by Nora Roberts
“Yes, I think you do. I’m trying to give it to you.”
“Fine.” Temper wasn’t going to help, she thought. She dropped back on the bed and spread her arms. “So you’re from Mars.”
“No, I’m from Philadelphia.”
“Ah.” She let out a long, relieved breath. “Now we’re getting somewhere. You were on your way to Los Angeles when you crashed your plane.”
“My ship.”
Her face remained calm and impassive. “That would be your spaceship.”
“You’d call it that.” He leaned forward. “I had to reroute because of a meteor shower. I was off course . . . farther, I realize, than I had first thought, because my instruments were unstable. I ran into a black hole, an uncharted one.”
“A black hole.” She no longer felt like laughing. His eyes were absolutely sincere. He believed it, she realized as she folded her hands tightly in her lap. His concussion was obviously much more serious than she had originally thought.
“That’s a compressed star. Very dense, very powerful. Its gravity sucks up everything—stellar dust, gas, even light.”
“Yes, I know what a black hole is.” She had to keep him calm, Libby reasoned. She would humor him, express a friendly interest in his story, then get him back into bed. “So you were flying your spaceship, ran into a black hole and crashed.”
“In simple terms. I’m not sure exactly what happened. That’s why I hooked my wrist unit up to your computer. I need more information before I can calculate how to get back.”
“To Mars?”
“No, damn it. To the twenty-third century.”
The small, polite smile froze on her face. “I see.”
“No, you don’t.” He rose to prowl the room. Patience, he told himself. He could hardly expect her to accept in a moment what he still had trouble believing himself. “There have been theories about time travel for centuries. It’s generally accepted that if a ship could get up the needed speed and slingshot around the sun it could pass through time. It’s only theory at this point, because no one’s sure how to keep the ship from being sucked into the sun’s gravity and frying. The same holds true for a black hole. If I’d been pulled in, the power and radiation would have ripped the ship apart. It had to be blind luck, but somehow I hit on the right trajectory—the precise speed, distance, angle. Instead of being pulled in, I bounced off.” He flicked the curtain aside to look out at the darkening sky. “And landed here, over two and a half centuries back in the past.”
Libby rose to lay a hesitant hand on his shoulder. “You should lie down.”
He didn’t look back at her, didn’t need to. “You don’t believe me.”
She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. “You believe it.”
He turned then. There was sympathy in her eyes, the warm golden glow of it. “How would you explain it?” He reached in his pocket for his unit. “How would you explain this?”
“There’s no need for explanations now. I’m sorry I pressured you, Caleb. You’re tired.”
“You have no explanation. For this—” he dropped the unit in his pocket again “—or for me.”
“All right. My theory is that you’re part of an intelligence operation, perhaps some elite section of the CIA. You were probably burned out—stress, tension, overwork. When you crashed, the shock and trauma of your head injury pushed you over the edge. You don’t want to be a part of what you were, so you’ve chosen to give yourself a different time, a different history.”
“So you think I’m crazy.”
“No.” The compassion was back, in her eyes, in her voice. She touched her hand to the side of his face in a comforting gesture. “I think you’re confused and you need rest and attention.”
He started to swear, but he caught himself. If he continued to insist, he would only frighten her. He’d already caused her a great deal of trouble that she didn’t deserve.
“You’re probably right. I’m still shaky from the crash. I should get some rest.”
“That’s a good idea.” She waited until he reached the door. “Caleb, don’t worry. It’s going to be all right.”
He turned back, thinking this would be the last time he saw her. Purple twilight filled the window at her back, and she seemed to be standing at the edge of a mist. Her eyes were dark and full of compassion. He remembered how rich and sweet the flavor of her lips was. Regret struck him like a fist.
“You are,” he said quietly, “the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She stared, speechless, at the door he closed behind him.
***
He didn’t sleep. As he lay in the dark he could only think of her. He switched on the television and watched the figures move like ghosts over the screen. They were, he realized, more real than he.
She hadn’t believed him. There was little surprise in that. But she had tried to comfort him. He wondered if she knew how unique she was, in this age or any other. A woman who was strong enough to live on her own yet fragile enough to tremble in a man’s arms. His arms.
He wanted her. In the pearly-gray light of early dawn he wanted her almost more than he could stand. Just to hold her would be enough. To lie beside her with her head settled on his shoulder. In silence. He could think of no other woman he would be content to spend hours of silence with. If he had a choice . . .
But he had no choice.
He was lying across the bed fully dressed. Now he rose. He had nothing to take with him, and nothing to leave behind. Moving quietly downstairs, he slipped out of the house.
The Land Rover was parked near the porch steps, where she had left it the night she’d brought him home. He crossed to it, casting a final glance at Libby’s window. He hated to leave her stranded. Later he’d break into a radio frequency and broadcast her location. Someone would come for her.
She’d be mad. The idea made him smile a little as he climbed into the driver’s seat. She would curse him, hate him. And she wouldn’t forget him.
