Her grip broke and the vortex spun her away.
He tossed the weapon after her, cling to Ashe.
Don’t let go.
The vortex spun faster, the circle tighter and tighter. It pushed between them, like a living thing, tried to push them apart, sought to wrench them apart.
Time pulsed between them. It connected them and separated them.
A gap grew between. His hands slipped across her back. Her hands slipped across his back, though they both fought it.
The gap grew. He clamped his hands on her upper arms. Felt the torque increase. He slipped. Managed to grab her. Slipped again. They started to pull apart until he clamped only her wrists. They spun inside the vortex staring at each other, their bodies half transparent now.
Don’t let me forget.
The voice was familiar, wasn’t it? He felt his fingers loosen.
Don’t let go.
He dug in, despite fears he injured her. His hands, his shoulders burned with the effort of holding on.
But he didn’t let go.
A glow started in his chest, flowed up his arms. A matching glow came up her arms.
Strength came with the glow. And an easing of the burning in his muscles.
The vortex around them glowed gold, too.
He gritted his teeth and slowly, so slowly, started to reel her back in. When she was once again against his chest, he slid one arm around her waist. Felt her arms creep around his. Her legs, too. When he was sure he had her and she had him, he slid the other around, pressed her against his heart.
The gold pulsed through them both, wrapped them together, meshed them, even as time pulsed through them.
He won’t let go. I know it.
Time slowed. They vibrated, now visible, now transparent. The pull changed. Or got added to. Pulling them down, down, down…
Tighter and tighter. There. Not. There. Not. Tighter. Tauter, but it also seemed the pressure began to ease. And then, it just whirled away. The sound of it fading like mist giving way for daylight. He clung though he couldn’t remember why, clung as conscious thought slipped away into the eddies left by the vortex…
* * * *
Time currents nudged her awake, like small puppies wanting attention. Ashe stirred, realized something gripped her. Or someone? Memory nudged, incomplete, fragmented. She needed—her lids drifted up.
She was nose to chest with Shan. Shan. Still wrapped around her, though his lashes rested against deathly pale cheeks. In every direction, the stream stretched out, ribbons of color and movement, devoid of location markers. It was, she realized, the stream as she’d never seen it. Time once again on its chosen course, once again following its proper pattern?
She didn’t know, couldn’t know for sure, but it felt good, better than it had ever felt. Other than the whole, being lost part. Could Shan survive in the stream without protective gear? She stared at the hands gripping her and realized they were fading.
“No!” There was no one to hear her cry, though it seemed his lashes flickered once before he faded away, leaving her clutching nothing.
She almost gave up then, would have if it weren’t for Lurch, dazed, wounded, but still there. Her sniffer kicked on, picked up the signal from the Time Base. She followed it, because she didn’t know what else to do, where else to go. And because she was her not-so-great grandmother’s not-so-great granddaughter. That meant something, though she didn’t know what.
The bright light of the beacon drew her in, as her grip on consciousness wavered. Oh no you don’t. She owed Lurch a ride home…she gritted her teeth, hung on with everything she had left. The landing wasn’t pretty. Sure as hell wasn’t on square. Was barely on the island. She rolled across the sand. Water splashed her face and she heard the slap of waves against the shore. The beacon stopped. Her time gear felt gone, too. What—she opened her eyes as she rolled once more, bumping into something. Someone?
Her gaze made a weary journey up long legs. Really long legs. Long torso, too. Nice torso. At least it wasn’t Carig, though she didn’t recognize—leather. Didn’t she recognize that leather? And that chin. Oh yeah, she knew that mouth. Owed it some kisses. His eyes looked down, eyes that knew her. He bent, gripped her wrists and pulled her to her feet, pulled her against the solid wall of his chest. She sagged like a girl.
“You didn’t let go,” she muttered against his chest. Fading didn’t count as letting go.
His hand stroked the back of her head, his heart pounding against her cheek. “I never will.”
Inside her, Lurch sighed. I suppose I’ll get used to it.
Ashe smiled at Vid. “When I catch my breath, I’m so going to kiss you on the mouth.”
His brows arched. “It is…” he grinned “…about time.”
Eventually.
EPILOGUE
“And that’s my, well, I forget how many greats,” Ashe tapped the female face in the still vid. Their visit to her family home was almost over before she ventured into her father’s library, invited him to join her in a most comfortable chair, and activated the family albums. If he did not know that she feared little, he’d have said she feared her own past, though he could see why she might, after all that had transpired. He glanced around the room. She had not exaggerated when she said her people liked pretty. People and things had been…there was no other word for it than pretty. It was most different from his rough-hewn world, though he noticed that Ashe wasn’t the only Garradian female that preferred rough-hewn. His men were having a fine time. He foresaw more alliance matings between her people and his.
He still found it strange to think about when they’d landed on Kikk, dropped there by the vortex. He recalled his false past and his true present. He’d remembered Ashe, and her proper place in his life. She was his partner. He was her mate. He fingered the Garradian tattoo imprinted into his arm. It came from sealing their bond with a private ma’rasile, a bonding so deep, they’d die if separated—which was a very good reason to keep it secret. According to Lurch, it was only the second such union he was aware of, though he did not tell them who the first was. He still kept many secrets.
