by Nora Roberts
He’d touched on some twentieth-century entertainment in his research, but not enough to make him an expert in the areas Sunny seemed so well versed in.
“You don’t like movies?” she asked at length.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You haven’t seen any of the flicks I’ve mentioned that have been popular in the last eighteen months.”
He wondered what she’d say if he told her that the last video he’d seen had been produced in 2250. “It’s just that I’ve been busy in the lab for quite a while.”
She felt a tug of sympathy for him. Sunny didn’t mind working, and working hard, but she expected plenty of time for fun. “Don’t they ever give you a break?”
“Who?”
“The people you work for.” She switched hands and continued to shake the popper.
That made him smile a little, since for the past five years he had been in the position of calling his own shots and hiring his own people. “It’s more a matter of me being obsessed with the project I’ve been working on.”
“Which is?”
He waited a beat, then decided that the truth couldn’t hurt. In fact, he wanted to see her reaction. “Time travel.”
She laughed, but then she saw his face and cleared her throat. “You’re not joking.”
“No.” He glanced at the popper. “I think you’re burning it.”
“Oh.” She jerked it out of the flames and set it down on the hearth. “You really mean time travel, like H. G. Wells?”
“Not precisely.” He stretched out his legs so that the fire warmed the soles of his feet. “Time and space are relative—in simple terms. It’s a matter of finding the proper equations and implementing them.”
“Sure. E equals MC squared, but really, J.T., bopping around through time?” She shook her head, obviously amused. “Like Mr. Peabody and Sherman in the Wayback machine.”
“Who?”
“You obviously had a deprived childhood. It’s a cartoon, you know? And this dog scientist—”
He held up a hand, his eyes narrowed to green slits. “A dog was a scientist?”
“In the cartoon,” she said patiently. “And he had this boy, Sherman. Never mind,” she added when she saw his expression. “It’s just that they would set the dates on this big machine.”
“The Wayback.”
“Exactly. Then they would travel back, like to Nero’s Rome or Arthur’s Britain.”
“Fascinating.”
“Entertaining. It was a cartoon, J.T. You can’t really believe it.”
He sent her a slow, enigmatic smile. “Do you only believe what you can see?”
“No.” She frowned, using a hot pad to remove the lid from the popper. “I guess not.” Then she laughed and sampled the popcorn. “Maybe I do. I’m a realist. We really needed one in the family.”
“Even a realist has to accept certain possibilities.”
“I suppose.” She took another handful and decided to get into the spirit of things. “Okay. So, we’re in Mr. Peabody’s Wayback machine. Where would you go—or when, I suppose I should say? When would you go, if you really could?”
He looked at her, sitting in the firelight, laughter still in her eyes. “The possibilities are endless. What about you?”
“I wonder.” She held the beer loosely in her hand as she considered. “I imagine Libby would have a dozen places to go back to. The Aztecs, the Incas, the Mayans. Dad would probably want to see Tombstone or Dodge City. And my mother . . . well, she’d go where my father went, to keep an eye on him.”
He dipped into the popcorn. “I asked about you.”
“I’d go forward. I’d want to see what was coming.”
He didn’t speak, only stared into the fire.
“A hundred, maybe two hundred, years in the future. After all, you can read history books and get a pretty good idea of what things were like before. But after . . . It seems to me it would be much more exciting to see just what we’ve made out of things.” The idea made her laugh up at him. “Do they actually pay you to work on stuff like that? I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense to figure out how to travel across town in, say, Manhattan in under forty minutes during rush hour?”
“I’m free to choose my own projects.”
“Must be nice.” She was mellow now, relaxed and happy enough with his company. “It seems I’ve spent most of my life trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I’m a terrible employee,” she admitted with a sigh. “It’s something about rules and authority. I’m argumentative.”
“Really?”
She didn’t mind his grin. “Really. But I’m so often right, you see, that it’s really hard to admit when I’m wrong. Sometimes I wish I was more . . . flexible.”
“Why? The world’s full of people who give in.”
“Maybe they’re happier,” she murmured. “It’s a shame the word compromise is so hard to swallow. You don’t like to be wrong, either.”
“I make sure I’m not.”
She laughed and stretched out on the rug. “Maybe I do like you. We’re going to have to tend this fire all night unless we want to freeze. We’ll take shifts.” She yawned and pillowed her head over her hands. “Wake me up in a couple of hours and I’ll take over.”
When he was certain she was asleep, Jacob covered her with the colorful blanket, then left her by the fire. Upstairs, it took him less than ten minutes to make some adjustments to the desktop computer and tie it in so that it would run off his mini unit. The mini didn’t have the memory banks of his ship model, but it would be enough to make his report and answer the few questions he had.
“Engage, computer.”
A quiet, neutral voice answered him. Engaged.
“Report. Hornblower, Jacob. Current date is January 20th. A winter storm has caused me to remain in the cabin. The structure runs off electric power, typically unreliable in this era. Apparently the power is transmitted through overhead lines that are vulnerable during storms. At approximately 1800 hours, the power was cut off. Estimated time of repair?”
