A Husband in Time

by Maggie Shayne

  “You can’t change history without impacting the present…and the future. Anything you do in the past is going to have repercussions, Zach. It’s like throwing a pebble into still water. The ripples go on and on.”

  He turned around, facing her. “I will not allow my child to die when I have the means to save him.”

  “I know it’s—”

  “I can’t, Jane. And I won’t.”

  “You’re a scientist. Think about what could happen, Zach, think about mankind.”

  “I don’t give a damn about mankind!” he shouted. “I want my son!” And then his knees seemed to buckle beneath him, and he found himself on the floor, one fisted hand on the easy chair to keep himself upright. He closed his eyes and let his chin fall, because he couldn’t bear for this strong woman to see him cry. “I just want my son,” he whispered once more.

  Before he saw her move, she was kneeling there with him, facing him. Her arms slipped around his waist, silk-wrapped steel. She drew him closer, like a mother cradling her child, and she held him to her breast, rocking slowly as her palms made soothing patterns over his back and shoulders. “I know,” she whispered. “I know, Zach, I know.”

  His cheeks were damp, but he wasn’t certain whether the tears were hers or his own. “I can’t give up on him, Jane. Sweet Jesus forgive me, but I can’t.” He twisted his arms around her, clinging to her as if to salvation.

  “Maybe there is a way.” She turned her face to his, kissed his mouth, drank their mingled tears from his lips. She lifted her head, searching his eyes. “I’ve been going crazy trying to think of some way…and if there is, Zach, we’ll find it. I promise you that. But if there isn’t…”

  “There has to be!” He held her tighter.

  Her sob was wrenched from her breast, and she buried her face in his neck. They knelt like that for a long moment, clinging to each other as Jane cried softly. Finally she sniffed, and straightened. “For now, Zach, just for now, rest. You’re sick and exhausted and half out of your mind. Rest.”

  Zach lifted his head to stare into Jane’s eyes. He couldn’t hate her, couldn’t even be angry with her for what she’d pointed out. It was nothing less than the truth. Her tear-dampened eyes met his, clung to them as if in a spiritual embrace. She got to her feet then and, bending low, she took his hands and drew him up, as well. Taking three steps backward, Jane stopped when she stood beside the sofa, still not letting go. So Zach let his numb legs carry him where she led. He sat down when she guided his body to do so. He felt dazed, shocked. His mind swirled as he sought a solution, but he was too devastated to see one.

  She knelt in front of him and took off his shoes, peeled the socks away. “Put your feet up, Zachariah. Go on.”

  He did as she said. His mind buzzed. What if he—No, that wouldn’t work. Jane seemed to melt away, only to return a second later with pills in her palm. She tucked them between his lips. Her fingers tasted salty and cool. He took the drink she offered, swallowed the tablets, his mind still awash in possibilities. Seemed Jane Fortune had a pill for everything. But not one to cure this nightmare. Maybe nothing could.

  Jane sat on the end of the sofa, and she caught his shoulders, drawing him downward until his head rested in her lap. And he thought very briefly of the silken thighs beneath his cheek, and the way he’d like to touch them…kiss them. Anything to forget this awful pain.

  She pressed her forefingers to his temples and began rubbing tiny circles there. Sleep came slowly, as he stared up at her looking down at him. Her face became the face of an angel, and then blurred and dissolved into nothingness.

  Cody sat at the top of the stairs, and he tried not to cry like a baby, the way the grown-ups had. All his life, all he’d wanted was a little brother. Someone he could watch out for, and play with, and teach. And since Zach had come here, he’d begun to feel like he really had one. Little Benjamin, just a few years younger, sick and needing help. Sure, he was far away, out of reach, but Cody still felt close to him. He’d felt like a big brother as he helped Zach find a way to save little Ben. And then those stupid grown-ups had to go and ruin it with all their “good of mankind” talk.

  A kid was dying, for crying out loud! There would be enough time to think about the good of mankind later. Right now…that little guy back in 1897 needed someone. And right now, it seemed like Cody was the only someone Benjamin had.

  No. He wasn’t going to just sit around and let the grown-ups decide what was best. They didn’t understand. They just…they just didn’t get it.

