by Louise Clark
Faith put broccoli and green beans on the counter, to the right of where the chicken breasts had been resting before Andrew picked them up. She shut the fridge door. “Yup.”
A gleam of enthusiasm entered Andrew’s eyes. He bared his teeth in a wolfish grin, dropped the package on the counter, then poked his thumbs into the plastic wrap and tore it apart in a sweeping gesture of manly authority. Faith leaned against the counter and watched him. As he exposed the poultry with considerable satisfaction, she shook her head. “It doesn’t take much to entertain you, does it?”
He laughed and poked a chicken breast. “I understand why you cannot have chickens outside your door for eggs and meat. You do not have the space. I must own, I do not recognize this city for the place where I lived. The size…” He shook his head as he abandoned his contemplation of the raw poultry, then he washed his hands in the sink. As he dried them, he looked out the window. “You have a pleasant garden, Faith. The trees are large and well grown. They hide the fence that divides your property from those of your neighbors. Your flowerbeds contain plants that I have never seen before and are pleasing to the eye. But you no longer have enough land on which to place a kitchen garden of any size. I could not grow my vegetables here or pasture my cattle. And I can walk to the next house in the space of a heartbeat.”
“Well, not quite a heartbeat, Andrew. My neighbors aren’t that close.” Faith began to slice pockets into the chicken breasts.
Andrew flashed her a grin. “Well, perhaps I do exaggerate.”
“A little,” Faith murmured. With the pockets done, she too washed her hands, then reached for the cheese slices. “Would you mind getting that square pan out of the cupboard by the stove, Andrew?”
While he hunted around, Faith found a can of cream of broccoli soup that she planned to pour over the chicken to make a sauce. As she plunked the can on the counter, Andrew hauled out a pan. “Is this it?”
“That would be the one.”
He turned it in his hands, viewing it from all angles. The pan was nothing special, just an aluminum square with sides two inches high. It had a few dents, and dark spots in the corners. Inexpensive to start with, it was practical but not particularly pretty, yet Andrew handled it with the reverence of a priceless artifact. “You have so many things in your time that are different from the ones in mine. This pan, for instance, is made with a metal that is light yet durable. If such a thing were created in my time, it would be made from cast iron and would weigh considerably more.”
Faith switched on the oven to heat it up, then wiped the counter before she attached the can of soup to the electric can opener. “In your time you’d be cooking over an open flame. If you used my little aluminum pan the food would scorch. I can use it because my oven provides a regular, even heat.”
Andrew nodded as Faith set the can opener in motion. “All these gadgets you have in this century,” he said, watching the can whirl around, its lid gradually cut away from the sides. “I hunger for them when I’m in my own time.”
“I hunger for my supper,” Faith said. She placed the chicken breasts into the aluminum pan, then dumped the condensed soup over top and set the pan into the warmed oven.
“I could make a fortune inventing some of the things you have.”
Faith tidied the counter, throwing away packaging, recycling the soup can. “There was a man in sixteenth century England who invented the flush toilet. Look how long it took before anyone thought it was a good enough idea to do something with it. Ideas have their time, Andrew, and your world isn’t ready for electric can openers and condensed soup.”
There was an edge to her voice that Andrew caught. “You’ve got something eating at you, girl. Spit it out or we’ll be bickering before the night is through.”
Faith threw the cloth into the sink. Then, with a sigh, she sat down at the big, round table. “Andrew, my life is such a mess.”
He sat down beside her and said, “There now, isn’t that so for all of us? Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“Ava is after Cody.”
Andrew’s jaw tightened and the expression in his eyes hardened. He nodded. “Aye. I am not surprised. Have I not said the woman is a snake?”
Faith rubbed her eyes. “Liz calls her a tyrant—” She broke off, feeling guilty. Dinosaurs hadn’t been discovered in Andrew’s time.
