“Smith?” Doc’s voice wasn’t just empty of emotion. It was so dead it made it much more menacing than any emotion could have.
Olivia looked at her. Both she and her alien were as still as statues.
“Professor Smith. Tobias Smith. He was a colleague of Professor Twitchet’s until they had a falling out.” Olivia hesitated. “You know him.”
“We’ve met a couple of times,” the doctor admitted.
Only a short time ago, Olivia would have found this statement extraordinary.
“He turned up in 1944, supposedly checking out an anomaly.” Brae added, “Creepy guy. Tried to smooth talk Olivia, but she didn’t give him the time of day.” He gave her an approving look.
Olivia felt a glow of pleasure at his praise, but it was blunted by memory of Professor Smith’s gaze in the interrogation room.
“How is that possible?” the general asked.
“Anything is possible, sir,” the doc said, her gaze sliding in the direction of the alien.
They both looked uneasy. It was unsettling. Olivia had the impression that not much could make either of them uneasy. There were qualities the three had in common, she realized, both danger and great intelligence, though Professor Smith’s case, it was also unwholesome. Both the doc and her alien were dangerous, but in a good way, if that were possible.
Brae was also dangerous in that good way. He was a soldier, a warrior for his country, a hero. What could a man like that want with an aging bluestocking from 1894?
* * * *
Brae paced over to the window and looked out at the island, recalling the first time he’d seen it, when he and Fyn had come looking for Donovan. At first he’d seen “biters” behind every bush, but turned out the biters were limited to the mainland. Or maybe the original Garradians had gotten rid of them. Whatever had happened or why, the Garradians had left a nice outpost behind. From the moment of its discovery, it had been the focal point of the expedition and pretty much everyone in the Garradian Galaxy, because of all the technology and weapons lying about the place, but something had happened to reconcile the expedition and the Gadi, helped by the doc’s wedding or bonding to the Gadi Leader. He’d thought it pretty whacked until he saw them together. It was like his annoying and her creepy melded into okay. General would probably never like Giddioni, but he disliked him less with the doc in the mix.
He turned back to the almost empty room. Everyone had left him and Olivia alone after the Smith revelation. Okay, he got that a time traveling bad guy was a bad thing, but the upside in his view, they couldn’t send Olivia home now—unless she wanted to go home? Did she want to go back?
“It’s very beautiful,” Olivia said, her scent drifting past him. “Are we really in another galaxy? It doesn’t seem possible.”
“Actually, we’re, like, two galaxies from the Milky Way, or something. Astronomy isn’t my thing.”
“It’s not mine either, though I used to dream about reaching the moon.” She smiled at him. “This is much better.”
She liked it. It was a place to start. And she liked kissing him, if her response was an indication, another thing in his favor. “It’s a great place to live and work. Great weather. A lot of geeks, but you’d probably like that.”
“Geeks?”
“Scientists. Like the doc.”
Her face shadowed. “I don’t think she likes me.”
“The doc doesn’t like or dislike. She’s Switzerland.”
Olivia blinked.”She’s a country?”
“She’s neutral.”
“Oh.”
Maybe Switzerland wasn’t neutral in her time. Before he could ask, everyone came back. When they were all seated, the doc looked like she wasn’t sure where to start, and since she always looked sure, it was kind of creepy—which was normal, but not.
“Here’s the deal. History records that Professor Twitchet, and his assistant, Olivia Carstairs, disappeared in 1894. Foul play was suspected, but never proved.”
Another piece of paper slid across the big conference table, this one a photocopy of the same faded newspaper clipping Smith had showed them.
Olivia’s back stiffened to super straight, but her hand trembled when she looked at it. She tossed it down, her chin lifting again. “I didn’t do anything to him.”
“So where is he?”
“He should have returned to the lab when the experiment went awry.”
“What was your testing procedure for the IDV?”
Olivia relaxed a bit. “He had the transmogrification machine take him to an unknown destination, then sent it back to me. I initiated the…IDV and was in transit to locate him when I experienced the impact.”
“So you have no idea at all where he went?”
“If I had, it would have invalidated the experiment.”
“Bad luck for your trial run,” Robert said.
Olivia directed a look at him that should have frosted his drawers. Brae bit back a grin.
“This was not our trial run. We had two successful experiments prior to this one.”
Doc straightened almost like Olivia. “So it works.”
“That’s…unfortunate” Giddioni added, a sudden frown pulling his brows together.
Olivia didn’t speak for several long seconds. Brae could hear her wheels turning. “Professor Smith is looking for you. You fear he’ll use the IDV to find you.”
“He’s looking for us,” Giddioni said, his hand sliding over the doc’s. Well, they were married or the alien equivalent of it.
“Why?”
“When I catch up with him again, that will be the first question I ask him,” the doc said, a note in her voice that sent a chill down Brae’s back.
