by J M Fraser
Perhaps she’d found heaven, and he was the gatekeeper. If she could pull herself up from the pavement, she’d hurry to that doorbell, ring a chord of Beethoven, and, when Brewster came to the door, ask him to keep her safe forever.
No. She couldn’t kid herself. Yins always follow yangs in the true cycle of life. Sooner or later, she’d be whisked back to Sanctimonia and forced to pick up where she left off. In any event, she wasn’t about to lean on anyone, and above all, she’d never ask this special man to help her play the coward. The scuffle with barbarians had momentarily made her weak. She wouldn’t have that.
She needed a weapon, something to keep hidden up her sleeve when she found herself kneeling before her captors again. The good side of her wanted it for defensive purposes, but the corner of her heart smoldering over the audacity of two barbarians to do what they’d done and plan what they planned…that side longed to castrate the bastards.
Carla tried to get up and search for a shard of glass or a stick she could sharpen to a point, but a wave of dizziness took her down. She stared into the sky from flat on her back and looked to the Big Dipper for answers. The organized pattern of stars served as a reminder she had her paths confused. Northbrook didn’t point backward to Sanctimonia. She’d progressed forward to Upstate New York after each of her two previous visits. Whatever weapon she might fashion wouldn’t be needed in Syracuse or her mother’s cabin on Tug Hill. Besides, she didn’t know how to bring anything from one reality to the next. Brewster’s business card had come from his world to hers on its own without providing any clues about its methods. She needed to fit the pieces properly if she wanted to take control of the jigsaw puzzle her world had become.
As lucidity took hold, so did her self-awareness. She lifted her head enough to see her skimpy outfit. She’d been costumed for a whorehouse again, this time in the flimsiest of black negligees. She wrapped her arms around herself and considered her next move. Hiding behind a bush and waiting for a wormhole to Syracuse crossed her mind, but not if it meant missing her man.
A twig snapped, and she jumped.
“Are you all right?”
Now she was. Brewster came out of the shadows, knelt beside her, and settled a gentle hand onto her shoulder. That simple, caring gesture triggered a low hum in her soul and drowned out whatever embarrassment she might have suffered over arriving underdressed for just about any occasion but one.
The handsome, light-haired hunk of a wonderful man had dressed more modestly than the last time. He’d buttoned his shirt, buckled his belt. She supposed she could forgive him for that. “Here I am, eating the pavement again,” she said. “You always see the worst of me.”
“There is no worst of you.” He ran his fingers through her hair, then shifted his hands beneath her. “You’re trembling.”
“I’ve had too many thrills in one night for a simple girl.”
“How about one more? Roll a little closer and hang on.”
She melted into him, wrapping her arms around his neck.
He rose to his feet and brought her along for the ride.
“Macho man,” she said.
“Yeah, right. I think I just broke something.”
She almost laughed, but an echo of her earlier trauma ambushed her with a pang of humiliation. She lost the context of the moment. “I would have fought them, but they wrestled my knife away.”
“Who?” He swung her around and started carrying her toward his house.
The sudden motion snapped her out of it. “I’m just talking crazy.”
“Your voice is sexy when you’re crazy.”
She cuddled tighter against him. “And when I’m sane?”
“I better not touch that.”
Brewster got her into the house, took her to the couch, and sat, bringing her down on his knee. “Besides, what makes you think I’m not the crazy one?”
She kept her arms around his neck and leaned into his shoulder. “Then what am I?”
“A figment.”
She loosened her grip enough to push away and study him. He seemed serious until he winked at her. She poked his arm.
“You’re a traumatized figment by the looks of you,” he said. “I should carry you upstairs and put you to bed.”
“So you can have your way with me?” The notion of sleeping with Brewster, sizzling in its own right, had even greater appeal as a possible means of erasing the sordid forest scene from her mind.
He gave her a long, appraising look.
She bit her lower lip. For the second time in two visits, she couldn’t have come on to him more blatantly, and in this case, she regretted laying her cards on the table without knowing what hand he might show. She didn’t think she could handle any kind of rejection at the moment.
Brewster set her mind at ease by looking her up and down, letting out a low whistle, and busting into a grin. “I’ll try to control myself, Carla, but honestly, you’re making me dizzy.”
She followed his gaze down her skimpy, dark-as-the-night negligee. He had heat in his voice behind the humor, and she’d seen it in his eyes. She sat half-naked on his lap, he was making no attempt to hide his desire, and the raw electricity of the situation continued fueling her own arousal. Heat surged into her from every point of contact between her body and his. “The dark-haired slut Barbie has returned.”
Brewster drifted his fingers down her arm, tuning her buzz a notch higher. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
“Would you believe this isn’t necessarily my own costume choice?”
Her question chased him away. He turned to the picture window behind the couch. “I was sitting right here, watching the street when you appeared out of thin air. How much more magic does a man need to see before he stops denying something weird’s going on? I’m ready to believe anything at this point.”
“Let’s believe it’s God or His angels. There’s comfort in that.”
He nodded, stroked her hair again.