Andrew didn’t seem to have noticed there was supposed to be more to the sentence. He’d been dealing with Ava all week. Apparently describing her as a tyrant struck a chord. “Miss Elizabeth is correct in her assessment. I believe conflict between Cody and Mistress Taylor is as inevitable as conflict between England and its colonies in America.” He shot Faith a speculative look. Faith gave him back a blank expression. Andrew laughed.
Faith sighed. “The conflict between Ava and Cody is all about total control of the NIT organization. Ava lusts for it. All Cody wants is to manage his time and his area his way. If Ava would just leave him alone, everything would be fine, but she won’t be satisfied with anything less than complete domination.”
“It is the way of all tyrants. It is what King George of England desires. He and your Ava Taylor would understand each other very well.”
That made Faith laugh. “Don’t ever say that to Ava. I’m sure she’d be deeply insulted.” Andrew’s eyes gleamed. Faith realized she’d just handed him another clue about his future. She hurried on. “I don’t think Cody realizes she will do pretty much anything to get to him, including using you and me. She has already guessed you’re not the expert you claim to be and she figures that if she knows, Cody must know.”
“She is quite correct in that assumption.”
Faith shot him an impatient look. “Yeah, but I think she plans to use you to get at Cody. Andrew, you have to be careful. It’s Wednesday night. We have two more days to go. No more Internet. No more goofing off.”
Andrew assumed an offended expression. “I do not know the meaning of your term, ‘goofing off,’ but I believe you to be using it as a derogatory description of my behavior.”
“I am.”
“I trust you will accept my sincere apology for any errors I have made during these past several days and my deepest promise that I will do nothing to endanger Cody Simpson, a man for whom I have the greatest respect and affection.”
Uncle Andrew had puffed up like an angry rooster defending his flock of hens. Faith figured he’d received about as much of her message as he was likely to acknowledge. All she could do now was keep her fingers crossed and hope for the best. She nodded glumly. “Thanks.”
He eyed her shrewdly. “I think Mistress Taylor’s desire for domination is not your only concern.”
Faith thought about that. He was right. Ava scared her silly, but her own relationship with Cody had become such a tangle she didn’t know how to sort it out. “Cody doesn’t know about you, about all of this.” She waved her hand in the direction of the living room. “All he knows is that you are my weird cousin who has phobias. He helped me out, blindly. He trusts me. Now. But I haven’t told him about you visiting and Mom going back into the past. I don’t know how he’ll take it.”
“Consider this, Faith. When I arrived I must have looked and sounded like a madman. And yet, Cody accepted me and he has been more than patient with me since. Trust him, Faith. Tell him. He cares for you. Have confidence that he will accept you for what you are.”
Faith thought about Cody, his curiosity and interest. He had an open mind, it was true, but then a mental image of her father’s face intruded into her thoughts and she shook her head. Asking any man to accept the reality of time travel, instigated by individuals who were able to project a light across the centuries, was dangerous. “I don’t know, Andrew. What if he thinks I’m crazy and doesn’t want to date me anymore? I think I’m…I really like him. He means a lot to me. On top of that, we work together. Relationships that go bad can create a huge strain in the office. Ava has already told me that if it’s him or me, I’m the one who
will be expected to leave NIT. I’ve got a lot at stake here.”
“Aye, you do, girl. As do I.” Andrew paused, waiting a moment then two for emphasis. “I have realized that I am in love with Mary Elizabeth. Yet I have never told her I am a Traveler and a Beacon too. I hope she will accept me, but even if she does, her father will do his best to see that we do not wed as he hates me for my politics.”
Momentarily diverted, Faith said, “You’re a Beacon? Do you have a visitor from the past or one from the future like Mom?”
