Losing Time (Lost Time, Book 1): A Time Travel Romantic Suspense Series

by Nicola Claire

  By the time I reached the police cruiser, Jack was sitting inside it. But they’d removed his handcuffs, and, right then, that was all I needed to give me the impetus to act. The police officers were still taking statements from all the people who’d stayed after the shooter had struck. Jack was on his own. No one was near the police car. It was now or never.

  Evans had said that the MPCV would appear wherever we needed it. Somehow surfing planes to find us in our hour of need. I had to hope that, whatever method of calling the Vehicle he had, hadn’t been taken from him when he’d been arrested. But as they’d removed the cuffs, and just left him in the cruiser, there was a good chance if he had been stripped, the device - if that’s what it was - would be in the trunk or something.

  I crossed my fingers, held my breath, and ducked low, coming up beside the cruiser’s driver’s side door. More luck than planning placing me on that side of the vehicle. Americans drove back to front cars. I tested the door handle, found it unlocked, and slipped inside before I could think better of it.

  Somehow being out of time, as Jack put it, made breaking laws that much easier.

  “What are you doing, Miss Wylde?” Evans asked from the back of the vehicle quietly.

  “Rescuing you,” I replied.

  “By stealing a police car?” Oh, he knew me so well. So quickly.

  “Not at all,” I argued, for the sake of arguing. “Hold tight now,” I added and turned the key.

  The cruiser roared to life making several cops in the vicinity turn towards it. It took a second or two for them to realise the woman behind the steering wheel was not in uniform and most definitely not a plain clothed cop.

  “This really isn’t necessary,” Evans murmured.

  “You can thank me later,” I growled and put the car into drive.

  People scattered. Shouts of alarm and anger sounded out. Camera bulbs flashed immortalising this moment for all history. I scowled at that rather disturbing thought, but who would be able to recognise me in an old photo taken decades before my birth?

  I snorted. Evans sighed. And we rocketed out of the Holiday Inn car park, sideswiping a reporter’s vehicle as I navigated the wrong-side-of-the-road traffic.

  “Blood hell,” Evans shouted.

  “It’s OK,” I replied, biting my lower lip and gripping the steering wheel grimly.

  “No,” he said. “It is not at all OK.”

  I looked up into the rearview mirror, expecting to see his terror at my non-existent driving skills. But it wasn’t fear I saw in this amber hued eyes. It was anger.

  “That was Bryan Fawkes,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Who?” I said looking into the wing mirror and spotting the bearded American staggering to his feet, big hand rubbing the back of his no doubt bruised head as he wobbled.

  Ah, crap.

  “Our back up,” Evans replied steadily.

  Or more pointedly, coup de main, I was thinking.

  “Ah, crap,” I muttered as we took a corner on two wheels.

  Orange

  Jack

  Bloody Hell. For Fawkes to be here, Dispatch must have been bathed in orange. And the only thing I could think of that would make Crawford send out a coup de main would be the woman sitting in the front of this stolen police cruiser.

  I watched her from the back seat, horrified and impressed in equal measure. Her misguided rescue attempt involved grand theft auto. This mouse of a woman, who was so far from mousey it wasn’t funny. And so far out of her time that she’d set off alarm bells back in mine.

  I’d never had to rely on a coup de main before. The cute moniker was given to our backup teams in a tongue in cheek effort to minimise the seriousness of a situation that would require a pre-emptive strike to remedy. Causal loops created caustic humour. But if Fawkes was here, then he was here as my coup de main.

  Never had one of those before on any of my rodeos.

  I sighed. We were far enough away now to pull over.

  “Stop the vehicle, Miss Wylde. Our ride is here.”

  She looked up into the rearview mirror, eyes unnaturally wide, face flushed an attractive pink, lips slightly parted as she breathed a little too heavily. God, but she was a compelling creature. More so, I was sure, because of my dreams.

  “You can slow down now, Mimi,” I added, as she clearly wasn’t responding to “Miss Wylde.”

  “H..he was one of yours?” she asked on a stutter, bringing the cruiser to a stop on the wrong side of the roadway.

  “Yes. Dr Bryan Fawkes. A RATS Surgeon.”

