Losing Time (Lost Time, Book 1): A Time Travel Romantic Suspense Series

by Nicola Claire

“Attached and linked. They’ve just changed dimensions to match ours.”

  “Excellent,” Jack said, opening the door to the Vehicle and taking a step outside. Rafe pressed a few more buttons on his console and then stood from his seat. He was still in his orange flight suit, Jack and I were in clothing circa 1970. But that didn’t seem to phase him.

  “You coming?” he asked when he noticed I hadn’t moved an inch.

  “Sure,” I said. “After you.”

  “There’ll be a party at RATS tonight, Mouse. Mark my words. And you’ll be the guest of honour.”

  He stepped down the ladder and onto a concrete pad. I stood still a moment longer and then let out a slow breath of air. Hiding away in here wouldn’t solve my problems. And a part of me still believed that Lunik might appear.

  It was wishful thinking, I knew. But hope is an addictive beast. Once you cling to it, it’s hard to let it go. Even when logic says it’s already vanished.

  I was grasping air and I knew it.

  Carrie was gone.

  “What the bloody hell is she still doing here?”

  I looked up at the enormously tall building that surrounded us, immediately recognising the inside of the Vehicle Assembly Building and the Space Launch System still being constructed on its enormous stand. The hole from the earlier MPCV flyby was still gaping, but security measures had been put in place. Clearly, we’d timed our arrival after the event, but close enough to still be part of the original tear.

  My eyes finally landed on Harding. I’d purposely stalled; a childish reaction. But hey, we can’t all be saints.

  “Miss Wylde is a Novitiate for this flight,” Jack replied dismissively, making Harding sneer.

  “Good God,” she said. “She’s out of time, unqualified, a walking disaster, and possibly an Origin Event, and you made her a Novitiate?”

  Jack stopped his sideline conversation with Fawkes and turned his full attention to Harding.

  “The Chief Surgeon appointed her, Dr Harding. I’d reconsider calling his actions into question if I were you.”

  “Don’t mind, Jess,” Fawkes announced. “She’s just been holed up inside an MPCV with Malcolm and me for days on end. The gal’s gotta let off a little steam now she’s escaped the confines of our home away from home.” He chuckled to himself. “Home. Makes you wonder. Just what kind of things we all got up to in there.”

  “I slept,” Malcolm offered.

  Harding just scoffed at him.

  “I’m sure Dr Crawford has his reasons, Dr Evans,” she allowed. “But not calling them into question would be the bigger mistake, I believe.”

  “Always so quick to argue a point, Jess,” Fawkes drawled. “Sometimes you miss the obvious.” I wondered just what he meant by that. “It’s been an entertaining couple days, I’ll tell ya,” he added, more jovially and for the benefit of all of us. “But I can’t deny, I’m goddamned glad to be outta that thing.”

  “What do you think happened?” Rafe asked.

  “Damned if I know. One minute I’m stitching. The next we’re surfing waves. And permanently stuck in one.”

  “Do you think Sergei had anything to do with it?” Jack asked.

  “If he did, I didn’t see him deal the cards.”

  “How else could we have been sent to here?” Harding demanded, looking around the VAB and sneering. Her default facial expression, at a guess.

  “What made you come for us, Jack?” Fawkes asked, ignoring Harding. I wondered how often he’d had to do that in the past few days.

  “Miss Wylde’s suggestion, actually,” Jack said, and if I wasn’t mistaken, that was a hint of pride I heard in his tone.

  Immediately drowned out by Dr Harding.

  “What the bloody hell would a contemporary know about time travel?”

  “Intelligence is not an invitation only club, Doctor,” Jack replied, and then turned back to the rest of us. “The rip began here.”

  “Really?” Fawkes asked. “I didn’t catch that.”

  “Lunik picked up Carolyn Wylde in this time while travelling to 1969,” Jack explained. “Whatever caused it to drop out of the wave into this dimension followed his trajectory to Cocoa Beach in ’69. The tear appeared there because he tampered with Time. But would he have, if he hadn’t picked up Carolyn Wylde?”