“From the past.” Andrew’s mouth hardened into a dangerous line. “My many times great grandmother. She lived in Boston town in the early days of the settlement. She was a devout, religious woman, with a quick intellect who discussed the Scriptures with her friend Anne Hutchinson, and others of like mind. When John Winthrop and the Puritan leaders accused Mistress Hutchinson of heresy, they also accused our ancestor. Her husband, a poor sort of man, denounced her and sent her away from their home. Then she was convicted and banished from Boston. She had nowhere to go but the vast wilderness and there she eventually found my light. She has made a home for herself now, but she still comes from time to time for food and shelter when the weather is bad.”
Faith eyed him curiously. “Are you the first Beacon, the one who began it all?”
He shook his head. “There were others before me, and in Scotland and England too.”
“I had no idea.”
“Nor I, until she found me. Her name was expunged from the family records by her brute of a husband.” He looked at Faith, a brooding expression in his eyes. “I could not turn her away, even if Mary Elizabeth rejects me because of my abilities. I am what I am, Faith, as you are what you are. Not all men—or women!—will accept us or understand our powers, but I have hope of Mary Elizabeth and I believe Cody will as well.”
“I almost told Cody last week, but I chickened out when you arrived.”
Andrew put his hand over hers. “Tell him soon, Faith. He deserves to know.” He smiled. “You deserve to know how he will react. Waiting will only make the telling more difficult, the hearing more shocking.”
“You’re right.” Faith smiled. Absurdly, she was scared at the thought of confiding in Cody, but she was excited too.
“And I will tell Mary Elizabeth when I return. If she still wants me I will brave her father’s wrath and ask him for her hand.”
“Good luck.”
Andrew smiled rather devilishly. “You as well.”
Chapter 22
“I have come to a decision.”
Andrew liked to make serious pronouncements when she was in the middle of a traffic nightmare. Like now, as she approached an intersection toward the end of a green light. There were half-a-dozen cars on the opposite side turning left. She knew at least two or three were going to try to sneak across between the point when on-coming traffic stopped for the yellow and when the yellow flicked to red. The trick was to get into the intersection before those left-turners gunned it to make their turn, or to be far enough away that a safe stop could be made when the light went yellow.
Faith was used to a quiet morning commute with only the radio news for company. She could focus on surviving the rush hour gauntlet and preparing for the day ahead. Andrew was a sociable guy, however, and every morning since he’d arrived he’d chatted non-stop from her house to the office. It was now Friday morning, the fifth day he’d come into work with her. Faith was beginning to develop the knack of tuning him out.
She was a few feet away from the intersection now, too close to stop without the car behind rear-ending her. She kept her foot on the gas and entered the intersection.
“I am going to ask Mary Elizabeth tonight.”
“What?” One of the left-turning cars surged into the intersection, directly into Faith’s path, a second one hot on its bumper. “No!” She hit the break pedal.
“You think I should not?” Andrew said, frowning.
“Andrew, I…” The driver of the second car hit the breaks too, while the first one stepped on the gas. Faith squeaked between them as the light went red. Crisis over, she glanced over at Andrew. “What were you saying?”
“I have decided to go back tonight. There is a subscription ball in Lexington. All of the best families will be there. George Strand is sure to attend and to bring his family. It would please me to claim a dance or two with my Mary Elizabeth.”
“And you’ll tell her then?”
“Aye. And ask her father for her hand if she agrees.”
“A ball. This sounds like a pretty big deal. Why didn’t you tell me before we started on our way to work? You could have gone back this morning.”
“I did not decide until just now. I had to weigh all of the alternatives.”
Faith checked her mirror, then zipped into a narrow opening in the outside lane. “I’ll take you home. You can go back, make sure everything is okay on your farm, prep for tonight.” They were about halfway to NIT. If she turned around now she would be at least a half-an-hour late for work, but she would find some way of covering it with Ava. She could even work late tonight.
Sure that was it. She’d trade off the time she missed this morning for some at the end of the day. It was perfect. Who would complain—
“I’ll stay,” Andrew said.
Faith’s fantasy of a productive, unstressed slide into the weekend evaporated. She sighed.
