Out of Time (Lovers in Time Series, Book 1): Time Travel Romance

by Marilyn Campbell

  "Mmmm. That sounds wonderful. But you know what?" She gently moved his hand off her breast. "After all this time, I either want everything or nothing."

  He twisted his mouth to one side. "Well, maybe if we had a rubber—"

  She shook her head. "No such luck. In fact, now that you bring it up, I guess I was being stupid about that too. I wasn't even thinking about the consequences. That shows you how out of practice I am."

  "Hush. I like the fact you're out of practice. And that you want to wait until we can have everything. I'll take care of it tomorrow."

  Her cheeks warmed and she lowered her eyes. Making advance plans to have sex sounded so cold. Somehow a spontaneous roll in the hay after a couple glasses of wine could be chalked up to temporary insanity. Arranging for it a day ahead of time, like it was just another item on their agenda, well, it no longer felt right. In fact, now that her mind was clearer, she wondered what had made it seem so right a few minutes ago.

  Jack tipped her chin with his finger. "Where'd you go just now?"

  She forced a smile. "Nowhere. Just very tired."

  He didn't seem to buy it. "Are you sure we're okay?"

  "We are absolutely copacetic. But very tired. Sooo, if you're comfortable now, maybe we could try the good night routine again and see if it takes this time." She rose on tiptoes and kissed him lightly. "Good night."

  He stopped her before she could leave the bathroom. "We don't have to sleep in separate beds."

  "I think it would be best, under the circumstances. There's no telling when that darn electrical current might turn back on and I'd rather not be asleep if I get thrown across the room again."

  "Right," he said with a lopsided grin but the confidence had gone from his voice. He gave her another soft kiss and let her go.

  * * *

  He had no idea what had happened but he instinctively knew it was more than a simple postponement of pleasure. Somewhere in the middle of his calculated seduction, the rug had been pulled out from under him. Instead of entrancing her with his masterful technique, he found himself being entranced. He was suddenly as impatient as a teenager, without the least bit of control, then just as abruptly even that was taken away from him.

  His plan had been to bind her to him with passion but when she walked away just now without the least hesitation, he was the one who nearly fell to his knees to beg for the privilege of sleeping in the same room with her.

  It was beginning to look like he had caught the same mental illness as Will Kirkwood and Bruce Hackett.

  Perhaps Kelly really was a siren who lured men to their destruction.

  He replayed that conclusion in his head, recalled the picture of her posing for him on her bed and chuckled softly. She might be luring him to destruction but dear God, what a way to go!

  * * *

  Kelly awoke the next morning with fresh resolve. All the reasons she'd originally had for keeping Jack at arm's length made even more sense after last night's near disaster. No more wine for her until he was on his way back to his proper time and place!

  In the meantime, she decided they would have a brief discussion about it this morning then she would figure out a way to keep him so busy he wouldn't have time to think about... it.

  She could hear the shower going in her bathroom, so she went downstairs, started the coffee and returned to take her own shower before he emerged.

  By the time she dried her hair, put on a little makeup and joined him downstairs, it was nearly ten o'clock. "Good morning," she said cheerfully and headed straight for the coffee pot. "I hope you slept well." While her hands were occupied, he came up behind her, slipped his arms around her waist and kissed her neck. The little caress turned every cell in her body into a sex organ. Without ever experiencing it before, she knew this was how it was supposed to feel when a man held a woman.

  "Good morning." He kissed the other side of her neck. "And no, I didn't sleep as well as I might have under different circumstances. I showered this morning and I'm very pleased to announce there isn't a single trace of the rash left... anywhere."

  She felt her pulse quicken and had to remind herself why he had to be discouraged. I do not need another unhappy ending in my life. Right. Stiffening her posture, she eased out of his embrace. "We have to talk."

  Jack ran his hands through his hair with a frustrated sigh. "If man had to choose the one sentence he most dreads hearing from a woman, I think that would be it."