Working . . . Incomplete data.
“I was afraid of that.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Sunbeam Stone is resourceful. Candles—wax candles—are used for light. Wood is burned for heat. It is, of course, insufficient, and only accommodates a small area. It is, however . . .” He searched for a word. “. . . pleasant. It creates a certain soothing ambiance.” Annoyed, he cut himself off. He didn’t want to think of the way she had looked in the firelight. “As reported earlier, Stone is a difficult and aggressive female, prone to bursts of temper. She is also disarmingly generous, sporadically friendly and—” The word desirable was on the tip of his tongue. Jacob bit it. “Intriguing,” he decided. “Further study is necessary. However, I do not believe she is an average woman of this time.” He paused again, drumming his fingers on the desk. “Computer, what are the typical attitudes of women toward mating in this era?”
Working.
As soon as he had asked, Jacob opened his mouth to disengage. But the computer was quick.
Most typically physical attraction, sometimes referred to as chemistry, is required. Emotional attachment, ranging from affection to love is preferred by 97.6 percent of females. Single encounters, often called one-night stands, were no longer fashionable in this part of the twentieth century. Subjects preferred commitment from sexual partners. Romance was widely accepted and desired.
“Define ‘romance.’”
Working . . . To influence by personal attention, flattery or gifts. Also synonymous with love, love affair, an attachment between male and female. Typified by the atmosphere of dim lighting, quiet music, flowers. Accepted romantic gestures include—
“That’s enough.” Jacob rubbed his hands over his face and wondered if he was going crazy. He had no business wasting time asking the computer such unscientific questions. He had less business contemplating a totally unscientific relationship with Sunny Stone.
He had only two pu
rposes for being where he was. The first and most important was to find his brother. The second was to gather as much data as possible about this era. Sunny Stone was data, and she couldn’t be anything else.
But he wanted her. It was unscientific, but it was very real. It was also illogical. How could he want to be with a woman who annoyed him as much as she amused him? Why should he care about a woman he had so little in common with? Centuries separated them. Her world, while fascinating in a clinical sense, frustrated the hell out of him. She frustrated the hell out of him.
The best thing to do was to get back to his ship, program his computers and go home. If it weren’t for Cal, he would do so. He wanted to think it was only Cal that stopped him.
Meticulously, he disengaged the computer and pocketed his mini. When he returned downstairs, she was still sleeping. Moving quietly, he put another log on the fire, then sat on the floor beside her.
Hours passed, but he didn’t bother to wake her. He was used to functioning on little or no sleep. For more than a year his average workday had run eighteen hours. The closer he had come to the final equations for time travel, the more he had pushed. And he had succeeded, he thought as he watched the flames eat the wood. He was here. Of course, even with his meticulous computations, he had come several months too late.
Cal was married, of all things. And if Sunny was to be believed, he was happy and settled. It would be that much more difficult for Jacob to make him see reason. But he would make him see it.
He had to see it, Jacob told himself. It was as clear as glass. A man belonged in his own time. There were reasons, purposes. Beyond what science could do, there was a pattern. If a man chose to break that pattern, the ripple effects on the rest of the universe couldn’t be calculated.
So he would take his brother back to where they both belonged. And Cal would soon forget the woman called Libby. Just as Jacob was determined to forget Sunbeam Stone.
She stirred then, with a soft, sighing sound that tingled along his skin. Despite his better judgment, he looked down and watched her wake.
Her lashes fluttered open and closed, as exotic as butterfly wings in the shadowed light. Her eyes, dazed with sleep, were huge and dark. She didn’t see him, but stared blindly into the flickering flame as she slowly stretched her long, lean body, muscle by muscle. The bulky purple sweater shifted over her curves.
His mouth went dry. His heartbeat accelerated. He would have cursed her, but he lacked the strength. At that moment she was so outrageously beautiful that he could only sit, tensed, and pray for sanity.
She let out a little moan. He winced. She shifted onto her back, lifting her arms over her head, then up to the ceiling. For the first time in his life he actively wished for a drink.
At last she turned her head and focused on him. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
Her voice was low, throaty. Jacob was certain he could feel his blood drain to the soles of his feet. “I—” It was ridiculous, but he could barely speak. “I wasn’t tired.”
“That’s not the point.” She sat up and said crankily, “We’re in this together, so—”
He didn’t think. Later, when he had time to analyze, he would tell himself it was reflex—the same involuntary reflex that makes a man swallow when water is poured down his throat. It was not deliberate. It was not planned. It was certainly not wise.
He pulled her against him, dragging one hand through her hair before closing his mouth over hers. She bucked, both surprise and anger giving her strength. But he only tightened his hold. It was desperation this time, a sensation he could not remember ever having felt for a woman. It was taste her or die.
She struggled to cling to her anger as dozens of sensations fought for control of her. Delight, desire, delirium. She tried to curse him, but managed only a moan of pleasure. Then her hands were in his hair, clenching, and her heart was pounding. In one quick movement he drew her onto his lap and drove her beyond.
