by Louise Clark
“Okay. So you stay. Now we have to figure out what to do with you.”
Looking much relieved, Andrew said, “Aye.”
Faith was anything but. To stay in her time, Andrew had to be with her. That meant no private meals with Cody. No possibility of private evenings, of lovemaking, of being normal.
Chloe said, “Why don’t we all sit down at the table and sort this out. Andrew, you look like you could use a cup of coffee. Anyone else want one?”
Coffee wasn’t exactly what Faith would have preferred at that moment, but she figured she needed to keep her wits about her, so she put in a request for a cup. Cody followed suit. Liz opted for water. Then they all settled in at the big oak table and eyeballed each other.
Since it was her house and Andrew was her problem, Faith took the lead. “For Cody’s benefit, I’m going to summarize the problems we’re facing with Uncle Andrew’s visit. Cody, Andrew suffers from an anxiety disorder that makes it impossible for him to remain alone in a house.”
Cody raised his brows at this as he scrutinized Uncle Andrew. Andrew, looking extremely self-confident, smiled. The curious, intelligent expression that terrified Faith, crept into Cody’s eyes. She hurried on. “Ideally, when Andrew visits I take time off. But this is such short notice I can’t, so we have to figure out what to do with him.”
“Faith, you make him sound like that ugly old vase Great Aunt Mary gave you on your twenty-first birthday,” Liz said. “Didn’t you finally stash it down in the basement?”
“Great Aunt Mary?” Andrew said with interest. “And when was she?”
Cody leaned forward. “When was she? Not who is she? Or where is she?”
Andrew shot Cody a challenging grin. “Aye. When is the word I chose.” He turned to Liz, a hopeful gleam in his eye. “Is she any relation to my Mary Elizabeth, then?”
Cody looked from Andrew, to Liz, then Chloe, then finally to Faith. “Marys and Elizabeths seem to run in your family.”
They all stared at him, aghast. Except Andrew, who laughed. “I do believe you have found the key to my dilemma, Cody, my friend. I thank you.” He turned to Faith, suddenly decisive. “Mary Elizabeth’s father will expect me to seek her out before Friday next. That I will not do. But I must return to my own time soon thereafter, for Mary Elizabeth will be waiting for me and anxious to know why I did not come for her.”
“No, Andrew, you can’t stay till next Saturday. It just isn’t possible. You can come into the office with me and hang around for a couple of days, but a week! No way.”
“If I return too soon her father will be expecting me,” Andrew pointed out with irritating logic. “What is the purpose of sanctuary if I cannot remain long enough to evade the danger that awaits me?”
“Why don’t you call in sick, Faith?” Liz said. Her tone suggested she thought it was a long shot, but worth tossing out as an option.
“I can’t do that.” Faith played with her coffee cup, drawing circles on the table that evolved into figure eights, then into egg-shapes and finally triangles.
“It was easier in the old days,” Chloe said. “People simply said you were visiting from afar and you were expected to go everywhere with them. In fact, you were asked to come join in and were welcomed. Our world is very different nowadays.”
Faith stole a look at Cody. He was sitting back in his seat, listening intently as her family talked in what must sound like riddles to him. She would have to explain everything to him soon, but first she had to figure out how to deal with Uncle Andrew’s visit. His week-long visit. “If you come to the NIT offices and hang around all day you’ll have to have a purpose,” she said, thinking aloud. “I suppose I could give you a job. You could do some filing or something.”
“Filing?” Andrew said.
Cody stood up and went over to the counter. As he poured himself more coffee he said to Faith, “Are you backed up in that area? Do you need to bring in someone to deal with clerical overload?”
“No,” she said, regretfully.
“Then Ava the Oppressor will never buy it. She’ll ask questions. I don’t think that’s what we want.”
His use of ‘we’ warmed her to her toes, adding brightness to the glow of the electric lighting. Still, she sighed. “You’re right. So what kind of excuse can I use to explain Andrew’s presence? He doesn’t have a lot of office-type skills.”
