Jason whirled around, dragging Vickie down to the ground as he did so. Harper was pulling his knife from his ankle sheath again, aiming it at them.
Jason was faster. He, too, carried a weapon at his ankle. A gleaming little blade. He had pulled it from the sheath and hurled it for Harper before Harper’s blade had left his hand.
Vickie screamed as she watched the blade plunge into Harper’s throat. She buried her face into Jason’s chest. She heard the man groan, and his gurgling death choke as he fell to the ground.
“Vickie, Vickie!” Jason drawled softly, his fingers working through her hair. “Thank God you’re all right.”
She looked up at him, shaking her head. She couldn’t look at Harper. She couldn’t wish any man’s death, but that man had meant to cost her her life.
“I’m sorry, Jason! You risked so much for me. He would have killed us both if it hadn’t been for—”
She broke off, her eyes widening.
And then they both spoke suddenly, in unison, realizing who had called out the warning to them.
“Gramps!”
With an arm around Vickie, Jason started leading her through the water. Gramps had come there, cutting a very striking figure in his gray cavalry uniform. He had been joined by a number of Jason’s men. Vickie looked at them all, smiling as they gravely nodded to her one by one.
Jason walked forward to Gramps. “You saved my life, sir.”
Gramps grinned, but his face looked rather gray.
“You saved my granddaughter’s life, son. We’re even.”
“You were fantastic!” Vickie assured him. “Fantastic!”
He nodded, looking at her. “I was, wasn’t I? I rather like it here,” he told her. Her heart quickened. Maybe they could stay. She could stay, if Gramps were to stay, too.
She stared at Jason. He returned her gaze, and he seemed to understand the message in it. His fingers curled around hers, and he pulled her close, searching out her eyes.
“Yes!” she said breathlessly. “I think…”
“Colonel, sir?” one of his men said, clearing his throat.
Jason looked quickly to the man who had spoken. “Is everyone here, Jack?”
“Not a man lost, Colonel. Henry back there caught a graze in his thigh, but the bullet went right through. Two minor saber wounds.”
“The Yanks?”
Jack shrugged. “Once they lost their captain there, they skedaddled. Which means that we’d best move out, else they’ll be all over us like horseflies in August heat. What do you say, sir?”
“Right,” Jason agreed. He started for Max, then turned back to Vickie. “You’ll ride with me. I guess the Yanks have your horse.”
“They don’t deserve her,” Vickie said softly. Then she looked to Jason’s men again, all of them. “Thank you,” she told them. “Thank you all so very much.”
The one named Jack laughed. “Why, ma’am, it was an honor and a pleasure.”
Vickie smiled and Jason set her quickly atop Max. “Well, then, the order is to skedaddle’—” he began, but Vickie gasped, cutting him off.
“Gramps!” she shrieked.
Her grandfather’s ruddy cheeks had gone white. He clutched his heart, and pitched forward.
Jason leapt down from Max and hurried toward Gramps. He stared back to Vickie. “He’s breathing, his heart is still beating.” He stared at her, and then he swallowed hard. They both knew in those seconds that they had to get Gramps back to the twentieth century.
Either that…or watch him die.
Jason quickly gave orders to his men. They’d ride back partway together, then Jack would see the rest of the men back to their brigade.
“I have to get this man home—” Jason began to explain.
Jack waved a hand in the air. “Sir, he led us right and proper, he did. We’ll send him a prayer.”
Jason nodded. He leapt up with Gramps on Dundee.
They moved out in silence, a very solemn party.
Partway back, the company split off and continued their return to camp. Jason led the way to the strange arbor of trees.
“It’s closing, you know,” Vickie told him hollowly.
He nodded.
“I can take Gramps now,” she told him.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Jason, I can’t let you go through! It’s closing. We might not get back and you—” She broke off, feeling a fierce gust of wind tear at her. “Jason, you can’t—”
“Vickie, I am coming with you! You can’t possibly get your grandfather through this. You haven’t the strength.”