Cal took a moment to be charmed by the old-fashioned instruments and controls. The birds were singing as he tested the steering wheel and pumped the gas pedal curiously.
There was a lever between the seats marked with numbers running from one to four in an H pattern. Gears clanked when he shoved the lever forward. Confident he had the skill to operate such a simple vehicle, he turned knobs. When he got no response he jiggled the gearshift while depressing the floor pedals. Through trial and error, he found the clutch and shifted smoothly into first gear.
A beginning, he decided, and wondered where the hell the designer had put the ignition.
“You’re going to have a hard time starting it without this.” Libby stood on the porch, one hand in a fist on her hip, the other aloft, with the ignition key dangling from her fingers.
She was mad, all right, Cal thought. But he didn’t feel like smiling. “I was just . . . thinking about taking a ride.”
“Were you?” She tugged her hastily donned sweater farther over her hips before she walked down the steps. “It’s your bad luck I didn’t leave the keys in the car.”
So it took a key. He should have known. “Did I wake you?”
She jabbed a fist hard at his shoulder. “You’ve got nerve, Hornblower. Feeding me all that garbage last night so I’d feel sorry for you, then trying to steal my car. What were you going to do, hot-wire it and leave me stranded? I’d have thought a hotshot pilot like you would be able to do it faster, and quieter.”
“I was just borrowing it,” he said, though he doubted the difference would matter to her. “I thought you’d be better off if I drove out to where I wrecked by myself.”
She’d trusted him, she thought, calling herself ten kinds of a fool. She’d felt sorry for him. She’d wanted to help him. Betrayal and fury had her
clenching her fist until the key bit into her palm. She’d help him, all right.
“Well, you can stop thinking. Move over.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said move over. You want to go to the wreck, I’ll take you to the wreck.”
“Libby—”
“Move over, Hornblower, or that hole in your head’s going to have company.”
“Fine.” Giving up, he eased himself over the gearshift and dropped into the passenger seat. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“To think I was feeling sorry for you.”
He watched, intrigued, as she pushed the key into a slot and turned. The engine roared to life. The radio blared, the windshield wipers swished, and the heater blasted.
“You really are a case,” she muttered, switching knobs.
Before he could comment, she popped the clutch, rammed down on the gas and sent them speeding onto the narrow dirt road.
“Libby.” He cleared his throat, then pitched his voice above the noise of the engine. “I was doing what I thought was best for you. I didn’t want to involve you any more than I already have.”
“That’s swell.” She yanked the gearshift back and sent stones flying. “Just who do you work for, Hornblower?”
“I’m an independent.”
“Oh, I see.” Her mouth tightened into a grim line. “You sell to the highest bidder?”
The renewed anger in her tone puzzled him. “Sure. Doesn’t everyone?”
“Some people don’t put a price on their loyalty to their country.”
Cal pressed his fingers to his eyes. He hadn’t realized they were back to that. “Libby, I am not a spy. I don’t work for the CAI—”
“CIA.”
“Whatever. I’m a pilot, I run supplies, people, equipment. I deliver to spaceports, colonies, labs.”
“So you’re playing that tune again.” She gritted her teeth as she sent the Land Rover over a sloping bank and across a stream. Water gushed up the sides. “What are you claiming to be this time—an intergalactic truck driver?”
He lifted his hands, then let them fall. “Close enough.”
“I’m not buying it anymore, Cal. I don’t think you’re crazy. I don’t think you’re deluded. So cut it.”
“Cut what?” When she only hissed at him, he decided to try again, once more, calmly. “Libby, everything I told you is true.”
“Stop it.” If she hadn’t needed both hands on the wheel, she might have slapped him. “I wish I’d never seen you. You literally fall into my life and make me care about you, make me feel things I’ve never felt before, and all you do is lie.”
He saw only one option. On impulse, he reached out and turned off the key. The Land Rover bumped to a stop. “Now listen to me.” With his free hand, he grabbed her sweater and yanked her around. “Damn it.” The oath came out as a murmur when he saw her face. “Don’t cry. I can’t stand it.”
“I’m not crying.” She wiped angry tears away with the backs of her hands. “Give me back the key.”
“In a minute.” He released her, holding his hand palm out in a gesture of truce. “I wasn’t lying when I said I was leaving this morning because I thought it was best for you.”
She believed him. And she hated herself because he could so easily make her believe. “Will you tell me what kind of trouble you’re in?”
“Yes.” Because he couldn’t resist, he trailed a fingertip across her damp cheek. “After we’ve found the—where I went down—I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“No more evasions or ridiculous stories?”
“I’ll tell you everything.” He lifted her hand, then pressed his palm to hers. “You have my word. Libby . . .” He linked his fingers with hers. “What do I make you feel?”
She drew her hand away to grip the wheel. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it.”
