He wrapped the blanket around her, then held her close. Her trembling subsided as the quilt soaked up the wetness and the realization sank in that she was in bed, in the cabin, with Tony. Not drowning.
He rubbed the quilt over her back, and his gentle touch helped her regain her rational voice. “Tony... what happened?”
“I don’t know... I was just... all of a sudden, there was nothing but water, everywhere.”
She fisted her quarter, and the answer struck him as she voiced it. “You said this was all under water in your time.”
“Oh God. The pull.”
“Yes. And... It took me along.” A chill coursed through her that had nothing to do with the dampness. “But- but jumping into the future isn’t possible. Yet... How did you stop it?”
“The same way I stop a warp when I want to stay in the present. I concentrated on the cabin, on you, on now.”
He pulled her against his chest. His warmth comforted her and soothed her fears, but her mind wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t have almost jumped with him. How could two people jump together? Especially when for her, it was the future?
She must have imagined it. Her mind had gone funny with her dread at his leaving, that had to be it. Yet, Tony had been in the water, too, for they both were wet...
She didn’t want to think about it. All that water... She touched the damp mattress and started to tremble again. Tony held her tight. Good heavens, she needed a cigarette. She extricated herself from his arms and retrieved one from her purse. Her last.
Charlotte blinked back tears as she drove, tried to push away the knowledge that soon, Tony would leave her, most likely for good. She concentrated on navigating the curvy country road, the feel of the steering wheel in her hands, the rumble of the pavement beneath the tires. They’d been on the road an hour before she spoke. “There has to be some way we can be together...”
“I’ve been trying to think of one all week.” Tony pressed his lips together. “It just won’t work. Not with my family, especially my daughter. And if I have anything to say about it, I’ll be back at my job, too.”
His daughter. The probable reason he was in the Black Book. The reason he couldn’t come back. Was she so selfish, to want him for herself? To want what was right? “I wish I could talk you out of this, Tony.”
“I thought you understood.” His voice was strained.
“I’m trying, I really am. It’s just so dangerous.”
“If it was your child, you’d take any risk.”
“Perhaps.” She stared straight ahead, resisting the urge to reach for her quarter before she downshifted to slow for a curve.
“She wasn’t just murdered.” Tony’s voice was flat, as he if were reading from a dry, academic treatise.
“What hap—”
“She was beaten and raped. Multiple times. All before she died. If you think that was meant—”
“No!” She risked a sideways glance. Tony leaned on his hand, his elbow braced on his knee, his thumb and forefinger pressed into the corners of his eyes.
“Tony...” Her voice came out strained. She couldn’t imagine what he must feel, never having had a child. The closest she came were Dewey’s two daughters. “I can’t... I had no idea. And...” She swallowed, forced herself to concentrate on the road. “In your situation... I’d probably do the same.” In her peripheral vision, she saw him straighten, look out the window, then turn to her.
She pulled a hand off the steering wheel and reached for her quarter, twiddling the chain. “Where’d you get that, anyway?” he asked.
She squeezed the gearshift. “The quarter? From you, remember?”
“No, the necklace.”
He was trying to change the subject. Fine with her. “Theodore gave it to me when I was sixteen, after I passed my First Rite.”
“What is this First Rite, anyway?”
“Being able to jump at will. You go into a locked room—where the only way to escape is to jump into the past—”
“That’s what they did to me, when I wound up in 1913. What’s the Second Rite?”
“You have to die in the past. And come back.”
Holy shit, he’d done that, too. “Have you—”
“No. I’m... I don’t have the nerve. It’s not the easiest thing, after all, you can’t kill yourself, you can’t want to die, or—”
“Or it’s game over,” Tony finished. He made a sharp exhale. “Ironic. The quarter from me, hanging on a chain from the guy who’s trying to kill me.” Or worse. He didn’t say the words, but Charlotte could almost hear them.