The wind ripped and tore again. She met his eyes, her own a tempest. “I’m afraid!” she admitted on a whisper, but he seemed to hear it. His horse drew close to hers. “Close your eyes and ride hard!” he commanded her.
There was a whack on Max’s rump and she was suddenly flying into the storm.
More than ever, she could feel it. Feel the walls of time closing around her. The fierce wind swirled and funneled, drawing her into its terrifying, mercilessly dark center. As before, mingled with the sounds of the wind, Vickie heard the voices, the howls and chilling moans clearer and closer, more gut-wrenching than ever before. Strange, dark shadows that were humanlike forms, and yet horrifyingly unhuman, grasped and reached for her. She heard her name on the wind. They wanted her, wanted to embrace her and make her one of them, imprisoned in this horrid, nowhere place for all eternity. Vickie…stay. Vickie, come, stay….
They stroked her face, tore at her hair. If she opened her eyes, she would see them. Creatures who were barely formed, with empty eyes and pain-filled faces. Neither dead nor living, neither born nor unborn. She could hear their cries on the wind, feel them touching her, closing in on her, grabbing her, clutching her so desperately with their damp, lifeless fingers….
“Ride!” Jason yelled. “Ride!”
Jason was at her side, slapping her horse’s flanks once again, urging her through.
They burst out into a lighter wind. A keening remained in the trees, but they were through. Her horse reared, and screamed. She maintained her seat until his gait evened out. She gazed at Jason. His face was pale. Vickie couldn’t help wondering if he, too, had heard and felt the demon spirits reach for him as he had ridden through.
Gramps hadn’t seen or felt any of it. He was slumped over, near death.
“Jason—” she whispered miserably. She was about to lose him again. And maybe Gramps, too, and her heart was filled with desolation for them all.
“We’ve got to get him to the hospital,” Jason said.
“You can’t come with me. The passage is almost closed. You’ll be trapped in there, Jason. Trapped with those lost souls….”
“Vickie, let’s go.”
“Then you can’t go back.”
“Vickie! Let’s get moving!”
She lowered her eyes, fighting tears. He wouldn’t leave her until Gramps was in the hospital. Then he’d try to go back.
She couldn’t seem to fight him on this, to convince him that it was far safer for him to turn back now, while the passageway was still open. She turned and urged her horse forward. They rode down the mountain, heading west, and quickly covered the short distance to Gramps’s house. But as Vickie helped Jason carry Gramps inside, she wondered if they had been quick enough.
While Jason made Gramps as comfortable as possible, Vickie called the hospital. An ambulance arrived in minutes. Gramps was swiftly and efficiently whisked away with an oxygen mask over his face and a portable heart monitor attached to his chest.
Vickie and Jason followed in her Jeep. Again, Vickie wished Jason would head back. But she didn’t have a moment to spare now to argue with him.
While Gramps was tended to by a team of doctors, Vickie was once again stuck in the admissions office, filling out forms. She prayed under her breath. Poor Gramps. He had to be all right. He just had to.
When she’d finished with the admissions clerk, she joined Jason in
the waiting room. He stared at her, not touching her. His eyes fell upon hers.
“I love you,” he told her.
She nodded, feeling tears well up in her eyes.
She didn’t get to say anything, because someone cleared his throat behind her. It was Sam Dooley, the doctor on call here once again. He looked at them both suspiciously, but didn’t say anything—Vickie didn’t give him a chance.
She ran to him. “Gramps—will he be all right? Oh, please, Sam! Tell me he’s going to be all right!”
Sam smiled at her. “He’s fine, Vickie.”
“What?” she gasped.
“He’s fine. Just a bit of exhaustion.”
“No heart attack?”
Sam shook his head. “I’m not sure what he was up to—I’m not sure what any of you are up to!—but he’s just got to calm down a bit. No more of this reenacting for him, or he will have a heart attack. But this was just a scare.”