  “He wanted you to notice him,” I said. All eyes turned to me. Plus one sneer. “Carrie may have altered his plans, but they didn’t originate with her. He wanted to get your attention, to deliver that message. I don’t know why he chose that time and location.”

  Jack considered that for a moment, then said, “He chose the location because it’s an Origin Event. Cocoa Beach as much as Cape Canaveral. Separating them is quite impossible in terms of history; so many NASA employees lived there. Abe Silverstein being one of them.”

  “But had he been after Silverstein at all?” Fawkes asked. “I thought you’d ruled him out as a target.”

  Jack’s eyes landed on me. “I haven’t ruled anyone or anything out as yet.”

  “Then where to now?” Malcolm asked.

  “He’s not likely to come back here,” Rafe offered. “The message has been delivered.”

  “And he won’t part with Carolyn Wylde so readily,” Jack admitted, his eyes holding mine. Then softer, he added, “He knows who she is now.”

  “Who is she?” Harding asked, and even though I always heard the sneer in her tone, the question was valid.

  Who was Carrie to Sergei Ivanov now?

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Jack murmured.

  “Well, I’d sure as hell like a hot shower and a cold glass of beer,” Fawkes announced. “So, if you have no objections, I’d like to return RATS.”

  “And what about her?” Harding asked. “Surely you’re going to leave her here, in her own time. Now would be the obvious chance for success on that front,” she added eagerly.

  What a bitch.

  “We’re dimensionally out of line,” Jack announced. “Or hadn’t you noticed the lack of people here, Dr Harding?”

  Oh, so that’s how it worked. I’d thought we’d arrived at night, but come to think of it; it was still sunny outside the MPCV hole. Much like it had been when Orion Two picked me up on its flyby through this time.

  “Well, that’s easily solved,” Harding advised. “We’ll shift dimensions, drop off your cargo, and then head back. Simple.”

  I wanted to say something. But I couldn’t seem to utter a word. I decided I hated this woman. She was as much a bully as Mikaela Pratt. I was sure my original assessment had been right. They were definitely friends.

  “Miss Wylde will be returning to RATS,” Jack said, not offering further argument.

  “But surely…” Harding started.

  “End of story, Dr Harding. Drop it.”

  “This is where you say, ‘Yes, sir,’” Fawkes helpfully supplied.

  “I don’t know what the bloody hell is going on, but I intend to find out,” Harding announced under her breath, and then stormed off to climb inside Orion Two, thankfully moving out of sight.

  “Charming, isn’t she?” Fawkes said. “Try spending forty-eight hours with her inside an MPCV. She only gets better.”

  “Better?” Rafe asked doubtfully.

  “Well, let’s just say, she’s a little like aged cheese. She matures.”

  I tried not to smile.

  “Grows on you,” Fawkes added.

  A laugh slipped out.

  “Like fuckin’ mould.”

  I choked back a sound. Fawkes offered me a wink and turned toward his Vehicle.

  “You tethered us?” he called over his shoulder.

  “Of course,” Jack replied.

  “Don’t lose us this time, Jack.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it, old man,” Jack said, just as Rafe muttered, “A couple more hours of Harding and you’ll be right.”

  Fawkes flipped him the bird and disappeared inside his Vehicle. Malcolm offered a small smile and f
ollowed. We stood silently, watching as he reached out of the entrance and gripped the door, swinging it closed behind him.

  “Is she always like that?” I had to ask. “What a bitch.”

  “Microphones, Miss Wylde,” Jack admonished. Damn, I’d forgotten about them.

  “But Fawkes…” I said instead.

  “Dr Fawkes is a Surgeon,” Rafe explained. “He can get away with murder.”

  “Nice,” Jack muttered, as he swept past. “I’ll remember that, Dr Hoffman.”

  Rafe offered me a big grin and then added, “Just making sure you know your options, sir.”

  “And murder is one of them?” Jack asked as we entered the Orion.

  “Murdering Harding could be,” Rafe helpfully supplied.

  Jack let out a sigh as he sat down in his chair. He looked shattered. Exhausted and still favouring his side.

