Embrace the Romance

by S. E. Smith

  In the sudden silence, the bird squawked once.

  Over on the table, the disc’s beams flickered, there was a popping sound from inside, and it went dark, smoke puffing out the holes on the top. Great. Now he didn’t even have a depleted power supply to show the geeks.

  “Ow.”

  Her voice was pained, but, well, nice. She took a couple of deep breaths that increased Briggs’ male holding a female problem. He wasn’t as old as he’d thought. He would have shifted her off, didn’t want it to get embarrassing, and he would like to catch his breath, but the thing digging into his ribs felt a lot like some kind of gun. If she twitched wrong…

  She muttered something that could have been a cuss word.

  “…that hurt.”

  It was something of a relief she spoke very American sounding English, but also a worry. What was she doing on this top-secret outpost? He’d bet real money this was not what Donovan and Doc had had in mind when they sent him the disc to play with.

  The weapon retreated as she rolled off him and onto the sand. She didn’t get up, just lay there staring at the sky, her chest rising and falling quickly.

  He yanked his gaze off her chest and sat up. Only, the changed angle made her harder to see. Was that some kind of high-tech camo? If it was, it was damaged. One second she was part of the horizon, next he could see her very nicely put together figure encased in a black suit.

  She muttered again but all he heard was, “…buggers shoot better than I thought they could…”

  She lifted the hand holding the weapon, then looked at it as if surprised to find it in her hand. It was impressive she’d kept hold of it during that landing. She stared at it then looked at him. She seemed about to say something, but instead she rolled over and got up, the movement of her body smooth and graceful.

  Oh yeah, she was a girl. If he’d had any doubts after the close proximity check. Almost idly, he thought, bet she could dance a great cha-cha. And he wished he could get a better look at that weapon. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen, even around this outpost.

  “You’re flickering.”

  That sounded like it came from the peak of the hut. Briggs got up, not nearly as smoothly as the woman. Because he was a guy, and he had his pride, he kept the wincing to a minimum. His wound had not liked the slam against woman or ground, though other parts of him hadn’t minded the woman-slamming part. He thought he saw her touch something near her shoulder, and the camo faded, leaving just the black suit. Now he could see it had lines of silver running through the tight fitting black. He gave a half tug at the neck of his tee shirt. Very, very tight fitting. He’d have spent more time matching brief memory with reality, but, as if she just realized he might be dangerous, she lifted the gun and pointed it at him.

  His gaze narrowed. He was not in the mood to get shot again. He made a half move toward her.

  “Don’t.” She flicked something on the weapon.

  He assessed his chances. He could take it from her. Did he want to? She looked like kind of cute standing there and the look in her eyes said she really didn’t want to shoot him. There was definitely a glint of humor in her chocolate-brown eyes.

  Her lips twitched. “Stun hurts almost as bad as getting shot.” She rotated one shoulder. “And getting shot is the pits.”

  He couldn’t argue with that, his hand lifting to cover his own protesting injury. He should have just taken it from her while they were on the ground. His gut said she was dangerous, but something else told him she wasn’t dangerous to him—at least—he backed away from finishing that thought. Took a tug at his tee shirt neck again. Damn the heat in this place.

  “You okay?”

  He started to answer, but realized she wasn’t talking to him.

  “I am fine.” The bird squawked once, then flew down, making a neat landing on her shoulder.

  All she needed was an eyepatch to look like a pirate, standing there with her shoulders back, her chin up, and her feet planted. Her grin was sassy.

  “Thanks for breaking my, um, fall,” she said.

  More heat bloomed where it shouldn’t. He opened his mouth to answer, but she holstered the weapon like a pirate. Then she reached up toward a now visible line of buttons situated just below her shoulder blade and pressed one of them.

  There was a distinct pop and smoke jetted out of her suit from the back.

  The bird glanced back. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”

  Six

  Embarrassing didn’t quite cover it. At least the big guy, the very nice looking big guy—she flicked her gaze up and down—seemed pretty unfazed by their abrupt arrival—and failure to depart. He might even be kind of amused.