Sometimes he had to stop and think to discern which history he recalled was the true one, but knowledge of the wrong past helped him steer a careful course as his peoples’ leader. The only false thing he’d done since their return was shade the truth about Timrick’s disappearance. It helped to know that no one would have believed the truth.
There was pain in knowing that both versions of Timrick had wished him ill, but the joy in seeing Keltinar became the world it was meant to be eased that pain. And the drones that still coursed through his system. He had no regrets and Ashe had expressed only one.
“Would have liked to get a look inside a Zelk’s head.”
He was rather glad they had not run into anything like a Zelk in their travels, and that Zelk were the only heads she did want to look in—though she often expressed a desire to bang heads together when annoyed with certain members of her family.
Ashe wriggled in closer. His arm tightened around her, his other hand settling on the curve of her stomach where their daughter grew.
A smile played about her mouth. “She was the alliance mate from a country on the planet of Earth.”
He looked from his woman to the face, feeling a stir of familiarity at the sight of it, so pale and surrounded by black hair, and the sober line of her mouth… “She appears—”
“—a bit creepy. I know. But my bunch-of-greats-great grandpa doesn’t seem to mind.”
The lazy smile and the glint in his eyes did appear to indicate pleasure with his chosen partner. She was not his type, but he could see where she might appeal to some men.
“Our history records it as a happy marriage.” Something in her voice told him she knew more than she said.
Shan sighed. “You met her, didn’t you?”
She tried to look guilty—one of the few things she was not good at. “Let’s just say it was good thing my history
got rewritten or I’d have some explaining to do to the Time Council.”
Thinking about the complexities of time made his head hurt, though the drones rushed to ease the ache. He did know that the Council’s power to affect time had been severely truncated by the time reset and that is all he wanted to know. He pointed at the next couple in the vid. He had the look of the creepy ancestor about him, though his coloring was lighter, and he had his arm around a young woman with hair streaked in colors, as Ashe’s was. She wore a long, white coat and a strangely fitted top that his drones told him was a corset. “Who are they?”
“That was great-great whatever’s brother, Robert and his wife, Emily.” Ashe tipped her mouth up to whisper, “Her great-great something is the one who built the transmogrification machine.”
Having failed to wrap his tongue around that word at any time since he’d heard, it seemed wiser to move on to the next couple. Attractive, excellent posture, a hint of demure about the female. He had the look of a warrior, a flier. A pilot?
“That’s Olivia and Braedon Carey.”
“Relatives?”
Ashe shook her head. “You probably don’t want to know.” There was mischief in her voice—and in her eyes when she looked at him. He didn’t, but he still arched his brows, because he couldn’t seem to help himself. His stern look had more force when he did not hug her, of course, but he would rather give up stern than hugging.
“She helped build the machine.”
He frowned. “But didn’t you say it was her great-great—” He stopped. She was correct. He did not want to know. “And these two with the child?” The woman and child had matching, flaming hair and sober gray eyes. The man with arms around both was a warrior, too, with strange twisted hair that went all directions. Fierce and rugged, someone he could have liked. Or had to shoot.
“Kiernan Fyn and his Sara. Miri is the kid. Our history records them as dear friends of the family.”
His brows arched again. “Friends?”
“We have them. And they did try to shoot each other a few times before playing nice, or so the story goes.”
Enemies to friends. That made sense.
“Miri grew up and married the Careys’ son.”
She’d explained the Earth concept of marriage, the role that choice played.
“Our daughter will choose.”
“And if we don’t like her choice, we make him go away.” She grinned.
He chuckled, still feeling the newness of being happy, of having this love in his life. “They all seem…happy.”
Ashe’s face softened as she twisted to face him more fully. “Happy endings run in my family. So that means they run in yours now.”
“If you continue to kiss me on the mouth with regularity and enthusiasm, then I will be happy to continue your tradition.”
“You’re so cute when you get all stuffy and pompous.”
He felt a puff of something, like someone huffed. He glanced around.
“Ignore Lurch. He’s not a fan of romance.”
“Perhaps if he found—” Shan stopped. What did a nanite find?
Ashe gave him a look of approval. “You might be on to something. I heard of this nanite that’s looking for a new host. Name’s Wynken…”
Surely she did not intend for him to—a distraction seemed indicated. He bent to cover her mouth. Was that the sound of…a head hitting wood? Lurch didn’t have one, did he?
I have learned to improvise.
Look away, Lurch.
