A Twist in Time

by Susan Squires

  Her lack of foresight was soon evident. The little passageway wasn’t built for two to pass. She looked up at him and heaved a sigh. He was on his own. “Go there.” She inclined her head to the aft cabin.

  He nodded, set his lips, and staggered through the passageway, his broad shoulders caroming off the varnished teak paneling. He stumbled to the right side of the bed and slowly collapsed onto his good left side. Lucy hurried forward and knelt to pull off his boots. She didn’t even try to explain. What she was doing was trying really hard not to think about the fact that she was stripping a very virile man. Or about what that was doing to parts of her body she hadn’t paid much attention to lately. He was injured. What kind of a human being was she to be turned on by a wounded man? She pulled at the strings of the bow she had tied at his waist.

  “Are you so eager for my services?” he rumbled in a tired voice.

  Conceited lout! Did . . . did he know what she was feeling? He couldn’t. A small smile curved his lips. Was that self-satisfaction, or was he . . . was he teasing her? Did Vikings tease? There was a kind of self-aware humor around his eyes that was . . . incredibly attractive.

  “Dirt.” She pointed. “Blood.” She pointed to the crisp white sheets. “Clean.”

  “Women.” He shook his head. Was that mock despair or real disgust? She motioned him up so she could get his breeches off, but he lay on the bed, propped on one elbow, making no effort. His complexion was so pale she thought it might not just be rebellion. Maybe he couldn’t do as she bid. She pulled the thongs from around his legs. All that was left was to pull his breeches off. She wouldn’t blush. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t even look.

  She looked.

  Darn it. The flush moved up her neck to lodge intractably in her cheeks. She pulled the covers back. He dragged himself up to the pillows, and she drew the covers over him. That was better. Much better. She couldn’t see the ribs move under the skin on his flanks. Or the taut abdominals, for that matter. The bunching curve of his buttocks was concealed and the corded muscle in his thighs and even his nipples puckered in the cool morning air. Not to mention his . . . genitals. Big deal. All men had them. She wasn’t a virgin. She’d had two relationships that included sex. She’d seen men’s genitals dozens of times.

  Without the reaction that this man was causing or anything like it.

  This was bad. Very bad.

  “Sleep,” she said, her voice tight.

  His eyes were already closed. “Thonc to thu,” he muttered.

  She fled.

  Lucy took her mind off her charge and their situation by getting their bag in from the car and exploring the boat. Jake had provisioned it down to the last piece of silverware. The cupboards held everything from noodles and vacuum-sealed entrées to powdered milk and coffee. Cans of juice filled one whole cupboard. No scurvy on this command. Soap, shampoo, cleaning supplies; the boat had it all, including a ham radio and two small high-def flat screens, one in the aft cabin and one in the salon on the cockpit wall that could be seen from the dining table and the sofa across from it—even from the little galley across the bar from the dining table. Strange of Jake to have left the televisions. She wasn’t even sure he had one in his apartment. She turned one on. It worked. Maybe if you were on the run or there’d been some kind of disaster newscasts were handy. She’d seen the little satellite discs provided by the marina on the lampposts by the fence. The boat also had no GPS, no computer, and no phone hookup. Guess those would be too easy to trace. Jeez. Was she beginning to think like Jake?

  She climbed outside and hooked the boat up to the power box with the heavy cord provided by the marina. At least they wouldn’t have to run the generator. She hung Jake’s loaned shirts in the locker and hid the money and the diamond in a narrow space she found behind the trash compactor in the galley. But where to put the gun? She couldn’t imagine sleeping with it under her pillow. She decided on a drawer in the galley with the knives where it was handy to the ladder down from the hatch. Like that would make a difference if some of Casey’s friends came to get them. And as for the sword Jake had given Galen—that she did put under her mattress. There was no way she wanted a Viking lurking around with a sword. And maybe it would be protection, in case someone came into her cabin in the night. Like the Viking. Could she hack at him? Maybe she wouldn’t have to. Just brandish it . . . maybe.