“I think it’s... fitting. You saved my life and gave me this- this time travel gift, and Theodore gave me the knowledge I needed to be able to live with it.”
Tony crossed his arms over his chest. “Saving my daughter is what’ll make it something I can live with.”
“I still wish I could talk you out of it.” She sighed. “I know it’s hard to imagine, but you could make things worse.”
He dropped his arms back to his sides. “Look Charlotte, your mother died from illness, right?” She nodded. “So it’s not like you could go back and cure her. But if something else had killed her, wouldn’t you use your gift to make it not happen?”
She blinked. Papa... “Tony... I have tried.”
He flattened his shoulders against the seat and drew his chin back. “You have? But I thought she died from—”
“Not mama. My father.”
“You told me he died shortly after the stock market crash.”
“Yes.” It had been so long since she’d spoken of Papa. She had to force the words out. “He hung himself.”
“Oh God, I’m sorry,” Tony said quietly. They passed a field of grazing cattle, the placid scene a marked contrast to the tension inside the car.
“It was all my fault,” she said.
“It was? How? What did you do?”
She stared straight ahead. The road blurred. “He left a note. ‘Charlotte, I should have listened to you’ was all it said.”
“Oh man. What—”
“When the market crashed. He lost everything. Even his house. Be- before I went back. I offered to let him move in with me, Dewey did, too, but Papa was too proud. He was living on the street, and I- I had to change that.” She blinked.
“You went back and tried to warn him,” Tony guessed.
She gripped the wheel tighter. He lay his hand on her leg, a spot of warmth on her suddenly chilled body. “Charlotte... I’m so sorry.”
She swiped a hand across her eyes. “Not as sorry as I am. Please, Tony. Don’t change the past. I don’t know what might have happened had I not gone back. Perhaps he would have ended his life anyway. Or he might have pulled himself out of it. My point is, something you think is insignificant may not be. You could make things worse. Not to mention the Society—”
“What about you? Does Pippin know what you did?”
She sniffled. “He suspects. But no, he doesn’t know, or I’m sure I would have been... reprimanded.”
“Reprimanded? That’s all?”
“Perhaps that’s not the right word. Truth is, I don’t know what Theodore would do. I doubt it would be a simple slap on the hand. Especially if Ben Caruthers found out.”
She owed Theodore. He did know about her father. But Theodore loved her. Just this once, he’d said. Never again. He reminded her of it if she hesitated when he asked her to help apprehend a time-criminal. Remember your duties.
He wouldn’t forgive her again if she let Tony get away
She couldn’t do it. She loved Tony, and that had nothing to do with the fact that he’d saved her life. Even if she would never see him again, she couldn’t hand him over to Theodore. “Tony, it’s not worth it. What good will it do to get your daughter back if you’re not around to be with her?”
“Why wouldn’t I be around?” Did she know something he didn’t?
“I mean if Theodore finds out. Or others.”
A long pause.
“What will they do?”
Charlotte spoke slowly, her voice quiet, her words deliberate. “They’ll take you into the basement, and... I don’t know exactly what their treatment entails, but by the time they’re finished, you’ll be nothing more than an empty shell of a man.” She swallowed at the image of Fred Cheltenham, drooling and stumbling around the House. “They’ll do the same to you.”
He stared ahead into nothingness. “If they catch me.”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s a chance I’ll have to take.”
She would never be able to get him to the Society House now, even if she wanted to. Why had she kept him with her? He’d been right, back there at the Gibbons, a week—it seemed years—ago. She should have told him to leave town. Maybe he would have managed to escape the Society’s notice. And if he hadn’t, his blood wouldn’t be on her hands. But in trying to do the right thing, she’d deceived him. Let him think her ties to the Society were less than they were. Deluded herself into thinking she could handle the situation.
If she’d brought Tony to the House that first night, she’d hoped Theodore would have skipped the Treatment, and simply killed Tony to send him home.
