Ladies Prefer Rogues: Four Novellas of Time-Travel Passion

by Janet Chapman

  “I’ll come back!” he snapped. “I will find a way.”

  “I won’t be here!” she snapped right back, lifting her head to glare at him. “So don’t waste your precious energy. Save it for your colony.”

  His mouth came down on hers in a searing, heart-stealing kiss, and Isobel clasped his face in her hands and put everything she couldn’t say into kissing him back.

  And that’s when she knew; without their ever making love, this sexy, arrogant, growling man had ruined her for all men. She would never again find anyone who made her heart race the way Daniel did, or make her hot all over just by describing what he wanted to do to her, or make her so angry and crazy and excited all at once that she wanted to smack him.

  No, she couldn’t imagine ever falling in love with anyone except Daniel.

  Isobel suddenly felt herself tumbling, her arms windmilling wildly as she tried to catch herself. She banged into the chair then fell to the floor with a jarring thud, her cry of surprise lost in the deafening boom throbbing through the heavy, shimmering air.

  “Nooo, take me with you!” she screamed in a keening wail, curling into a tight ball right there on the floor, in her utterly empty waiting room. “Oh, Daniel, I want to love you,” she quietly sobbed into the stark silence.

  Ten

  Isobel sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the crackling fireplace in her den, listening to the blizzard-force winds bang a shutter on one of the upstairs windows as she slurped down a spoonful of soupy ice cream. She glanced around at the empty shelves with a shuddering sigh and tried to work up some enthusiasm at the thought of her books reverently lined up in her new den, in her new house, attached to her new surgery in Kansas.

  It had taken her two months to find a veterinarian practice for sale that was as far from Maine as she could get while still being a thousand miles from the ocean. Then it had taken her another month to buy it, and two weeks to pack her belongings. At nine o’clock this morning, she’d signed the papers selling this practice to a starry-eyed young woman just out of veterinarian school, then watched the moving van disappear down her driveway an hour later with all her belongings.

  And tomorrow morning at seven o’clock sharp, blizzard or no blizzard, she was leaving for Kansas herself.

  She’d tried getting her life back to normal after her little . . . adventure into the twilight zone, but right in the middle of her second date with the last available man in the county, she had suddenly realized it was time to stop pretending that she would ever feel normal again.

  She had borrowed a boat and gone to the island at least twice a week until the winter storms had put an end to her sitting on a log and looking around, trying to picture Daniel and his family on that exact same island two hundred and thirty years in the future. She would imagine them cooking their meals over a campfire, drinking out of the freshwater spring that bubbled up next to the stunted pine tree, and learning to catch fish and dig clams and avoid marauding seagulls.

  She hoped they took their time introducing themselves to new proteins.

  There was so much she could teach them about life on Earth; like how to prepare for the change of seasons, and how they could learn from the animals what worked and what didn’t when it came to choosing a site to build their home.

  It was at that last thought, after one of her last trips to the island, that Isobel had realized they’d probably moved to the mainland shortly after the men had returned. She’d sat in her dooryard, staring out the windshield at her home, and wondered if maybe they might choose to build their home on the exact same site. It was a good piece of land, with a stream running behind the low knoll that was sheltered from the fierce Gulf of Maine storms by towering pines and hemlock.

  Which would actually be a whole new generation of trees in 2243.

  She dipped her spoon in the semimelted maple fudge again, but then stopped with it poised halfway to her mouth when she suddenly realized she was no longer alone in the house. She slowly turned her head to see Daniel standing in the doorway, silently watching her. She just as slowly looked away to set the spoon back in the ice cream, took a shuddering breath, and looked at the doorway again.

  He was still there, as big and strong and larger-than-life as she remembered; only his hair was longer and he had the beginnings of a beard, but his shoulders were just as broad, his body just as ripped, and his eyes just as stunningly, piercingly blue.

  “H-how long have you been standing there?”

  “No more than five minutes.”