“Oh, God!” Vickie whispered. “Can I see him?”
“You can even take him home in an hour or so if you want. Just keep him calm, okay? No more running around as if he were really fighting a battle, hmm? He’s too old for it, Vickie. Take this as a warning. Make him behave.”
“Yes, yes!” Vickie promised. “Thank you again, Sam, thank you. So much.” She started to rush through the emergency room doors, but paused, hurrying back to Jason. “Wait!” she begged him. “You just wait this time! Promise. I’ll—I’ll at least go with you to the…door.”
Jason nodded, his eyes very dark. “I’ll wait,” he promised her softly. He added, “We haven’t much time.”
She nodded, then rushed on in to see Gramps. She cried out and hugged him. “You’re okay, thank God! I was so scared, Gramps! But you’re going to be all right.’
“It was wonderful, Vickie!” he told her, reaching for her hand. “I wanted to stay.”
She swallowed hard for a minute. “But it isn’t possible, Gramps. You can’t—”
“I’m an old man, and I wouldn’t live without modern medicine,” he finished grumpily.
“That’s right.”
His fingers curled around her wrist and his blue eyes were intense. “But you can, honey. You’re young. Everything is ahead of you.”
There was a knot in her throat and she willed it away, determined to speak lightly. “Gramps, think of it! No movies, no shopping malls, no great rock music. If I had children, no disposable diapers! No, Gramps, you and I will do just fine where we are. But I do have to say goodbye to Jason. I can take you home very soon, so you just rest and I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
He clutched her hand.
“Gramps—”
He sighed and his fingers eased slowly. “You take all the time that you can, Victoria, you hear? Make him come home with you first. Give him a taste of cold beer and hot chili one more time. You take your time. I’ll be just fine.”
“The passageway is closing,” she said very softly. She tried not to shiver, thinking of the feeling she had had while going through.
“Yes, I know that. But you’ve got a little time. Make the most of it.”
“You’re great, Gramps,” she said softly. They didn’t really have any time, but Gramps didn’t know that.
“How many old coots like me get a granddaughter like you?”
“Gramps—”
“Go! Time is passing!”
She nodded, and hurried on out again. Jason was waiting. She looked up at him. “I’ll drive you back to the house so you can get Max.”
“Let’s go, then,” he said, a husky undertone in his voice.
Vickie’s Jeep was parked just outside the emergency room entrance. They drove the short distance back to the house in silence.
At the house, Jason slipped quickly out of the passenger’s side of the vehicle. “I never got to learn how to drive this thing. It’s amazing. I’ve seen so many women on the streets with them!”
“We were driving before we got the vote,” Vickie said, smiling.
His eyes widened. “Women got the vote?” he inquired.
She lowered her head, smiling. “You bet!” she told him softly. “Got something against it?”
He shrugged. “I think it’s…remarkable.”
She started to laugh, and then she was afraid that she was going to cry. They both started walking toward the house.
Max waited patiently in front of the old oak tree that had stood there huge and gnarled as long as Vickie could remember. She would be willing to bet that if Jason were ever to go by the old house back in his day, the oak tree would be there, drooping and gnarled, just the same.
She was thinking about that tree when they had so little time left together!
She stared at Jason. Felt his eyes on her. She fought the temptation to laugh and to cry again. She swallowed hard. She turned to him, bracing herself for the painful task of saying goodbye. But then Jason surprised her.
“I’d like to come in,” he told her softly.
Her conscience told her she should have reminded him of the risk he took in lingering even a moment longer. But she couldn’t say a word. Instead, she walked up the porch steps and into the entryway, knowing that he was behind her. She swung around. “This is dangerous. We’re playing with your life.”
He shook his head. “Damn that tunnel. Damn the war. I can’t leave you yet.” He was silent for a moment, watching her. “Of all the things that I didn’t taste enough, drink deeply enough of, hold close enough…that thing is you. Of all the things I would remember through all time, you are the most incredibly precious.”
