Time Was

by Nora Roberts

  In the kitchen, William scowled at his wife. “That man always has his hands on one of my women.”

  “One of your women.” Caroline let out a long, robust laugh. “Really, Will.” She tossed her head so that both of her earrings danced. “He does have very nice hands.”

  “Looking for trouble?” With one arm, he scooped her up against him.

  “Always.” She gave him a warm and very provocative kiss before turning toward the doorway. “Come sit down,” she said, sharing her radiant smile with Cal. “I just threw a salad together.”

  She had four bowls set out on her own woven mats. In the center of the table was a concoction of vegetables and herbs, with the surprising addition of green bananas, sprinkled with whole-wheat croutons and ready to be mixed with a yogurt dressing. Libby gave one wistful thought to the BLTs she’d planned on before she sat down.

  “So, Cal . . .” Caroline passed him the bowl. “Are you an anthropologist?”

  “No, I’m a pilot,” he said, just as Libby announced, “Cal’s a truck driver.”

  Libby muttered under her breath as Cal calmly dished up salad. “Cargo,” he explained, pleased that he could honor Libby’s wish to stick with the truth. “I deal primarily with cargo. Libby figures that makes me an airborne truck driver.”

  “You fly?” William drummed his long, skinny fingers on the table.

  “Yes. That’s all I ever really wanted to do.”

  “It must be exciting.” Caroline leaned forward, always willing to be fascinated. “Sunbeam, our other daughter, is taking flying lessons. Maybe you can give her some pointers.”

  “Sunny’s always taking lessons.” There was both amusement and affection in Libby’s voice as she passed the salad on to her mother. “She’s good at everything. She took up parachuting and figured the next step was to learn how to fly the plane herself.”

  “Makes sense.” He glanced over at Caroline. Caroline Stone, he thought, not for the first time. The twentieth-century genius. Cal would have found it no more incredible to be sharing a meal with Vincent Van Gogh or Voltaire. “This is a wonderful salad, Mrs. Stone.”

  “Caroline. Thanks.” She slanted a look at her husband, knowing he would have preferred his sausages and chips and a cold beer. After more than twenty years, she hadn’t quite converted him. That never stopped her from trying.

  “I feel very strongly that proper nutrition is what keeps the mind clear and open,” she began. “I recently read a study where proper diet and exercise was directly linked to longer life spans. If we cared for ourselves better, we could live well over a hundred years.”

  Noting the expression on Cal’s face, Libby gave his ankle a kick under the table. She had a feeling he’d been about to inform her mother that people did live over the century mark, and regularly.

  “What’s the use of living that long if you have to eat leaves and twigs?” William began, but then he noted his wife’s narrowed look. “Not that these aren’t great leaves.”

  “You can have something sweet for dessert.” She leaned over to kiss his cheek. Six rings glittered on her hands as she offered the bowl to Cal again. “Have some more?”

  “Yes, thanks.” He took a second serving. His appetite continued to amaze Libby. “I admire your work, Mrs. Stone.”

  “Really?” It still pleased her when anyone referred to her weaving as her “work.” “Do you have a piece?”

  “No, it’s . . . out of my reach,” he told her, remembering the display he’d seen behind glass at the Smithsonian.

  “Where are you from, Hornblower?”

  Cal switched his attention to Libby’s father. “Philadelphia.”

  “Your work must involve a lot of traveling.”

  Cal didn’t bother to suppress the grin. “More than you can imagine.”

  “Do you have a family?”

  “My parents and my younger brother are still back . . . back east.”

  Despite himself, William thawed a bit. There had been something in Cal’s eyes, in his voice, when he’d spoken of his family.

  Enough, Libby decided, was enough. She pushed her bowl aside, picked up her tea with both hands, then leaned back, her eyes on her father. “If you have an application form handy, I’m sure Cal could fill it out. Then you’d have his date of birth and Social Security number, as well.”

  “A little snotty, aren’t you?” Will commented over a forkful of salad.

  “I’m snotty?”

  “Don’t apologize.” Will patted her hand. “We are what we are. Tell me, Cal, what’s your party affiliation?”

  “Dad!”

  “Just kidding.” With a lopsided grin, he reached over to pull Libby onto his lap. “She was born here, you know.”

  “Yes, she told me.” Cal watched Libby hook an arm around her father’s neck.

  “Used to play naked right out that door while I was gardening.”

  Despite herself, Libby laughed, even as she closed a hand over her father’s throat. “Monster.”

  “Can I ask him what he thinks of Dylan?”

  She gave his head a shake. “No.”

  “Bob Dylan or Dylan Thomas?” Cal asked, earning a narrowed look from William and one of surprise from Libby before she remembered his affection for poetry.

  “Either,” Will decided.

  “Dylan Thomas was brilliant but depressing. I’d rather read Bob Dylan.”

  “Read?”

  “The lyrics, Dad. Now that that’s settled, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here instead of driving your board of directors crazy?”

  “I wanted to see my little girl.”

  She kissed him, just above the beard, because she knew it was partially true. “I saw you when I got back from the South Pacific. Try again.”