  “Rats,” she said softly, putting the vehicle, thank fuck, in park. “I thought he was making a joke about my nickname.”

  “Mouse?” I asked, unsure where she was going with this.

  She nodded her head and turned the ignition off, letting the engine tick away quietly.

  Everything needed to be pulled from this one. Mimi Wylde did not give up her secrets easily.

  “Who was teasing, Miss Wylde?”

  “The man with the gun,” she replied and promptly exited the vehicle.

  Bloody hell. The shooter must have talked to her. Touched her? I banged against the locked rear door frantically, suddenly desperate to check that she was all right, just as the MPCV appeared off to the side, closely followed by a second Vehicle.

  Great, reinforcements. Knowing this woman, and God alone knows I was beginning to, she’d clam up.

  She opened the rear door for me and stepped back, arms wrapped securely about her stomach, eyes darting toward the two Orions and then back to me. She gnawed on her bottom lip uncertainly.

  Rafe appeared in the doorway of Orion One. Eyebrows raised questioningly. Fawkes scowled from the doorway of Orion Two. Mimi squeaked.

  I’m not quite sure why, but I snapped.

  “Give us a bloody minute, would you?” Rafe’s eyes grew bigger. So did Fawkes’ scowl. But both retreated to the inside of their Vehicles, and the Orions winked out of sight. Mimi jumped.

  I sighed, took a look back down the small country road we’d ended up on, and then leant back against the cruiser. We had time. Fuck, that’s all we had. Ours. Hers. Theirs. With an Orion, we could literally make it.

  Shame we couldn’t seem to catch this one.

  “Your presence has upset the time continuum,” I began. Her soulful eyes met mine, not leaving. “We already knew the rip was big. An Origin Event. So Bryan would have been put on standby as soon as my crew took flight. I should think, the moment we picked you up, or maybe it was your sister who triggered it, but either way, Dr Fawkes would have been instructed to follow. It doesn’t happen often. Most flights are a one module journey. Can’t risk more than that.

  “But some risks…” I couldn’t finish that statement. The risks I referred to had nothing to do with the flight.

  I thrust my hands in my pockets and stood up from the cruiser.

  “We know now what the cause of the rip in this time is,” I advised. “It will take but a moment to stitch it.”

  “Stitch it?” she asked. I was just relieved she was talking.

  “There are three ways to mend Time, Miss Wylde. We can catch it before the rip causes damage. Stitch it if the rip can be contained. Or, worse case scenario, make it from scratch. It was a close run thing, but our intervention with the shooter has enabled us to avoid the last option. But the rip is already too big to leave untended. I’ll stitch it, and then we can move on.”

  Move back. I didn’t say it, but she heard it. Her eyes narrowing slightly.

  I wondered for the umpteenth time since I’d met this woman just what went through her head when she looked like that. Intelligent didn’t even cover it.

  “And my sister?”

  Ah, not so easily mended.

  “I don’t know where your sister is now, Miss Wylde,” I admitted. “But we will keep looking.”

  “And who is we, Dr Evans? You and your Orion teams? Or you and me?”

  “You are out of…”

&
nbsp; “Time. Yes, I know. So you all keep saying. But that man has my sister. And, from what I can ascertain, his threats are no longer just your problem.”

  “What threats?” I demanded, taking a step closer. “What did he say to you? Did he harm you? Did he threaten you?”

  It was irrational, but the anger I felt at that thought was all consuming. I did not want anyone threatening Mimi Wylde.

  I forced my ire back down. Forced myself to control my emotions. Losing it now wouldn’t help anyone. Least of all Carolyn Wylde.

  “What did he say to you, Mimi?”

  “What’s Lunik?” she said instead of answering.

  And I knew then that stitching this time was the least of our worries.

  “Bloody fucking hell,” I muttered. And then ran a hand through my hair. I shook my head, dislodged one option after the other. And finally settled on a path to take.

  Clive Crawford was going to throw a hissy fit.

  I stretched my neck and tugged on my shirt sleeve, activating the communicator. Orion One appeared, swiftly followed by Orion Two. Fawkes had linked them. Not unsurprising, but a damn nuisance considering.