  Cody slipped down the stairs, quiet as a mouse. He sneaked to the coffee table, and he reached out, keeping his eyes on his mom just about the whole time. Zach wouldn’t wake. He was out cold, and snoring like a chain saw. Mom might, though. She was a light sleeper most of the time. But she’d dozed off, too, and she didn’t stir as he crept forward. Cody’s hand closed around the brown plastic bottle. He drew his arm to his side, and sneaked away, up the stairs, and finally into his room. He only sighed in relief when the door was closed behind him.

  Phew. That was the hard part. The rest, he decided, would be easy as pie. He went to the table, and picked up Zach’s remote-control box. Pretty simple. Two knobs.

  He turned one of them.

  Six

  Something woke Jane up. It might have been the fact that Zachariah Bolton now lay facedown in her lap. Her dorm shirt had somehow bunched up around her hips, and his face rested against her naked thighs and silk panties. She felt every whisker as his soft snores blew warm breath in places that hadn’t been breathed on in ages. Places that came to life and let Jane know they resented the neglect they’d suffered of late. She automatically shifted, trying to extricate herself from the awkward position, but her movements only made matters worse. Zach stirred. The change in his breathing patterns told her he was awake. But he took his time about sitting up. And when he finally did, she almost wished he hadn’t, because the look in his dark eyes when they met hers made her stomach twist.

  She half expected a smart remark. But he didn’t smirk as he stared up at her. The sun was just beginning to rise, and the deep orange blush painted his face and glinted in his eyes.

  “I’ve never been so afraid in my life,” he told her.

  “Neither have I.” She lifted one hand to brush his sable hair away from his forehead.

  “You?” His brows went up. “Why, Jane?”

  She swallowed hard, deciding she had to tell him the rest. All of it. “I didn’t tell you everything last night, Zach.”

  He closed his eyes. “Then don’t do it now. Damnation, Jane, I don’t think I could stand much more.”

  “You have to.”

  He sat up slowly, facing her. “Coffee first,” he said, and as he did, he ran the backs of his fingers down one side of her face, stroking it as if he were deriving some sort of pleasure from doing so. “At least let me wake up thoroughly before you give me any more to worry about. I’m still a little dazzled by the dream I was having.” His gaze dipped to caress her thighs once more, and she hastily got to her feet, yanking the dorm shirt down where it belonged. “Besides, I’m still not over the shock of how much undergarments have changed in the past century,” he went on slowly. “I like those you’re wearing. Silk, are they? They felt like it against my face.”

  She’d have shot him down with a cutting reply, if not for the pain she could still see in his eyes. He was only avoiding the subject at hand. She knew that. He was afraid to discuss it just yet, afraid of the time when he’d be forced to admit that he couldn’t take the drug back to save his son. And so he was putting it off. Delaying what he must realize was inevitable.

  “I’ll make that coffee,” she said, turning for the kitchen.

  “I’m acting like an ass,” he muttered, and he followed her. “And it’s doing me no good. You’re obviously not a woman who melts at pretty words.”

  “I’m not a woman interested in petty affairs, either.”

  He tilted his head, narrowed h
is eyes. “And yet you’re lonely, aren’t you, Jane? I’m sure I’ve never met a woman as lonely as you.”

  She averted her eyes, because his words were like blades that drove through to the bone. “Don’t be ridiculous. I have Cody.”

  “And I have Benjamin. A boy I love more than…than life itself. But that doesn’t mean I’m not lonely.”

  She blinked, and swung her gaze up to meet his. “You?”

  “You’re right about petty affairs, Jane Fortune. They only leave you more empty than before.”

  Shaking her head in confusion, Jane turned away from him. She yanked the carafe from the coffee maker and held it under the faucet, filling it with water. But when she turned, he was there, lounging against the counter, watching her with something speculative and curious in his eyes.

  “Why don’t you tell me about Cody’s father?”

  “Why do you want to know?” She continued what she was doing, pouring the water into the coffee maker, then removing the basket and reaching for the filters.

  “It was unusual, in my time at least, for a woman to bear a child out of wedlock, raise him on her own, and still manage to hold the respect of her neighbors. Yet the people here seem to hold you in high regard.”