  “And I wanted Caro to have the fresh air.” He sent his wife a smug look over his daughter’s shoulder. “We both figured the air around here worked well the first two times, so we’d try it again.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about this place being good for your mother’s condition.”

  “Condition? You’re sick?” Libby was up and grabbing her mother’s hands. “What’s wrong?”

  “Will, you never could come to the point. What he’s trying to say is I’m pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?” Libby felt her knees go weak. “But how?”

  “And you call yourself a scientist,” Cal murmured, and earned his first laugh from Will.

  “But—” Too dazed to be annoyed by the comment, she looked back and forth between her parents. They were young, hardly more than forty, and vital. She knew there was nothing unusual about couples in their forties having babies. But they were her parents. “You’re going to have a baby. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Try congratulations,” Will suggested.

  “No. Yes, I mean. I need to sit down.” She did, on the floor between their chairs. She discovered sitting wasn’t enough and took three long breaths.

  “How do you feel?” Caroline asked.

  “Dazed.” She looked up, studying her mother’s face. “How do you feel?”

  “Eighteen . . . though I have talked Will out of delivering this one himself here at the cabin, the way he did with you and Sunny.”

  “The woman’s lost her sixties values,” Will muttered, though he had been tremendously relieved when Caroline had insisted on an obstetrician and a hospital. “So what do you think, Libby?”

  She rose to her knees so that she could hug each of them. “I think we should celebrate.”

  “I’m one step ahead of you.” Rising, William went to the refrigerator, then held a bottle aloft. “Sparkling apple juice.”

  The cork popped with a sound as festive as champagne. They toas
ted each other, the baby, the absent Sunny, the past and the future. Cal joined them, drawn in by their pleasure in each other. Here was one more thing that time hadn’t changed, he thought. The giddy delight a coming baby brought to people who wanted it.

  He’d never thought very seriously about starting a family. He’d known that when the time, and the woman, were right the rest would fall into place. Now he caught himself imagining what it would be like if he and Libby were toasting their own expected child.

  Dangerous thoughts. Impossible thoughts. He had only a matter of days left with her—hours, really—and families required a lifetime.

  Even as he yearned for one life, watching Libby’s parents together reminded him of his own family. Were they watching the sky, wondering where he was, how he was? If only he could let them know he was safe.

  “Cal?”

  “Hmm? What?” He blinked and saw Libby staring at him. “I’m sorry.”

  “I was just saying we should build a fire.”

  “Sure.”

  “One of my favorite spots here is in front of the fire.” Caroline hooked her arm through William’s. “I’m so glad we stopped by for the night.”

  “For the night?” Libby repeated.

  “We’re on our way to Carmel,” Caroline decided on the spot, and gave William’s hand a vicious squeeze before he could speak. “I craved a ride along the Coast.”

  “What she craved was a cheeseburger under her alfalfa sprouts,” William said. “That’s when I knew she was pregnant.”

  “And being pregnant entitles me to an afternoon nap.” Caroline sent her husband a slow smile. “Why don’t you tuck me in?”

  “I could use a nap myself.” With his arm around her shoulders, they started out. “Carmel? Last I heard we were spending a week here. Since when are we going to Carmel?”

  “Since four’s a crowd, dummy.”

  “That may be, but I haven’t decided if I like the idea of Libby being with him.”

  “She likes it.” Caroline walked into the bedroom and was flooded with memories. The nights they’d shared, and the mornings. They’d made love in that bed, argued politics, planned ways to save the world from itself. She’d laughed there, cried there and given birth there. She sat on the edge and let her hands run over the spread. She could almost feel the murmur of memories.

  Will, his hands tucked in the back pocket of his jeans, paced to the window.

  She smiled at his back, remembering how he had been at eighteen. Even thinner, she recalled, even more idealistic, and just as wonderful. They had always loved this place, being children there, having children there. Even when things had changed, they had never lost that cocksure certainty of who and what they were. She understood him, heard his thoughts as if they were in her own head.

  “A cargo pilot,” Will muttered. “And what the hell kind of name is Hornblower? There’s something about him, Caro, I don’t know what, but something I’m not sure rings true.”

  “Don’t you trust Liberty?”

  “Of course I do.” He looked back, insulted. “It’s him I don’t trust.”

  “Ah, the echo of time.” She cupped a hand to her ear. “The exact words my father once spoke when referring to you.”

  “He was a poor judge of character,” Will muttered, and turned back to the window.

  “Most men are when it comes to the choices their daughters make. I remember you telling my father that I knew my own mind. Let’s see, was that the first or second time he threw you out of the house?”

  “Both.” He had to grin. “He said you’d be back in six months and that I’d end up selling daisies on a street corner. Fooled him, didn’t we?”

  “That was nearly twenty-five years ago.”

  “Don’t rub it in.” He fingered his beard. “Doesn’t it bother you that they’re here—together?”

  “You mean that they’re lovers?”

  “Yes.” He dug his hands in his pockets again. “She’s our baby.”