Carla stared with him into the shadowy night. The streetlamp spotlighted the urban stage she’d been trotted onto for him. “How late is it?”
“Past midnight.”
“And you were just sitting here staring out the window?”
He turned to her but still had a thousand-mile look in his expression. “You didn’t show up last night.”
“Yes, I did, I—” Wait. Maybe their year-apart lives weren’t in perfect sync. No matter. She shifted a hand to his face and kept it there until he returned his gaze to her. “We’ve cast a spell on each other, haven’t we?”
“After only two dates.”
“Remind me to send my puppet master a thank-you note.”
“Your what?”
“Don’t you feel we’re being marched through the paces?”
Brewster scrunched his forehead. “Somebody else said that recently. But hell, I’m not complaining at the moment.” He closed his warm hand over one of hers.
Carla kissed his cheek. “Neither am I.” She went for his thick, beautiful hair, ruffling it at first, then grabbing a handful and tugging. “Last time we locked lips, you said we were moving too fast.”
“That had to be a fit of idiocy. I’m thinking seizure.”
“How do you feel now?”
“Why fight destiny?”
She yanked his hair a little harder. “Try a more romantic line, mister novelist.”
“You have gorgeous eyes.”
“That’s better.”
“And you have an old soul.”
“Hmmm.” She pecked his cheek.
“And that silky hair of yours—”
“Good enough, handsome. It’s time to carry me upstairs.”
Brewster frowned down at the couch. “Okay, but…could this cushion be any softer? We’re lost in it.”
She giggled. “Now I’ll discover how my man handles adversity. What would Prince Charming do?”
“Poof.”
Too funny. She waggled a finger in his face. “No, t
hat’s the fairy godmother, and she’s in a different story.”
Brewster put a hand under his chin in a perfect imitation of the thinking man. “Maybe Snow White and Prince Charming could try bouncing up at the same time.”
“Like this?” She lurched up, came back down on his lap, started laughing, and almost couldn’t stop.
He rolled his eyes. “You’re punch drunk, aren’t you?”
She stifled one last giggle. “I might be trying a little too hard to get lost in the moment.”
“No, hey, you might be right on track with that, but we don’t want to damage the goods here, Snowy. Let’s try it together on the count of three.”
Carla wrapped her arms around Brewster’s neck and leaned into him as he counted and lifted her from the couch on cue.
“You’re my hero,” she said.
“I’ve been keeping your charm in my pocket for strength.”
“I’ve been keeping thoughts of you in mine.”
He carried her up the stairs. A wave of renewed heat rushed through her when she caught a glimpse of the bedroom doorway, and it burst into a bonfire as they neared the bed, but she came to her senses in the nick of time. “Set me on my feet, Prince Charming.”
Brewster stood her on the floor. He shifted his hands to her sides, brushing a delicious whisper of silk negligee against her skin.
She tried to stay focused. “Brewster.” Her voice came out hoarse and throaty.
His soft eyes melted her, but she pressed on. “I’m nearly thirty years old. I know that’s a long time to wait, but I’ve been waiting. For the right man. After only two dates, is it too much to ask that we wait a little longer?”
He nodded. “Say no more.”
She glanced at the bed. “I want you to stay with me. The way you did the other night.”
Brewster moved his hands to her face, leaned in, kissed her nose. “Your wish is my command.”
They got into bed together again. They spooned again. And she lost herself in the joy of having a man who cared more about her than his own primal needs.
* * *
Carla awakened with her back to Brewster. He’d draped his arm over her, and she closed a hand on it, ready to fight whatever force might pull them apart.
They were one. She basked in the glow of him.
She knew with all her heart Brewster was her destiny. She might get whisked away to Syracuse or Manhattan, Sanctimonia, even Pluto, but she’d always find her way back. Wormholes be damned. She could simply get into her car and… She froze.
Brewster jolted awake. “What’s wrong?”
She couldn’t answer.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You’re a year in my future,” she whispered.
“I’m having a little trouble wrapping my mind around that idea.”
“It’s true, Brewster, so tell me this. Why didn’t you already know me the night of that thunderstorm? I’ve a notion to come and visit you right now, a year in your past, but you don’t remember me ever doing that, do you?”
“Is that a trick question?”
The room brightened and went into a spin. Brewster’s essence sifted through her fingers like sand. “No!” She groped for him but came up with nothing more than pillow. “Oh no, please don’t pull me away now!”
Her plea came too late. She’d already moved on.
CHAPTER 20
The next day…or a year earlier?
A gray bank of clouds rolling in from the west threw a shadow across the interstate, spurring Brewster to turn his car heater up a notch. The approaching squall stalled at that point, as lake-effect snowstorms sometimes do, and the landscape’s personality split—bright on the right side and shaded on the left—until he reached the County Route Two exit near Pulaski, New York, and headed off the highway.
Those last few miles had been surprisingly lonely. True, the Tug Hill region wasn’t renowned for its population, but Brewster couldn’t recall driving anywhere, not even the dusty stretch of desert road he once traveled out of Phoenix on the way to Vegas, without coming across so much as a single long-haul trucker, let alone any cars. The air in his car nearly crackled with electricity, adding to his unease and reminding him of the time he rode his bicycle along a path that crossed beneath a power line. What the hell was going on?
