Someone was slapping Lainey's cheeks. Back off! she tried to say, but her tongue was too thick and slow to form words. The back of her head felt as though it had been hit with a sledgehammer.
She cracked open one eye, and thankfully the slapping stopped. A group of young men had gathered around, peering down at her, blocking the sun. She blinked from one to the other. A Beatle sky. Maybe this was heaven after all.
Her head was propped on someone's knees, which seemed to make it hurt even more, if that was possible. Wincing, she tilted her head back slightly and found herself staring into the down-sloping hazel eyes of Paul McCartney. Of the Beatles. He looked to be no older than Lainey herself.
"You aren't real," she whispered.
He was framing her face with his hands. "You've had a rather nasty knock on the noggin," he said.
"You gave us quite a scare." Another young man who looked vaguely familiar frowned down at her, pulling her attention away from Paul. McCartney. Of the Beatles.
"Yeah! You ran right out in front of us, out of bloody nowhere!"
Lainey blinked up at another new but familiar voice, and in spite of the pain she felt a flood of relief at the sight of his beautiful, unlined face. Just like the little photograph inside the ring. "George. Thank god you're alive. You're perfect."
"What's she sayin'?" someone else asked. Lainey shifted her eyes. Ringo.
"She says thank god George is alive," Paul translated.
Lainey stared into Paul's beautiful amber eyes. "George is my...my..."
Paul ducked his head to hear her over the traffic. "George is what?"
"George is my grandfather." Her voice came out in a croak.
"George Martin?" Paul looked up. "Ritch! Go fetch Mr. Martin."
"No...no..." Lainey swallowed, trying to make her brain connect to her tongue. "George Harrison is my grandfather."
Paul reached his fingers around to the back of her head and he rubbed a tender spot that sent fresh waves of pain shooting through her skull. "Right. And I'm your great-grandmother, love. And you have a knot on your head the size of a golf ball."
Lainey focused on his beautifully shaped eyebrows and tried not to cry out. "What year is this?" she whispered.
Paul chuckled. "I should be asking you that. You're the one who is concussed. What year do you think it is?"
Slowly her gaze swept over the faces of the young men, lingering on each in turn. Their hair was in the early mop-top cut. Paul had the face of a cherub, and George looked like a teenager. "1963?" she guessed.
"Good answer." Paul lowered her head and let it rest against his knees. And damn that hurt.
"What's your name, love?"
"Lainey. Elaine Spencer."
She tried to prop herself up on her elbows, flinching as a wave of pain radiated across the back of her head and down her spine.
"Easy, now, no need to move. You just relax. We'll see you to hospital."
Hospital. Hospital? In 1963? This couldn't possibly be real, but if it was, she couldn't be admitted to a hospital. With this blinding headache she couldn't possibly answer all the questions they would ask her, and if she started talking about the year 2012 they'd likely pump her full of antipsychotic medications. She'd never see her mother and her brother again. She had to stay focused until she found a way to get back to where she belonged.
Paul watched her closely, a frown of concern etched on his brow. He would help her. She felt sure of it. His hands still held her face. She reached up and gripped his wrists. "You have to help me."
He nodded. "Of course, love."
"No hospital! Please. I just have to get back to my mom. No hospital."
"No problem. Where's your mum?"
How was she supposed to answer that one? If this was 1963, her mother was a two-year-old baby living in Virginia. "Help me sit up. I need to think."
When she got herself into a sitting position, someone knelt beside her with a paper cup half full of something that smelled blissfully like tea. God bless the British. She took it gratefully and looked up into the face of John Lennon.
"Oh my god, John Lennon!" she blurted out. "You look awesome!"
Even through a new flash of pain, she didn't miss the look John and Paul exchanged.
"You look...awesome, John," Paul repeated.
"Ambulance on the way," John said quietly.
Lainey shook her head vigorously, wincing at the pain. "No ambulance. No hospital. I need my mom."
Beside her, Paul scratched his head. He watched her raise the cup to her lips with a shaky hand. Then he leaned in close. "Look in my eyes."
She lowered the cup and stared at him as he peered back and forth between her eyes. He was so close she could see the tiny gold and green flecks in his hazel eyes.
"Pupils are the same size. How many fingers am I holding up?" He held up one thumb three inches in front of her nose.