  She set the ice cream on the floor and slowly stood up, not once taking her eyes off him; afraid that if she did, he would disappear. She stood right where she’d been sitting and faced him, shoving her hands in her pockets so he wouldn’t see how badly they were trembling.

  “How long are you s-staying?”

  “No more than five more minutes.”

  She took a step back at the feeling of being punched in the gut and pulled her hands out and crossed her arms under her breasts to hug herself. “That’s it? You came all the way back here for only ten minutes?” she whispered, fighting the tremors threatening to buckle her knees.

  “Ten minutes is all I need.”

  “To do . . . did you bring Snuggles back?”

  “No. I told you, Isobel, traveling into the future is a one-way journey. We can travel back and then return to our own time, but we cannot travel forward and then return to our natural time. I couldn’t bring Snuggles with me.”

  “Th-then why did you come back here?” she whispered, fighting the lump in her throat that was threatening to strangle her.

  “I came back for you.”

  She locked every last muscle in her body, afraid to move or even breathe when he stretched open his arms toward her, as it was then that she noticed the thick metal collar in his hand, exactly like the one he was wearing around his neck.

  “But you must come to me, Isobel,” he said softly, “because, like your pet, it will be a one-way journey for you as well.” When several seconds passed and she hadn’t moved, one side of his mouth lifted. “Take your time,” he drawled. “You have four minutes to get from there to here.”

  “Four minutes isn’t very much time for a girl to decide if she’s willing to give up maple fudge ice cream for the rest of her life.”

  His smile disappeared, his complexion darkened, and his eyes hardened. “I gave you four months.” But then he sighed, motioning to her with his still outstretched hands. “Come to me, Isobel.”

  “E-everything I own is on a truck headed to Kansas.”

  “It doesn’t matter; you can’t bring anything with you, anyway.” One corner of his mouth lifted again. “In fact, there’s a very good chance the twenty-first-century clothes you’re wearing won’t travel into the future with you.”

  She took a step back. “I’m going to arrive in 2243 naked?”

  “My mother has let out a few of her outfits for you to wear.” His grin turned into a full-blown smile. “And I made sure she added extra material in certain . . . areas.” He motioned with his outstretched hands again. “Come to me, Isobel.”

  She took a hesitant step forward. “I-is it going to hurt?”

  “No more than having a needle stuck in your arm. Three minutes, Isobel.”

  She took another step toward him. And then another one. “What if your mother decides she doesn’t like me?” she whispered. She stopped. “Because if she’s expecting me to put up with your bullying just because you’re some spoiled-rotten warrior . . . well, I don’t think I can pretend to be appropriately awed, Daniel.”

  “My mother is going to love you.”

  She started slowly walking toward him again, not because she didn’t want to run but because her entire body had turned to quivering mush. Yet she somehow managed to end up between his outstretched arms, only he didn’t close them around her.

  “And your father? And Neil?” She eyed him worriedly. “And what about Chase? Does he know you came back here to get
me?” She took a step back. “It’s not like you can just . . . dump me or something, if this doesn’t work out.”

  Daniel looked over her right shoulder and his eyes suddenly widened in horror. “Holy Christ, what is that!” he shouted, pointing behind her.

  She spun around to look at where he was pointing, only to gasp when she felt the collar close around her neck with a loud snap. And Isobel suddenly felt herself tumbling again, and windmilled her arms in surprise as a deafening boom throbbed through the heavy, shimmering air. Only instead of landing with a jarring thud, she was pulled into the strong, secure, unbreakable embrace of a twenty-third-century Moonlander warrior as they both disappeared into the ether.

  Tomorrow Is Another Day

  Sandra Hill

  One

  Not so easy in the Big Easy . . .

  “Life is just a box of pecan pralines, cher. Sometimes you get a rotten nut.”

  Larry Wilson stopped dead in his tracks and glared at his Cajun friend, Justin LeBlanc. Larry was real good at glaring. Probably why his nickname was “Scary Larry.”