  She swallowed hard and began. "Last night... don't get me wrong, I mean, I find you incredibly attractive, almost irresistible, but I have to resist. If I hadn't had that wine maybe my mind would have stayed clear about..."

  "You've changed your mind," he said, succinctly summarizing her intended speech. "Okay."

  "Okay? Just like that?" She had arguments ready to present. Why wasn't he demanding an explanation?

  "Of course, just like that. I already told you, the decision is yours. I have no interest in having sex with a woman who doesn't want me."

  "It's not that I don't—" She stopped herself from talking in circles. He'd agreed and that's all she wanted out of this discussion. Right? She listened for a confirming answer but none came.

  Jack took her hand again and squeezed it. "Really, it's okay but I get to say one more thing and then we drop it. Your ex-husband was a jerk. Any rational man, myself being in front of the line, would consider it a privilege to be with you." He gave her a moment to let that sink in then released her hand. "Now what's on today's agenda?"

  She could barely believe she was off the hook so easily but she knew better than to press her luck. "Well, first I have to make that appointment with Reid O'Neill's secretary. Otherwise, we've done as much analyzing as we can do at this time and we can't visit Mary Beth until tomorrow, so I thought we could be tourists today."

  "Sounds good to me. Where are we going?"

  "I thought we could start with brunch in Underground Atlanta." His strange expression reminded her that he wouldn't know what that was. "It's a historical site that was part of the underground system used by escaping slaves. It was developed into a mall. You'll understand when you see it.

  "From there, I thought we could go see the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Site. After that I could take you to see the Cyclorama at Grant Park. That's this enormous circular painting of the 1864 Battle of Atlanta. The Atlanta Zoo is there also. On the opposite side of town is Six Flags Over Georgia, if you like amusement parks."

  "Six Flags was getting off the ground the last time I was here. I like amusement parks but I'd rather see those other places first. I always meant to see the Cyclorama but never quite got around to it and I do love a good zoo."

  "Really?" she asked with some surprise. "Me too. I'm almost one of the family I'm there so often. Watching the animals sometimes helps me give unusual traits to my characters. Did you ever see Stone Mountain? I don't remember when it was completed."

  "If you're talking about the carvings of the Confederate heroes, they had just restarted work on the project last year, I mean, in '64. How did it turn out?"

  She smiled. "You'll have to see it with your own eyes but it's best to visit at night. So that's where we'll finish up."

  Once that was decided, Kelly called O'Neill's secretary and was able to schedule an appointment at one o'clock on Friday but only if she would agree to come to his home for lunch. She let the woman know that her assistant would be accompanying her.

  They were halfway out the door when she remembered to grab her cap for him to protect his scalp from the sun.

  Kelly had suggested brunch in Underground Atlanta because of the number of choices Jack would have. It hadn't occurred to her how fascinated he would be by all the shops. He insisted on going inside every one, no matter what they were selling. Every few seconds he would pick something up or point to it and ask her about it.

  From time to time, she would glance around to make sure no one was listening too closely to their odd conversation. That was
probably the only reason she noticed the man.

  "Don't turn around right away," she told Jack. "But I think we're being followed."

  He continued to study the aviator-style glasses with the mirrored lenses he had in his hand. As he tried them on and looked in the mirror on the counter, he said, "White male, brown hair, mid-thirties, wearing a light blue t-shirt with the words 'Hard Rock Café' across the front and a pair of blue jeans with a rip across the left knee? I spotted him about fifteen minutes after we got here." He grinned at his own reflection. "These are so hip!"

  She chuckled. "Hip? You're better off sticking with 'cool'. It's timeless. We'll get them. They're the perfect answer to hiding your eyes." As she paid for the glasses, she murmured to Jack, "Do you agree that he's following us?"

