Time Was Read online

  She took a stream of water in the face, sputtered, started to swear, then found herself caught in a hot, wet, endless kiss.

  She’d never experienced anything like it. Steamy air, slick skin, soapy hands. Her knees were weak by the time he shut the spray off and wrapped her in a towel. As dizzy as she, he rested a forehead on hers.

  “I think if we’re going to get anything done—anything else, that is—we’d better get out of the house.”

  “Right.”

  “After we eat.”

  She was amazed she had the energy to laugh. “Naturally.”

  ***

  It was late afternoon when they stood by Cal’s ship again. Clouds had moved in from the north, bringing a chill. Libby told herself that was the reason she felt cold. She hugged the short jacket tighter, but the cold came from inside.

  “I’m standing here, looking at it, knowing it’s real, but I still can’t understand it.”

  Cal nodded. His contented, relaxed mood had fled, and he wasn’t entirely sure why. “I get the same sensation whenever I look at your cabin.” There was a headache building behind his eyes, the kind he knew came from tension. “Look, I know you’ve got work of your own, and I don’t want to hold you up, but would you mind waiting a few minutes while I check the cycle?”

  “No.” She’d been hoping he’d ask her to stay all day. Masking her disappointment, she smiled at him. “Actually, I’d like to see it.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  He opened the hatch and disappeared inside.

  He would do that again soon, and for the last time, Libby thought. She had to be prepared for it. Strange, but she’d imagined he’d told her he loved her that morning. It was a nice, soothing thought, though she understood he didn’t really. He couldn’t. He cared for her, more than anyone had ever cared for her, but he hadn’t fallen deeply, completely in love with her, as she had with him.

  Because she loved him, she was going to do everything she could to help him, starting with accepting limitations. It was a beautiful day, after the most beautiful night of her life. Smiling, really smiling, she looked up at the cloudy sky. The rain would come by evening, and it would be welcome.

  She glanced back at the ship when she heard a low, metallic hum. Another door opened—the cargo door, she assumed because of its size and location. Her mouth dropped open as Cal, on the back of a small, streamlined bike, raced out, six inches above the ground.

  It made a sound that was something like a purr, not catlike or motorlike, more like the sound of air parting. It was shaped something like a motorcycle, but without the bulk. There were two wheels for ground transportation, and a narrow, padded seat to accommodate riders. The body itself was a long, curving cylinder that forked into two slender handlebars.

  He drove—or flew—it over to her, then sat grinning on the seat like a ten-year-old showing off his first twelve-speed.

  “It runs great.” He made some small movement with his hand on the handgrips that had the purr deepening. “Want a ride?”

  Frowning, she eyed the little gauges and buttons on the stock beneath the handlebars. It looked like a toy. “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Libby.” Wanting to share his pleasure, he held out a hand. “You’ll like it. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  She looked at him, and at the bike, hovering just above the pine needles that were strewn on the forest floor. It was a small machine—if indeed that was the proper term—but there was room enough for two on the narrow black seat. The body was painted a metallic blue that glistened with deeper shades in the sunlight. It looked harmless, she decided after a moment, and she doubted if anything so small could hold much power. With a shrug, she slid on the seat behind him.

  “Better hold on,” he told her, mostly because he wanted to feel her body curve against his.

  The strength of the vibration beneath her shocked her, though she knew it was foolish. Cal had looked harmless, too, she remembered. “Hornblower, shouldn’t we have helmets or—” The words whipped away as he accelerated.

  She might have screamed, but instead she squeezed her eyes shut and gripped Cal so tightly that he choked on a laugh. He could feel her heart beating against him, as fast and heavy as it had through the night. With an innate skill honed finer by practice, he steered once around the ship, then up the slope.

  Speed. He’d always been addicted to it. He felt the air slap his face, stream through his hair, and pressed for more. The sky beckoned, his first and most constant lover, but he resisted, aware that Libby would be more frightened than thrilled if he took her too high too quickly. Instead he breezed through the forest, winding around trees, skimming over rock and water. A bird burst off a branch just above their heads and went wheeling away, chattering bad-temperedly at the competition. He could feel her grip relax a fraction, then a little more. Her face was no longer pressed between his shoulder blades.

  “What do you think?”

  She could nearly breathe again. It seemed her stomach had decided to stay in place. At least for the moment. She opened one eye for a cautious look. And swallowed hard.

  “I think I’m going to murder you the minute we’re on the ground again.”

  “Relax.” The cycle tilted thirty degrees right, then left, as he danced through the trees.

  Easy for him to say, she thought. Another look showed her that they were more than ten feet above the ground. She gasped, nearly managed to squeal out a demand to be set down, but then it hit her. She was flying. Not enclosed in some huge, bulky plane thousands of feet up, but freely, lightly. She could feel the wind on her face, in her hair, could taste the promise of spring on it. There was no loud roar of engine noise to disturb the sensation. They were skimming through the forest as playfully as birds.

  He stopped in the center of the clearing his ship had created. While the bike hovered, he turned to look at her.

  “Want me to go down?”