Looking away…
ABOUT AUTHOR PAULINE BAIRD JONES
Pauline Baird Jones is the award-winning author of eleven novels of science fiction romance, science fiction romance/steam-punk, action-adventure, suspense, romantic suspense and comedy-mystery. She’s written two non-fiction books, Adapting Your Novel for Film and Made-up Mayhem, and she co-wrote Managing Your Book Writing Business with Jamie Engle. Her seventh novel, Out of Time, an action-adventure romance set in World War II, is an EPPIE 2007 winner. Her eighth novel, The Key won an Independent Book Award Bronze Medal (IPPY) for 2008 and is a 2007 Dream Realm Awards Winner. Girl Gone Nova, her ninth novel, won the EPIC Book Award for 2010, a Single Titles Reviewer’s Choice award and is nominated for a Romantic Times Best Books award. She also has short stories in several anthologies. Originally from Wyoming, she and her family moved from New Orleans to Texas before Katrina. You can read more about her and her books at: www.perilouspauline.com
* * * *
Other Fabulous Books
by Pauline Baird Jones
Steamrolled
With all of time at risk, it’s a bad time to fall in love…unless it’s the only time… Robert Clementyne is going on a transmogrification machine hunt. He fears finding the machine will be as difficult as pronouncing the name. How can the steam-powered device perform as advertised, and how useful can any information be, coming from a steampunk themed bowling alley/museum? It’s pretty crazy, but he’s been there, done that, and thinks he can handle it. And then he meets the proprietor/curator…Emily Babcock. Emily grew up in crazy, still lives in it—hey, it’s her freaking zip code. So no worries when Robert and his team walk into her bowling alley. The first visitors ever to her museum. But neither of them is prepared for what happens when they open the door to the past…and the future. With a side trip through Roswell…and a face-to-face meeting with an evil genius/wannabe—who is on his way to becoming evil overlord-of-everything…
Girl Gone Nova
Doc—Delilah Oliver Clementyne’s—orders are simple: do the impossible and do it yesterday. A genius/bad ass, she does the impossible on a regular basis. But this time the impossible is complicated by an imminent war between the Earth expedition to the Garradian Galaxy and the Gadi, an encounter with some wife-hunting aliens, and not one but two bands of time travelers. The only way it could get worse? If the heart she didn’t know she had starts beating for the wrong guy…
The Key
An Air Force pilot—the best of the best to be assigned to this mission—Sara Donovan isn’t afraid to travel far beyond the Milky Way on an assignment that takes her into a galaxy torn apart by a long and bitter warfare between the Dusan and the Gadi. When she accidentally discovers a mysterious, hidden city, it brings her closer to the answers she seeks—about her baffling abilities and her mother’s past.
Out of Time
What happens when a twenty-first century woman on a mission to change the past meets a thoroughly 1940s man trying to stay alive in the hellish skies over war-torn Europe? Melanie “Mel” Morton is an adventure reporter, who lost her grandfather in World War II. Enter Jack Hamilton, sexy octogenarian, genius/scientist and former WWII bomber pilot. What he tells Mel sends her on her craziest adventure yet—straight into the past to save her grandfather’s life—and change Jack’s future, if she doesn’t accidentally end it. All Mel has to do is outmaneuver the entire German army—and not fall in love with Jack. Unfortunately, eluding the German army is the easy part…
Do Wah Diddy Die
Luci Seymour—sexy & free spirited—returns to steamy New Orleans in search of the father she’s never met. She finds murder, mayhem, love and adventure when her timing puts her directly in the sights of an elderly hit couple and a con man’s last scam.
The Spy Who Kissed Me
Isabel “Stan” Stanley’s mother has been hoping a man would fall in Stan’s lap. But when a handsome spy dives through the sunroof of her car in a hail of bullets, Stan’s sure this wasn’t what momma had in mind. Bad guys beware. Stan’s packing a glue gun and she knows how to use it. Sort of.
A Dangerous Dance
His whole career, Remy Mistral has fought for reform in a state where corruption is an art form. Now is his chance to quit talking about reform and make his move to change things, but two things stand in his way. One is a woman, the other a killer.
The Lonesome Lawmen Books:
The Last Enemy
Two men need her. One needs her dead. Romance auth
or, Dani Gwynne is plotting her own survival, working against time, terror and her fear of heights. Deputy US Marshal Matt Kirby is the lawman in charge of finding her—and stopping the hit man hunting her. With the clock ticking on a macabre game of hide and seek, Dani must defeat a killer who won’t stop until he gets what he wants—or destroys them all trying.
Byte Me
Deputy US Marshal, Jake Kirby, is a top tracker who always gets his fugitive. Now he’s hot on the trail of a gang of cyber-thieves with an unusual agenda. That trail takes him to Colorado and a bar managed by the sexy, mysterious Phoebe Mentel. Instant attraction complicates this high tech chess game between two people who don’t know how to lose and are afraid to love.
Missing You
Denver Homicide detective, Luke Kirby is looking for peace and quiet in the mountains above Denver. Instead he finds a beautiful and mysterious woman bringing a storm of trouble for them both. Too bad she can’t remember what, why or who.
Lonesome Mama
Debra Kirby’s boys aren’t lonesome lawmen anymore, and now the long time widow finds herself pining for a bit of adventure and romance in her life. When Donovan Kincaid (introduced in Missing You) offers a plane ride to a friend’s wedding, neither expects to run into trouble—and the “Lonesome Mama” gets more than she wished for.
Non-Fiction:
Adapting Your Novel for Film
A nuts and bolts guide to adapting your novel for film.
Managing Your Book Writing Business (with Jamie Engle)
This helpful handbook outlines basic and important information every author needs to know about the publishing industry and the the “business” of writing.
Kicking Ashe Page 21