  “Yeah, well, they did until you showed up.” She couldn’t get a single filter separated from the rest of the stack, though she kept trying. “More has changed in the past century than underwear, Zach.”

  He smiled at her, but it was a sad smile. They both knew what they were doing. Making small talk. Avoiding the issue. With his tousled hair and rumpled clothes, he looked like a little boy. Well, maybe not quite. Still, he seemed vulnerable—enough so that she was having trouble working up to telling him the rest of it.

  He came a step closer, and reached past her to take the stack of coffee filters from her hands. Deftly he peeled one from the pile, handed it to her, then returned the rest to their spot in the cupboard. “Tell me,” he said, “about Cody’s father.”

  Sighing, Jane wondered why it was so difficult to break free of his gaze when he looked at her that way. So intently. As if she were the very center of the universe. No wonder the women of his time had fallen at his feet. She tucked the filter into the basket, opened the coffee canister and fished out the scoop. “I was young, and gullible. He was a smooth-talking lady-killer in sheep’s clothing. A lot like you, actually.”

  “Like me?” His brows went up.

  Jane had to focus hard to keep track of how many scoops of coffee she’d dumped into the basket. She slid it into the coffee maker and switched the machine on.

  “Were you in love with him, Jane?”

  She shrugged. “I thought so at the time. He said he loved me, but it was just a line.”

  “A line,” he repeated.

  “Just a phrase he used to get me into bed.” She turned to face him, leaning back against the counter. His eyes widened a little—probably, she figured, at what she’d said. No doubt the ladies of his time hadn’t used such straightforward terms about sex. “He pretended to be an idealist. He was a musician, with a band, and they wrote songs about the troubles of our times, moral bankruptcy, war, that kind of thing. And I fell for it, hook, line and sinker.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I told him I was pregnant about the same time he and his band were offered a lot of money to sign with a record producer. He said he couldn’t put his career on hold, not when it was just taking off. He hopped a plane, leaving me and all those sterling ideas of his in the dust.”

  Zach tilted his head. “He left you, alone and carrying his son?” Jane nodded, and Zach’s jaw twitched. “He was not only an irresponsible dog, Jane, but a fool.”

  She drew a breath and sighed. “You’re right, he was a fool. Cody is a miracle. Greg never realized he was turning up his nose at the greatest gift he’d ever receive.”

  “You speak of him in the past tense.”

  She licked her lips. “His band was a one-hit wonder. They recorded an album that didn’t sell, went on a tour that ended up being canceled. The band flopped, and he couldn’t take it. Died of a drug overdose within a few months.”

  Zach’s lips thinned. “He wasn’t worthy of a son like Cody,” he said, and he reached out, closing his hand around hers, squeezing gently. “Or of a woman like you, Jane.”

  “At least he taught me a valuable lesson,” she said, drawing her hand away, though reluctantly.

  “Never to trust a man again?”

  The coffee gurgled into the pot and spread its aroma throughout the kitchen. Jane shook her head. “I know better than to let myself care for a man who’s going to walk out on me in the end,” she told him. And then, lowering her head, she added, “Or…I thought I did.”

  He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the countertop on either side of her. His lips brushed over the top of her head, and then his arms came around her to hold her, very gently. “I thought I’d learned a lot of things, too, Jane. But you’re testing every one of them.”

  Blinking in surprise, she looked up quickly. His face was very close to hers, and his body only a hairsbreadth away. Every cell in her urged her to press closer, just a little. Just enough so she could really feel him there. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes. “I can’t do this, Zach,” she whispered. “It’ll kill me when you go.” And then she blinked, and desire was replaced by heartache for what she had to tell him. What she knew it would do to him. “If you go,” she went on. “Once I explain…”

  She felt him move away from her before she opened her eyes. He stood two feet from her now, staring at her, shaking his head. “If? I have to go. Dammit, Jane, I’m trying to save my son’s life.”

  “And I’m trying to save mine.”

  He frowned at her. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this all night, Zach. And even if you do go back, even if you give that drug to your son, I can’t see how it will work. If Benjamin is saved, your colleagues won’t be moved to work together to find a cure for the fever. Maybe no one else will be successful. Maybe there will be no cure, and if there isn’t, then it couldn’t have been in Doc’s office for you to steal. It couldn’t have been here for you to take back to Benjamin. You’ll lose him anyway. Don’t you see? Everything you do will cancel out everything you’ve done. It can’t work.”