“I’d like you to know that I’ve never had the same feelings for another woman as I have for you. I wish things could be different.”
He was already saying goodbye, she realized. A rippling ache spread in her chest. “Don’t. Let’s just concentrate on what needs to be done.” While she stared straight ahead, he slipped the key back into the ignition. “You were right up there,” she told him as she switched it on. “At the curve. The best I could say is that you were coming from that direction. I got the impression when I saw you crash that you went down along that ridge somewhere.” With a frown, she lifted a hand to shield her eyes. “Strange . . . it looks like there’s a break in that bank of trees up there.”
Not strange, Cal thought, when you considered that a ship over seventy meters long and thirty across had come down in them. “Why don’t we take a look?”
Libby turned off the road and started up the rocky slope. The part of her that was still annoyed hoped the jostling ride gave Cal the willies. But when she glanced at him, he was grinning.
“This is great!” he shouted. “I haven’t done anything like this since I was a kid.”
“Glad you’re having fun.” She turned her attention back to driving and didn’t notice when Cal pushed a series of buttons on his watch. Excitement began to drum in him as he studied the directional beam on one of the dials.
“Twenty-five degrees north.”
“What?”
“That way.” He used his other hand to gesture with. “It’s that way. Two point five kilometers.”
“How do you know?”
He sent her a brilliant smile. “Trust me.”
They climbed the ridge to where the line of pines thickened. The scattered dogwoods were budded but not yet ready to bloom. Libby shivered once in the cool air before she shut the engine off. “I can’t drive through this. We’ll have to walk.”
“It’s not far.” He was already out and offering an impatient hand. “A few hundred meters.”
She kept her hand at her side as she stared at his watch. It was sending out a low, regular beep. “Why is it doing that?”
“It’s scanning. It only has a range of ten kilometers, but it’s fairly accurate.” Holding his wrist out, he moved in a slow circle. “Since I doubt there’s anything metallic as big as my ship around here, I’d say we’ve found it.”
“Don’t start that again.” Libby pushed her hands into her pockets and started to walk.
“You’re supposed to be a scientist,” Cal reminded her as he fell into step beside her.
“I am a scientist,” she muttered, “which is why I know that men do not bounce off black holes and drop into the Klamath Mountains on the way back from Mars.”
He slung a friendly arm around her shoulders. “You’re looking behind you, Libby, not ahead. You’ve never seen anyone who lived two centuries ago, but you know they existed. Why is it so difficult to believe that they exist two centuries in the future?”
“I hope they will, but I don’t expect to offer them coffee.” He wasn’t crazy, she decided, but he was clever. “You told me you’d tell me the truth—all of the truth—when we found your plane. I’m holding you to that.” She tossed up her head, then froze. “Oh, my God.”
Less than twenty feet ahead she saw a gap in the trees, the break she had spotted from beneath the ridge. Up close it looked as though a huge sickle had sliced through the forest, hewing down a swath of evergreen and undergrowth more than thirty feet wide.
“But there was no fire.” She had to quicken her pace to keep up with Cal. “What could have done all this?”
“That.” When they reached the break, Cal pointed. There, nestling on the rocky, needle-strewn ground, was his ship. Trees, some of them thirty feet high, lay like pickup sticks around it. “Don’t go any closer until I check for radiation,” Cal warned, but he needn’t have bothered. Libby couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted
to.
Using his wrist unit, he checked the level and gave a quick nod. “It’s well within normal limits. The time warp must have neutralized any excess.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders again. “Come on inside. I’ll show you my etchings.”
Dazed, silent, she went with him. It was huge, as big as a house, and like no plane she had ever seen. A military secret, she told herself. That was why Cal had been so evasive. But surely one man couldn’t fly something so large.
The front was its narrowest point, blunted, somewhat bullet-shaped, before it curved out into the body. There were no wings. That thought caused an uneasy lurch in her stomach. Its shape reminded her of a stingray that scuttled across the ocean floor.
An experiment, she told herself as she climbed over a fallen pine.
The body was a dull metallic color not glitzy enough to be called silver. There were scrapes and dents and dust all over it. Like an old, reliable family car, she thought giddily.
The damage had happened in the accident, she decided, but it worried her more than a little that several of the dents looked old. The Pentagon or NASA or whoever had built it would certainly have taken better care of something that had to be worth millions of taxpayer dollars.
“You came in this thing by yourself,” Libby managed when he leaped down the slight slope to run his hand over the side of the ship.
“Sure.” His fingers moved over the metal in an unmistakable caress. “She handles like a dream.”
“Who does it belong to?”
“It’s mine.” There was both pleasure and excitement in his eyes when he held up a hand to help her down. “I told you I didn’t steal it.”
As a wave of relief passed over him, he spun her in a circle, then kissed her hard on the mouth. Finding the taste alluring, he kept her feet an inch off the ground and lingered over a second kiss.
“Caleb—” Breathless, dizzy, she pushed away from him.