by Louise Clark
She took a deep breath. “We only tell people we care about. People we love and trust.”
“Love and trust?” He looked as if she had knocked him on the head with a frying pan and addled his wits.
She held out her hand. “Come back into the future with me.”
Bemused he slid his hand into hers and she walked through into Mark’s lab.
He grinned at Mike. “Family lore says it gets easier to accept with every visit.”
“Really?” Mike looked around the room. He headed over to the computer, tugging Liz behind him.
“Security close,” Mark said before he got there. The screen went blank.
“Now that wasn’t fair,” Mike said. “When in the future are we?”
“About sixty years from your time. I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to provide you any specifics that might influence your present.”
“Family rules,” Liz said, smiling faintly.
Mike looked around the gleaming room. “I want to do this again.”
“What do you mean?” Liz asked.
“Test the system,” Mike said, and let go of her hand.
“Mike!”
“He’s gone,” Mark said.
“You knew that was going to happen.” Liz put her hands on her hips, annoyed.
Mark raised his brows and grinned at her.
Liz walked into the light and back to Mike.
He was standing with his feet spread and his hands on his hips. This time he was waiting for her. “I don’t feel any differently than I did before. Is there no physical repercussion? Surely traveling through time would be hard on the body.”
“I’ve never heard of any problems.” She held out her hand. “Come back with me.”
He took it and they returned to the lab. Mark was now sprawled in his desk chair, clearly waiting for them. “Welcome back.”
Mike nodded. He looked around and his gaze focused on the plaster cast on the stainless worktable. “This is a paleo lab. Is there a museum attached to it?”
Mark stared at him for a moment, then he nodded.
Mike’s eyes narrowed. “Is it my museum?”
“Mark can’t tell you that,” Liz said.
Mark nodded agreement. “Grandma warned me you’d ask that.”
Mike looked down at Liz. “Grandma? Really?”
She laughed. “It’s sixty years in the future.”
“So it is,” he said, and let go of her hand.
She stared at the empty space where he’d been while Mark laughed at her disbelief. “What is the man thinking?” She headed back to her present.
Mike was waiting for her. His expression was smug. “It’s kind of fun making you chase after me.”
She glared at him. “You’re acting like a kid who has just discovered that the garden gate opens and closes.”
“I want to know what I’m getting into,” he said.
“And what do you think?”
He answered her question without words. He reached for her, then drew her against him. He kissed her slowly, but with a passion that had Liz wrapping her hands around his neck and surrendering to the physical response he drew from her.
When they came up for air, she smiled at him. “Does this mean that you aren’t freaked out about my ability?”
He nuzzled the side of her mouth. “I have to admit I’m amazed that I’ve traveled through time, but freaked out? No.”
She pulled away so she could search his face. “You won’t judge me? Think I’m crazy? Be uncomfortable with what I can do?”
“No, no, and no. I admit it’s not a skill I expected my woman to have, but—”
Liz frowned. “Your woman?”
He had that smug look on his face again. He held out his hand. “Let’s go back into your future.”
She took his hand. “Okay. Why?”
He just smiled.
They went back to the lab. Mark was sitting as before. “Having fun?” he asked as they reappeared.
Mike nodded. “I was wondering how often Liz would be coming back to visit.”
Mark shrugged.
“Throughout her life?”
“Mike, Mark can’t—”
“I know, he can’t tell me what happens in the future.”
“It’s all right, Grandma. I can’t tell, because I don’t know. You warned me about your first visit, and this one, but you told me it was safer if I didn’t know all the details of our lives.”
“But you do know who your grandfather is,” Mike said.
The color drained from Mark’s face and Mike grinned. He lifted Liz’s hand and kissed her knuckles. Then he turned back to Mark. “I’ll say goodbye for now. Grandson.”
He let go of her hand and disappeared.
Mark said, “You didn’t tell me this was going to happen!”
Liz stared at Mark. “Is it true? Is Mike your grandfather?”
Liz’s shock seemed to help Mark recover. He blanked his expression—or he tried to. Amusement twinkled in his eyes. “Shouldn’t you go and find out?”
Chapter 22
He was waiting for her. Kneeling on one knee in the classic proposal pose. Liz stared at him.
Mike smiled and held out his hand. “Elizabeth Hamilton, will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife? In sickness and in health.” Mischief danced into his eyes and into his smile. “In our present or our future.”
Her heart pounded. Emotions picked her up, shook her, dropped her back into amazement and shock. “I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want to spoil this moment for myself.” She put her hand in Mike’s.
He stood. “The ground’s kind of hard,” he said.
She choked and laughed.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Yes,” she said. She searched his face. “Are you sure?”
He smiled and this time the expression was tender. “Very sure,” he murmured. He stroked his thumb along her cheek, then he bent, moving slowly and deliberately, and kissed her.
At the touch of his lips any reservations she still harbored flowed away. It felt right being here with him. It wasn’t just the affirmation from her visit to the future that they had a long and evidently successful relationship, but the look in his eyes before he kissed her. A look that said he was the luckiest man alive because she had just said yes.