  “Really, Larry, it’s been five years since your wife died. My Mawmaw allus says ya gotta put the bad times behind ya and move on.”

  Larry gritted his teeth. He did not discuss Bethany and her drowning, ever, but he knew Cage meant well. So, instead of punching his lights out, he said, “Honest to God, Cage! What are you . . . some kind of frickin’ Forrest Gump now?”

  From his other side, a scoffing sound came from Sylvester “Sly” Simms, a big black dude from Harlem. As they strolled down Bourbon Street—forget strolling, I’m limping—Sly was gaining a fair amount of attention for the three of them, all Navy SEALs. Hell, no wonder! Sly was so good looking he used to model men’s tighty-whities for Esquire. Sly laughed.

  “Just so long as his Cajun Mrs. Gump . . . uh, Mawmaw . . . doesn’t say ‘stupid is as stupid does.’ ”

  “I am stupid . . . to have come to New Orleans with you two. I could have handled—”

  “No, my friend.” Sly put up a halting hand. “We’re going to help correct the problem. We caused it.”

  That was for damn sure. The two dingbats had concocted this idea of signing him up for an Internet dating service . . . Extreme Dating, a New Orleans-based company that employed some unique methods. The people who paid overinflated prices to subscribe had to be engaged in the extremes of their professions. Olympic swimmer. Mountain climber. Celebrity divorce lawyer. Erotica author. Special forces. Stunt man and woman. Paratrooper. Flying doctor. NASCAR driver. Rockette. Firefighter. Blue Angel.

  What better candidate than a Navy SEAL! Or so Cage and Sly had thought. Unfortunately, they hadn’t signed up themselves, but used his name and photos instead. Also unfortunate was the response . . . a huge response. Women stalking him at home and on the base. His Internet server threatening to shut him down. He’d become the laughingstock of all the SEAL teams. And him limping around with a severely bruised hamstring after tripping over a woman camped out on his doorstep. He was thinking about making a bonfire of the bags full of mail piled in the foyer of the house he shared in Coronado, California with these two morons.

  He’d tried by telephone and mail to resolve the issue, and, although Extreme Dating had taken his info off the website, the problem continued. Now he had an appointment with the company owner to see what could be done.

  Sly interrupted his musings with an elbow to the ribs. He was gawking at something across the street. “Lookee there. It’s a bare-naked woman. Just standin’ in the doorway.”

  But, whoa! She wasn’t just standing there now. She was waving at the three of them, beckoning.

  Cage grabbed Sly by the back of his belt, preventing him from moving. “It’s a cat house, you idiot. Holy crawfish! Ya must have hookers in New York City.”

  “Sure, but they don’t stand bare naked on Forty-second Street flashin’ their goodies to every passerby.”

  “This is N’awleans. We do things different. And, believe me, thass the least of what you’ll see if you come in the nighttime. Talk about!” Cage rolled his eyes. “I’m thirsty. Let’s stop for a Hurricane.”

  “I am not stopping again. Not for frou-frou drinks, or gumbo, or voodoo shops, or to stare at some moldering statue or naked women, even if they’re standing on their fool heads,” Larry asserted, continuing to limp along. “Unless Ms. Marguerite Baptiste herself is naked.” Now there was a horrific thought. She was probably fifty and broad as a barn door. “No matter! It’s almost seven. Do or die time.”

  Signed, sealed and delivered, baby . . .

  Marguerite Baptiste was swearing at her computer, which had frozen again, when she heard a noise in the outer office of Extreme Dating, her Internet matchmaking company. Through the open door, she could see three men enter, and her assistant, Sandy Cuzzins, speaking to them.

  “Master Chief Lawrence Wilson to see you,” Sandy said into Margo’s intercom, although she could have just spoken a little louder, and Margo would have heard her. The office was that small.