  And then . . . then there was nothing left to do. She pulled off her flats. Her flippy knit skirt had seen better days. She smelled like blood. Too bad Jake didn’t have any clothes she could borrow. Macy’s in Novato tomorrow. Or maybe Target. Target was one-stop shopping. Definitely good. But first she’d rest. She lay back on her bunk. Just for a few minutes . . .

  Chapter Six

  Brad stood looking up at the impossible. The machine that had become the center of his life over the last year gleamed in the artificial light of the lowest level of the parking structure outside San Francisco General Hospital. Relief washed over him.

  The last four months had been a nightmare. Jensen and Casey had made Brad’s life miserable. It wasn’t just the endless speeches berating him. No, Brad’s downward spiral was rooted in the feeling that his future had been ripped away, the knowledge that an opportunity that only comes once in life was squandered. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t run or play tennis or date anyone. The pitying or revolted looks from his peers hadn’t helped.

  Lucy made him crazy. He thought about her constantly. Could she be the wily spy who played him like Casey said? Could Brad have been wrong about her growing to love him the way he had always loved her? Casey searched her apartment, her store. Confiscated everything and went through her life with a fine-tooth comb. Brad had given Casey one of the hundreds of photographs he’d taken of her to show around. But Casey and his shadowy friends never found anything to suggest she wasn't what she seemed. And Brad was left in doubt, his purest longing for her polluted. But now the machine was back. Had she come back with it, or had it come back alone? And why to a hospital? Maybe she was hurt, dying. His panic surged.

  “Get it back to the lab, pronto.” Casey had come up behind him.

  Brad started. The guy was quiet on his feet. “We’ll need a crane.”

  “So? And for God’s sake cover it up. Preserve some secrecy. Not that half the hospital staff wasn’t out here gaping before we cordoned off the parking structure.” Casey sounded bitter.

  “I’ve got a tarp coming from the lab. We’ll have to cut major sections of concrete out of the entry and prop up the outside wall with girders to get it out.”

  “Can’t just take it apart?”

  Brad gave him a withering look over his shoulder. “Maybe if I had the book to show how to put it back together. But you told Lucy to take that with her.”

  “So disassemble the parking structure. I’ll get in the Corps of Engineers.”

  “Going to cost an arm and a leg. Jensen will freak.”

  “Money is not a problem. Get back to the lab. The Corps will take care of everything.”

  “I don’t want to go back to the lab.” Brad stared down Casey’s dismissive glance. “And right now I get to do anything I want. Notice anything about the machine?”

  Casey jerked his focus to the glowing golden gears. “Shit.” He broke into a run. Brad followed, watching him look around frantically for the diamond.

  “It’s not here. And just so you know, the power source is damaged, too.”

  Casey squatted to peer at the box that had occupied Brad’s thoughts for nearly two years. His shoulders slumped. “Can you fix it?”

  “Maybe. Without the diamond it’s no good, of course.”

  “I’ll take care of getting the diamond.” Casey’s voice was as hard as the subject of his sentence. “Your girlfriend has it.”

  Girlfriend. He liked the sound of that. “Any sign of Lucy?”

  “Oh yeah. Everybody who saw her remembers the red braid.”

  “Was she hurt? Sick?” That had to b
e why she hadn’t called him right away.

  “She had a guy with her.”

  “What?” Brad turned on Casey.

  “Apparently a strapping specimen. Spoke some Nordic or Germanic language. Guy was cut up pretty good. Big sword. Chain mail. My men think the clothes they cut off him are from the Middle Ages. She used her credit cards to pay for his surgery. Said he was her cousin from Denmark or sometimes Finland. Left business cards all over the hospital. Stupid bitch.”

  Lucy came back with a man from the past? Brad’s brain reeled. What the hell had she been doing back in time for four months? A feeling of betrayal circled in his gut. Had Casey been right about her? Had she been playing Brad all along? “We’ve got to find her. Them.” And get rid of this guy, whoever he was. It made Brad . . . angry. So angry he felt nauseous.

  “Check. I’d like to have a little talk with both of them.”

