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

by Nicola Claire

  “That was an accident. Happenstance,” I said. “The federal agents fired first, he retaliated. Sergei was never shy in coming forward.”

  “You should know,” Winchester sneered. I ignored him. It was hard. My hands twitched.

  “So, what does he want then?” Bryan asked.

  “He wants to shut us down, not destroy us,” Clive offered. “He wants us out of the picture for a while, but why? To what end?”

  “He’s certainly got something planned,” Sanders agreed. “But I’m not sure he wouldn’t be happy with us being destroyed as well. Those explosives were top of the line. They had over fifty on them. They deployed thirty.”

  “I wasn’t aware thirty explosions went off,” Clive murmured.

  “They didn’t. Fifteen did. They failed to flick the switch on half of them. Ineptitude at its best.”

  “Or a calculated risk,” I offered.

  “What makes you say that?” Clive demanded.

  I wished to God I’d just kept my bloody mouth shut.

  “If you know something, Jack, speak.” Clive’s hard eyes bore into mine.

  “I’m not sure I know anything. Just a hunch.”

  “Then out with it, son. We need to know what we’re up against.”

  I stared at the blotter on his desk.

  “Protecting his lover, that’s what,” Winchester growled. “Nice bit of skirt that one, Evans, but fucking the enemy is low even for you.”

  I was up and out of my seat in a heartbeat. My fist planted in his face before the next beat had thumped. Breathing hard, I shook out my hand as Winchester laughed up at me from behind a bloody nose.

  “Did I mention we’d discuss this like adults,” Clive said deathly quiet.

  “Call your Rottweiler off, Crawford,” I growled.

  “This is getting us…”

  A soft knock interrupted Clive’s words. All heads swung toward the door, and in the case of Sanders, a gun was drawn. Touchy the room certainly was.

  “Enter!’ Clive announced authoritatively.

  The door crept open and a delicate hand wrapped around the frame. I closed my eyes and tipped my head back. And then snapped them open in order to protect her from oncoming threats.

  “Miss Wylde,” Clive said in greeting. “How may I help?”

  “You’re discussing me,” Mimi said.

  “Whatever made you think that?” Clive hedged.

  She smiled. It was small and tremulous and broke apart the last of my failing willpower.

  Mimi tapped the side of her head. “Finally had a new dream.”

  Oh, bloody fucking bollocks. Her eyes met mine. I held her gaze, willing her to see she wasn’t alone in this.

  Let me in, Mouse. Just let me in.

  “And what did your dream tell you?” Clive asked.

  Mimi took a step into the room and met the gaze of each of its occupants. Some were cordial. Some were neutral. One was a sneer. She held each one without blinking.

  “You need me, Dr Crawford,” she said boldly.

  “We don’t need jack shit from a spy,” Winchester exclaimed.

  I rounded on him, my fists bunched again, a threat clear in my eyes. He actually flinched.

  “Stay down,” I growled. Bryan chuckled. Clive sighed.

  “Why don’t you explain yourself, Miss Wylde,” he said, motioning her forward.

  Mimi crept into the room on silent feet, her back straight, and chin lifted. I couldn’t have been more proud. I moved to stand closer to her, catching her eye with a small smile. Her lips twitched.

  Was she laughing at me?

  “Sergei Ivanov,” she said, “has my sister.”

  “We know this, Miss Wylde,” Clive replied, not unkindly.

  She nodded. “He also has somehow…” she licked her lips, cocked her head to the side and sighed, staring at nothing. “Somehow,” she repeated, her voice whisper quiet, “he’s managed to get my parents.”

  I’d known it. Or at least, suspected it. How could I not? Kiwi accent. “This is for Carrie!” Mimi’s shock and shut down.

  I’d known it. But nothing prepared me for the fallout.

  She’d thought them dead.

  Oh, sweetheart. Why didn’t you come to me first?

  “Well, there’s your proof,” Winchester announced grandly, hauling himself off the floor and dusting himself off. He moved to pour himself another whisky as if everything had now been solved and put in its correct box.

  “Proof of what exactly, Dr Winchester?” Clive asked.

  “Proof she’s as much a part of this as her sibling,” Sebastian said as if speaking to a child.

  “Are you a part of this, Mimi?” Clive promptly asked.

  The room stilled. Mimi bit her bottom lip. “If you don't find him first, I will. And I won’t miss. I won’t stop. Until he’s dead.”