  "Why do you think I've made a point of going into every single store before settling on a restaurant? He's either a tail, a purse-snatcher or a pervert. But I figure we're better off pretending we don't notice him so that he doesn't get sneakier on us. But now I'm really hungry. How about lunch instead of brunch? I'd love a big juicy cheeseburger smothered in onions with a mountain of fries on the side!"

  "Geez, your cholesterol count must be off the chart."

  "My what?"

  "Never mind. It's just another one of those health things we worry about now."

  Kelly took him into a fifty's-style diner she thought he might enjoy along with his unhealthy food. That launched a discussion of the surge in mid-century nostalgia and the value of items from that time period. And when the waitress brought their check and Kelly handed her a credit card, that required a brief explanation of the use of plastic and the economy's dependency on credit. The range of expressions on Jack's face during her explanations was worth his barrage of questions.

  The man had not followed them into the restaurant and he was nowhere in sight when they came out. They continued to keep a lookout for him as they went to Kelly's car but either he'd grown bored with his game or had gotten sneakier as Jack feared.

  Not certain if she remembered the way, she programmed their next destination into the GPS then had to explain how her car was talking to her.

  The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site was a beautiful place for solemn contemplation but as they stood looking across the pond that surrounded the tomb, Jack grasped Kelly's hand and squeezed. "Don't look now but our friend is back. He's wearing a cowboy hat and changed into a plaid shirt but I recognize the jeans. Same rip. I'd say we have the answer to one of our questions. He's not only tailing us, he might be a pro."

  Kelly raised her brows and whispered, "You mean like a hit-man?"

  He smothered a laugh. "No, I meant like a private dick, although not a very good one. He must have changed clothes while we were eating."

  "But how did he know where we were going?"

  "My guess is he followed the car. That's undoubtedly how he got to the Underground."

  She could not resist a surreptitious glance around to see the man for herself. "Then he had to have been waiting outside my townhouse for us to leave. Why didn't we see him?"

  "He's probably driving a very inconspicuous car—unlike us—and we weren't looking for a tail before. Now we will."

  The contents of her stomach objected to her sudden nervousness. "Why would someone be following us?"

  "Good question. My first answer would be that your ex-husband hired him. Second guess would be your weird attorney friend. Third, maybe your preliminary snooping has already caused someone to worry."

  She shook her head. "I can't believe either Will or Bruce would go to such an extreme after we made it clear to both of them that we were having an affair. What more could they possibly hope to learn by having me followed? As to your third supposition, I'm sure I haven't said anything to anyone that might raise suspicions about what we're up to."

  "Maybe someone who works at the newspaper noticed which articles we were pulling and passed the information along to someone else. Someone who could be negatively affected by your digging up dead bodies."

  She gave that some thought then shook her head. "That's really farfetched. Besides, I didn't see anyone getting particularly nosy and you can't just tap into someone else's microfiche search the way you can a computer."

  His eyes widened. "You can do that?"

  "Yes but that's another lesson. Look, whoever this guy's working for, he's giving me the creeps. If you're ready, I'd really like to get moving and see if we can lose him on the next leg."

  He squeezed her hand again. "Don't worry, babe," he said in a bad Bogart imitation. "With you at the wheel and me riding shotgun, that dick won't stand a chance." He finished it off with a wink that made her giggle. "Now we're going to leisurely walk to your car and take a really long time pulling out. Hopefully we'll see what kind of car he's driving. He can't change vehicles as easily as he changed shirts."

  Before getting into the Camaro, they made a show of spreading a map out on the hood and studying it until Jack saw which car the cowboy got into. "No wonder we didn't spot him. Most of these cars look the same, like little trucks, and at least half of them are silver. He's in one of those, parked two rows in front of us and a few spaces to the right. Okay, fold up the map and get in slowly. If he has any brains, he'll pull out first to throw us off and maybe we'll get a chance to get a better look at the car and license plate."

  Since she was completely inexperienced with this sort of thing and he seemed to know what he was doing, Kelly followed his instructions precisely. To her delight, the fake cowboy behaved exactly as Jack predicted and she was not only able to identify it as a Toyota minivan but they got his license plate number as well.

