“She mentioned it to me.”
“Have you talked to Mark about skipping a grade?”
“No.”
“You should.”
“I know. Karen wants to set up a conference next week.”
“Of course,” Millie added, disguising a shrewd glance with a nonchalant tone, “from my observations, Mark is not the only one who’s been affected by this man. In fact, I’m afraid I’m just going to have to meet him myself. I’m beginning to think he’s some kind of miracle worker.”
Houston met her eyes, trying in vain to look uncomprehending. But she could feel her cheeks warming just from thinking of him. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Millie broke off a piece of a doughnut—she was convinced a doughnut contained fewer calories if it was eaten one small piece at a time—and popped it into her mouth. “He makes you blush. If that’s not a miracle, I don’t know what is. Good heavens, you should see yourself. Your eyes are sparkling. That’s disgusting.”
“Spring fever,” Houston replied. But she couldn’t help grinning as she tore her doughnut in half, savoring each bite.
Millie’s eyes widened. “Well, come on, already! I’m a busy woman. Do you think I went three miles out of my way for doughnuts just to sit here and watch you eat? Tell me!”
Houston laughed. It was a girlish, almost giggly laugh, and it wasn’t a bit like her at all. When she realized that was how she felt inside—girlish and giggly—the laugh turned into a moan and she sank back in her chair. “Oh, Millie,” she said. “This could be big trouble.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.” But Millie’s eyes were alight with interest as she broke off another piece of doughnut.
Houston thrust her fingers into her hair, tugging at the curls. “I don’t know where to start.”
“With the good stuff,” advised Millie, leaning forward.
Houston encircled her coffee cup with both hands and stared into it, trying to put her impressions in order, and her feelings into perspective. “On the positive side,” she began carefully, “you remember I told you he fixed my car? Well, he really fixed it. No more oil leaks, no more sticking gears, no more misfiring spark plugs. I haven’t had to put gas in it for so long that I thought something was wrong with the gauge, but I had it checked out and it’s fine. I figured it out the other day, and I’m getting forty-two miles to the gallon.”
“Whoa.” Millie sat back. “Keep him around just for that.”
“He’s brilliant, no doubt about that. That’s why he and Mark get along so well together—they speak the same language.”
“I sense a ‘but’ there.”
“No,” Houston said quickly, and then had to confess, “I mean, yes. A couple of dozen ‘buts,’ actually. He pays cash in advance, so he must have money—but he doesn’t even have a car. No previous address, no employer—do you seriously think I could get involved with a man like that? That sounds like something my mother would do. I mean, the man is definitely strange.”
“Honey, you think all men are strange,” Millie assured her. “Not entirely without justification, I must admit.”
Houston focused on the coffee in her cup, a small frown of concentration furrowing her brow. “On the other hand… It’s not exactly something I can put my finger on, but there’s an aura about him, a uniqueness…it’s like, well…” She glanced at Millie with a lopsided smile. “He’s got this enormous sex appeal, and he’s so completely unaware of it—that’s what makes it so exciting, I guess, so natural, and I mean that in the most basic sense of the word, almost elemental—”
Millie burst into laughter. “You’re babbling! My God, you’ve got it bad!” And she clapped her hands together in delight. “I never thought I’d see the day. I’d just about given up on you!”
Houston’s frown sharpened, and she took a sip of her coffee. “There’s no reason to jump to conclusions. All I’m doing is just stating the facts.”
“And leaving out a few important ones,” Millie said coyly.
“I hope you’re not going to suggest—”
“That you’re falling for this guy? The lady who has her life perfectly under control, a place for everything and everything in its place, who never takes chances or makes mistakes or even loses her car keys—that you might be going starry-eyed over a man you’ve known for barely a week, a man who might have fallen out of the sky as far as you know… Why, no, certainly not. That would be ridiculous.”
“It would be more than ridiculous,” Houston said. She felt slightly hollow inside, as though all her supports had been cut loose and she was sent free-falling through space. “It would be disastrous.”
Millie chuckled softly and leaned forward to pat her hand. “Relax. It’s only dangerous if he asks to borrow money. Up until then, have fun.”
“I’m not the kind of person who has fun.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Millie said dryly.
Houston was thinking about his kiss, and every time she thought about it, that weak and tingling sensation began in her stomach, heat crept through her skin, and she could feel him, taste him all over again. And when she thought about it, colors seemed clearer, lights seemed brighter and she couldn’t wait to see him again.
She murmured, “It’s been such a long time since I’ve felt this way—about anyone. About anything. I’m not sure I’m ready for it.”
Millie smiled. “The best things in life are often unexpected.”
“I guess.”
“Come on. So you have a chance for a little excitement in your life, maybe even romance—what’s so bad about that? No one’s talking about anything serious here. I just don’t like to see you close yourself off to the possibility.”
Houston didn’t reply, and Millie added, “Sometimes I think you spend so much energy trying not to be like your mother that you don’t have any left over to find out who you are.”