Cody leaned against the counter. As he sipped his coffee he aimed a thoughtful, narrow-eyed stare at Andrew. “There is one area in which we’ve had chronic problems over the last little while.”
Faith frowned at him as she tried to figure out what he was referring to. In the past few weeks there had been no major issues, except Angela’s computer problems. But they were solved now that she had more interesting responsibilities. True, there was the occasional glitch in one computer or another but…
The computers. Was Cody thinking of having Andrew work on the NIT computers? Was that possible?
Of course it was possible. Cody had no idea that Andrew didn’t even know what a computer was, let alone how to operate one.
“Cody. It wouldn’t work.”
“What wouldn’t work?” Liz asked.
Cody moved his considering stare from Andrew to Faith. “Why not?”
“Because when I say Andrew doesn’t have any office skills, I mean none.” She moved her hands in a slicing motion. “Zero. Zilch.”
“Then I’ll teach him.” Cody’s coffee mug landed on the counter with a clunk.
“Teach me what?” Andrew demanded.
Cody ignored him. He came over to the table. Pulling his chair beside Faith’s, he took her hands in a warm clasp. “The only way Ava will accept Andrew without probing too deeply is if he has a believable reason for being at NIT. Can you think of anything else that will work?”
Faith stared into his eyes. Their incredible blue was warm and he was smiling the sexy half-smile that made her want to melt right into him. “No, but Cody, you have no idea how difficult a task you’ve given yourself.”
He shrugged. “I don’t mind. I’ll work through it.”
“Oh wow!” Liz said. She turned wide-eyed to her mother. “Cody is going to teach Andrew how to use a computer!”
They both laughed.
Chapter 18
The next day Faith, Andrew and Cody gathered in the kitchen before they got started with the lessons. Faith had made coffee. She hauled three mugs from the cupboard and set them in a row. “Thank you for coming over today, Cody.”
As he leaned against the sink, he watched her pour coffee into the three thick, stoneware mugs. The formal note to her statement alarmed him. It seemed so impersonal, as if they’d gone backward, not forward, since the arrival of her Uncle Andrew. “Not a problem.”
“Well, it is,” Faith said. “Andrew is clueless about computers. I tried to give him some basics this morning, so you’re not starting from scratch, but they’re…” Holding the coffee beaker high, she paused, searching for a word. “They’re alien to him.” She topped up the last of the mugs and set the beaker back on the hotplate.
The three mugs all had different decorations on them. One was the official NIT giveaway, with the company name and logo. He’d avoid that one. Another was adorned with some kind of flowers he thought might be violets. He figured that one would probably be Faith’s choice. The third had an image of the Statue of Liberty and the words, ‘America’s Symbol of Freedom’ below. Cody figured that would be his.
“You make me sound incompetent, Faith,” Andrew said. He’d been sitting at the table when Cody arrived. Now he stood up in a restless way and came over to collect a cup. He moved each so he could examine the decoration carefully. As he twisted the Statue of Liberty mug a look of horror washed over Faith’s features. She snapped up the cup, putting her hand over the decoration, and sipped.
Cody reached for the NIT mug, leaving the flowers for Andrew.
Faith said, “You’re not incompetent, Andrew. I didn’t mean that. B
ut you have no experience with computers, no frame of reference. We’re expecting you to learn in one day everything we’ve been taught over years.”
Andrew turned his mug, viewing it from all sides, before he picked it up. Then he lifted it high, looked at the bottom. He put the mug back on the counter. “No saucer?”
“No,” Faith said shortly. “I save the good china cups and saucers for dinner guests and people who drop by for a short visit. When you’re staying a week, you get the twenty-first century everyday stuff.”
“I see,” said Andrew. “Is there cream?”
Faith handed him the waxed carton. Andrew took it with a bemused expression on his face. Like the mug, he turned it this way and that, inspecting it carefully.
Trying to figure out how to create the spout to pour out the cream.