  “No. Up.” She laughed and tossed her head back. She had already felt the pull of the sky.

  He was grinning when he leaned back to kiss her. “How high?”

  “What’s the limit?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think we ought to chance it. If we go up above the trees, somebody might spot us.”

  He was right, of course. Libby pushed her hair out of her face, wondering why she seemed to have so little sense when she was around him. “To the tree-tops, then. Just once.”

  Delighted with her, he turned around. He felt her arms hook firmly around him, and then they were flying again.

  He’d never forget. However many times he had taken to sky and space, however many times he would yet take to them, he would never forget this one playful flight with Libby. She was laughing, and the sound of it caressed his ear as her body pressed companionably against his. Her fingers were linked loosely at his waist. His only regret was that he couldn’t watch her face as they rose up and up. Making love with her was like this, as clean and clear as cutting through the air. As mystifying and seductive as defying gravity.

  He resisted the temptation to crest the trees, contenting himself, and her, with gliding around the thick branches at a hundred feet. Below they could see a thin stream that cut through the rock, and a waterfall, driven by the spring rain and the snowmelt that danced down the ridge and fell into space. The sun pushed through the clouds so that they could watch the pattern of shadows shift on the ground below.

  For a moment they both turned their faces to the sky and wished.

  He slowed for their descent, and they seemed to drift downward, weightless, soundless. Libby felt her hair lift off her neck, teased by the air currents. She thought pleasantly of Peter Pan and fairy dust before they touched down lightly beside the ship.

  “Okay?”

  When he turned to look over his sho
ulder, Libby noticed that the faint hum had stopped. The chill had vanished. “It was wonderful. I could have stayed up all day.”

  “Flying’s habit-forming.” No one knew that better than he. He swung off, then took her hand. “I’m glad you liked it.”

  It was over, Libby told herself when she felt her feet on solid ground again. But she had one more memory to store away. “I loved it. I’m not going to ask you how it works. I doubt I’d understand anyway, and it might spoil the fun.” With her hand still caught in his, she looked at the ship. Her feelings about it were as confused as the rest of her emotions. It had brought him to her, and it would take him away. “I’ll let you get to work.”

  Cal was dealing with the same tug-of-war himself. “I’ll be back around nightfall.”

  “All right.” She took her hand from his, then stuck it restlessly in her pocket. “You won’t have any trouble finding your way?”

  “I’m a good navigator.”

  “Of course.” The birds they had frightened away with their ride were beginning to sing again. Time was slipping by. “Well, I’d better go.”

  He knew she was stalling, but then, so was he. It was stupid, Cal told himself. He would be with her again in a matter of hours. “You could come in with me, but I don’t think I’d get a lot done.”

  It was tempting. She could go inside, distract him, keep him away from the computer and the answers for a few more hours. But it wouldn’t be right. Libby looked up at him again as all the love and the longing welled up inside her.

  “I haven’t gotten any work done the last couple of days, either.”

  “All right.” Leaning over, he kissed her. “See you tonight.”

  He stood by the open hatch as she started up the slope. But when she reached the top of the ridge she didn’t look back.

  ***

  Libby spent most of the day drafting an account of the series of events that had occurred over the last week. She used Cal’s words, his theory, to explain how he had come to be with her, coloring them with her own impressions. Then she listed, in the orderly fashion that was second nature to her, everything that had happened, from the time she had seen the flash in the sky until she had left Cal beside the ship.

  That was the simple part, setting down the facts. Her memory was faultless. She knew that would be both a blessing and a curse when she was alone again. But for now she pulled together her objectivity and gave the story as much skill and dedication as she had her dissertation.

  Once done, she read the entire story over twice, refining or enlarging where she saw fit. She was trained to report, she mused as she studied the computer screen. When Cal presented his experiences to the scientists of his time, she wanted him to have the benefit of whatever skill she could give him.

  It was a fantastic story, fantastic in the most literal sense of the word. Perhaps it wouldn’t seem quite as fantastic in Cal’s time. How would his people react to him when he returned, when he told his tale? The accidental explorer, she thought with a smile. Well, Columbus had been looking for India when he’d discovered the New World.

  She liked to think that he would be treated as a kind of hero, that he was a man whose name would be in history books.

  He had the look of a hero, she mused, daydreaming a little as her glasses slipped down her nose. Tall and tough. The bandage over his brow added a rakish look—as the week’s growth of beard had before he’d shaved it. For her, she remembered, and felt the deep glow of pleasure.

  He was, perhaps, an ordinary man in his time. A man, she supposed, who did his job as others did, who groaned over getting up in the morning, one who occasionally drank too much or forgot to pay bills. He wasn’t wealthy or brilliant or wildly successful. He was simply Caleb Hornblower, a man who had taken a wrong turn and become extraordinary.

  To her, he would never be just a man. He would always be the man.

  Would she love again? No, Libby thought with the calm of absolute certainty. She would be content, somehow, with her work and her family, with her memories. But to love again would be impossible. She had, even as a child, believed that there would be only one man for her. Perhaps that was why it had always been so easy for her to concentrate on studies and career while her contemporaries had drifted in and out of relationships and fallen in and out of love.