  “If the tech guy from Deak’s Geeks finally shows up, let him start on your computer,” she replied. The computer technician had promised to be here at nine A.M., then noon, then two P.M., then had made no promises at all as only voice mail picked up. People in the South, and New Orleans was definitely the South, tended to move at their own slower pace. She should know, having lived here her entire life. Like, “I’ll be there shortly,” or “by and by, chère,” could mean today or next week.

  She inhaled and exhaled for calm to prepare for her next appointment. No one liked to admit they were wrong, least of all her. And her company could not withstand any more financial crises, not in this economy. “Send Mr. Wilson in.”

  All the air she’d just exhaled came back in on a gasp as she got her first real look at her Navy SEAL from hell who limped in. Not a good sign. Was the limp comparable to a neck brace for accident victims? No, no, no! I am not going to think negative thoughts. Be positive, Margo. Put a smile on. That is your motto.

  But, really, this guy’s pictures did not do him justice. And she had seen some super hotties in this business. He was tall, over six feet, and buff as you would expect from a special forces member. That was evident even in the button-down denim shirt he wore with faded jeans. In his early or mid-thirties, his black hair was military short, almost shaved on the sides, but it was his eyes that caught and held her attention. They were an eerie pale blue, almost gray, and rather haunting. No, not haunting . . . haunted.

  “Hello, Mr. Wilson,” she said, rising to stand behind her desk and motioning for him to come forward. “What can I do for you?”

  He gave her an insolent once-over survey. “You know damn well what I want. Fix the problem you caused, sweetheart, or I’m going to sue your ass off.”

  “There’s no need for threats.”

  “No?” He arched his brows at her as he braced his arms on her desk and leaned forward. She could almost smell his anger.

  She was no fool. She sank back into her chair.

  “My lawyer and I have been doing everything possible. We removed your name and data from the website. We posted a newsflash that your name had been accidentally entered without your permission and that all attempts to contact you would be futile.”

  “What about all those files already downloaded? What am I supposed to do with the hordes of women who are jumping me like a piece of prime meat?”

  Her lips twitched with a smile.

  “Think it’s funny, do you, cupcake?”

  She bristled at the deliberately insulting “cupcake” but decided not to take offense. Pick your battles, Margo. “Some men would consider it a compliment.”

  “Some men are assholes.”

  Now I am definitely insulted. “Nice talk!”

  He shrugged. “I’m way past the polite stage, honey.”

  “Do not call me honey, or cupcake. That is sexual harassment.”

  “And what kind of harassment is it when
a nutcase Internet dating service puts my name and address and picture up for a couple thousand loser women to drool over? And some men, too.” He straightened his body and eased himself with a wince into the chair in front of her desk. His leg was probably hurting. Hopefully, he hadn’t walked up the three flights to her office. The elevator had been as wonky today as her computer. But that was the consequence of being located in an old building in the historic French Quarter.

  “Number one, we never put up addresses of any of our clients.”

  “Hah! ‘Navy SEAL.’ ‘Trains in Coronado, California.’ ‘Runs on the beach at dawn every morning,’” he quoted.

  “Do you have any idea how small a town Coronado is, sweet cheeks?”

  She bared her teeth at the disgusting endearment. “Number two, none of the men and women who sign up for our service are losers. They are highly successful people engaged in extreme positions of power or celebrity.”

  “Blah, blah, blah.”

  “Have you thought about taking advantage of this opportunity? Meeting some exceptional women?”

  “Get real!”

  Okay, so he’s not looking for a woman. Or maybe it’s just extreme women on his non-radar.

  “Are you anorexic, by the way?” he asked.

  “Whaaat?”

  “Your arms are like sticks.”

  She could feel her face heat. “They are not!”

  “I like a little flesh on my women.”

  “Good thing I’m not one of your women. And, for the record, I’m slim because of metabolism, not starvation. And I work out every day.” Well, every couple days.

  He didn’t smile, but an expression resembling satisfaction flicked across his face, and she realized that he was purposely goading her.

  “Not that you’re not hot.” His eyes locked on her breasts, clearly visible in her silk tank top.