  The doors opened, and Rafe and Bryan stared out respectively.

  “It’s Sergei,” I said.

  “Bloody hell,” Rafe spat. “Goddamit,” Bryan muttered.

  “Who’s Sergei?” Mimi asked. “Competition?” she added.

  “The worst kind, Miss Wylde.” And he has your sister, I didn’t say, but her head jerked back in shock anyway, and her eyes met mine. Knowing.

  What was with this woman?

  It was as if she had a direct line to my thoughts.

  “Can we find him?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “He doesn’t stick to a particular plane,” Rafe offered, receiving a frown from Fawkes while he was at it.

  “What’s your plan here, Evans?” Fawkes asked. His eyes on Mimi.

  I didn’t like him even looking at her, let alone suggesting non-verbally that I return her to her time.

  I knew what was required of me. I knew what Crawford would demand. But how could we return Mimi without her sister? It’s not like we could make her forget she had a sibling. Neuralyzers weren’t actually real. This was.

  “We mend the tear,” I said, walking towards my Vehicle. “Return home and start again. He’ll make a mistake.”

  Fawkes stepped out of his own Vehicle. I paused on the bottom rung of our ladder. Waiting.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  “I have my orders, Jack,” he said. It was almost an apology.

  My head snapped towards him, just as Rafe shouted out a warning. But Fawkes was too quick. Taking the necessary steps required to reach Miss Wylde’s side and swapping dimensions to move his Orion closer while he was at it.

  By the time I’d jumped down off our ladder, he’d already grabbed hold of Mimi’s arm, and was back on board Orion Two, winking out of sight.

  “Bloody fucking bollocks!” I yelled, emotions roiling up and consuming.

  “Jack,” Rafe warned.

  But all I could see was orange. Not red. Orange.

  My own particular form of hell.

  You Are No Mouse

  Mimi

  The MPCV bounced around as though trapped on a demented trampoline. And I’d thought my last ride was chaotic. I rolled across the dimpled metal floor banging into cabinets, fending off falling items, fighting a repeat of nausea.

  “Get a handle on it,” the American, Bryan Fawkes, Evans had called him, yelled. “No, not that one! The attitude adjustor. Christ! It’s as if we’ve never flown a module before.”

  “Easy for you to say, Fawkes,” a woman yelled back. “It’s as good as a bloody tug lost at sea.” She was British, which strangely gave me some measure of comfort. And having ascertained that Fawkes was part of the good team, that thought made little to no sense at all. But there you have it. Rolling around in a tumble dryer of a command module the British accent settled my nerves.

  And stomach.

  “Shift dimensions then,” Fawkes shouted.

  “We’re dragging something,” another voice said. I spotted the speaker as I rolled past him across the floor. Male. Wearing orange.

  Effing orange. I was beginning to despise that colour.

  “For God’s sake,” Fawkes yelled. “Someone buckle our passenger in before she breaks her neck or something.”

  It was the something that did it. What could be worse than a broken neck?

  “Touch me, and I will hurt you,” I snarled at the man who moved to leave his seat at Fawkes’ command.

  “Snappy, isn’t she?” the woman remarked, just as the MPCV took some unknown corner too fast and I face planted into the back of her seat.

  Ow.

  “Concentrate, Harding,” Fawkes snapped back at her. “You’re in control of this vessel, act like it.”

  “We are trailing something,” the male repeated, having retaken his seat and fastened his seatbelt.

  I was a little miffed he’d given up on my safety so easily. I rolled past him and kicked out with my leg.

  “Hey!” he cried, and I smirked, right up until an oxygen bottle fell out of a cabinet.

  “Goddamnit!” Fawkes shouted, launching himself from his seat, walking sideways, arms outstretched for balance, as the module tipped over precariously, and sweeping up the clattering metal cylinder before it managed to knock me out. “You are way more trouble than you’re worth. And you were already worth jack shit, darlin’.”

  “I sincerely hope you’re referring to the O2 bottle,” I growled, reaching out and snagging the spare seat, clinging to it for all I was worth. Which, apparently, was jack shit according to the sweet talking Dr Fawkes.