Doc really was creepy. He liked her, something that surprised him, but he wouldn’t want to be around her on Halloween. He realized Olivia was frowning. “What?” he asked, because no one else seemed to notice.
All eyes focused on her. She sat up straighter. “Something is wrong about Professor Smith.”
“There is much wrong about him.” Giddioni said. “It will be a pleasure when we put him in his place.”
“That’s the problem,” Olivia said. “His place. Perhaps it is because he is not of our time. But he’s not…a professor, though he knew many things and could—” She stopped.
“Talk the talk,” Brae put in. She gave him a grateful smile.
“Yes. But it was more.” She seemed to be searching for the rights words. Finally she shrugged. “He’s not the big bug.”
“The big bug?” The general echoed her with a good dose of “what the heck” in his voice.
“The one in charge. He’s the hired help.”
His mind flashed back to their meeting with Smith. She was right. He was the hired gun, not the mine or ranch owner. He’d been puzzled, wondering what Smith could want with the Doc and Giddioni, but it got worse wondering who was behind him. What kind of scary big bug was willing to mess with time? Who was scarier than Smith?
He saw the same awareness hit the doc and Giddioni.
“She’s right,” the doc said. “I knew something about him bothered me, but it was one of about a hundred things. The big bug.” She looked at the general now. “Sir, Miss Carstairs—Olivia, can’t go back to her time.”
Brae tried not to look at happy at this turn of events. The general was already pissed at him.
“What about impacting the time line?” General Halliwell didn’t look happy, but that was SOP for him.
“It’s been impacted already. And if Smith is messing about, we can’t send her back. It’s like staking out the lamb for the T-Rex.”
“What do we—” Halliwell stopped, as if he realized that talking about Olivia as if she wasn’t there was rude. Her arched brows and severe look had the general shifting in his seat.
No question he was falling for this girl.
Doc gave a slight smile. “We do what we always do, sir—what we have to.”
* * * *
“
Are you all right with staying here, Olivia?” She looked good in the moonlight. He’d taken her to walk along the seawall. The air was soft and cool. The buildings around were dark and solid, the pathways lined with trees and shrubs. Already she looked different from the girl who’d pulled a derringer on him. Instead of that mess on top of her head, her dark hair now hung in a long braid down her back. The Gadi clothes the doc had found for her showed him some of what her Mary Poppins clothes had hid. Her legs were as long as he’d imagined and all he’d hoped they be. She went in and out in all the right places. Bottom line, he was totally jazzed she had to stay.
“Are there people, besides the professor, who will miss you? Worry about you?” He should have thought of it before, but she’d been so alone when he found her, he forgot she couldn’t have always been alone.
“My parents have both passed. I have a brother, but we are no longer close. It embarrasses him to have a bluestocking for a sister. He would be sorry when I went missing, but he is practical. He will not mourn for long.” She turned from the sea, lifting her face to his. “I will have to adjust to many things, but most will be good things, I think. I believe it will be enlightening and interesting working with Doc and Robert, to be free to work as a woman, to be who and what I am.”
The way she said Robert, brought his hackles up.
“Olivia, I need…there’s something…I…oh hell—I mean hotel.” He rubbed his hair.
“Yes, Brae?” Her voice was soft as silk and warm as a tropical night.
“I…you…I—”
Her smile was the one women had been using since Cleopatra. Funny how he didn’t mind being on the receiving end of it when it was Olivia.
“Yes, Brae?”
“I was thinking, since you’re staying, that we could hang out and stuff.”
“Hang out?”
He took a deep breath. He flew spaceships. He should be able to tell a girl he liked her.
“You could be my girl.”
“Would that be like stepping out?”
“Probably.” Was it?
“Would there be snogging?”
“It is one part of hanging out. Not the only part, but yeah.” Hadn’t she liked it? He thought she liked it. If she didn’t, she shouldn’t be so enthusiastic—
The Cleopatra smile curved her mouth again. “Then I would be pleased to hang out and be your girl.”
He grinned. She wanted to be his girl. It felt good, better than, well, he didn’t know, but it was great. He had a thought. “When you’re hanging out, it’s exclusive. If say, Robert wanted to snog with you, you say no, cause you’re my girl.”
“I don’t wish to snog with anyone else.”
“Good.” He ruffled his hair. He had a thought, asked hopefully, “Would you like to snog now?”
Her chin lifted. Her smile started slow, but it ended delighted.
“I believe I would.”
“Bravo Zulu.” Brae settled his hands on her shoulders, urging her closer.
“What—” she started to ask.
“I’ll explain later,” he interrupted her. His hand settled on the soft skin of her chin. He adjusted the angle of her head. This wasn’t their first kiss, but it was an important one. He wanted it to be right for Olivia. Her lips parted, her eyes brighter than the stars in three galaxies. It was as if she, too, knew this was a big deal. He bent his head, stopping just short of her mouth. Her breath, soft and sweet, stroked his face. “I love you, Olivia.”