She threw herself into his arms suddenly. She kissed his lips, and his cheek, and his chin. He returned her hunger, touch by touch, his mouth seeking hers, her throat, her forehead, her lips again.
“You need to go now, Jason. I’m so afraid. That last time, I could feel things holding me, touching me—”
“And I’m not going back until I touch you. Just one more time, Vickie, for all time.”
She was suddenly lifted into his arms and she stared into his eyes while he carried her surely up the stairs. He knew the right door, and booted it open with his foot. In seconds she was set upon the bed. Fleetingly, she realized it was the first time they had made love on a bed. But comfort was the least of her concerns. She would have made love to Jason anywhere, anytime.
Time was so very precious. She worked upon his buttons while he tugged upon hers. In just seconds their clothes were strewn upon the floor. They knelt upon the bed together, their eyes locked with one another’s. Together they reached out, touched one another’s shoulders, lovingly, solemnly.
Vickie cried out softly, finding herself borne down to the softness of the mattress, the clean fragrance of the sheets. Next to the coolness of that cotton, his flesh was fire. She stroked and touched him, desperate to memorize the play of his muscles beneath the toned flesh. She ran her fingers down the length of his chest, curling them around the pulse of his flesh. He cried out hoarsely, burying his face against her throat, then kissing her there, rising, starting to kiss, lick and savor the length of her, his tongue trailing through the valley of her breasts, then laving them, one by one, until each nipple was hard and red and peaked and aching. Until the burning streaks of desire begun there reached out through the length of her.
His lips moved from her breasts, trailing over her flesh, teasing her belly, hesitating there, hands beneath her, his caress going lower still. Sweet tremors seized her then, and she reached for him, tugging him back to her, her fingers tense and hungry as they tugged upon his hair.
Her lips hungry as they found his. Savoring his kiss again. She pressed him down beneath her then, taking his lead, trying to cherish every taut inch of him, her kisses traveling over his torso, fingers running lightly over the fine crisp hairs there, her body shimmying even lower against his, until she had taken him in the most intimate of caresses and he raggedly cried out his desire and pleasure. Then, with determined power, he reached for her, br
ought her beneath him, sunk sweetly inside her.
Moving…
Arms and limbs entwined, they rocked together in a timeless embrace. She couldn’t bear to be apart from him, yet he forced her a distance so that he could watch her eyes while the richness of desire and need raced through them both. His movement was rhythmic, slow at first, then more urgent. She arched and writhed, desperate to have more of him.
To remember him for all time.
Then even the pain was lost with the pulse that burst upon them both, the driving, blinding desire to find the ultimate crest of pleasure. Climax seized Vickie first, shooting through her like silver arrows. Seconds later, even as she drifted in its exotic sweetness, she felt the sensual explosion of the man above her, heard his cry, felt the tension of his embrace.
Endless time enwrapped them.
Downward, to earth, they came. To the ragged sound of their own breathing.
To the clean softness of the bed beneath them.
Jason eased his weight down beside her. “Sweet heavens above, I can’t leave you.”
Vickie closed her eyes tightly. The war would go on without him.
But history might change. And not for the better.
She bit her lip, afraid of the lives she might destroy if she did not make him go.
She started to rise. He pulled her back, silver eyes intense upon hers.
“I love you,” she said, and kissed his lips. But she tugged upon his hand, and he released her. He watched her while she dressed.
Then he rose. He, too, reached for his clothing. He took her into his arms. “I even love you more for your strength,” he told her softly. “I’m sure I forgive you for it.”
“And I’m not sure you would forgive me if you stayed.”
“You could come with me.”
“I would—you know that. If it weren’t for Gramps.”
“Then I’ll go alone now—”
“No! I’m coming with you until the very last step!” she swore forcefully.
He smiled. “No sense arguing with a woman these days. You can’t win.” He tried to speak lightly. They were both quiet as they left the house. He lifted her up on Max, then leapt up behind her.
The Last Cavalier Page 18