That wouldn’t happen now. She’d been fooling herself, trying to have it both ways—to do the right thing for the Society, but also do right by Tony. If Theodore simply killed him, he’d return to his own present, alive and able to continue muddling up time.
Theodore would never take that chance.
They rode in silence until familiar, small towns and farms east of Dayton appeared. Her spirit sagged, as if she were stuck in a dreary, gray day with no hope of seeing the sun again. “We’re not far from home now.” Her voice lacked inflection. She couldn’t pretend she wasn’t sad. “I just wish...” There was no point in continuing that train of thought.
“You know, I might be able to stick around another night,” Tony said. “If you think it’s safe. You’re sure that Caruthers guy’s gone?”
“I can’t imagine he’d stay this long. He has his own House to manage.”
“Good. Because I can think of much better ways to spend my last night here than looking over my shoulder.”
A shaft of sunlight broke through her gloom. “Like what?”
“Like throw you down on the kitchen table and have you for dinner.”
Her hands squeezed the wheel. “Too bad it’s too late for dinner.”
“Then I’ll have you for a midnight snack.” He peered at her from the corner of his eye. Prickles swept through her, her interior climate now close to tropical. “One I’d linger over,” he said. “Take my time with each delectable morsel, lick you all over.”
“Everywhere?” She squirmed.
“Everywhere.”
She clenched her thighs. “I shall be most eager to serve—” She glanced out the window. “Oh dear, I’ve missed the turnoff to Dewey’s house.” Goodness, they’d better cool things off or her brother would know exactly what they’d been up to. One look at Tony’s lap and there’d be no doubt.
Thank heavens, he composed himself by the time they pulled into Dewey’s driveway, for the porch light came on as they opened the car doors.
Dewey came out and gave Charlotte a quick, one-armed hug. “Charlotte, my dear. And Tony, good to see you again. I trust you had a pleasant vacation?”
“Oh, it was wonderful!” She clasped her hands, barely able to restrain herself from jumping up and down.
“Beautiful place,” Tony added as she handed Dewey the key.
“Velma and I honeymooned there, years ago,” Dewey said. “Couldn’t afford anything else, but then....” He looked from Charlotte to Tony. “We didn’t need anything else.” They responded with restrained laughs. “Went there a few times before the wedding, too.” Dewey shot Charlotte a smirk, the light from the porch sparkling in his eyes. He knows, she realized. “Want to come in for a cup of coffee?”
“Oh, we couldn’t,” Charlotte said. “I’m sure the children are in bed... and I doubt you were far from it.”
“True enough.” Dewey chuckled as he took the borrowed blankets from them and they said their goodbyes. Could he tell the real reason she’d so hastily declined?
Flutters filled her belly as they climbed back into the car. “Tony? I thought of a way you can come back.”
“Charlotte...” His voice held a warning.
She ignored it. “Dewey said we could use the cabin any time. You could jump to the Fishin’ Shack and I could meet you there...” She trailed off.
His face held no enthusiasm. “It’s underwater in my time, remember?”
“Then nearby. There’s no Society presence—”
“Charlotte, I don’t think—”
She grasped the gearshift. “You could tell your family you’re a secret government agent, and you have an assignment where you can’t contact—”
Tony gazed out the window. “You forget I’m a terrible liar. And the Society would eventually follow you there to meet me.” He pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. The Pull. She was probably all that was keeping him in this time, and he was starting to get the headaches because he couldn’t jump while in her sight.
“Perhaps I could take the Second Rite so they’d let me start my own House there... I’d do it for you.”
Fear and worry knotted his brows. He was probably worried about the fact that he was from the future, and he might reveal too much of it to her, a woman of science. A valid concern.
She’d been unwilling to give up her work for Elmer, but for Tony... “I’d... give up my work for you— for us, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
“It’s not.”
