Trouble Under Venus

by Autumn Piper

  “I don’t—I mean, not to my knowledge—or…I wouldn’t be at liberty to say. It’s a top secret assignment.” He sat forward in the chair again and folded his arms over his chest.

  He’d managed to meet my challenge and freeze me in my tracks. I needed time to come up with a new strategy, but there was no way I’d retreat as I had in the past.

  “Ah, now you’ve gone all James Bond on me,” I purred. I leaned toward him without so much as blinking, until we were close enough I could smell his cologne over the cantaloupe.

  He was the first to look away. And at my breasts.

  Words cannot express my satisfaction. Still using my best I-think-you’re-so-hot voice, I asked, “If you told me, would you have to kill me?”

  He smirked and looked from my chest back to my face. That confident smile was so incredibly sexy, the eyes behind the glasses sure of his appeal. “Bond doesn’t kill his women.” As he spoke, his hand slid warm and firm over my wrist, up my arm. “But he does always get the upper hand, doesn’t he?” And then his fingers skimmed from my shoulder to my neck, raising goosebumps as they went. Breathing got harder as his thumb traced my lower lip. This might be a risky game I was playing and he might be a dangerous man, but at that moment I didn’t care. Curling toes, racing heart, parting lips. The signs were all there; I was about to be kissed and I wanted it. I wanted to feel the thrill of his lips on mine. My bottom lip still tickled from his touch. I resisted the urge to bite it, as he smiled and leaned closer.

  “Shore hope ya’ll didn’t eat up all the good stuff! I’m starvin’.”

  Lonnie. In a microsecond, I was back in my seat, as was Mitch. Hmm. Mitch seemed a much better name to call him.

  With my heart still fluttering, I couldn’t possibly eat any more of my breakfast.

  “If you guys will excuse me, I’ve got some personal business to take care of.”

  Mitch did the gallant thing and rose as I did. When I reached the doorway and looked back, he was seated again, but obviously waiting for me to look back, because he winked at me before replying to whatever Lonnie had asked.

  Well, he’d won. I’d run off again, but with damn good reason.

  Dear Randi,

  Note to self: DO NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THIS MAN! A troublesome guy is the reason you are here in the first place! Did you learn nothing from your mother’s experience with your father? Hmm?

  In re: yesterday’s note to self: Internet research confirms 1980 is the year Mt. St. Helens erupted. True enough, it’s also the year of your time travel destination. However, this is by no means any indication you will see said no-good fibbing man ever again after leaving here in, say, four days tops. In theory, you could safely have a no-strings fling for the first time ever.

  Hello? To self: For all you know, that guy could be seriously dangerous, or a wanted criminal at the very least.

  Puh-leeze! How could he be working for the government and get in this program if he is a wanted criminal? And listen to yourself. Your father is likely a wanted criminal in 1980. Who are you to judge? Have you forgotten Mitch’s washboard abs?

  To wild self: The guy sports the fake tan of an 80’s bodybuilder and wears glasses we both know he doesn’t need. He’s lying about his career and probably self-absorbed, as much time as he spends on his body. And obviously a player, baby. Those smooth moves he used on you? Been done hundreds of times before. By HIM.

  Boring old divorcee, better-safe-than-sorry self: I WANT HIM. It has been eight months since my last non-self-administered orgasm. Hello? Do you have anything to say in response? Are you going to give me the silent treatment now?

  Chapter 4

  I dropped my room key with a clatter on the table by the door. Dangling by fishline in front of my window, a crystal sent a rainbow arcing through the afternoon sunlight. I may be a westerner, but I’d studied my feng shui enough to know crystals equal romance. This was a very unwelcome intrusion.

  I’d had a hell of a time trying to concentrate during the session, with Mitch seated right next to me, smelling like he did. If he’d lay off the cologne, maybe it would be easier for me to pretend he wasn’t there. Since that was highly unlikely, I needed to spend some time meditating in private. Sudo had stressed that it was imperative we hone our mind-clearing skills, open our chakras to allow the precious electromagnetic energy from the vortexes to enter. Being distracted by the mere presence of another person was proof positive I needed more mental discipline.

