A Twist in Time

by Susan Squires

  Jake scratched on a grocery list pad with a stubby pencil, tore it off, and stuck it in the bag.” Here’s the slip number and directions. Don’t fraternize with anyone on the boats around you, or the nosey little gossip up at the Quik Stop. Only the diehards will be up there in March, and they’re a suspicious lot. The boat’s got everything you’ll need except perishable food. If push comes to shove, take it out the Gate and sail west. You’re a good sailor.”

  “I only crewed for Dad.” She couldn’t just head to Hawaii in a forty-four-foot sailboat. “And I can’t do it alone.”

  “Two can crew her.” Jake nodded toward Galen. “Bet he knows how to sail.”

  Lucy made a face.

  “Ask him.” Jake pushed past her.

  “He wants to know if you can sail a boat,” she said in Latin to Galen.

  Galen looked at her as though she was . . . what did he call it? Feebleminded. “I have been vikingr on the whale road. I know water and wind.”

  Okay, so he sailed. That didn’t mean he’d know anything about a modern sailboat. He was in no shape to haul sails anyway. And she couldn’t let Jake give her fifty thousand dollars. She’d have no way to get it back to him if they did go “off the map.” Which they were not going to do. But Lucy had caught Jake’s urgency. She gnawed at her lips. Jake seemed so sure of himself. And he was not going to take no for an answer. Jesus! Was she really going to try to hide out just because Brad and Casey had come looking for her when she didn’t return?

  And brought the FBI? And confiscated everything she owned?

  Jake came back in with an armload of clothes and a gym bag. “I had some overshirts that might fit him, but no jeans even close. There’s a Target in Novato and a Macy’s.” As the last of the clothes were being stuffed into the bag, a long samurai sword was revealed. “And this . . .” He hefted the curved black scabbard inlaid with intricate gold work. He held it out to Galen. “This is for you. My pa brought it back from Okinawa.”

  Galen pushed himself up. His eyes slid along the scabbard. He knew what it was. He looked up once at Jake to make sure he wanted to give such a precious gift. Jake nodded. Galen took the scabbard reverently and pulled on the gold-worked hilt with his good left hand. The blade emerged, very slightly curved and lethal. It was much lighter than his sword. But that didn’t seem to dismay him. A small smile played over his lips as his eyes caressed the blade.

  “It’s a killer all right.” Jake said. “At least in some men’s hands.”

  Galen nodded, that curt acknowledgment he always seemed to give, and shoved the blade back in. “Es gd . . .” And then he said in Latin, “The steel is fine.” He switched back to his own language. “Thonc to thu.”

  “Just don’t let anything happen to her.” Jake jerked a thumb to Lucy.

  Galen glanced to Lucy and nodded again, just once.

  As if he knew what Jake was saying or as if he could protect her in his condition. “Well, if you two are done with this testosterone fest, I think we’ll get going.” She put Leonardo’s book back in her bag along with the massive diamond. “I will pay back every cent of that money.”

  “I have no doubt.” Jake zipped the bag and went to the door.

  Lucy stopped. “He’s going to need a doctor, you know.”

  “Not unless he gets infected. Did they give you antibiotics at the hospital?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, Keflex, but—”

  “You can change bandages and take out the stitches yourself.”

  “Jake, I don’t know who you think I am, but I am not that person.”

  Jake smiled at her. “Yes, you are, Lucy Rossano. You definitely are.” He swung around.

  “Wait,” Lucy said as he threw the bolt lock. “How will I know it’s safe to come back?”

  “If nobody’s been around in a month, I’ll send you word. You won’t hear from me until then. If they do come around, they’ll be waiting for me to try to contact you. If you haven’t heard from me in a month, then something’s happened. If anybody shows up at the marina asking questions, the same. Just take the boat and sail west.”

  She was about to protest, but he put a finger to her lips. He smiled again, but this time his eyes were sad. “No questions. No doubts. You go off the map and you don’t ever come back on it. Sail around Borneo. Visit Sri Lanka. These buggers never forget. They’ll never quit looking. And there’s nothing you can do about whatever they decide to do with the machine. You’re a bookseller and he’s a tenth-century Viking. You are no match for them. You understand?”