  Zach turned in a slow circle, shaking his head. “No. No, you have it wrong. Those men were meant to develop the drug, and they will still do it.”

  “But what if they don’t?”

  “Then someone else will.”

  “Maybe. But maybe not. And then—”

  “It won’t matter. Once I give the drug to Benjamin, he’ll be well. It won’t reverse itself—I’m sure of it, Jane. I can save him.”

  Jane licked her lips, drew in a steadying breath. “And what about what I said to you last night, Zach? What about all the people who have been sick with the fever since then? What becomes of them, if the cure isn’t developed?”

  “The hell with them!” he shouted, pushing both hands back through his hair. The look of torment on his face was almost more than she could bear.

  Jane moved forward, and put her hand on his shoulder. She didn’t want to do this. Wished she could avoid it with everything in her. But she couldn’t. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. I can’t—”

  “Zach, when Cody was two years old, I nearly lost him. He was so sick I didn’t think he’d pull through. And it—”

  “No…” He took a step away from her, staring down in horror. “Don’t, Jane….”

  She bit her lip to stop its trembling, but there was nothing she could do to prevent the tears that filled her eyes. “Yes. It was quinaria. And if it hadn’t been for that drug, Cody would have died.” She lowered her head, biting back a sob that managed to escape anyway, and suddenly his arms came around her, drawing her closer, holding her to his chest, and she felt him shaking. “I know it’s selfish, Zach, but I’m so afraid. If you go back, if you save you
r son, I might just lose mine.”

  Zach cradled her against him, held her tight, as if trying to shield her, and himself, from this horrible dilemma. The nightmare was beyond them, outside the circle of his arms, and as long as he didn’t let her go, it couldn’t get in. She cried softly, her tears wetting her cheeks, so that when she tipped her head up, when he kissed her, he tasted their salt, as well as her sweetness. He drank the misery from her mouth, and she fed on his in exchange. They clung, tears mingling, two strangers sharing one nightmare. And he couldn’t stop kissing her. Wouldn’t stop. Because when he did, when this tiny interlude that was serving as a refuge ended, he’d have to face reality again. And he couldn’t. He couldn’t.

  His mouth never leaving hers, he moved backward until he reached the swinging doors that separated kitchen from living room. One hand groped, found a wooden spoon, and deftly slid it into place, linking the two door handles together so that no one could walk in. And then he returned his hands to her hair, burying his fingers deeply, twisting them in the satin of it. He bent over her, arching her backward, sliding his tongue between her lips to taste her.

  He felt her heart pounding, felt the way she arched against him. And sensed her desperation, knew it, because it was his own, as well. She clung to him as if to life, to sanity, to hope. And when his mouth moved down over her throat, her hands slid into his hair, to draw him even closer.

  He slipped his hands down her body, tracing the swells of her breasts, the curve of her waist. He moved over her hips to her thighs, until he met bare skin, and then he gathered the nightshirt she wore and lifted it. Kept lifting it as his caress skimmed upward again, his palms tingling over her warm flesh, and finally tugging the garment over her head. He dropped it to the floor and stared down at her, naked now, aside from the silk underwear. At her breasts, bare and beautiful and perfect. He touched them, closed his hands over them, and then closed his eyes and moaned deep in his throat. This desperation had become desire, so potent and strong he thought it would kill him if he didn’t sate it soon. He grasped her legs, lifted them up and around him, and moved forward until her buttocks slid over the countertop. His hands pushing her panties down before he stepped between her parted thighs. She arched backward, offering what he craved, and he dipped his head, taking the very tip of one luscious breast into his mouth, nursing at it with ever-growing hunger, devouring and pulling at her nipple until she panted and cried. He was so hard, so in need of her it was painful, and while he worried her other breast, he slipped one hand between her legs, parting and testing the slick heat there. And then teasing the core of her desire until her hands came to his trousers, frantically working the buttons free, shoving them downward. She gripped his buttocks with both hands and pulled him forward, plunging him into her so fast and so deep that he groaned aloud.