  Just as I settled into my cross-legged position on the floor, my cellphone rang. The Linda Ronstadt ringtone meant it was my mom—who I’d spoken to the first morning to let her know I’d made it safe and sound, and studiously avoided since. The guilt would eat me alive if I didn’t answer and talk with her before I tried to meditate. With a deep sigh, I rose and opened the phone.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Randi. Finally! I’ve been trying and trying to call you.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, it’s just been bad timing. I’m in and out of the room all day and can’t really bring my cell along for our sessions.”

  “The way they’ve got you sequestered, it sounds like some kind of cult you’ve joined.”

  “Mom.” Not the cult argument again. “That’s not it at all. I’ve been busy, and really tired at night. Would they let me answer this call if it was a cult? Huh?”

  “They would if they didn’t want anybody to know it was a cult! If it’s not, why can’t you have anybody along? Why can’t somebody be there to make sure you make it back okay?”

  A knock at my door interrupted the reply I was formulating. I looked through the screen to see Mitch, who didn’t even wait for me to wave him in before sauntering through the door.

  “Mom.” Where was I? “Um.”

  Mitch’s brows raised and he grinned. Such nice teeth…

  “Randi? Are you all right? Are they coaching you what to say?”

  “No, geez! Nobody is telling me what to say. Maybe your ideas are so wild and far-fetched I’m finally running out of ammo to fight them with! You can’t be here because it would be distracting. This is like, like…mental bootcamp. I need to really be able to think hard in order for this to work. To master my own mind—”

  “They’re brainwashing you!”

  “Nooo.” Thank God I hadn’t said anything about cleansing our minds. “It’s really important for me to be able to focus, or I might not make it to the right time or place. Or maybe make it back here.”

  She started sniffling, and my scare tactic backfired. “I know we already said our goodbyes, but honey, I’m not ready to lose you yet.”

  “You’re not losing me.”

  Mitch had taken a seat in a chair near the door. Judging by his grin, this conversation amused him.

  I sought solace in his company and rolled my eyes at him. “I’ll be fine, Mom. I need to know what happened to my father. It’s nothing against you.” Uncharacteristic silence on the other end told me she was either hurt or disapproving. “You know when somebody on the news has a missing person in their family, and they really need to know, even if the person died? Closure. That’s all, Mom. Even if he blew me off and decided he didn’t want his daughter, I want to know once and for all.”

  “Hold on, Randi. I need to take this call.”

  Leave it to my mom to call me from work, and then have to pause the conversation in the middle of me pouring my heart out.

  “Kay,” I answered, after she’d already clicked over. To Mitch, I said, “I’m on hold. It could be minutes or hours ’til she gets back to me, if it’s a client.”

  “What’s she do?” He wasn’t exactly waiting to hear my reply. In fact, he’d spied the Snicker’s wrapper on the table, right where I’d left it.

  “Accountant. What’s up?”

  I’d hoped to distract him, but he twirled the wrapper and eyed me suspiciously, leaving no doubt that he was the one who’d left me the message and stuffed it in my door. “Keeping this?”

  “No!�
� Why hadn’t housekeeping disposed of it, anyway? Perhaps because they were too busy meddling in my love life, hanging crystals in my window.

  “You didn’t seem too worried about keeping track of it last night.”

  I crossed my chest with my free arm, wishing to hell my mom would come back on the line and rescue me from this conversation. “It’s trash. I dropped it on the way back from the candy machine.” Somewhere. I dropped it somewhere I shouldn’t have been, like while watching him swim from behind the pine tree, or…

  “Mind telling me how it came to be where I found it?”

  “And where was that?” Damn. The offhand, flip question had come out much more curious than I’d planned.

  Mitch rolled the paper over again and cocked an eyebrow. “You asking that question can only mean one of two things. A, you’re being a smart-ass to stall, which would not be unheard of, or B, you really don’t know where you dropped it because you took more than one detour on the way back from the vending machines. Assuming your red face means you’re embarrassed, I’m going to guess it’s B. So what else were you up to last night?”