As soon as that thought flickered in his mind, Cody dismissed it. Everyone knew how to open the pour spout on a waxed milk or cream carton. Everyone. Even Uncle Andrew.
Faith took the carton from him and, with an impatient look, flipped open the spout. She handed it back to Andrew, whose expression indicated fascinated delight.
Maybe not. Andrew wasn’t the only one who was fascinated.
Andrew carefully poured cream into his mug, added sugar from the sugar bowl on the counter and stirred. Then he raised the mug with a little flourish and sipped.
Andrew had cleaned himself up and looked almost normal, Cody thought as he leaned against the sink, drinking his coffee and pondering the strangeness that was Uncle Andrew. He was still wearing his long hair tied back into a tail with a black velvet ribbon. In Cody’s opinion the style was eccentric, but as the odd things that surrounded Andrew went, it was pretty tame. Particularly since Andrew was now dressed much as Cody was, in a t-shirt and jeans.
Both the t-shirt and the jeans looked new. The jeans were faded, but the fabric was still crisp, so they were probably the pre-washed type. The shirt was black, with the word ‘Boston’ and a bright green shamrock on the front. The shirts were available all over town and were sold to tourists at a variety of prices, none of them very expensive. Cody wondered if Andrew had been involved in the selection of clothes, or if it was one of the Hamilton ladies—Faith, her sister Liz, or perhaps her mother—who had done the shopping. He hoped it was Liz or Chloe. He didn’t like the idea of Faith shopping for another man, even if he was a relative.
The stray thought rocked him back on his heels and was definitely one he was going to have to take out and examine in some depth, but not now. He looked over at Faith, focusing on her. She looked great today. She’d pulled her long blond hair into a ponytail that hung past her shoulders and swished back and forth as she moved. Her top had a boat neck that exposed the graceful line of shoulder, collarbone and neck. The fabric was a green that set off her eyes and seemed to make her skin glow. It also hugged her body, emphasizing the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
She looked up, caught him watching her, and smiled. Cody’s heart did a little flip, then began to jump around as if it was doing a triumphant dance. He told himself to calm down, then couldn’t breathe when she went over to the fridge to put away the carton of cream.
To get to the fridge she had to pass through a puddle of light from the window above the sink. Since he was leaning against the sink, the light was behind him and he had a great view of the way it streamed through the cotton fabric of her skirt, making the material translucent. For an instant, while she was bathed in the light, he could see the long length of her legs. Oh, yeah! His heart rate kicked into overdrive.
She’d dressed for him today, he was absolutely certain of it. No matter how difficult his self-appointed task of teaching Andrew the basics of the computer was, he could manage, because Faith was showing him in this simple, practical way that she wanted to please him.
They took their coffee into a small room that opened off the wide front hall. Located close to the kitchen, but behind the living room, the room was clearly Faith’s all-purpose activity room. Besides her computer and the desk it sat on, there was a sewing machine on a small table, a larger table that was evidently a work surface, bookcases, a sofa, and a stereo. Unlike her organized, not-a-thing-out-of-place kitchen, this room was cluttered and it welcomed Cody as he followed Faith and Andrew inside.
“Okay, Andrew, remember to keep your coffee away from the keyboard,” Faith said, nodding her approval as Andrew followed instructions and carefully placed his mug to one side of the desk, well out of accident range. “Now, turn on the computer and log in.”
Cody stood behind and to one side of Andrew so he could watch the man’s face as he went through the process. That way he could judge how comfortable Andrew felt in dealing with the basics. The familiar whir of the hard drive activating soothed Cody, drawing him into the task at hand. The start up screen flashed. He noted with approval that Faith had put proper security protocols in place to keep her files safe.
The log-on dialogue box opened. She’d also set up a special log-on for Andrew. Cody watched with amazement as Andrew hunted for the letter ‘a’.
“No,” Faith said. “It has to be a capital. You make it that way by pressing ‘shift’ at the same time as you press the ‘a’ key.”