  “Well, we found them,” he said quietly. “Let’s get them home, then.”

  I stood in the entranceway to the Orion and bit my lip. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to admit that she was gone. That she was further away than she’d ever been. The longer I left her with Ivanov; the more Carrie would change. She’d changed so much already. Even if I could make time and reach her before this all began, I somehow doubted it would be enough to save her.

  This felt final. This felt like a conscious choice to walk away. Leaving our time. What had Rafe called it? OE: Alpha 1? Carrie’s and my time. The place where the rip that started it all began. The location of the Origin Event that tied it all together. Why had Ivanov chosen here? Sentimentality? The Orion vessel he would have flown back on from the ISS, the one he’d stolen with time travel capabilities at the beginning of the twenty-second century, would have originated here. At the VAB. At Complex 39A of the Kennedy Space Center.

  His journey was in my future, but the groundwork had been laid in my time. Why had he come here?

  “Miss Wylde?” Jack’s voice said, reaching me somehow through a tumult of emotions. “The door?” he asked, his voice a soft caress, tempting me.

  I almost took a step backwards.

  “There’s nothing we can do, is there?” I asked. The words sounded tiny. Mousey. The old me.

  But he knew what I was saying.

  “For now. That doesn’t mean, though, that we can’t find her again somehow.”

  I shook my head. This was it. The turning point. The moment I chose one path and ignored all the rest.

  “I can’t go with you,” I said. Staying here in Cape Canaveral seemed like the only way to fix this mess.

  “She’s not in this time, Mouse,” Rafe said softly.

  My eyes darted to his face. I felt the sting of unshed tears. He offered a reassuring smile. I swallowed the sob and blinked repeatedly.

  “If you stay here, there’s no way to travel through Time,” Jack said steadily. “If you stay here, it’ll be years before Orion even flies.” And decades before it manages to surf dimensional time waves.

  But if I left, I’d lose the one solid tie I had to Carrie.

  “He could return her,” I tried.

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t know what I believe.”

  “But you don’t believe that.” No, I didn’t. And Jack knew me.

  “What does he want with her?” I asked.

  Jack frowned, then reached up and scrubbed his scar distractedly.

  “It’s hard to say,” he finally said.

  I nodded. I was searching for impossible answers. But not all questions were unanswerable.

  “What do you want with me?” I asked. I almost tagged his name on the end. I was thankful that I hadn’t. This way, he could choose to take the question as meaning RATS. Not Jack Evans.

  What did RATS want with me?

  But Jack was no coward, even if his temper and moods could swing.

  “I want you safe,” he said quietly. “I want you where I can keep you that way.”

  And in this time he couldn’t.

  “Come with us, Mimi,” he whispered. Choose me, the look in his eyes said.

  It wasn’t as easy as that. Jack and I shared something in those dreams.

  But Carrie and I shared a history.

  I closed my eyes and tried to make a choice. I fisted my hands and just breathed.

  I heard the door clang shut.

  I heard the computer accept the coordinates.

  I heard Jack and Rafe secure their harnesses.

  “Mouse?” Jack said. I’m not sure why it mattered, but it did.

  He’d called me Mouse.

  I opened my eyes and met his steady, amber and whisky gaze.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted and saw the disappointment on his face.

  He schooled his features immediately, but I’d seen it. The letdown, the sorrow, the disillusionment.

  He undid his harness and stood from his seat, walking the short distance to reach me. Rafe turned his back to us and pretended to be busy with the coordinates. But it was all an act. He heard everything.

  Jack’s hand slipped into mine and squeezed. His other cupped my jaw and tilted my head back, palm cradling my nape, fingers tangled in hair. Our eyes connected.

  “I promise we’ll find her,” he whispered, thumb stroking over my pulse point. “I promise I’ll help you.” Blood thundered in my veins. “I promise this isn’t the end.”

  I searched his face, but he seemed sincere. He meant every word, I was sure of it.

  So, why did I feel deceived?

  “Then what is this?” I asked.