As he kissed her she let her body melt into his and mischief drove her as the evidence of how she affected him pushed against her. She pulled his shirt free from the waistband of his jeans, then slid her hands up his warm skin. He made a little sound of protest and pleasure. He deepened the kiss, teasing her lips open with his tongue, then plunging inside. It was her turn to sigh as pleasure took her.
When he lifted his head they were both breathing hard. He glanced around, his eyes gleaming. “Too open, I’m afraid.”
She laughed and cuddled closer. “There’s nobody here but prairie dogs.”
“And our grandson on the other side of that beacon of yours.”
“We could move far enough away that we wouldn’t accidentally roll into the light.”
Mike looked skeptical. “What if he moves around? Does the beacon go with him?”
“Of course. He is the beacon.”
“What if this is a parking lot and he comes outside to get into his car? Or to a picnic area where he takes his morning coffee break?”
Liz began to laugh. “I guess you’re right. Seeing Grandma and Grandpa making love could scar a guy for life.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” Mike said gravely, but his eyes danced with amusement.
“I suppose we should go back and tell him our news,” Liz said.
“I’m pretty sure he already knows,” Mike said, holding her close. “Or he’s guessed. But yeah, let’s go back. It seems rude to leaving him hanging.”
She reluctantly eased out of his arms. “How did you know he is your grandson too?”
Mike pulled his cell out of his pocket, flipped through some pictures, th
en showed one to Liz. “My mother,” he said.
The picture showed Mike standing next to a woman with dark hair and Mark’s eyes. “The family resemblance is strong,” Liz murmured.
Mike nodded. “So is the name. Mark is my middle name.” He shrugged. “Put together, it was a pretty sure bet.”
“Is that why you kept coming back and forth?”
He smiled at her. “There was a lot to take in. I needed to know this was real, then I needed space and time to think. To decide how to handle this.”
She looked up into his eyes. “Are you sure?”
He touched her cheek again, stroking down to graze his fingers along the line of her jaw. “Yes. I make decisions quickly and this one was easy.”
They hovered there, on the edge of kissing again, both of them fighting the urge to give into the desire that pulsed between them, both of them aware they could not. Finally Liz cleared her throat. She held out her hand. “To the future again?”
They found Mark as they’d left him, in his lab, but his screen was alive with images and he was working it with fingers and voice. They were too far away to be able to see the contents of the files he had open, but the technology was dazzling. Mike headed for the desk, intrigued. Liz had seen it before, and understood the fascination, so she went along. Mark heard them though, and ordered a security shutdown before they could see anything interesting.
“You’re back,” he said. “I didn’t expect you.”
Mike raised his brows. “You thought we’d leave without saying good-bye?”
Mark grinned. “I thought you’d be distracted.”
Liz smiled up at Mike. “We were.”
“We are,” Mike said. He returned her look, tenderness in his. He glanced at his grandson. “Wish us happiness. Your grandmother and I are engaged.”
“Congratulations,” Mark said. The dismay of a few minutes ago was gone. Amusement had taken its place.
Liz leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “We have to go, but we’ll be back.”
“I know,” Mark said.
“Of course you do,” Mike commented. His expression was wry.
They left a short time later. Moments after they returned to the present, Mike’s phone rang. He held on to Liz’s hand, refusing to let go, as he answered it. “Harvey! Good to hear from you. How are the contract negotiations going?”
They wandered back to the truck as Mike talked to Harvey Earnshaw, the lawyer who was negotiating with the university on behalf of Discovering Dinos. Most of Mike’s side of the conversation consisted of “yeah,” “right,” and “okay,” so Liz couldn’t get a sense of what Harvey was saying on his end of the line.
As they neared the truck, Mike said, “I can be there in an hour or so. Email the documents to me. I’ll read them over, then sign them and send them back.” He disconnected, but it was a minute or so before he spoke. “That was Harvey Earnshaw.”
“Your lawyer.”
He nodded. They reached the truck. He stopped, but didn’t get into the cab. “He has a deal. A compromise that is a fair deal.”
“What are the terms?” Liz asked.
“You and I are the main authors of the dig report and any other research papers that come out of the find.”
Liz nodded. This was a good clause.
“We are both involved in the lab work.”
Liz nodded again. The scientific work that went on after the excavation was finished and the bones were safely secured in a laboratory setting was even more important than excavating the find itself. Having Mike included in the lab work was a major compromise, one that she was sure would infuriate Alfred Scarr.
“The location of the head determines who gets custody of the whole skeleton.”
That surprised her. “The university was willing to risk giving you control of the creature’s fate?” She wrinkled her nose. “Evidently they don’t have as many prejudices as Dr. Scarr does.”
“They do,” Mike said. “But they’re playing a hunch. The way the body is lying, the head could be on either side of the line. The shoulders and neck are within Scarr’s permit area, though, so they think the odds are on their side.”
“What do you think?” Liz asked, searching his face for clues.
He shrugged. “Could go either way. If the university wins, the skeleton is processed in Scarr’s lab and then will be displayed or archived at the university’s museum.”
