The first thing Annabel saw when she regained consciousness was Cole's anxious face as he hovered over her and said urgently, "Annabel! Annabel, darling, are you all right?"
She groaned as she caught sight of the pin on his lapel, the pin she herself had fastened there a few minutes ago. Confusion and fear loomed once again in her brain, but she was determined that this time she would not give in to the emotions. Instead she managed to nod and said, "I'm all right Help me up."
Practically the entire engine company was gathered around her, Annabel saw to her embarrassment. The firemen backed, up to give her some room as Cole and Patsy took hold of her arms and assisted her to her feet.
"What happened?" Lieutenant Driscoll asked. "Miss Lowell, do you need a doctor?"
"No, I'm fine," Annabel insisted. "I just felt a bit dizzy for a moment Perhaps it was the bright sun."
"You're sure?" Cole said.
Annabel nodded. "I'm certain. All of you, go on with what you were doing."
With a dubious look that said he wasn't sure he believed her, Lieutenant Driscoll began herding the rest of Engine Company Twenty-one back into line for the second photograph. Cole didn't want to leave Annabel's side, but she shooed him away and told him to go stand where he was supposed to.
Annabel backed off and tried to unobtrusively lean against one of the hook-and-ladder wagons that were parked in front of the firehouse. She still felt a bit light-headed, but she was regaining control of herself now. She was confident that she wouldn't pass out again.
But she still didn't have any answers to the questions that plagued her. She had read enough science-fiction novels and watched enough movies and TV shows to be aware of such things as time travel paradoxes, and she had a feeling she was in the middle of one right now. It had been conjectured that time and space were both vast loops following similar but not completely congruent paths. That was as reasonable an explanation for the glitch that had sent her back to 1906 as any she could think of. And if the loop theory was true, certain things were, obviously going to repeat themselves from time to time, though perhaps with each occasion there would be slight differences. The only way to be sure about that, Annabel realized, was if she could somehow get back to her own time and study that photograph in the fire museum. Perhaps there was one less man in that picture, or someone extra, or some other small discrepancy. Perhaps she herself had caused history to somehow change. There could be infinite time lines diverging into a myriad of alternate universes . . .
She took a deep breath. Thinking like that was just going to get her in trouble again. She didn't want to undergo the humiliation of fainting for a third time.
Besides, there was no point in speculating. She wasn't going to go back to her own time and examine that old photograph in the fire museum. Without even being aware she was doing it, she had come to a decision during the past few weeks. She was going to stay here in 1906 . . . with Cole. He was more important to her than anything she had left behind in her own era, though she still felt bad about the idea of Earl and Vickie grieving for her. They would get over her apparent death, she told herself. And she couldn't live her life for other people. She had to make the decision that was right for her.
That meant being with Cole Brady. There was no doubt of that in her mind.
Annabel looked on as the photographer finished his work. The engine company dispersed, the men who weren't on duty taking their families and going home, the others heading into the firehouse to change from their dress uniforms into their everyday uniforms. Cole was one of those men; his shift had officially started at noon.
When he came back out of the firehouse a few minutes later, Annabel was waiting for him. He was carrying her father's fire department pin, and he slipped it into her hand. "You'd better take this," he said.
"No, I want you to have it," she protested.
"I know, but something this special, I'll only wear on special occasions—like our wedding."
Annabel smiled at him. "All right. What do you want me to do with it?"
"There's a small jewelry box on the desk in my room. My mother's jewelry is there. Why don't you put it in there."
She nodded as she slipped the pin into one of the pockets of her dress. "All right."
"You're sure you can get home all right?"
Home. That was a beautiful word, and Annabel loved the way he used it now, simply assuming that it meant the place where the two of them would be together. She nodded again. "Don't worry about me."
"I always worry about you," he said with a grin. "You're unpredictable. Sort of like a fire. A man never knows what it's going to do next."
She leaned toward him and kissed him quickly. "'I think I'd be insulted." she said, "if you weren't so blasted handsome."