  This speech frightened Lucy as nothing else had. “Jake . . .”

  He swung the bag off his shoulder and pulled it up onto hers. “Now you go. I’ve got to clean up. There can be no trace of you here.” He took a handkerchief out from somewhere under his serape and pushed her out the door. Galen grunted and followed. The door shut. She heard the bolts snap into place.

  Chapter Five

  Wednesday

  “Okay, now we can make some time,” Lucy muttered as they cruised onto the Golden Gate. The traffic was backed up at the tollbooths coming south into the city, not heading north to Marin County. Car lights made a broad white ribbon snaking away onto the bridge itself. She glanced over to the half-naked man in the passenger’s seat of Jake’s Chevy. As she accelerated, he gripped the center armrest with his good left hand. His lips thinned into a grim line.

  “Drive this cart more slowly,” he commanded.

  Any slower and she’d probably get arrested. But any faster and Galen would probably lose Jake’s omelet. “It’s okay,” she said as she turned her gaze back to the road. Stupid. Like he would understand that. What was “okay” in Latin? “Es good,” she finally said, in what she hoped was whatever language he’d been using. It occurred to her that he didn’t know why fast was a good thing. She kept the car at fifty and eased over to the right-hand lane. She was probably the only person on the bridge actually going the speed limit.

  “We must go fast.” Her lack of fluency in Latin was really annoying. And her accent was definitely different from his. He seemed to have trouble understanding her. “Jake—my friend Jake? Jake thinks men will come to . . . take you.” How was that so bad to him? “They would take you to a prison.” Sort of true. They’d hear about Galen from the hospital staff. And they wouldn’t let a treasure like an actual man from the past run around loose on the streets. They might be right about that. This whole thing was really bad. “We must go.” The word for escape escaped her. “Fast. Before they . . . find us.”

  He was breathing through his mouth. “You did not send for Brad to fix the metal wheels. How will I go back?”

  Tricky, especially in Latin. “Jake thinks Brad will take you to prison.”

  “Your lover would imprison me?” He almost relaxed. “I will tell him I do not want you.”

  “Gee, thanks.” That cut a little too close to the bone. She’d always known she wasn’t movie star material. But did he have to be so blunt? “He is not my lover.”

  Galen shot her a look that might have meant she must think him stupid. “Woman,” he insisted. “We will go to this Brad. I will make him fix the metal wheels.”

  The hills rose up around them north of the bridge. The sky had lightened to that pearly quality it got just before sunup. The grass covering the hillsides showed itself vibrant green. Sausalito would appear down to the right at any minute. Why couldn’t Jake have moored his boat there instead of way up at the top of the bay? Probably because the docks at Sausalito had turned into a cozy neighborhood. People lived on house boats that hadn’t moved for thirty, forty years. Not the first choice for a secrecy and paranoid specialist like Jake.

  “It is . . . of no matter that you do not want me. Brad has a bad friend. They want you because . . . you are from another year. They will not . . . let you go back.” Was that true? Was she doing the right thing, running away? Then she remembered Colonel Casey’s cold eyes. This time, Jake might be right to be paranoid.

 
; “I will fight them with the sword of Jake.” He stated it simply, as if she would be a fool to think he wouldn’t win such a battle.

  “You are not . . . enough strong. They will bring . . . other men. We . . .” What was the word for hide? “We go far. You heal. Then . . . you can fight.” Except they would have guns and he had a sword. She couldn’t let him face off with Colonel Casey, ever.

  Running away was difficult for him. She could see his jaw working. In the end, he took in a long breath and let it out. His shoulders sagged a little. “Until I heal. Where do we go?”

  “We go to the boat of Jake.”

  “I will heal. Then will I fight whoever comes. Brad will fix the metal wheels, and I will go back to the battle.” He nodded to himself and sat back in the seat. Apparently he felt better now that he had a plan. It made him feel in charge of his fate. Like anybody was in charge of that.