  Brad started pacing. “If your guys had been watching the credit cards twenty-four/seven like they did in the first days, we’d have gotten her.” He was tired of Casey pushing him around.

  “We’re only a couple of hours behind her and she’s got a wounded guy with her just out of surgery. They gave him transfusions, but he’s still weak. She needs to go to ground.”

  Had Lucy . . . had she done it with this guy? The f word inserted itself in that thought. Brad knew he was spiraling out of control here. He never used the f word.

  “My guys are checking her apartment, the shop, even though she can’t get in. Not sure her shop assistant would take her in with a medieval warrior in tow, but we’ll check. Hotels, too.”

  “She can’t use credit cards.” Brad thought frantically. “She never carried much cash.”

  “Unless she was going to steal a time machine.” Casey’s voice was flat. It was the same taunt Brad had been hearing for four months. “Then she might have prepared very carefully. And taken cash.” Brad could see in the working muscles of his jaw that Casey was remembering how they’d scraped together their change and given it to her, how they hadn’t even searched her bag. Casey didn’t like being made a fool of.

  “Can’t have it both ways, Casey. She can’t be a cool, calculating Mata Hari and a stupid bitch who leaves her business cards all over the hospital.” Brad didn’t mind taking his anger out on Casey. Either way, Lucy had brought a man back with her. She hadn’t even called. So whether she was a traitor or a stupid bitch, she’d pissed all over the love Brad had given her so unselfishly. He didn’t like being made a fool of, either. The loss of his innocent, pure love for Lucy left a void that ached to be filled.

  Casey flipped open his phone. “Get the Corps of Engineers down to San Francisco General. I want a full crew in here within the hour.” He motioned to a guy in a black suit and gray tie who stood at the stairwell. The guy had an earpiece. He trotted over. “Reports on the hour about the search for this little bitch and her knight in not-so-shining armor.” The ice in Casey’s voice used to scare Brad.

  Now let it scare Lucy. “Go for it,” he muttered.

  Lucy opened her eyes on darkness. Where was she? What time was it? The gentle rocking of the boat at the dock grounded her. She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Had she slept so long? She pushed herself up, that horrible grogginess that daytime sleep always gave her making her head thick.

  She’d better check on her Viking.

  If she’d slept this long, he’d probably slept even longer. He was the one who’d lost blood and had surgery and should be in the hospital. If she had to wake him to eat she’d call his name from the doorway. Shaking him awake was dangerous. But when she entered the cabin, he was nowhere to be seen. The covers were crumpled at the foot of the bed, along with his boots and his discarded breeches. And his sling.

  Panic surged up inside her along with wild thoughts. Had Colonel Casey taken Galen from under her sleeping nose? Was he trying to escape from her? She’d come straight through from the forward cabin. He wasn’t in the galley or the salon. She checked the head that opened on both his cabin and the passage. Nothing. A series of thuds sounded on the deck above.

  She dashed up the ladder into the cold air of evening on the bay. An icy March wind had kicked up. She stood in the cockpit and surveyed the deck above. The outline of his naked form at the prow was just visible against the black of the water beyond. He teetered at the line railing, holding on to the shrouds with his good hand at the edge of the deck. His other hand was at his groin. A trickle hit the water. She sighed in relief. He snapped his head around.

  “You should stay below,” she said in Latin, hugging her arms against herself. He must be freezing. Lights were on in one or two of the boats moored at the little docks. Across the bay, the lights of Vallejo and Richmond made a glow. Somewhere behind her she could just hear the faint sound of a truck up on the 37 over the creaking of the docks.

  “You like linen clean. I like linen dry.”

  “Sorry.” She should have showed him the head. She shouldn’t have fallen asleep. Fine fugitive she was. And now he’d probably fall overboard trying to relieve himself. But decency and her own embarrassment required that she hang back until he was finished.