  A stall tactic was my only ray of hope for getting out of this conversation alive. “You assumed a lot, sticking it on my door, you know. Anybody can drop a candy wrapper.”

  “Yeah, but you were carrying other evidence of an all-out binge.” He stood and held out the wrapper, but I kept my arm firmly against me and didn’t accept it. “So what were you up to last night? Huh?”

  Mom, where are you when I need you? If only my mental powers were strong enough to will her on the line. “I was hiding out from Lonnie.” There, why didn’t I think of that before? I could hide from Lonnie anywhere.

  “On my patio?”

  Oh, thank God. At least I knew for sure where he’d found it, and he didn’t know I’d been brushing up my voyeur skills. “Yes.”

  “Why does he keep pursuing you?” Before I had a chance to be offended, he stepped closer. “That was a bad word choice. I can see why he’d pursue you,” he said, taking a sweeping inventory of my body that left me quite warm. “What I mean is, why is he so damn persistent?”

  “I don’t know.” My entire body tingled from having him so close again. “He’s probably not used to women ignoring him.”

  “Mmm.” Brushing his finger along my jaw, he smiled, giving me a glimpse of those perfect white teeth. “Maybe we should give him some obvious signs that he should get lost.”

  With barely enough breath, I asked, “Such as?”

  “Such as this morning at breakfast, we shouldn’t have stopped what we were about to do when he walked in.”

  All I could do was nod, knowing that hot look in his eyes meant he had another kiss in mind. My heart did a joyful front flip. He was so close I could actually feel the heat of the kiss to come.

  “Randi?” My mom said in my ear. “Are you still there?”

  We jumped apart. Again.

  “Yeah, Mom. I’m here.” Why hadn’t I hung up? The few extra seconds for her to redial my number would have been absolute bliss.

  “I really hate for you to go to Miami alone. I was terrified the entire time I lived in that nasty city. And what if you can’t come back?”

  With a chuck to my chin, Mitch stepped toward the door.

  “I’ll make it back fine, Mom.” Dammit, now he was waving goodbye, and I didn’t want him to leave! I must have been obvious, because he winked on his way out. With a sigh, I set about calming my mother. “We all saw on the news how Professor Sudo made it back, Mom. We watched the footage of the Kennedy assassination. You made note of the trees in the background just like the rest of us. We even wrote it down, like he said to when he was on Dateline. And then the next day, we watched the same footage on TV and the right side of one tree was stripped completely bare of leaves.”

  “I know, but what if it’s some sleight of hand trick he pulled on everybody?”

  “Mom, it’s in the history books now. Because of the tree, and the CD he left hanging there, for years everybody thought Kennedy might have been shot by aliens!” But millions of scribbled notes on sticky pads and the backs of phone bills were irrefutable proof that we all knew he’d actually succeeded in changing history. And the CD, now that it could be read, had Sudo’s date of birth, name, and photo on it. It even had a 2007 date stamp on the file. “Anyway, if I couldn’t come back to the present, I wouldn’t be able to go to the past. It’s easier to travel forward than back. I’ll be fine, Mom. I love you, you know that?”

  Damn, her sniffling made me feel guilty. “I love you too, honey. Just check in more often, okay? And if you get stuck in 1980, come to Colorado. I’ll believe you and take you in. Okay?”

  Yeah, right. It was hard enough convincing her time travel was possible after she’d seen proof of it. Still…if agreeing would calm her, I was all for it. “Okay, Mom. Bye.”

  * * * *

  I woke to knocking on my door. “Erm,” I mumbled to the carpeted floor, where I’d simply leaned over from my meditative position and slipped off to dreamland. “Yuck.” I could not believe I’d slept on hotel carpet, no matter how clean the place looked on the surface.

  Summoning the effort to rise, I looked out the window to see the back of Mitch’s head. “Hold on,” I called. God, I had to look horrible. I could actually feel the carpet marks on my left cheek. Maybe if I stood so he could only see my right side…

  “Hi,” he said when I unlocked and opened the door. “You were sleeping? Sorry.”