  Madison might be impressed.

  And, by the way, she’d totally lost her fascination with catapults. She was lucky he’d been there to catch her. Of course, he was big enough to catch two of her. She studied him. He had looked annoyed when she first pointed her ray gun at him, but now? Hard to say. Was that a twinkle buried deep in his eyes? She liked the eyes, with or without a twinkle. Even drawn in a line, his mouth was—she ran a fingertip along hers and sighed. Made her gaze move on. Military haircut and bearing. The tee shirt was stretched across a chest she had good reason to know was well-muscled and unyielding. And yet, the landing had managed to be pleasant for all that.

  His denim shorts exposed tree-trunk legs planted in a way that should have made her nervous. Okay, he did make her a little nervous. He could probably take her down with his pinkie finger. She felt a little color steal into her cheeks as she recalled how it felt to be held against him. All of him. The iron bars of his arms around her. His afternoon beard had been nicely rough against her cheek, his mouth temptingly close.

  Did he date older women? Who pointed ray guns at him?

  Sir Rupert’s wings brushed the side of her head, as he lifted off, circling the clearing, then landing on a rough-hewn table parked in front of a rustic cottage. Had she landed in Robinson Crusoe land? The guy sure looked the part.

  Sir Rupert gave a small squawk, his version of a snort, perhaps, his claws lifting briefly. So what if the big guy was the only non-time traveling male she’d met in, well, she didn’t know how long. It wasn’t that relationships were discouraged in the Rebellion. The new guy had a wife. But it was tough to get involved with someone who could be years younger than you, or crazy ancient, when you finally had that date. At least it was easy to shake off the bad ones. Don’t call me, I’ll call you took on a whole new meaning in time travel.

  As if he sensed her random and inappropriate thought processes, Sir Rupert ruffled his fathers and walked around the manhole cover. Still troubled by the rustic setting, she considered the big guy, then decided he could have already taken her down if he were so inclined. She let her hand drop away from her weapon—oh yeah, that hurt—and walked over next to the boss.

  “Won’t that just take us back,” she stopped, slanting a glance at the guy, “where we came from?”

  The big guy appeared to hesitate, too, then walked to the other side of the table from her. “If I was asked, I’d say you depleted the power source and that thing won’t take you anywhere.”

  He was a pretty cool customer. Despite the, um, rustic surroundings, he’d clearly had contact with tech. Fixing tech was not her skill set. Breaking it? Yeah, she had that down pat.

  “No,” Sir Rupert said, continuing to circle the disc as if that would somehow make it work again. He angled his head to look at her. “They knew right where to shoot.”

  Now that he’d mentioned it, she felt air from what must be a hole in the shoulder of her suit. And possibly some sluggish bleeding. And just like that the pain rose in a wave. This made the horizon waver for several seconds and her stomach gave a nauseous bump. She firmly pushed it all to the back of her brain. Because the niggle was back between her shoulder blades.

  The squad couldn’t use the manhole cover to follow them here, so that might be a relief, but could they track them som
e other way? She looked around again. Where was here? She turned back to the big guy, tried out a smile. It felt like it hit a deflector shield and fell into the sand at her feet with a painful plop. He crossed his arms over his chest—man, that was a great chest if his tee shirt wasn’t lying—and she knew it wasn’t.

  “We don’t care for Time Service agents around here.”

  Madison looked quickly at Sir Rupert. He was the boss.

  “Neither do we,” he said.

  The big guys brows arched skeptically. If he’d had dealings with the Service, which he clearly had, she did not blame him.

  “You’re not Time Service…agents…” The sardonic tone faltered a bit as his gaze fell on Sir Rupert.

  Okay, so he’d run into agents, but not Sir Rupert’s Militarian species. That was interesting. What would he think when he found out the bird was in charge of the op? Sir Rupert gave her a tiny nod, though his glance also advised caution. Like she didn’t know that.