Houston shook her head. “It’s just—I have to be so careful, with Mark—”
Millie gave her a reproachful look. “Who are you kidding, Houston? It’s not Mark you’re protecting. It’s yourself.” And she added gently, “All men aren’t like that rat of an ex-husband of yours, and that’s all I’ve been trying to tell you all this time.”
Houston smiled wistfully. “I wish it were that simple.”
She took a final sip of her coffee. “The rat’s coming over this afternoon, by the way. He’s taking Mark to the auto show.”
“Yippee. Does he know about your boarder?”
“It’s none of his business what I do.”
“Right you are. I can’t help feeling though that that weasel would take off with his tail between his legs if he knew you had a real man on the premises.”
“Oh, right.” Houston tried to make her voice light. “Perfect reason to become intimately involved with a man I hardly know—to scare off my ex-husband.” She lifted her shoulders in an effort at dismissal. “I like my life in order, that’s all. I don’t need some guy to come in and turn things upside down and inside out. I just like things uncomplicated.”
But she knew in her heart things were already much more complicated than she had ever intended.
PRIORITIES. Protocol. Rules. They existed for a reason, and the reasons were valid. Quinn had always believed that—in a purely superficial, intellectual way. But three hundred years away from home, cut off from the chain of command and all that was familiar, with nothing but his own cunning and gut instinct to rely on, the rules seemed to have very little relevance at all.
He had always been something of a maverick; he knew that. But that was only because he was willing to take the chances no one else would, to push the limits when others backed down. In such a way were discoveries made, trails broken, protocols established. When they said it couldn’t be done, he always found a way—because he had the insight to know when to break the rules and the courage to do it.
It was just a kiss. But already it seemed symbolic of every mistake he had ever made. And one
thing was certain. He couldn’t stay here. Not another day.
It was going to be inconvenient—not to mention expensive—to abandon his equipment and start over. It would also be time-consuming, when time was at a premium. But his first mistake had been in thinking he could set up a base here in the first place. Obviously, even then he had been thinking with his glands, not his head.
He needed to be in a big city, one with large libraries and industrial centers, preferably near a military base or government installation and within easy reach of a university. If he had any chance at all of reconstructing the resonator, he had to have help—databases, technology, access to the foremost minds of the day. He certainly did not need the distraction of a woman and a child taking his mind off his work, filling his head with fantasies, making him wish for things that couldn’t be.
Of course, if he stayed, there was still a chance he might find the resonator. If he left he never would.
But he would be a fool to stay here.
He had given it a week. In that week he’d managed to complicate his life far beyond anything he’d ever anticipated. He had done his best. He couldn’t delay any longer.
He looked around the apartment with a regret he had not expected to feel. The sloping roof reduced usable space by thirty percent; he couldn’t sit up in bed without hitting his head. The bed frame squeaked and the mattress sagged, and there was barely enough room for him to walk between the chest of drawers and the rows of televisions. But he was going to miss it. And he couldn’t remember what his living quarters in his own time even looked like.
But then his entire life had been a series of small crowded rooms in inconspicuous neighborhoods, base camps in a foreign land, one indistinguishable from the other except for the level of excitement, danger and adventure associated with each. Except for the one summer with Sam building the dam—a summer that, in Quinn’s time, had lasted over two years of his life—he had never spent more than a month in any one place. He was always ready to leave, to move on to the next adventure, to make the next discovery, to meet the next challenge.
This was the biggest challenge of his life. Now, of all times, he couldn’t afford to lose his edge.
Among the artifacts that were provided to authenticate him in this time was a man’s leather wallet. It contained a driver’s license—though Quinn tried to avoid getting behind the wheel of an automobile whenever possible—a social security card, some bank cards for nonexistent accounts whose only purpose was to further validate his identity, and—once Quinn had discovered it was traditional in this century for men to carry photographs in their wallets—several snapshots. Most were props, like the driver’s license and the bank cards, but one was authentic. It had been taken with a real camera and the imaging processors of the time, more than sixty years ago.
It was a picture of himself and Sam standing in front of the partially finished dam, arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning at the camera. Looking at the picture, Quinn could taste the heat, feel the ache in his muscles, smell the sunbaked sweat of other men. He remembered a time when he had been part of something real and important, a place where he had belonged, and the only friend he had ever had.
Sam had died in World War II. It gave Quinn an eerie feeling to look at the energetic, grinning young man in the snapshot and realize that at the time of the photograph, he’d had less than ten years to live. It was even stranger to know that, in truth, he had been dead three hundred years. And for Quinn it was only yesterday.
He had never seen Sam again, after that summer. He had begun to specialize in the last half of the twentieth century, and except for looking up the death record on one of his excursions into the sixties, he had not attempted to track Sam at all. There had been no point. But sometimes he wondered if Sam had ever looked at his copy of the photograph and remembered him.
He heard the sound of a car in the driveway, and instinctively his heart started to speed. But this time he didn’t go to the window. He closed the wallet, and started to pack.
“HI, QUINN. Bye, Quinn!”
Houston heard the slamming of the screen door and Mark’s first few running steps up the stairs.
“What’s the hurry?”
“Can’t hang out today—my dad’s coming. We’re going to the auto show! I’ve got to get dressed.”