  “Well, that’s puttin’ it out there, kid,” Bryan said, crunching on a peanut. “You’ve got my backin’.”

  “It wasn’t an answer,” Winchester growled. “She can’t even be honest with you.”

  “Evasion is not a lie, Doctor,” Clive argued. “Miss Wylde? You need to be more precise in your reply. Are you part of Sergei Ivanov’s attempts to bring down RATS?”

  “No.” I slowly released the breath I’d been holding. I think a few others did as well.

  Winchester just sucked one in, preparing to fire.

  “I thought my parents were dead,” Mimi said cutting him off. “For the past year, I’ve grieved them. Carrie was all that kept my head above water. She was the reason I got up in the morning. The reason I tried to see past the loss and heartache. Carrie was the only family I had left.

  “He’s got them all,” she said, shaking her head forlornly. Such a figure of complete and utter grief. “He’s taken my family from me. He’s got them all.”

  I reached out for her, taking the steps necessary to wrap her up in my embrace. I didn’t care what they thought, what they saw, what it said about me. This woman was my world. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, let her go through this without me.

  She held me back tightly, taking the support I offered, laying her cheek against my chest, clinging on with desperate fingers. I savoured the moment, knowing it would shatter. Knowing life was not this easy.

  It was Mimi who pulled back. Who let reality storm in again. Not Winchester. Not Clive Crawford. But Mimi. My mouse.

  She met my eyes, offered a small smile, and then turned to face the room.

  “You need me,” she repeated, her voice stronger, her fingers quietly slipping into mine.

  I felt about ten feet tall.

  “That’s hardly an argument,” Winchester offered, but his words were tempered a little now.

  “Why Mimi?” Clive asked.

  “Carrie doesn’t know about our parents,” she said. “She’s doing all of this for me. My parents don’t know about me. They’re doing all of this for Carrie. Ivanov is playing them both. Two sides against each other. But he’s forgotten something. He’s forgotten about me. My love for Carrie. Carrie’s for me. My love for my parents. Theirs for me. I’m their vulnerability. I’m the one thing that would stay their hands.

  “He wants to send my parents in here to fuck with RATS? He’s forgotten they won’t if I’m here. If they see me. He wants to make Carrie fuck with our Surgeons and our Orions in various times? He’s effing well forgotten about me.” Her free hand thumped into the centre of her chest. “She can’t. She won’t. Because of me!

  “You need me, Doctors. RATS needs me.”

  Mimi had summed it up beautifully. We did need her. Without her we were vulnerable. With her here, her family would be hesitant. Could be contained.

  Could even be turned.

  She was brilliant. Feisty and courageous. Utterly stunning. Coming in here and facing off against our anger and rage. She was miraculous.

  But she’d forgotten one thing. One vital thing.

  She’d forgotten that I needed her too. That I needed th
ose dreams to be real.

  It didn’t matter that she’d made her choice to stick by RATS. To call it hers as well as ours. It didn’t matter that she was trying to right the wrongs committed by her family. None of it did.

  Because without Mimi Wylde in my life I would simply go mad.

  I already loved her. I was already in love with her. She was already my world.

  And I was determined to be hers as well.

  “Well, then,” Clive said to the room at large. “Any objections keeping Miss Wylde around for a while longer?”

  No one raised their hand.

  “Get her trained up accordingly, Dr Evans. We can’t have our most precious asset unqualified. This is not the last we’ll see of Sergei Ivanov.” Clive looked towards Mimi. “And not the last we’ll see of your family either, Miss Wylde.”

  Something flickered in his eyes, something calculating and scheming. Clive Crawford at his Machiavellian best. And if I wasn’t mistaken, it might just have involved a prophetic dream or two, as well.

  Carolyn Wylde meant something to the Chief Surgeon of RATS.

  Just like her sister, Mimi, meant something to me.

  I didn’t like placing our faith in dreams; for so long I’d denied them. But there was no denying Mimi. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. She was already mine.

  Time had already changed to accommodate her.

  Time drove us all now.

  But was it Sergei’s Time or Mimi’s?

  Afterword

  Find out what happens next for Mimi and Jack in

  Making Time…

  coming soon!

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  Thanks for taking a chance on Mimi & Jack; I hope you loved them as much as I loved writing them.

  #TimeTravelIsMyThing

  ♥︎ Nicola

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