  “We’re, well, I guess you’d call us the opposition.” Tip-toeing through minefields was her thing, assuming it was an actual minefield. But emotional mine fields? Not so much. Her ears were starting to buzz as the pain indicated it did not like being ignored. “Do you mind if I sit down? I don’t feel that great.”

  She got a hard stare from the big guy and a very brief nod. She gripped the table as she sank onto the stool. She leaned an elbow on the table and tried to slow her breathing. Cause each breath hurt like a son of a gun. Been a while since she’d taken a hit this bad. If it had hit her somewhere else—but Sir Rupert was right, whoever fired it had known right where to point and shoot.

  Must be frustrating when he or she saw Madison vanish via the manhole cover. She would have chuckled, but that would hurt, too. Through a growing haze she met the big guy’s hard, distrustful gaze. So why did she sense something else from him? Why wasn’t she that worried?

  “I’d let you point my ray gun at me, but it only works for me.” She lifted it clear of the holster and set it on the table top, then shoved it toward the big guy. Sir Rupert let out a muted squawk that she took to be a protest. Or agreement. Sometimes it was hard for her to tell.

  “DNA or handprint?” The big guy asked, managing to keep one eye on them, as he snagged her ray gun and studied it with what she’d call professional interest.

  “DNA,” she told him, her voice oddly distant from the rest of her.

  He quirked a brow. “Ray gun?”

  “It has a fancy name that I can’t ever remember,” she admitted. And that’s what they’d called them in the books and movies from her time, a time where a girl like her wouldn’t have got to look at one, let alone get to point and shoot one at bad guys.

  She could tell by the way he handled it, he was comfortable with weapons. If her head would clear, she’d figure out what that meant for them. Beads of sweat began to track down the sides of her face and the wavering horizon began to blur. She needed to stay awake, to stay focused. There was her niggle…

  Sir Rupert fluttered over to the edge of the table with a worried squawk. “You are injured. I should have realized…”

  His words kind of faded so she missed the end. The horizon steadied for a second, long enough for her to see two moons, dim in the late afternoon sky, but definitely two moons hanging there over the big guy’s shoulder.

  She rubbed her mouth, her hand coming away damp with cold sweat. “This isn’t Earth.”

  The big guy lowered her weapon, his gaze sharpening.

  Sir Rupert looked up, his feathers ruffling.

  “What year is this?” She tried to look around, but that was a very bad idea. Spikes of pain shot up from her shoulder, stabbing into her brain and everything spun fast enough to ramp up the nausea. From a long way away she heard her voice say, “Usually I can make a good guess, but this place doesn’t give much away.” She tried to grin, but it felt like it wavered more than the horizon. She was talking too much, but couldn’t stop herself.

  “Who are you?” He had his Sphinx on, though he did glance at the bird this time.

  “I am Sir Rupert.” He ruffled his feathers importantly.

  It might actually be his real name. Birds didn’t have the same risks with sharing their real names. It was hard to track down a flock and pick out the one bird who could erase you from existence. Time was not only fluid, but apparently had a sense of humor. Let’s make sure, it said, probably snickering somewhere out there, that you remember people you can never see again, because they didn’t exist anymore. And then let’s put you in position to fix all kinds of time paradoxes. But not that one.

  Never that one, thank you so much, Boris.

  The big guy was looking at her now, she realized, though it seemed his expression had softened. Or her gaze was getting blurrier. Probably that one. He wanted a name, she realized fuzzily.

  “Scarlet Doe.” It embarrassed her to say it out loud. Even about to pass out from pain, she blushed. She met his ironic gaze. “I told them it was the worst fake—”

  “Code name,” Sir Rupert interposed.

  “Code name, worst code name ever.” The big guy’s brows rose and his look said, give me something better than that if you want my help. She couldn’t give him her real name, so she gave him the one she’d used in her head for so long it felt like her real name. “Madison. You can call me Madison.”