It was such a McCartney thing to do that she almost laughed, but a new wave of pain hit. "Eleventy," she muttered, pushing his thumb out of her face. "I'm fine. I just need to lie down somewhere for a few minutes and then I'll call my mom."
"All right, lads, let's take her home and ring her mum from there." Paul stood up and brushed off his dark trousers.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Paul—"
"You bloody near killed her Neil, and that makes us responsible for her."
"She came out of nowhere," George added.
"And now she's going home with us."
The one they called Neil stepped in front of Lainey and said a few low words to Paul.
"Don't be so bloody neurotic, Neil. My mum was a nurse. I know what I'm doing."
Paul took Lainey by the hand and pulled her to her feet. She swayed against him for a moment. "All right?" he asked.
"Yes. Really. I'll be fine if I can just close my eyes for a few minutes." She glanced away from him and almost fell back onto the sidewalk.
Everything was different. Trees that had seemed twenty feet high only moments ago were saplings. The cars on the road, the hairstyles of the men and women, their clothing...it was like watching the History Channel. Even the red double-decker buses had changed from the sleek modern design with the oversized windows into the squat shorter buses she remembered from old movies. The air seemed smoggier, and the smell of exhaust permeated everything.
Tears burned behind her eyes. She couldn't even think what to do with her head pounding this way.
Paul dipped his head and searched her eyes. "All right?" he asked again.
"Yes. Just need to close my eyes." She clutched Paul's hand and didn't protest as he led her to a black sedan idling at the curb.
Moments later she was motoring through London, sandwiched between Paul and Ringo, with George in the opposite corner of the back seat. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, resting her forehead on the heels of her hands. Immediately she felt a hand on her shoulder, fingers massaging her neck. Good lord. A baby-faced Paul McCartney was massaging her neck. With those hands that played the music that she listened to every day at home on her iPhone. In 2012.
"Giz a ciggy, mate," Paul said to someone, and soon all five of them were smoking strong-smelling foreign cigarettes, and there wasn't a fresh breath of air in the car.
Lainey let out an involuntary groan and tried to make sense of what was happening to her. Since she was ten years old she'd wished she could have known her grandfather. Maybe that's why she was having this hallucination, or whatever it was. This had to be tied to the strange little gypsy woman. Certainly it was temporary. Maybe it was some sort of realistic comatose state, and she should ignore the pain in her head and make the best of it until she woke up on the street under a bus in 2012.
She straightened and turned toward Paul, squinting through the smoke. His face was inches from hers. "Good Lord. You really are as pretty as you look on YouTube."
He stopped massaging her neck. "Say again?"
Lainey clamped her mouth shut. Perhaps she hadn't fully come around. She should stop talking. She looked at Ringo next. The expression on his face made her want to laugh. He looked as sweet and dazed as he did in most of the videos she'd watched of him. "Ringo," she whispered.
And George, sitting in the opposite corner smashed against the door, nodded when their eyes met. She leaned forward, blatantly staring.
George raised an eyebrow. "'Ello," he said with an uneasy smile.
Those cheekbones. That smile. Lainey's mother had the same crooked smile.
"Oh my god!" Lainey blurted out. "Look at your teeth!"
George snapped his lips closed, frowning. "What's wrong with 'em?"
Lainey tapped one of her teeth with a fingernail. "Your canine teeth. They're fangs. Your teeth look exactly like mine. Except...I had braces..." She suddenly thought of something. "Is your mother in Liverpool? I would give anything to meet her. She'd know what to do."
George's brows were knit together in a picture of confusion. "You want to meet my mum."
"Oh God yes," Lainey murmured. "I'd give anything to meet her. I thought about contacting your sister in Illinois, so many times, but I didn't know how she would react—"
From the front seat, John turned around and examined Lainey through a haze of smoke, his eyes narrowed. "Who the fook are you, any road, and how do you know so much about us?"
"Nobody, really," Lainey muttered. She realized she was acting like a lunatic, but who wouldn't, in this situation. Her head still felt like it had been squeezed in a vice. She needed to stop talking, and when her head cleared, she'd figure out what to do. If only they had the internet in 1963, she could do a Google image search and see if she could find out the history of this ring...
"My purse!" Her gaze flew around the car, her heart jumping into high gear.
John passed her handbag from the front seat, and Lainey blew out a relieved sigh.
"Thank you." She aimed a smile at John, but he was already staring out the front window.