  His forehead came down and rested against mine, hot breath fanning across lips and cheeks. It was intimate. Private. And entirely too familiar.

  He’d done this as well in our dreams.

  “It’s the beginning,” he whispered, voice low and slightly rough. “Our beginning,” he corrected.

  But all I could think was it was the beginning of the end.

  For Carrie.

  And possibly for me.

  The Sooner, The Better

  Jack

  Mimi hadn’t spoken in hours. She’d retreated inside herself; protecting, hiding, evading confrontation. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if she was always like that. I wondered if when things got too hard, Mimi Wylde ran away. But no, I’d seen her courage. I’d seen the fire beneath the cool façade. What was ailing her now had to have been monumental.

  I feared I knew what it was and what it would mean in the long run.

  We’d been greeted with raucous enthusiasm in the launch pad hangar when we’d arrived. The return of Orion Two was indeed cause for celebration, and under normal circumstances, I might have joined in the festivities, but Clive’s staunch refusal to discuss his dream with me and Mimi’s almost stoic silence in the face of such frivolity had both left me reeling.

  What the bloody fucking hell was Clive playing at?

  And how the bloody fucking hell did I reach Mimi?

  I wasn’t sure which problem to battle first, but I did know they were both connected. Mimi had lost her sister, and she felt, with every minute of delay in going after her, that the chance of rescue was becoming slimmer. And Clive knew something. He knew where, if not when, Carolyn Wylde spoke to him in that dream.

  Had it happened in reality already? Or was he just biding time until the dream came to fruition?

  “If you stare at her a moment longer like that, she’s likely to go up in smoke,” Bryan Fawkes said from beside me.

  “I’m not staring.”

  “You’re doing something,” he argued. “Drillin’ her with your eyeballs. Tryin’ to get inside her head with laser beams. I don’t know. But people are starting to notice.”

  “And?”

  “And,” he said slowly, “you’re a Surgeon. Surgeons don’t fraternise with Novitiates.”

  “Bollocks,” I spat, thumping my beer glass down on the table in front of me. “That’s not a written rule.” Maybe it should have been.
<
br />   But then there were the dreams.

  “It’s an unwritten one, and a moral one, and an ethical one, and you know it.”

  I turned slowly in my chair to face the current pain in my arse. He raised two rather bushy eyebrows at me and blinked.

  “You know it,” he repeated more steadily. “At the very least, if you pursue this, palm her off on another Surgeon.”

  “Speaking from experience, Fawkes?”

  “Damn straight I am.”

  “So what exactly has gone on with you and Miss Groves?”

  “I ain’t discussing that with your sorry ass.”

  “But something has, I take it. And you palmed her off on me?”

  “You’re a good Surgeon.”

  I smiled. “I’m also unlikely to fall for her charms.” My track record had been stellar. I rarely got involved with co-workers. Despite having had interest from a few in the past.

  My eyes scanned the crowded cafeteria automatically, finding my last entanglement if you could call what had transpired between us an entanglement at all. If Mimi knew Jessica Harding and I had locked lips on a stressful flight back in time to the French Revolution, she’d no doubt never speak to me again.

  I found myself not relishing that idea.

  “You keep to yourself for the most part,” Bryan said cordially. “Sally could do worse for instructors.”

  “You didn’t think Sebastian was the better route to take?”

  He made a growling sound in the back of his throat, making it extremely clear what he thought of that idea. Sebastian Winchester was not as circumspect as I was where it came to co-worker fraternisation.

  I quickly checked to make sure he wasn’t bothering Mimi, but his current conquest was none other than Dr Harding. I huffed out an amused breath. God help the man.

  A shudder quickly followed.

  “But it’s not me we’re talkin’ about,” Bryan added.

  “More’s the pity,” I muttered.

  “Are the dreams clearing?” I nodded. “Same one?”

  I let out a breath of air. I trusted Bryan Fawkes. Like Rafe, he knew when to keep his mouth shut and let things lie. For some reason, though, something about Mimi bothered him. That didn’t mean he’d shout it from the rooftops, but it did mean he’d get me to face his concerns if nothing else.