“Have a good time. Is your mother around?”
By this time Mark was at the top of the stairs, just outside Houston’s bedroom. He shouted loudly enough to make her wince, “Hey, Mom! Quinn’s downstairs!”
Houston finished tying her tennis shoe and left her room. “I’m not deaf, Mark.” And then she tugged at her ear and added, “Or at least I wasn’t until you started shouting.”
He shrugged and raced off toward his room. “I’m wearing my blue suit!”
“Oh, I don’t think—” She half turned toward him, but then stopped herself. She didn’t think the suit was appropriate for an auto show, but Mark was so excited that she didn’t want to spoil it for him, not even with something as minor as an argument over clothes.
Besides, Quinn was downstairs. Her heart had increased its rhythm, just a fraction, from the moment she had heard his voice, and it hadn’t slowed yet.
She started down the stairs.
She had changed from her work clothes into shorts and a T-shirt, for the afternoon was warm. Quinn looked up when he heard her step on the stairs and she could not help seeing the smooth way his gaze slid over her bare legs, her thighs, her abdomen and breasts before reaching her face. It made her skin prickle with awareness.
She was glad to see him. It surprised her a little to realize how happy, in fact, it did make her to see him. But these past few days, knowing he would be there when she got home in the afternoon, having him seated at the dinner table, had added something to her life she had not even realized was missing before. Maybe Millie was right. Maybe she should open herself up to the possibilities.
Maybe she already had.
She said, “Sorry about all the noise. Mark’s a little excited.”
There seemed to be, for just an instant, a look of sadness, and of yearning, in his eyes that startled her. But it was gone so quickly that she thought she must have imagined it, and he smiled.
“I understand. It must be quite an occasion for a young man to go out on the town with his father.”
“More of an occasion than it should be,” Houston admitted. “Mark’s father doesn’t see him very often. Come on out in the kitchen. I’m making a stew for supper and I need to start chopping vegetables.”
Quinn inquired, a little hesitantly it seemed, “Why doesn’t Mark’s father see him often? Is he forbidden to?”
“No, he’s just a jerk.” Houston lifted her shoulders a little self-consciously. “And I have terrible judgment when it comes to men. I picked Mark’s father for his charm and good looks, and by the time I realized there was nothing inside the man-suit except marshmallow cream, it was too late.” Quinn was looking at her with an intensity that made her skin warm and her throat dry.
“The man is obviously a fool,” he said quietly, “to have had the affection of a woman like you, and then not to do everything in his power to become everything you wanted him to be, and more…. He hardly deserves to be called a man.”
Houston swallowed hard, a faint flush of undeniable pleasure spreading across her cheeks. Never had anyone defended her so eloquently, and with such quiet conviction, against so small an offense. “To have had a woman like you…” The implication was undeniable, and it made her feel quivery inside with uncertain anticipation.
Don’t be hasty, Houston, she thought. Think about this….
“Listen, Mark’s going out for dinner and I was thinking, since it’s just going to be the two of us, and if you’d like, we could go into town and grab a bite, maybe see a movie or something.”
She couldn’t believe it. She had just asked the man out on a date. After all of her protestations about getting involved with a strang
er, she hadn’t even waited for him to make the first move. She couldn’t believe it.
And her astonishment at her own behavior turned to humiliation when she saw the refusal start to form in his eyes, and the awkward way he responded, “That would be fine, I’m sure, but—”
“No, it’s okay. Just a thought.” Keeping her voice bright, turning away quickly so that he couldn’t see the color scorching her cheeks, she opened the cabinet where she kept the glasses. “Do you want something to drink? I’ve got juice and diet soda.”
There was an odd strained tone in his voice as he answered, “No, thank you. Houston, I need to talk to you.”
She closed the cabinet, took a deep breath, and turned to face him, bracing her hands behind her on the counter. She said, “I know. I need to talk to you, too, I guess.”
She met his eyes. It was difficult to do. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in denying that I find you attractive.”
He seemed surprised but said nothing. That made it a little easier for her to go on.
“But I don’t want you to think that I’m the kind of woman who corners every man she meets, or that I’m reading something into our relationship that doesn’t exist. Yesterday…” Her cheeks were growing hotter; her heart was beating harder. She couldn’t remember ever having been quite so uncomfortable in her life. “Well, it was nice, of course, but it was only a kiss. It didn’t mean anything. I understand that. I don’t want you to think that I misread you, or that you misread me….”
She blew a short breath upward, tickling the curls that fell over on her forehead. “I hope I don’t sound like as big an idiot as I feel. This is embarrassing. Forget it. I never said a word, okay?”
With her hands upraised in a half defensive, half dismissive gesture, her face aflame, she turned back to the sink, intent on nothing except putting the entire humiliating episode behind her. With absolutely no warning at all, Quinn stepped forward and caught her shoulders, turning her to him.
Her breasts were crushed against his chest, his thighs pressed into hers. The grip of his hands was hard on her shoulders, and with her indrawn breath of surprise she tasted his breath, so close were their faces. His eyes were dark with passion. He said, “It meant something.” His mouth covered hers.
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