  She hated making mistakes. Libby smiled a little reluctantly at the admission. It was a flaw, certainly, one of pride, but she had always detested the idea of taking a misstep, personally or professionally. That was why she studied harder than most, researched more thoroughly, considered more carefully.

  It had paid off, she reflected as she pushed a few buttons and had her dissertation flashing onto the screen. She was young for the degree of success she’d achieved. And she intended to achieve a great deal more.

  She was old, perhaps, to be having her first love affair. But caution and care hadn’t led her astray. Loving Cal would never be a mistake.

  Content, she pushed her glasses more securely on her nose, leaned forward and went to work.

  ***

  He found her there hours later, her posture long forgotten, absorbed in a culture as different from hers as hers was to Cal. She’d switched on the desk lamp at dusk, and the light slanted across her hands.

  Strong, capable hands, Cal thought. Probably inherited from her artist mother. The nails were short and unpainted, at the ends of long fingers. There was a scar, a faint one he’d noticed before, along the base of her thumb. He’d meant to ask her how she’d come by it.

  He thought he’d been tired when he’d come in—not physically, but mentally, with the burden of figures and calculations weighing on his mind. But now, seeing her, fatigue was forgotten.

  He’d managed, somehow, to stop thinking about her while he’d worked. It had been a deliberate effort to stop thinking, stop wanting, stop needing. Because of it he’d managed to make some progress. He was all but sure of what he had to do to get home. He knew the odds and the risks. Now, watching her, he knew the sacrifice.

  He’d only known her briefly. It was necessary, very necessary, to remind himself of that. His life wasn’t here, with her. He had a home, an identity. He had a family, he realized now, that he loved more than he had once comprehended.

  But he stood and watched her as the minutes ticked away, absorbing every breath, every careless gesture. The way her hair swept over her neck, the way her stockinged foot tapped impatiently when her fingers paused. Now and then she would drag a hand through her hair or cup her chin in her palms and stare owlishly at the screen. He found every movement endearing. When he finally said her name, his voice was strained.

  “Libby.”

  She jolted and spun in her chair to stare at him. The hallway was dark behind him. He was just a silhouette, propped casually against the doorframe. Love nearly smothered her.

  “Oh. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “You were pretty deep in your work.”

  “I guess.” When he stepped into the room, the intensity in his eyes had her drawing her brows together. “What about yours? Did it go well?”

  “Yes.”

  “You look upset. Is something wrong?”

  “No.” He reached down to touch her face, and his eyes softened. “No.”

  “Your calculations?”

  “Coming along.” Her skin felt like silk, he thought, and it warmed under his touch. “In fact. I made more progress than I’d expected.”

  “Oh.” He thought he saw a shadow flicker in her eyes, but her voice was bright and encouraging. “That’s good. Did you ride the cycle back?”

  “Yeah. I left it behind the shed.”

  It had been a stupid question, she thought. He would hardly have hiked all the way. She wanted to ask him to take her up again, now, while the moon was rising. The wind was already picking
up, warning of rain. It would be wonderful. But he looked tired, and troubled.

  “Well, after all that you must be hungry.” She glanced around as if noticing the dark for the first time. “I hadn’t realized it was so late. Why don’t I go down and toss something together?”

  “It can wait.” Taking her hand, he drew her to her feet. The machine continued to hum, forgotten by both of them. “We can go down later and both throw something together. I like the way you look in glasses.”

  With a quick laugh, she reached for them. He caught her hand so that both of hers were trapped in his.

  “No, don’t take them off.” He tilted his head to kiss her, as if experimenting. Her taste was the same. Thank God. Most of the tension dissolved. “They make you look . . . smart and serious.”

  Though her heart was already thumping, she smiled. “I am smart and serious.”

  “Yes, I suppose you are.” He ran his thumbs over the inside of her wrists and felt her pulse scramble. “The way you look right now makes me want to see just how unintellectual I can make you.” With their hands still joined, he bent to kiss her, holding himself back, teasing and nibbling her lips until her breath was a shudder.

  “Libby?”

  “Yes.”

  “What can you tell me about the mudmen of New Guinea?”

  “Nothing.” She strained against him, moaning a bit when his lips continued to brush, featherlight, over hers. “Nothing at all. Kiss me, Caleb.”

  “I am.” His lips cruised over her face, skimming here, lingering there. She was like a volcano, awakened after eons of sleep, ready to burst free, hot and molten.

  “Touch me.”

  “I will.”

  It was never what she expected. He had her teetering on the edge with only a stroke of his hands. Then, as she trembled back to earth, he began to undress her, peeling off her flannel shirt, tugging off her jeans, while they stood beside the bed. She wore a narrow white undershirt in plain cotton. It seemed to fascinate him as he toyed with the straps, skimmed his finger along the low scooped neck, before he slipped it up and over her head. His lips were never still, nor were his hands, which roamed to exploit all the secrets he’d already discovered.