Paul cleared his throat. "Close your eyes, love. We'll be home soon and you can ring your mum. Everything's going to be just fine."
Lainey leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, hoping he was right.
Moments later, Paul led Lainey up the stairs and into a third-floor flat, pointing to an end table with a squat black rotary dial telephone sitting on it. "Shall we ring your mum?" he suggested.
Lainey stared at the telephone. Who could she call with that? Her teenage grandmother in Virginia? It was a possibility, she supposed. Grandma Marie would never believe her though. She was far too practical. Lainey needed to be alone for a few seconds and check her iPhone. "Could I use your bathroom?"
"Sure, sure. Ritchie, show her to the loo, would ya?"
Lainey leaned against the bathroom door and dug for her phone. No bars. Of course not. What did she expect? She tapped her mother's picture and waited. Nothing. With the phone back inside her purse, she rubbed her hands over her face and tried to think. It was nearly dusk, and there wasn't much she could do tonight. If the spell didn't wear off by tomorrow, she'd get herself back to Abbey Road and look for the little gypsy woman. All she had to do was keep her mouth closed and ask the Beatles if she could crash on their couch for the evening. At that thought, Lainey gave a little hysterical laugh. No one would ever believe this.
Ringo was waiting for her outside the bathroom, a lit cigarette in one hand, his eyes narrowed. No doubt he'd heard her laughing like a maniac. "All right?" he asked.
"You betcha." She gave him a thumbs up and walked down the hall with her head high.
Four pairs of eyes watched her enter the living room. George sat on the sofa strumming a guitar, a cigarette dangling from his lips. The others stood near the doorway having a low conversation, no doubt about her. She plopped down on the sofa close to George, taking the opportunity to study him. It was like seeing a teenage boy version of her mother.
George glanced up, his fingers stuttering on the guitar. Lainey tried to ratchet down the intensity of her expression. She was probably freaking him completely out. She hugged her purse to her chest and smiled at him. "You're going to be an awesome songwriter," she murmured.
George lifted a brow, but he didn't respond.
"Don't let anyone make you think otherwise." Lainey jerked a thumb toward the doorway. "It's easy for them, they have each other. But you'll show 'em."
George's hands stilled. "Who ARE you?" he said around the cigarette.
"That's what I'd like to know." John strode across the room, a passport clenched in his hand. He began to read. "Elaine Louise Spencer, United States of America, date of birth 30 November...1992."
Lainey snatched at the passport but John jerked his arm away and flipped a page. "It gets better. Date of entry in the UK, today's date, 15 July...in the year two thousand and twelve."
"Who are you, Homeland Security? Give it to me!" Lainey leaped from the couch, grappling with John. He held the passport over his head and fended her off with one elbow.
"John, cut it out. Just give it back to her." Paul wedged himself between them, his back to John. "It's probably a movie prop or summat. Right Lainey? Tell 'im."
Lainey searched his eyes. Of all of them, Paul seemed to be the one she could explain things to. She certainly couldn't say anything else in front of all of them. Especially not Neil, who stood at the door glaring at her like he wouldn't be happy until he'd ditched her at the nearest police station. She swallowed. "That's right. I'm in a movie. Set in 2012."
John smirked, but he didn't protest when Paul snatched the passport and held it out to Lainey.
She shoved it into her purse and zipped it closed. Then she pressed her fingertips to her forehead. If only her head weren't exploding, she could figure out how to get out of this situation without ending up in a hospital room or a jail cell.
"Are you going to call your mum or what?" George asked.
Lainey glanced at the rotary phone on the table beside her. "I can't call her on that phone. She's in Oxford. I don't know the number. And even if I did, that phone's not going to work."
No one said anything for a long moment. Finally Ringo shuffled over and picked up the receiver, holding it to his ear. "Works all right." He held the phone out to Lainey. "Give it a go."
Lainey crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head.
"Come 'ead, love." Paul took her hand and pulled her toward the hallway.
"Bad idea, Paul," Neil called from the front door.
"So you've said," Paul answered.
"I'll be back after I drop John home."
"Suit yerself." Paul stopped in the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and took Lainey by the hand again. At the end of the hallway he led her into a tiny bedroom and closed the door. He put the water in Lainey's hand. "Drink."
Lainey obediently downed half of the glass of water and handed it back.