Andrew said, “I have responsibilities I cannot shirk. I will go this afternoon after we return from your workplace.”
“Responsibilities? What are you talking about?”
“The report you required me to create.” He sounded miffed, as if she had failed him in some way.
“Report?” Her memory clicked in. “You mean, the one on the status of all of the computers in the bullpen?”
“Aye, that would be the one.”
A make-work project. He was going to stay for the whole day because he hadn’t finished a make-work project? She didn’t know whether to be outraged or proud.
Both emotions were irrelevant. Andrew had decided he was going to remain a while longer. She’d just have to deal with it.
The morning passed quietly. Andrew worked on his project, laboriously typing in the information he’d assembled. Cody came down for lunch a little after noon and they celebrated Andrew’s decision to return home with deli sandwiches and toasted his announcement that he would be asking Mary Elizabeth to marry him with cans of diet cola.
An hour after they returned from lunch Andrew delivered his report to Faith with a flourishing bow that would have made most men look silly. Andrew, however, had a trick of laughing with his eyes as he performed the bow that took away pretension and added charm. Faith accepted his work with appropriate solemnity and was surprised to discover that it actually contained useful material.
By mid-afternoon she felt like a runner on third, staring at home, knowing that the batter up had a ninety-five percent hit rate and homered six times out of ten. Two hours left and Andrew would be leaving NIT for the last time. She could hardly wait.
She was cleaning her desk, prioritizing the week’s unfinished tasks, when June walked into her office. “Angela’s at it again,” she said.
Angela’s at it again. With those few, simple little words Faith’s day dissolved into disaster. “Her computer?”
June nodded. “Yeah. Andrew’s working on it now, but Angela’s going on vacation next week, so she needs to make sure she’s up-to-date.”
“I’ll call Cody.” Faith was already picking up the phone.
June looked puzzled. “It’s okay. I’m sure Andrew can handle it. I just wanted to let you know what was happening.”
Faith punched out Cody’s extension and nestled the receiver between her shoulder and ear. While the phone rang, she smiled at June. “Thanks for the tip. I appreciate it.”
June glanced at the phone. Still looking puzzled, she nodded. Then with a shrug she left. The phone rang three times. “Come on, come on.
Be there!” On the fourth ring, just before it tipped over into voicemail, Cody answered. “Angela’s computer is down. Andrew is fixing it,” Faith said without preamble.
Cody responded with just as much unspoken urgency. “I’ll be right there.”
He must have run all the way. Faith beat him to the bullpen by only a couple of minutes. She stood behind Andrew, watching him open folders in the control panel with the same kind of aimless desperation as a person trying to find a diamond ring in a haystack. This was bad. This was really bad.
It was painfully obvious to June, Angela and every female who had paused to check things out as they passed by, that this boy didn’t have a clue how to handle his toy.
When Cody arrived he squeezed her hand reassuringly as he monitored Andrew. In a casual way he asked Angela for background details, then gently prodded Andrew out of the chair and took over.
Faith breathed a sigh of relief. She put her hand on Cody’s shoulder and said, “Come and see me when you’re done.”
He smiled briefly, but his focus was already deep into the computer’s malaise. Faith went back to her office.
The next thing she knew her door was shutting with a decided snap. She looked up to find Ava standing with her hand on the knob, looking like a triumphant Amazon warrior, except that Liz and her mother claimed the Amazons were an ancient myth, not a reality.
Ava was very real, though, and so was her triumph. Faith’s stomach knotted. Intuition told her that whatever was making Ava so very happy was not going to please her.
She was right.
Ava strode into the room, her eyes glittering. “I have him.”
Him was either Andrew or Cody. Faith would place her bet on Cody. “What do you mean?”
“That intern of his, Andrew. He’s an idiot.”
“I don’t think he’s that bad.” She held up the report. “He did excellent work on analyzing the computer prob—”