He tried to fight out of a mental fog and remember why he’d driven to Upstate New York in the first place. Maybe he was dreaming.
Brewster followed the county road east, getting some distance ahead of the sluggish squall before slowing at an old filling station. A couple pumps stood sentry outside a listing shack of a store—a smaller version of a gray abandoned barn he’d passed a mile earlier. He was driving on fumes and decided not to risk running out of gas by holding out for a more modern station. He turned into the lot, parked alongside one of the pumps, and got out of his car.
An icy gust of wind blasted him in the face and ripped a newspaper out of a stand near the building. Most of the pages went airborne, but one section spread apart and hugged the pavement, rolling and dancing like tumbleweed. The front page flew up and pressed against the side of a trash can long enough to flash its headline—Watertown Daily Times on top and Heavy Lake Snow Coming—before blowing away.
Brewster caught a glimpse of something else, lettering above the headline, but the print was small, and the paper took off before whatever he’d seen could register, except in his stomach. He shrugged off the tingle as one of those random, unaccountable fits of foreboding. They come out of nowhere and leave just as quickly without ever revealing their cause.
He shoved one hand into his pocket and used the other to fumble with his credit card until he got it into the payment slot the right way. Then he punched his zip code twice into a touchpad before it registered and started the pump. Next came the hard part, waiting in the cold. Rather than heighten his misery by watching the gas dribble into his tank one grudging tenth gallon at a time, he stared into space and tried to zone out. Another gust of wind tore into him. He glanced down at his appallingly thin clothing. Light jeans? A flannel shirt? A windbreaker? How could he have done this to himself?
Gas pumps worked fine on their own. He abandoned this one in favor of the dilapidated building, thinking hot chocolate but willing to settle for a donut or candy bar and a minute or two in the warmth. He tried the door. Locked. He stepped back and looked around. Somebody had used a blue marker to scribble a message on a cardboard sign taped to the window. We’re hiding from the butterflies. Back in thirty minutes!
“There’s no one here.” A girl’s voice came from behind.
Heart attack time. He’d been alone, hadn’t he? He spun and came face-to-face with some twelve-year-old kid who must have crept up on him from around the corner of the building. The girl could have passed for an ice skater in a Courier and Ives print, bundled up in a white down jacket, with hands kept warm by blue wool mittens. Her matching snow hat hid most of her blonde hair except for a couple loose bangs in front and the lower portion of a ponytail in back.
She smiled like a portrait. “I’m Gabriella.”
That name. Where had he heard it recently? He tried to return the smile, but the entire situation had gone from weird to creepy. “I’m Brewster.”
“I’m keeping an eye on the pump for them.”
Brewster wrapped his arms around himself. He looked over the girl’s shoulder at the locked door. “Geez, couldn’t they have let you watch from inside?”
She shifted from one foot to the other. “I like standing out here.”
“No, you don’t.” But what could he do about it? Thirty-year-old guys weren’t supposed to pal around with somebody’s teenage kid. Still, the poor girl was freezing. “Why not wait in my car until they get back?”
She shook her head. “You know the rule about staying away from strangers.”
“Rules don’t apply in cases of frostbite.”
“If I get too cold, I’ll just head home.”
/> He looked across the road at a boarded-up, ramshackle house.
“See? It isn’t far,” she added.
The wind gusted harder, chilling him to the bone. The slow-motion pump had probably gassed up his car by then. “Okay. Nice meeting you, Gabriella.”
“Thank you.”
Brewster started to head away but stopped when he saw that window sign again. “Hey, what’s with that message?”
“The one about butterflies?”
“Yeah.”
Gabriella gazed up at Brewster with an intense, Children-of-the-Corn expression, bubbling a wave of foreboding straight through his stomach. The wizened look in her eyes didn’t fit the mold of any twelve-year-old girl he’d ever met.
“That refers to the butterfly effect,” she said.
“Huh?”
She glanced around with a furtive expression before leaning toward him. “A single butterfly can flap its wings and change the course of weather forever.”
“Okay, I guess I’ve heard of that.” But the sign’s weird, out-of-context message and the girl’s odd behavior raised the hair on his arms.
She pointed to a newspaper holding its own against the wind, somehow still in the stand although the door had blown open. “You’re the butterfly, Brewster. I can’t let anyone see you flapping your wings here.”
“You can’t let…?”
He could almost see electricity crackling out of her eyes.
He tore his gaze from the scary kid and turned to the paper. The date made his skin crawl. October 2012?
He hadn’t seen any traffic on the interstate. He didn’t belong in Upstate New York. And he certainly had no business falling backward in time. “I’m… I’m dreaming, aren’t I?”
“Yes, but you’ve stepped out of your dream into the real world. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t get it.”
“No matter. You were driving in the wrong direction. I can’t seem to get things to happen the way they should anymore. You’ll find Carla down there.” She pointed to a side road heading south.