Paul put the glass on the bedside table. "Does your head still hurt?"
That was a stupid question. She nodded, the effort making her slightly dizzy.
"Look in my eyes."
"Don't mind if I do." She tilted her face up to his and met his beautiful dark eyes. Time travel could be a lot more stressful if she didn't have this gorgeous man willing to babysit her.
Paul snickered. "You're a funny bird." He checked her eyes and then let his gaze travel over the rest of her face, lingering on her lips. "I'm usually good at reading people but you've thrown me for a loop."
"That makes two of us. I'm as surprised as you are."
He tilted his head and leaned toward her slightly, and she found herself staring at his mouth, wondering how he would kiss. Yes! That would break the spell. There was no way a penniless college student from Virginia in 2012 could go back in time fifty years and kiss one of the most famous men in the world without breaking all sorts of laws of physics and being zapped immediately back to the future. She leaned closer to him and let her eyes drift closed.
She heard his sharp intake of breath and opened her eyes to see him pulling away. He scratched the back of his neck and shook his head a little. "Right. Why don't you lie down for a bit and close your eyes. When your head is clear, we'll sort this out."
With a sigh, Lainey looked around the small room, at the nightstand with an ashtray and a small stack of books, the dresser holding a portable record player, the tiny cupboard stuffed with clothes. A pair of black heeled boots, just outside the cupboard door. An acoustic guitar lay across the foot of the bed beside a notebook. Lainey smiled to herself. If this was a dream, she had to hand it to herself for having a freaking great imagination. Her gaze fastened on the bed. "You want me to lie down here? In your bed?"
His eyes rolled briefly to the ceiling. "Let's review. A wild-haired bird in a skimpy nightgown with bare legs appeared out of thin air, jumped in front of our car, bashed her head, and claimed to be from the 21st century. Lie down and relax while I sort out what to do with you. Let's hope your memory returns after a kip."
Lainey glanced down at her modest dress. Modest by 2012 standards. "This is a sundress, not a nightgown."
"It's certainly short enough." Paul's eyes drifted to her legs. "Not that I'm complaining."
"The swinging '60s haven't happened yet, have they?" She couldn't help smiling as she sat on the bed and slid off her sandals. "God, you're going to love it here." She tucked her legs under her. "All my life I wished I could be in London in the psychedelic '60s."
Paul blew out a breath. "Right. Why don't you lie back like a good girl and rest your eyes, and when you feel like yourself again we'll sort you out." He lifted the guitar from the bed and propped it against a wall.
Lainey crawled up to the single feather pillow and plumped it before lying down on her back. She stared at the ceiling. She was about to take a nap on Paul McCartney's bed. This was unfreakingbelievable.
"Budge up," Paul said.
"Do what?"
"Move over." He sat down on the bed and started removing his shoes.
"You can't mean...what are you doing? Are you crazy?"
He threw his shoes toward the cupboard. "Keep your hair on. I'm not after your virtue. You've had a serious blow to the head. You need to be monitored."
"But there's only one pillow."
She rolled onto her side, watching in amazement as Paul McCartney stretched out on the bed beside her and settled his head on the pillow, his face inches from hers.
"If I didn't know how much it would hurt my head, I would be in hysterical laughter right now."
"And why is that?"
"Because I've been a fan of yours for ten years, and I've been in England for half a day and I'm in bed with a twenty-year-old version of you."
"Twenty-one. And you've been a fan of mine since I was eleven?"
They stared at each other silently for a moment. Lainey blew out a long breath. "This must seem so crazy to you."
Paul reached over and covered her eyes with his hand. "I want you to close your eyes, and when you wake up, no more crazy talk out of you."
As soon as he removed his hand, Lainey's eyes flew open. "I can't sleep with you staring at me like that."
Paul sighed and rolled onto his back, closing his eyes.
Lainey took the opportunity to study him. Long dark eyelashes, perfectly arched eyebrows, pale skin covered with dark stubble on his chin and jaw, full pouty lips. Impossibly handsome. And he'd been kind to her from the minute she opened her eyes to find him kneeling on the ground with her head in his lap. It would have been terrifying to wake up injured and alone in a foreign country without him running interference for her. She'd be in a hospital bed or a police station right now if not for him.
She rolled onto her back, her shoulders touching Paul's as they shared the same pillow. She flung an arm over her face and closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them again she'd know what to do.