if it’s any consolation, I do think you’re a lot better off without her. I mean, the only times I ever met her, she was trying to kill me, too, but still. Better you find out she’s a skank now, you know, and break it off cleanly, than find out after you’re married. Because I don’t even know if they let people get divorced in, you know, your time.”

“Stop saying that!” Both of Jesse’s hands went to grasp his hair now.

“What? Skank?” Maybe I was being a little harsh. “Well, okay. But the girl seems like major bad news.”

“No.” Jesse turned around to stare down at me, and I was surprised at the intensity with which his gaze burned into mine. “Your time. The future. You… you… I’m sorry, Miss Susannah. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to get the sheriff after all. Because you are very clearly not right in the head.”

“Miss Susannah!” To my utter horror, tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. But I couldn’t help it. It was just so… so…

Unfair.

“So it’s Miss Susannah, is it?” I asked him, ignoring my tears. “Oh, that’s just great. I come all the way back here, risking major brain cell burnout, and you don’t even believe me? I’m basically guaranteeing myself a lifetime of heartbreak, and all you have to say is that you think I’m not right in the head? Thanks a lot, Jesse. No, really. That’s just fine.”