His breath was ragged, as was hers. His mouth frantic, his hands quick. Left without choice, she answered, as insistent, as insatiable, as he. A log broke apart, sparks flew to dance on stone. The wind gusted, pushing a puff of smoke into the room. She heard only the urgent groan that slipped from his mouth into hers.
Was this what she had been searching for? The excitement, the challenge, the glory? Heedlessly she gave herself to it, let the power swamp her.
The taste of her seemed to explode inside him, over and over. Hot, pungent, lusty. It wasn’t enough. The more he took, the more he needed. Dragging her head back, he found her throat, the long, slender line of it enticing him, the warm, seductive flavor of it bewitching him. He skimmed his lips over the curve of it, letting his tongue and his teeth toy with her skin. It was still not enough.
As the firelight played over her face, he slipped his hands under the bulky sweater to find her. Her skin brought him images of rose petals, of heated satin. There was trembling as his hand closed over her breast. From her, from him.
With his eyes on hers, and shadows dancing between them, he lowered his mouth once more.
It was like sinking into a dream. Not a soft, misty one, but one full of sound and color. And, as he sank deeper, she wrapped herself around him. Her hands searched as his did, under his sweater, along the ridges of muscles.
As his lips began to roam over her face, she let her eyes close once again. And her heart, always so strong and valiant, was lost.
Love poured into her like a revelation. It left her gasping and clinging. It had her lips heating against his, her body liquefying. Her hands, always capable, slid helplessly down his arms.
Helplessly.
It was that which had her stiffening against him, pulling back, resisting. This couldn’t be love. It was absurd, and dangerous, to think it could be.
“Jacob, stop.”
“Stop?” He closed his teeth, none too gently, over her chin.
“Yes. Stop.”
He could feel the change, the frustrating withdrawal of her while his body was still humming. “Why?”
“Because I . . .”
In a calculated movement, he skimmed his fingers down her spine, playing them over vulnerable nerves. He watched as her eyes glazed and her head fell back, limp. “I want you, Sunny. And you want me.”
“Yes.” What was he doing to her? She lifted a hand in protest, then dropped it weakly and let it rest against his chest. “No. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Whatever you’re doing.”
She was trembling now, shuddering. Completely vulnerable. He cursed himself. It was a shock to realize that when she was defenseless he was hampered by ethics. “Fine.” He grasped her hips and set her back on the floor.
Shaken, she hugged her knees to her chest. She felt as though she’d been plucked out of a furnace and tossed into ice. “This shouldn’t be happening. And it certainly shouldn’t be happening so fast.”
“It is happening,” he told her. “And it’s foolish to pretend otherwise.”
She glanced up as he rose to feed the fire. The heat still pumped out of the logs. A few of the candles they had left lit were guttering out. Outside the window there was a lessening of the darkness, so dawn had to be breaking beyond the storm. The wind still whooshed at the windows.
She had forgotten all that. All that and more. When she had been in his arms there had been no storm except the one raging inside her. There had been no fire but her own passions. The one promise she had made herself, never to lose control over a man, had been broken.
“It’s easy for you, isn’t it?” she said, with a bitterness that surprised her.
He looked back to study her. No, it wasn’t easy for him. It should be, but it wasn’t. And he was baffled by it. “Why should it be complicated?” The question was as much for himself as for her.
“I don’t make love with strangers.” She sprang to her feet with a fierce wish for coffee and solitude. Leaving him, she marched into the kitchen and plucked a so
ft drink from the refrigerator. She’d take her caffeine cold.
He waited a moment, going over what the computer had told him. The physical attraction was certainly there. And, as much as he detested the idea, his emotions were involved. It did no good to be angry. She was obviously reacting normally, given the situation. And it was he who was out of step. It was a sobering thought, but one that had to be faced.
But he still wanted her. And now he intended to pursue her. Logically, his success factor would increase if he pursued her in a manner she would expect from a typical twentieth-century man.
Jacob blew out a long breath. He didn’t know precisely what that might entail, but he thought he understood the first step. It was doubtful that much had changed in any millennium.
When he walked into the kitchen, she was staring out the window at the monotonously falling snow. “Sunny.” Oh, it went against the grain. “I apologize.”
“I don’t want your apology.”
Jacob cast his eyes at the ceiling and prayed for patience. “What do you want?”
“Nothing.” It amazed her that she was on the brink of tears. She never cried. She hated it, considered it a weak, embarrassing experience. Sunny always preferred a screaming rage to tears. But she felt tears burning behind her eyes now and stubbornly fought them back. “Just forget it.”
“Forget what happened, or forget the fact that I’m attracted to you?”
“Either or both.” She turned then. Though her eyes were dry, they were overbright, and they made him acutely uncomfortable. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Obviously it does.” It shouldn’t, but there seemed to be nothing he could do to change it. If she kept looking at him like that, he would have to touch her again. In self-defense he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Maybe we’ve gotten our codes mixed.”
Hurt was temporarily blocked by bafflement. “I don’t—do you mean we got our signals crossed?”
“I suppose.”
Tired all over again, she dragged a hand through her hair. “I doubt it. We’ll just call it a temporary lapse.”