  She’d love to have a plan besides just hiding out. While Galen healed, Brad would be working to fix the machine. Maybe Casey could get another diamond. Would Casey care about finding her and Galen if he had the working machine? Jake thought so. If they did escape Casey, Galen would never get back home to his family, to the woman he probably had waiting there, to the battle that seemed so important to him. And Lucy’s life was gone, too. Who was she, without the bookshop, with her only two friends in life, Jake and Brad, lost to her, too?

  How foolish was it to decide on an impulse to power up a frigging time machine and visit the past? How had she gotten so obsessed with Leonardo’s book and his machine and the possibility of . . . escape? Was that what she’d really been obsessed with all along? Escape from what? Was her life so bad? Or was it just . . . ordinary?

  What matter? It was all gone forever now.

  The whole world might be changed if Brad and Casey used the machine. Would she even realize it? Maybe she’d never know the way it should have been. Jeez, but she hated these time-travel conundrums.

  The sky was fully light now. She glanced to Galen and saw that the rocking motion and noise of the car had sent him into an exhausted sleep. Gone was the hard warrior. His expression was soft. His long eyelashes brushed his cheeks. He had dark circles under his eyes. He’d pushed himself to exhaustion, wounded as he was. She’d been practically carrying him by the time they got down to Jake’s car. And he was a load.

  She wished she could indulge in the luxury of sleep. He might have fought a battle, time-traveled, and had surgery in the last twenty-four hours, but she hadn’t slept in she didn’t know how long. And time travel really took it out of you. Or maybe it was just the constant rush of adrenaline. Not exactly the quiet life of a book lover. To keep awake, she consulted the directions she’d gotten from Jake, scribbled on a pad with a Realtor’s name and picture at the top. The exit was off Highway 37 all the way at the top of the bay. It wasn’t technically even San Francisco Bay up there, but San Pablo Bay once you got past the narrows at Point San Pedro.

  They had maybe an hour before they got to the marina. Not far.

  But not far to what she didn’t know. What the hell had she gotten into?

  Someone was attacking! He hit out with his right hand and felt pain stab through his shoulder as he came fully awake. A sling prevented him from landing the blow.

  “Hey, you almost got me, buddy.” The woman jumped back, red blooming in her cheeks. Her eyes were the clearest green he had ever seen. Just now they were snapping in anger. What was she saying? Why couldn’t the woman speak Latin?

  “Do not wake a warrior in this way,” he grunted, and pushed down the pain from his shoulder. He sat forward. The cart was stopped, thank Loki. She had been leaning in to wake him through the open door. Behind her, masts dipped and bobbed against a blue sky. Good. They were at the mooring of Jake’s boat. The torture of this Hel-begotten cart was ended. He struggled out, pushing her anxious hands away. The woman was always trying to control him.

  But when he stood, the rocking masts wavered and blurred. Before he could protest, she slipped in under his good shoulder and steadied him. “I can walk, woman,” he grunted.

  “If you fall, how will I . . . take you to the boat?” She seemed exasperated. She was right. Tiny as she was, she’d never get him up if he passed out.

  He realized in that moment how dependent he was on her. He did not speak the language of this cursed place. He knew nothing of the workings of the carts. He had no coins with him. How would he eat without her? Beg on the streets when he did not speak a language any here could understand? The empty feeling in his belly was not from lack of food. He gritted his teeth as she pulled him forward, but he did not push her away. He would have to put up with her for now.

  How difficult was it to put up with a comely wench? They were always willing to do his bidding, as long as he satisfied them in the bed box. He was good at that. The masts steadied as his head cleared. He limped ahead, leaning on her as little as possible. He would bed her and bend her to his will as soon as he was able. Then she would do his bidding. Perhaps this Brad had not Galen’s broad experience with pleasing women and that was why her temper was so bad. This Brad probably did not know what the women of Gaul had taught Galen.

  She had taken out one of the small, serrated pieces of metal that were actually keys. She opened the lock on a metal grid fence and pushed open the gate, then closed it behind them and pulled him down the dock to the left. He was breathing hard and sweating. He hardly recognized the shiny, sleek white craft moored here as boats at all. There was little wood in sight. His mind registered their lines, how they rode in the water. They would be fast. Very fast.