Cody looked over Andrew’s head at Faith. “He can’t type?”
Her expression guilty, Faith shook her head.
This threw an unexpected wrinkle into Cody’s plans. By the time they were Andrew’s age everybody knew how to type these days. Well, evidently not everyone. “Where did you go to school, Andrew?”
Andrew had mastered the capital ‘A’ and found the rest of the letters of his name. He tabbed to the password field and pecked out the numbers one-seven-seven-two. The screen flashed into life.
The year 1772? Nah, couldn’t be.
“I did not go to a school,” Andrew said, a satisfied expression on his face as a beach scene with an aquamarine sea settled on the screen. “I had a tutor who taught me my letters and numbers.” He glanced at Faith. “Do you want me to open some programs?”
“Sure,” she said. “It’ll be good practice for you.”
Andrew nodded and set to work. One after another the standard office software came to life. Andrew looked pleased with himself. “I was also taught to draw and paint with watercolors, and to play the piano forte…”
Faith said sharply, “Let’s focus on the task at hand, okay Andrew?”
Interesting and double interesting. Whatever was going on with Uncle Andrew had Faith worried. Cody grabbed the straight-backed chair tucked against the table that held the sewing machine and brought it over to the computer desk. Setting it beside Andrew’s chair, he turned it backward, then straddled it so he could prop his crossed arms on top of the back.
If Faith was worried about Andrew saying something inappropriate to him today, she must be on tenterhooks about what would happen when she took Andrew to NIT. He was going to spend the rest of the day doing his best to ensure Andrew was as ready as he could make him for his entry into the computer age.
At eleven-fifteen that night, Faith called a halt. She was weary and Andrew was glassy-eyed, but struggling manfully to keep up with Cody who appeared ready to continue for hours yet. His stamina was amazing, but then she knew that when he was in the middle of a project he often worked through the night, so she wasn’t surprised.
Andrew had managed to hold his own during Cody’s intense afternoon training course. When they broke for the roast beef dinner Faith had prepared, he’d talked in an animated way about computers and what he’d learned. He’d even agreed enthusiastically to Cody’s suggestion that they return to the task after dinner. His energy had lasted until ten o’clock when he started to flag. Faith wasn’t surprised. In the eighteenth century, when houses were lit by oil lamps or candlelight, people normally went to bed after the sun set and woke when the sun came back up. By ten Andrew was already up past his bedtime.
Faith left Andrew logging off the computer as she accompanied Cod
y to the door. With a quick look backward to make sure Andrew was still in her all-purpose room, she followed Cody out onto the front porch. She closed the door firmly behind her, then looked up. That sexy little half-smile curled the edges of Cody’s mouth. Her insides quivered in a pleasurable way. She smiled and said softly, “Thank you.”
That surprised a laugh out of him. “I now have a much better appreciation of why your sister and mom were so amused by my offer to teach Andrew about computers.”
Faith nodded. “Cody, will he…I mean, will Ava be able to figure out how little he really knows?”
“If she sees him typing, she will.” Faith bit her lip and he added hastily, “He’s not totally hopeless.” He grinned. “Those piano forte lessons obviously taught him manual dexterity, but the most used letters in the alphabet are on the left side of the keyboard, so it’s hard for a beginner to pick up speed. Make him keep practicing and he should be okay.”
Was there a question in his voice under the amusement over the ‘piano forte’? Probably. It was risky to let Cody continue sorting through the bits of information that were accumulating around Andrew, because her distant ancestor was a puzzle and Cody was good at putting the pieces together to solve puzzles. But she wasn’t totally sure yet that Cody wouldn’t be frightened off if she told him that Andrew was visiting from the year 1772. “All of this must seem very strange to you.”
He stroked his fingertip along her jawline to her chin, which he tipped up so she was staring into his eyes. “You’re right, it does. But I like Andrew. I think he’s a decent guy. Except—”
“Except?” Faith searched his face for clues. There were none.
She felt his shrug as well as saw it. “He’s hiding something.”