  Her insides tensed, despite the pain that caused, as the name dropped into the gentle sea breeze and rose through the air toward the warm, high sun. The horizon didn’t tremble or reverberate, at least not in a time-ish way. That’s how she would have known that somewhere that name had registered with someone. Real names in time travel were dangerous, existence threatening, but so was time travel. Besides, all they could do now was kill her. For her, well, she didn’t exist, though it had been a near thing, a fluke in time. But even she needed something to anchor her to her past, even if it was gone. It was so easy to lose yourself in time. And for someone who had been doing it as long as she had? That anchor was as critical to her survival as staying hidden.

  They all knew it, so they were careful about using those anchors outside their own minds. Until now, not even Sir Rupert had heard the name Madison. Which begged the question, why had she told the big guy? And the answer came back in two parts.

  He would know a lie if he heard it.

  And for some reason she was too foggy to figure out, it was important he believed her. She wanted him to trust her.

  “And you are?” she asked, then was sorry because he probably only had a real name.

  “Briggs.”

  It felt like her chin sank deeper into the palm she rested it on. “Briggs.” She smiled at him, felt the cloudiness of her gaze, even as she worried at how much their arrival would put him at risk. “Nice to meet you, Briggs.”

  He frowned and stepped closer. “You are hurt.”

  “Yes.” She felt the clouds going dark, felt herself listing to the side—felt those strong arms lock around her for the second time. “Thanks again,” she murmured, her head dropping to rest against his truly wonderful chest as her lights went out.

  Seven

  Briggs carried Madison inside the hut and settled her on his bed. Her waist was ringed with a belt loaded with neatly slotted equipment. The only one missing was her ray gun. He removed the gear, then the belt, and tossed it aside. Only then did he lower her—feeling something stirring inside himself, a something not appropriate to the situation, as he did so. But doing it felt oddly familiar, as if they’d done this before. Which was not possible. So—maybe it just felt right, the kind of right that he hadn’t felt for a long time. It hadn’t been so long that he hadn’t recognized the look in her eyes, an interest she hadn’t tried to hide. Was it a tactical move? Hadn’t felt like it, and the interest had stayed in there as the fog closed in, and took her down.

  Before he could stop himself, he smoothed the hair back from her face, noticing how her lashes fanned across the upper curve of her cheek
s. Her skin was pale beneath her tan, revealing a sprinkling of freckles across a nose that tipped up on the end. His gaze lingered on parted pink lips, noted the rapid rise and fall of her chest. He pulled his hand back, though his fingers wanted to linger on the soft skin and trace the lines and curves of her face. And then move lower…

  She’d never make it onto a magazine cover. She was short, her body more compact than thin. Very fit, with signs of strength in her limbs and body. That was okay. He’d never been interested in half-starved waifs with big, sad eyes. What he’d seen of her eyes, they for sure they hadn’t been sad. Serious, sassy, amused, and interested, but not sad.

  She did interest him. He faced it because he needed to take care. If this was some kind of move on the base here, well, he had to make sure that didn’t happen.

  Madison. Even as he considered how this might be a play, his hands moved down her arms, then flexed her legs, trying to assess her injuries. He checked her ribs, but was defeated by the suit. She seemed to have been sealed inside it.

  “Put your fingers here,” the bird said, tapping its beak between her breasts.

  He gave the bird a wary look.

  “To open the seal on her uniform,” it added.

  Briggs decided he didn’t want to know what the bird was thinking when he hesitated. He touched the suit, careful to keep his fingers in the center. But his knuckles brushed curves as he tried to find a seam. Felt like a creepy guy, even when his thumb finally found something. He pushed and a gap appeared. He pushed a little harder and his fingers brushed against soft, firm skin. He didn’t yank back. That would be obvious, even to a bird. She didn’t stir. Breathing a bit easier—okay, nothing was easy about this, but he doggedly worked to open it wider.

  The vulnerability of her situation called to his sense of honor, the reason he’d joined the Air Force. To serve. To protect. But then there was that other call. It wasn’t just a guy and a gal call, though it had started that way when she slammed into him.