  Jack wrote it down as she drove toward the exit. "Great. Now which would be easier for you, trying to shake him on side roads or the expressway?"

  She grinned. "I'll take the high road any day. Fasten your seatbelt, babe. It's the law now." By the time she was on I-75 again the Toyota managed to maneuver into a position behind her. For a few minutes she maintained the speed limit in the far left hand lane, occasionally checking the rear view mirror.

  Suddenly Jack sat forward and gaped at a sign. "Did that say Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium?"

  "Yes. It's off the next exit. Wasn't that here when you were?"

  "What baseball team plays there?" he asked excitedly.

  She glanced at him curiously. "The Braves. Why? Do you like baseball?"

  "Like doesn't begin to describe—"

  Abruptly, she pressed the accelerator to the floor and cut across all three lanes of traffic, barely avoiding an accident and making the exit ramp by a hair.

  "Holy sh—" Jack released his death grip on the dashboard as she slowed down to make the turn at the end of the ramp. "What the hell was that?"

  She winked at him. "A strategic maneuver with an ulterior motive. Please note that the Toyota is no longer behind us."

  He scanned the area then took a calming breath. "And the ulterior motive?"

  "Since you like baseball so much, we're going to go by the stadium and see if there's a game tonight."

  "That would be great. You can't imagine how much I had been looking forward to the Braves moving to Atlanta. I was a big Tiger fan in Detroit so I really missed not being able to see a big league game here. The Milwaukee team was scheduled to start playing at this stadium in—"

  "1966," she said before he could. "Of course, that was the second move for the team; the first being from Boston to Milwaukee in 1953."

  "That's right," he said with some surprise. "What about Hank Aaron? Did he stay with the Braves or did he get traded?"

  "He stayed with them through the 1974 season then went back to Milwaukee with the Brewers. But in that last year in Atlanta, on April 8th, he hit his seven hundred fifteenth home run, breaking Babe Ruth's record, which, by the way, did not make certain white supremacists all that happy. The abuse he and his family had to take were a big part of his decision to leave."

  Jack was staring at h
er with narrowed eyes. "I'm in shock."

  "Over what part?"

  "The part where a girl is telling me baseball facts. How do you know that stuff?"

  She smiled. "My dad was a big fan. I'm an only child. The more I knew about baseball, the more time he spent with me. I couldn't help but be a fanatic about the game."

  He made a face at that. "Sooo... who won the World Series in...1945?"

  She clucked her tongue at him. "Too easy. In both 1935 and 1945, the Detroit Tigers won over Chicago. And for your information, they also took the championship in 1968 and 1984. Are you impressed?"

  "Hell, I found a girl who likes baseball. I'm in love!"

  "Uh, uh, uh, I warned you about that falling in love with me business."

  "Well, maybe I'll get to meet your father one day and thank him for filling your head with useless facts."

  "I doubt if you'll be around long enough to meet my dad." A period of static silence followed that statement until she spotted the stadium entrance that would take her to the advance ticket sales window. "Cross your fingers," she told Jack as she came to a stop. "Why don't you stay here? I'll only be a few minutes."

  It was closer to twenty when she returned with two tickets and a brown paper bag. "There's a game tomorrow night, Atlanta versus L.A. I couldn't get box seats but we will be behind the Braves' dugout. I figure we'll have plenty of time Friday morning to drive back to Charming for our lunch appointment. And this is for you," she said handing him the bag.

  He pulled a baseball cap out and laughed when he saw the embroidered words, "Detroit Tigers."

  She was delighted by his reaction. "They had hats for every team but I thought you might like that one best."

  He tossed her cap in the back, put on his new one and checked himself out in the mirror.

  "You should still shorten your hair before we go see Mary Beth tomorrow," Kelly noted. "I could do it for you in the morning."

  He leaned back in his seat and chuckled.

  "What?"