  She paused and compared her scrap of parchment with the signs in Arabic numbers at the head of each dock. “Wonderful,” she muttered as she did when she spoke her own language. But he knew that word.

  “Thu understandath wonderful?” Surprising.

  She looked up at him in equal surprise, her arm around his waist still supporting him. “I understand that.” And he understood her. It was the third time they had truly communicated. She spoke Englisc, no matter how warped.

  She nodded and he could feel her relief. “Better than Latin. We might have a chance.”

  He understood the first part. “Gd. Betra thone Latin,” he repeated. Her inflections were different, but the words sounded the same. When she talked fast, like to the man in green, it wasn’t just that so many words were unfamiliar. It sounded like gibberish, as if she didn’t know that words should have the emphasis only on the first syllable.

  She looked around and pushed down the dock. She counted under her breath as they passed each boat. His leg was dragging. He wouldn’t make it much farther, and if he fell he was like to crush her. “Hwer is se bt?” he panted.

  She looked up to him, blinking. “There,” she said, nodding at the last dock. She must have understood him.

  He might have known it would be the farthest away. He got there. Barely. The boat looked to be more than forty feet long, shiny white, with bright canvas dyed blue with woad covering what must be furled sails. It was moored to the dock with surprisingly light ropes made of some slick, bright yellow material. He slung his leg over the light lines that formed a small fence at the edge and stepped down onto the rocking deck with his good leg. At least he didn’t fall. He did not want to humiliate himself in front of the woman. Still, he leaned against the cabin as she used another key to unlock a hatch.

  She pushed it open and peered inside. “Uh-oh, ladder,” she said, looking worried.

  She must think him weak as a mewling babe. He could negotiate a hleder. He pushed her aside. But he gripped the small rail with his good left hand until his knuckles were white as he descended into the cabin. It was surprisingly spacious. He didn’t have to duck his head.

  “Learn some manners,” he heard her mutter just behind him in her own language. That he didn’t get. Didn’t have time to try because his legs didn’t want to obey him. He stumbled to a bench with a cushion at a small table and sat heavily.

>   “Okay, big boy. We’re getting you to bed.” Then she switched to Latin. “Stay here.”

  What an ungrateful wretch. Pushing her aside like that. Like she wasn’t the one saving his hide. Now where to put him? Jake’s boat was a tidy affair, an Irwin with a center cockpit. It had been completely refitted. Forty-four feet was big enough to live on and just big enough to sail in heavy weather. It was like Jake to have called it the Camelot. Lucy glanced around at the rich, varnished teak that formed shelves and drawers around a galley much bigger than the one on her father’s Catalina 30 and lined the salon. She headed forward, past the head, and found only half of the usual V-berth. The other half had been converted to storage. The Viking was a big man. The narrow half V-berth didn’t look promising. She peeked behind the louvered doors where the other berth should be and found a generator, extra batteries, and floor-to-ceiling storage shelves. Jake didn’t apparently hold with the “sleeps seven comfortably” part of every yacht maker’s brochure. This vessel was outfitted for long voyages. She slid back down past Galen and the galley through the passage around the center cockpit and found a queen bed in the stateroom with a big locker and bookshelves and another head. Okay. That was better. He could have the big bed, and she’d take the V-berth at the opposite end of the boat. Far away, was good, too. She pulled back the spread. The bed had fresh sheets and several blankets. The dirty and blood-soaked leather of the Viking’s breeches flashed through her mind. Those breeches would have to go.

  When she got back to Galen, he was looking ashen. “Bed,” she said in Latin, and nodded to the aft cabin. She grabbed his good left arm above the elbow and helped him up. The bulge of his biceps under her fingers, hard under the smooth skin, was . . . a little shocking. More than a little if she wasn’t lying to herself. Helping him down to the boat, with his arm over her shoulders and his bare ribs pressed up against her, had been difficult. Okay. That was natural. The heat from his body had seeped into her until she was hot, too. But even holding his arm was doing things to her she didn’t like in places that shouldn’t be reacting like this.