“Then what is? If not the Society, or worry that I’ll use your knowledge of the future, or your family’s questioning your absence...” Was it her? Had her unchaste past—and heavens, the ease with which he’d bedded her—given him the idea she was a floozy, not someone to settle down with? “I thought we had something magical, something worth—”
“We do. But... What do you think about revealing a person’s future to them? Do you think it’s wise? Safe?”
“What are you getting at? Do you know something about me?”
“Your brother. I’ve met him before.”
“You have? When? I didn’t think you’d gone back between the time you rescued me and now.”
“I haven’t. I met him in my time.”
“You can’t be serious. He’d be over a hundred years old!”
“He was. Charlotte... he knew who I was. And he remembered meeting me in this time.” He wet his lips, then chewed on the lower one.
“He told you something about me,” Charlotte guessed.
“Yeah.” His jaw tensed.
“What?” She squeezed the steering wheel. “Tony...”
“I shouldn’t tell you. Because it might not happen.”
“Tell me. Maybe if I know... if it’s something bad, maybe I can prevent it.”
Tony clenched his teeth and stared out the window for a long moment before he finally answered. “He said... the second time I came back to this time... you disappeared. Like when you were a little kid, but... you never came back.”
“And he concluded I died.”
“Yeah. That’s why I can’t come back. Ever.” His voice was choppy, choked. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. It’s not your time. Maybe I can’t be with you, but... you still have a lot to do—”
“Did he say it was because of you?”
“He didn’t come out and say it like that, but... yeah.”
Her world crashed, her heart ground to dust beneath its weight. Tony was never coming back. She glanced up as they passed the Gibbons Hotel, where their idyllic week—the happiest in her life—had started.
The week that was drawing to an end. “Tony?”
“Hmm?”
“I say we make the most of our last night together.” She squinted at him in the dim glow of the streetlamps. He looked lost in thought.
“Starting with what you said you’d do as soon as we get home.”
She parked in the alley behind her house. Something rustled in the bushes as they hurried to the back door. Probably one of the cats. A guilty thought that she hadn’t fed them in a week slipped from her mind when Tony’s fingers slid under the belt of her dress. He had the belt untied before she unlocked the door.
They tumbled inside. She took two steps into the kitchen, then hesitated when she neared the table. She paused. Turned. Heat rose in her cheeks as he approached. Her lips parted, and the tip of her tongue traced the edge of her upper teeth.
A little voice shrilled in her head. Don’t do this!
What? How could she—
It’s too dangerous! Let him go now! An unsettling suspicion reared within her that what she’d heard in the bushes wasn’t a stray animal but something far more insidious
(like Caruthers)
and far more threatening.
Charlotte wet her lips. “No,” she whimpered.
Tony stopped. “Charlotte? What’s wrong?”
The little voice. The feeling of must. It was the same one that had told her—no, made her—go back and warn Papa. It was her future self, reliving this moment.
Her future self had been wrong—oh, so wrong—that other time. Don’t change anything. It won’t work. Whatever will happen here, you’ll only make it worse, her now-self told the little voice, that other presence.
“Charlotte?” One of Tony’s brows pressed down. “Are you okay?”
She drank in the sight of him before her. Her future-self fled, and desire rushed in to fill the void. She reached for the switch to turn off the light over the table—she hadn’t had a chance to turn it off, Theodore had pulled her away so quickly—but Tony grabbed her hand. “Leave it. I want to see you. All of you.”
He placed his hands on her hips and pulled her against him. Warmth seared through her dress wherever his body met with it. She ached for his touch, wanted him to feel her, taste her all over like he’d promised, from the top of her head, to her toes, and everywhere in between. She tipped her face up for a kiss, but instead of taking her mouth, he brushed aside the curls at the top of her forehead and kissed her there. His lips left a wet trail down one side of her face as he caressed her other cheek with his hand. Her heart swelled. “Oh, Tony...” He snatched his hands to her hips and pulled her against him harder.
Time's Enemy: A Romantic Time Travel Adventure (Saturn Society Book 1) Page 27