“If it’s on your side?”
His smile was mischievous. “It comes to Discovering Dinos’ lab, then I build a museum to house it.”
Liz’s breath caught, then she laughed. “Do you think that’s what happened?”
He looked back to the open prairie where they had so recently been inside a state-of-the-art paleo lab. “It could be.” He looked back at Liz. He touched her cheek. “But we won’t know until it happens, will we? We were both very careful to make sure our current selves wouldn’t know what our future selves did.”
Liz frowned. “Some times I’m a pain in the ass.”
Mike laughed. “Come on. I’ll drop you at the site, then I have to go back into town to read that contract and get it back to Harvey.”
“In a minute,” Liz said. She reached up to tangle her fingers in his hair, then she pulled his head down. “I want a kiss first,” she murmured against his lips.
He wasn’t hard to persuade.
Chapter 23
Mike dropped her at the campsite. Before leaving for town he gave her a kiss, which he said was to remember him by. That made Liz laugh and somehow the kiss went from being quick and affectionate to being leisurely and passionate. She was humming to herself as she sauntered to her tent to pick up her tools before she headed down to the rift.
A quick look at her watch told her that it was nearing ten. That wasn’t surprising since she and Mike had left for the museum about eight this morning. She estimated the time it would take him to get to town, read and review the contract, possibly discuss it with Harvey the lawyer, then, once it was signed and off, to get back to the site. She decided she couldn’t expect him until after one, or maybe two, this afternoon. Since she was starting late on her excavation, she decided she’d work for an hour or so after the others stopped for lunch. That way she’d be able to share her own break with Mike when he returned.
Satisfied with this plan, she made her way down into the rift.
There was no evidence of Zac or Scarr over on her side of the line, so she wandered over to where Will and the students were working. “Morning.” She watched Maggy carefully brush away grains of earth that were disguising the fossilized bone beneath. The steady clink-clink of a hammer hitting a mallet indicated that Justin was hard at work chipping away surrounding rock on another part of the skeleton.
“Morning,” Maggy echoed, while Justin simply looked up and smiled.
Will lowered the book in which he was doing a sketch of a recently exposed bone and smiled at her as Justin had. He added, “Morning, Liz. Is Mike coming down to the site soon?”
She shook her head. “He’s on his way to town. Harvey phoned. The negotiations have been finalized. He sent the contract to Mike for review and signing. Mike’s gone into the office to print it off and read it. He’ll probably be back out by mid-afternoon.”
Will started to frown as she spoke and both Maggy and Justin stopped working to listen in. “Do you know what the terms were?”
Liz wondered if she should divulge the terms, then decided that there was no harm in letting Mike’s team know. “Mike and I are the lead authors on the dig report and the analysis of the skeleton. The location of the head is the determining factor on where the creature’s bones will be analyzed and eventually displayed.”
“Our side of the line and Discovering Dinos handles it. Scarr’s side and the bones go to his lab?” Will’s frown deepened. “And Mike is okay with this?”
Liz nodded. “He thinks the head is on his side.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Will said.
; Liz laughed. “Yeah. That clause took my breath away. It’s so risky. On the other hand, I am really happy that Mike will be included in the final report, with his name ahead of Scarr’s. That’s so important in academic writing.” She smiled a little smugly, a lot mischievously. “Scarr must be furious that he won’t get star billing. He’s probably thinking that the university sold him out.” In academic writing the first name on a paper was usually the most senior academic. The names following might be the people who did the actual research or experimentation, but unless they were full colleagues, they never got star billing.
She was at her own side of the line when Zac reappeared from his usual morning scouting trip. His expression was bleak and his trudging walk told her that he hadn’t had a good morning.
“So you actually decided to come into work,” he said. He had to shout the words since he was still a distance away from her. Liz heard Justin’s tap-tap, stop and glanced over at Mike’s site. Will had edged a little closer to her, while Maggy watched wide-eyed, and Justin stood stiffly, a worried expression on his face.
She turned back to Zac. “As you can see, I’m here. Did you find anything interesting this morning?”
He went over to the cooler to grab a bottle of water. When he came back he said, “I was looking for the head.”
She was about to say he wasn’t going to find it half a mile away down the rift, when he added, “It’s on this side of the line. Both Scarr and I know it. If it isn’t close to the body, something must have carried it off. A predator. Or if the dino died in a streambed, the current.” He shot an evil look at Will. “It’s not on that amateur’s side of the line. I’m sure of it.”
“I’m not an amateur,” Will said, wading into the conversation. “My credentials are as good as yours.”
Zac snorted. “Yeah, sure. You work for the paleo pirate. Any credibility you might have had was zeroed out when you took the job.” The sneer in his voice made Will flush.
“You and Dr. Scarr hope that the head is on this side,” Liz said. She shrugged. “I’ve been hunting for it since I found this creature and I haven’t had any luck. The way the washout carved open the site left fewer parts of the dino exposed on Mike’s side. They have more area to explore. Our side is pretty clear. I don’t think it’s here.”