He heard and felt her gasp as he closed the deal, covering her mouth with his. He pulled her in tight against him. He hadn’t imagined it. Holding her, kissing her was better than flying. If she’d let him, he was so going to keep her—like it was his job.
* * * *
Other Fabulous Books
by Pauline Baird Jones
Girl Gone Nova
Doc—Delilah Oliver Clementyne’s—orders are simple: do the impossible and do it yesterday. A genius/bad ass, she does the impossible on a regular basis. But this time the impossible is complicated by an imminent war between the Earth expedition to the Garradian Galaxy and the Gadi, an encounter with some wife-hunting aliens, and not one but two bands of time travelers. The only way it could get worse? If the heart she didn’t know she had starts beating for the wrong guy…
The Key
An Air Force pilot—the best of the best to be assigned to this mission—Sara Donovan isn’t afraid to travel far beyond the Milky Way on an assignment that takes her into a galaxy torn apart by a long and bitter warfare between the Dusan and the Gadi. When she accidentally discovers a mysterious, hidden city, it brings her closer to the answers she seeks—about her baffling abilities and her mother’s past.
Out of Time
What happens when a twenty-first century woman on a mission to change the past meets a thoroughly 1940’s man trying to stay alive in the hellish skies over war-torn Europe? Melanie “Mel” Morton is an adventure reporter, who lost her grandfather in World War II. Enter Jack Hamilton, sexy octogenarian, genius/scientist and former WWII bomber pilot. What he tells Mel sends her on her craziest adventure yet—straight into the past to save her grandfather’s life—and change Jack’s future, if she doesn’t accidentally end it. All Mel has to do is outmaneuver the entire German army—and not fall in love with Jack. Unfortunately, eluding the German army is the easy part…
Do Wah Diddy Die
Luci Seymour—sexy & free spirited—returns to steamy New Orleans in search of the father she’s never met. She finds murder, mayhem, love and adventure when her timing puts her directly in the sights of an elderly hit couple and a con man’s last scam.
The Spy Who Kissed Me
Isabel “Stan” Stanley’s mother has been hoping a man would fall in Stan’s lap. But when a handsome spy dives through the sunroof of her car in a hail of bullets, Stan’s sure this wasn’t what momma had in mind. Bad guys beware. Stan’s packing a glue gun and she knows how to use it. Sort of.
A Dangerous Dance
His whole career, Remy Mistral has fought for reform in a state where corruption is an art form. Now is his chance to quit talking about reform and make his move to change things, but two things stand in his way. One is a woman, the other a killer.
The Lonesome Lawmen Books:
The Last Enemy
Two men need her. One needs her dead. Romance author, Dani Gwynne is plotting her own survival, working against time, terror and her fear of heights. Deputy US Marshal Matt Kirby is the lawman in charge of finding her—and stopping the hit man hunting her. With the clock ticking on a macabre game of hide and seek, Dani must defeat a killer who won’t stop until he gets what he wants—or destroys them all trying.
Byte Me
Deputy US Marshal, Jake Kirby, is a top tracker who always gets his fugitive. Now he’s hot on the trail of a gang of cyber-thieves with an unusual agenda. That trail takes him to Colorado and a bar managed by the sexy, mysterious Phoebe Mentel. Instant attraction complicates this high tech chess game between two people who don’t know how to lose and are afraid to love.
Missing You
Denver Homicide detective, Luke Kirby is looking for peace and quiet in the mountains above Denver. Instead he finds a beautiful and mysterious woman bringing a storm of trouble for them both. Too bad she can’t remember what, why or who.
Lonesome Mama
Debra Kirby’s boys aren’t lonesome lawmen anymore, and now the long time widow finds herself pining for a bit of adventure and romance in her life. When Donovan Kincaid (introduced in Missing You) offers a plane ride to a friend’s wedding, neither expects to run into trouble—and the “Lonesome Mama” gets more than she wished for.
Non-Fiction:
Adapting Your Novel for Film
A nuts and bolts guide to adapting your novel for film.
Managing Your Book Writing Business (with Jamie Engle)
This helpful handbook outlines basic and important information every author needs to know about the publish
ing industry and the the “business” of writing.
Made Up Mayhem
A quick and dirty guide to writing the suspense novel.
ABOUT AUTHOR PAULINE BAIRD JONES
Pauline Baird Jones is the award-winning author of nine novels of science fiction romance, action-adventure, suspense, romantic suspense, steampunk/science fiction romance, and comedy-mystery. She’s also written two non-fiction books, Adapting Your Novel for Film and Made-up Mayhem, and she co-wrote Managing Your Book Writing Business with Jamie Engle. In addition to a Dream Realm award, Pauline has received a Bronze IPPY (Independent Publisher award), an EPPIE, the Dorothy Parker Award and is a two-time Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award winner. She also has short stories in several anthologies. Originally from Wyoming, she and her family moved from New Orleans to Texas before Katrina.
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