  He laughed as he secured the bottle and then crab walked back to his own chair.

  “Buckle yourself in, princess. Things are going to get wild.”

  “I’m already Wylde,” I snapped back, hauling myself up unattractively onto the seat and fumbling with the harnesses.

  “Does she ever shut up?” the woman, Harding, asked.

  “Not since I’ve met her, no,” Fawkes offered, then sent me a wink.

  Damn it! I wanted to like the guy. Even when he was irascible. There was just something about him which made me think under different circumstances he might have been all right. What circumstances they could be, I didn’t know yet. But hiding behind that grumpy façade he showed the world was undoubtedly someone who understood humour.

  The MPCV hit a particularly nasty pothole, then, making me glad I’d managed to buckle myself in at last.

  “What exactly are we hitting?” I asked, genuinely intrigued to know the answer. Did Time even have potholes?

  And received a sneer from Harding for my efforts.

  “Warps in the dimension,” the other guy offered, taking pity on me. “When more than one Vehicle uses a particular combination of dimensions to travel to the same plane it can cause conflicts in the stream.” He pointed to the orange sine wave on the largest screen beside him. It seemed a little elongated, quite different from the one I’d seen in Evans’ Orion.

  “Tell her all our secrets, why don’t ya?” Fawkes muttered, but his heart seemed no longer in it. He sighed. “Drop out, Harding. They’re tracing the link. Made their own one by now, no doubt. Nothin’ we can do to shake ‘em.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Your would-be protector.” Ah, Evans was hot on our tail. I felt suddenly warm and fuzzy inside.

  “And why would I need a protector?” I demanded.

  “Because you are out of time, idiot!” Harding growled.

  Fawkes laughed. He seemed to like to do that a lot. More often at someone, and not with them.

  “She’s right, you know,” he said pleasantly, as the MPCV finally stopped hopping around. “Your presence alone has disrupted Time on so many different planes; it ain’t funny.”

  “And yet you laugh,” I pointed out.


  “Well, I’m not gonna fuckin’ cry about it, am I?” he said, standing up from his seat and walking to the door. “Stay put, darlin’,” he said in passing. Then, “If she moves, shoot her.”

  Harding pulled out a weapon and cocked it.

  I raised an eyebrow at her. I’d had my fair share of guns aimed at me recently. The shock had well and truly worn off.

  “A bit melodramatic, don’t you think?” I said pleasantly. Taking a page out of the Surgeons’ books.

  “Push me, princess,” she snarled, using Fawkes’ one-time moniker for me. “I dare you.”

  “Jess,” the other guy warned. “Don’t freak her out.”

  “Why? Are you afraid she might explode, Malcolm?”

  “Not her I’m afraid of,” he muttered, turning back to his screens and pushing a few buttons. On the largest, the sine wave disappeared, and the outside of the command module flickered to life.

  Complete with Jack Evans facing off against Bryan Fawkes.

  “Is there any sound?” I asked, eager to hear what was being said about me.

  “Push that button, and I will shoot you, Novitiate,” Harding growled.

  God, she was getting on my nerves. But Malcolm just raised his arms in the air and sat silently.

  We watched the screen in mute fascination, the ticking of the MPCV the only soundtrack to what was transpiring outside. But I could guess. In fact, I could almost read their lips they were so agitated.

  What the bloody fucking hell are you playing at? Evans was saying.

  Saving your ass, jackass, Fawkes replied.

  She’s my problem! And didn’t that just make me feel peachy? Problem, eh? I’d show him…

  You’re blinded by somethin’, Jacko. Don’t know what it is. Pretty face. Big tits. Who knows. But you ain’t seein’ too clearly right now. Let me deal with this.

  You’re wrong. It’s not attraction. It’s dimensional. Whatever the fuck that meant.

  Really? Fawkes asked, and even though I couldn’t hear it, I swore I could see the sarcasm in the lipread words.

  Evans ran a hand through his hair, messing it up spectacularly. He scrubbed at the stubble along his jaw and then worried at the scar bisecting it. As though it was a knee-jerk reaction to whatever had caused it storming his mind right in that second.