  “Um. It’s okay.” I folded my arms under my breasts. “I was supposed to be meditating.”

  He stepped past me and looked around as he entered the room. “Is there homework I don’t know about? Or do you love meditating?”

  “I want to advance to the level required for travel. I didn’t come here just to get away from it all, you know. Besides, didn’t you hear the professor today? He leaves in two weeks to test out another vortex somewhere.” Although I was still pretty confident I’d be travel-worthy within a few days, the newly imposed deadline weighed heavily.

  “Hmm,” Mitch mused. “You got any guesses where he might be going? Stonehenge, maybe? Or Easter Island?” Squinting at my face, he started laughing. He’d turned around before I could present my un-marred right side. “What happened to you?”

  “I was tired.” Geez, how humiliating. He didn’t have to make fun of me every time he saw me. “What do you want, anyway?”

  “Oh, are we grumpy?” He chucked my chin. “Come on, splash water on your face or something. I rented a Jeep. We’re going for a ride.”

  “I’m not sure. There’s a yoga class right before dinner.”

  “That’s for the spa people. It’s not for the time travel class. Even Sudo would agree the teacher’s pet deserves a night off.”

  It sure seemed like Mitch was always trying to prevent me from furthering my mental mastering. Intentional?

  As I slipped on my sandals and went out the door he held open for me, I couldn’t help feeling elated, like a teenager playing hooky.

  He surprised me by leading me toward the employee parking lot in back, where we climbed in the gleaming red Jeep. “Did you park back here so we could sneak away?” I asked, buckling myself in.

  “You didn’t seem thrilled to have everybody know about your love life with Lonnie.” He started the Jeep and executed a tight turn, then peeled out on the gravel as we left the lot.

  Did he mean this ride with him was part of my love life? “Hey! I had no love life with Lonnie.” And now, in addition to sneaking away from the lessons we should be practicing, we were running off together in secret. Well, not running off so much as… “Where we going, anyway?”

  “I saw this road the other day when I was out on the bike, looks like it goes up that mountain.” He had to almost shout to be heard above the wind rushing past us. “If you’re up for it, I bet the sunset will be killer.”

  Sunset. He wanted to go watch the sun set with me. How romantic. And s
tupid of me to agree!

  As we buzzed down the street toward town, he looked over at me, then leaned closer. “I figured up there, maybe we wouldn’t get interrupted.”

  I couldn’t help looking away, but turned back for a long, breath-stealing stare. God. I felt like asking him to pull over right there on the side of the road so we could finally indulge in that kiss we kept missing out on, the Near Miss Kiss.

  He didn’t pester me for an answer, and we drove on. It probably didn’t matter what I would have answered. Mitch had his plan, and intended to stick to it. Right down to stopping at a drive-thru to pick up a chicken dinner, which he informed me we both deserved after all the salad and Chinese food at the Inn. Feeling famished, I was hardly in a position to disagree.

  Even driving down the road with the open top, the smell of hot chicken wafted up from the back seat and made my stomach growl. That was in between it fluttering around at the prospect of making out with Mitch atop a mountain. By the time we’d started our ascent, I really needed a diversion. “Where’d you get that bike?”

  He shrugged as he executed a hairpin curve. “From Tim. Asked him if I could borrow it, when we came back from morning yoga.”

  “And did you get all your tanning options sorted out?” I couldn’t resist giggling when he scrunched his mouth up in annoyance. Or maybe it was embarrassment. His orange tan was already fading. For a fleeting moment, I wished I’d be around long enough to see his natural skin tone. And that was just silly. I didn’t need him to be pale in order to have a no-strings fling.

  Up ahead of us, an RV moved at a snail’s pace, forcing us to slow as well. He was spending more time gazing at my left knee than concentrating on the road.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “This.” Feather-light, his fingers skimmed a scar on my knee, raising goose bumps along my leg. “How’d you get it?”