  “I remember you telling me once that making love was the most natural expression of trust and affection between two people. That hang-ups about sex needed to be eradicated if the world was ever to experience true peace and goodwill.”

  “I did not.”

  “You certainly did. We were crammed into the back seat of your VW, steaming up the windows, at the time.”

  He had to grin. “It must have worked.”

  “It did, mostly because I’d already decided you were the one I wanted. You were the first man I’d ever loved, Will, so I knew it was right.” She held out a hand and waited until he’d clasped it. “That man downstairs is the first Libby’s ever loved. She knows what’s right.” He started to object, but she tightened her grip. “We raised them to follow their hearts. Did we make a mistake?”

  “No.” He laid a palm on the gentle slope of her belly. “We’ll do the same for this one.”

  “He has kind eyes,” she said softly. “When he looks at her, his heart’s in them.”

  “You always were overly romantic. That’s how I caught you.”

  “And kept me,” she murmured against his lips.

  “Right.” He toyed with the hem of her sweater, knowing how easy it would be to slip it over her head, and exactly what he would find beneath. “You don’t really want to sleep, do you?”

  With a laugh, she overbalanced so that they both tumbled onto the bed.

  ***

  “It’s so strange.” Libby dropped down on the grass beside the stream. “Thinking that my parents are going to have another child. They looked happy, didn’t they?”

  “Very.” Cal settled beside her. “Except when your father was scowling at me.”

  She laughed a little as she rested her head on his shoulder. “Sorry. He’s really a very friendly man, most of the time.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” He plucked at a blade of grass. It hardly mattered if he had her father’s approval or not. Soon Cal would be out of his life, and out of Libby’s.

  She loved it here beside the water, which ran fresh and cold over the rocks. The grass was long and soft, dotted along the bank with small blue flowers. There would be foxglove in the summer, growing as tall as a man and bending over the stream with its purple or white bells. There would be lilies and columbine. At dusk deer would come to drink, and sometimes a lumbering bear would come fishing.

  She didn’t want to think of summer, but of now, when the air was as fresh as the water, with a clear, clean taste to it. Chipmunks raced in the forest beyond. She and Sunny had hand-fed the friendlier ones.

  Wherever she went, to remote islands, to desert outposts, she would remember those early years of her life. And be grateful for them.

  “That’s going to be a very lucky baby,” she murmured. Then she smiled as a thought struck her. “To think, after all these years, I might have a brother.”

  He thought of his own, Jacob, with his flaring temper and his sharp, impatient mind. “I always wanted a sister.”

  “There’s something to be said for them, too. But they always seem to be prettier than you are.”

  He rolled her onto the grass. “I wish I could meet your Sunbeam. Ow.” He rubbed a hand over his side where she’d pinched him.

  “Concentrate on me.”

  “That’s all I seem to do.” He braced his arm beside her head as he studied her face. “I have to go back to the ship for a little while.”

  She tried valiantly to keep the sorrow out of her eyes. It had been easy to pretend there was no ship, and no tomorrow. “I didn’t have a chance to ask you how it was going.”

  Quickly, he thought. Too quickly. “I’ll know more when I check the computer. Can you make an excuse to your parents if I’m not back when they get up?”

  “I’ll tell them you�
�re off meditating. My father will love it.”

  “Okay. Then tonight . . .” He lowered his head for a gentle kiss. “I’ll concentrate on you.”

  “Concentrating’s all you’ll do.” She linked her arms around his neck. “You’re sleeping on the couch.”

  “I am.”

  “Definitely.”

  “In that case . . .” He slid down to her.

  ***

  Later, during the night, when the fire was burning low and the house was quiet, Cal sat alone, fully dressed. He knew how to get back. At least he knew how he had gotten where and when he was and how to reverse the process.

  With a few more repairs, basically unnecessary ones, he would be ready to go. Technically he would be ready. But emotionally . . . Nothing had ever torn him quite so neatly in two.

  If she asked him to stay . . . God, he was afraid if she did, it would swing the balance of the tug-of-war he was waging. But she wouldn’t ask him to stay. He couldn’t ask her to go.

  Perhaps when he made it back and offered the data to the world of science a new, less dangerous way would be created to conquer time. Perhaps he could come back.

  Turning his head, he looked into the fire. More fantasies. Libby was facing the facts, and so would he.

  He thought he heard her on the stairs. But when he looked it was William.

  “Trouble sleeping?” he asked Cal.

  “Some. You?”

  “I always loved this place at night.” Because he loved his daughter, as well, he was determined to make an effort to be civil, if not exactly friendly. “The quiet, the dark.” He stooped to add another log to the fire. Sparks flew, then winked out. “I never pictured myself living anywhere else.”

  “I never imagined living in a place like this or realized how hard it would be to leave.”

  “A long way from Philadelphia.”

  “A very long way.”

  He recognized gloom when he heard it. William had courted it early in his youth, mistaking it for romance. Unbending a little, he dug out the brandy and two snifters. “Want a drink?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  William settled in the winged chair and stretched out his long legs. “I used to sit here at night and ponder the meaning of life.”