  His flow went on and on. He’d really had to go. At last he shook his penis and turned, wavering. Thank goodness she couldn’t see him well in this light. She climbed up out of the cockpit and took his good arm. It was trembling either with cold or with the effort it had taken to make it outside to pee. Or both. That should have been only a reminder that he was sick, but the feel of warm flesh and hard muscle had what was becoming a familiar effect on her.

  “Down the ladder, big guy.” She felt so helpless as she watched him stagger down into the cockpit and then down once more below decks. No way to help him. She got down after him as fast as she could and squeezed ahead to flip the light switch. Too close. She was definitely too close to a really big, naked man. He made the boat seem small. And hot. She opened the door to the head and demonstrated how the lid opened with a foot pedal. What was the word for pee in Latin? “Do that here,” she said, and pointed.

  He raised his brows. “Inside?”

  She flushed the toilet to illustrate.

  He started back as the water swirled around the basin and down into the holding tank. A small smile dawned and he nodded thoughtfully. “Es gd.”

  “Now, to bed.” She gestured forward. She expected protest, but he was obviously exhausted by his foray up the ladder. He eased himself into the bed while she turned on the bedside light. In the golden glow, the fact that his wounds had seeped fluid into his bandages was obvious. That could not be good. She went to her shoulder bag on the table in the galley and pulled out the white paper bag of pharmacy supplies she’d meant to send back in time with him.

  First things first. He hadn’t had any painkillers all day. How had he made it through? She would have been screaming. No wonder he’d been trembling. She poured a glass of water and grabbed the pharmacy bag and headed to the bedroom.

  Could she do this? She was no nurse. But soiled bandages had to be bad. And how hard could it be to change bandages?

  It would be harder if she had to stare at his impressive male equipment. She set the water down and resolutely pulled the covers up to his waist. There were lines around his eyes and between his brows. He might be a stoic, but the pain was taking its toll. She poured the contents of the bag onto the table. Pill bottles, bandages, surgical tape, some Betadine. She read the directions, then shook out two Vicodin and a Keflex. “Take these.” She held out the pills.

  He looked suspicious.

  “For pain.” That didn’t make him relax. “No sleep. But no pain.”

  When he still looked rebellious, she decided on threats. “No pills, no food.”

  His glower said he was thinking about the deal. Why she didn’t know. He had no choice. She was his lifeline in this time. And then she saw a strange expression cross his face. Shame. He was ashamed. Of what? He set his mouth in a grim line as he took the capsules and the proffered
glass. He downed the pills and made a face. The Vicodin was bitter.

  She wasn’t sure what was going on with him. Who knew what a Viking thought or felt? He seemed like a creature from another planet. At least he responded to threats.

  “Okay. Got to keep those bandages clean and dry,” she muttered to herself. She sat beside him like he wasn’t staring at her and leaned over to work at the surgical tape that held the bandages in place. Her braid slid over her shoulder onto his belly. “Sorry,” she murmured as she pulled carefully at the upper tape. As it came away, it pulled at the skin. Was she pulling at the wound? She glanced up. His lips were set and grim. This wasn’t feeling great, obviously. Should she wait until the Vicodin took hold?

  She sat back, unsure.

  “D hit,” he said through his teeth. He was too distressed for Latin, but she understood.

  She swallowed. “Okay.” She bent back over his shoulder and pulled at the tape. “I know this hurts,” she murmured, refusing to glance up at his face. “But all this oozing can’t be good. I’m afraid getting you to the car or the boat maybe opened something up. Or climbing up on deck instead of lying in a hospital bed where real doctors and nurses could take care of you.” So what if he couldn’t understand? She wasn’t talking to communicate but to keep her mind off the fact that she was totally inadequate to care for him. “But I’m all you’ve got, and Lord knows, I’m not much.” She peeled back the pad.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

  Lucy couldn’t help her intake of breath. The swollen wound, held together with stitches like black caterpillars, wound across his inflamed flesh diagonally from the point of his shoulder across his collarbone to the top of his pectoral. A small tube inserted in the bottom was the culprit for most of the oozing. Maybe it was supposed to ooze. What did she know? She began to shake her head convulsively. “That looks really evil.”